Petaluma Wildlife & Natural Science Museum

In 1989, Hugh Codding donated the entire Codding Museum inventory to Petaluma High School instructor Ron Head to create an innovative educational program. Ron's dream was to give high school students career and leadership skills through active participation in an environmental education program. The Petaluma Wildlife Museum facility was built in 1940 as a school bus garage. When the Museum's collection outgrew the confines of Ron's classroom portable, the Codding family helped purchase a new bus garage, freeing the old one to be used as a world-class 9000 square foot wildlife museum. Over the next few years, hundreds of volunteers from every corner of the community donated time and money to construct various dioramas representing habitats from across the world. They also built displays to house mineral collections, poaching artifacts, and the large live animal collection. Today, the Museum houses over 50 species of insects, reptiles, amphibians, and mammals. Thousands of people visit the Museum every year where dozens of high school students provide tours and animal education.