Alumnus hopes donation of wildlife collection inspires college students

David Haight and collection


An appraiser pegged the value of a collection of mounted raptors at about $18,000, but if you ask David Haight, this donation to Lethbridge College is priceless.

Haight, coordinator of the labs in the Cousins Science Centre, says the 24 birds of prey displayed on the second floor of the building, represent just a fraction of alumni Peter Balagus’s gift.

Balagus (Environmental Science, 1979) also gave a cabinet full of about 200 other specimens including small mammal skins, skulls and skeletons, and bird skins and wings; each carefully catalogued and preserved. They are not on public display but students can access them for study. Such access allows students to see for themselves the subtle differences between species and genders of the same species.

Balagus recently visited the college with his wife Colleen, who was making her first visit to campus. They emerged from the Cousins Building stairwell to be greeted by the raptor display, set against a panoramic photo taken from Table Mountain. The photographer was college lab technician Jonny Friesen, who organized the display.

“The background is beyond what I anticipated,” Balagus says. “It’s absolutely fabulous. It’s humbling and moving.”

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