At the beginning of the 20th Century, the Tulane Museum Bird Collection was the South's largest collection of bird skins, with more than 5000 specimens, including mounted specimens and specimens of several rare and extinct species. The mounted specimens were originally on display at the World Industrial and Cotton Centennials held in New Orleans during the 1880s. Lack of curation and use has caused this number to dwindle to approximately 1600 skins and mounted specimens when the collection was inventoried. The Tulane Museum Bird Collection still retains skins of two passenger pigeons one Carolina parakeet and one ivory-billed woodpecker. Three additional ivory-billed woodpecker skins are on permanent loan to Louisiana State University Museum of Natural Science in Baton Rouge. Bird specimens are predominately from North America but a few South American bird skins are also housed here.

Arrangements can be made to view the bird collection for research purposes by contacting Nelson Rios.

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This information was extracted from:

Rylander, Michael K. 1967. A short history of ornithology at Tulane 
        University. Proc. Louisiana Acad. Sciences 30:87-90.