IPM Inside and Out: Pest Management as a Strategy for Improvements in
Museum Practices, Museum Facilities and Public UnderstandingBryant, James M.; Sparks, Wendy A.; Stafford, Candice A.; Ballon, Monica A.
Riverside Municipal Museum, 3580 Mission Inn Avenue, Riverside, CA
92501Museum practices limiting destructive collections pests must also ensure that museum staff and visitors are not exposed to harmful chemicals. In past decades, pesticide treatments of collections were regularly employed at the Riverside Municipal Museum [RMM]. Since 1999, however, RMM staff have conducted systematic integrated pest management (IPM) procedures - including pheromone trap monitoring, improved housekeeping, harborage reduction and studies of pest species ecology - documenting
these activities and analyzing their results using computer database software. In 2002, RMM was awarded a CALEPA Department of Pesticide Regulation Pesticide Reduction Demonstration Project Grant - the first such grant ever awarded to a California museum - providing funds for additional staff time and training, plus pest monitoring supplies. The
funded project has also included modification of the exterior environment of the RMM building, through implementation of a new landscape design. The re-landscaping of the facility is intended to minimize incursions by pests from the surrounding urban environment while reducing both exterior pesticide use and dependency upon landscape irrigation. Carrying out the landscape project has brought about an extensive partnership between the museum, other City of Riverside departments, and outside organizations which share interests in improved urban landscapes, water conservation and reduction in polluted surface water runoff. An additional project outcome has been improved public awareness of IPM, along with better understanding of the roles played by insects and arthropods of all kinds in healthy living and working environments. To date, over 6000 people have participated in RMM public education activities related to IPM.