Nature Museum Out of Business

The Fillmore Natural History Museum has gone out of business and left the city with a debt of $80,000, city officials said Thursday.

The museum on Central Avenue was founded last year by Karl Anderson. After loaning $98,000 to Anderson, city leaders discovered that the naturalist had spent time in an Oregon jail for unlawful possession of protected animals.

Some city leaders initially had predicted that the museum would serve as an important tourist attraction and help spur economic revitalization.

But Anderson ran into trouble with Ventura County authorities after failing to obtain proper permits to keep his exotic animals.

One of the animals, a flying squirrel, died, and Anderson was forced to remove a Nile crocodile and wallaby from the museum.

He pleaded guilty in November to keeping animals without proper permits and was sentenced to 30 days’ community service and placed on probation for three years.

Since then, Anderson had resigned as museum director, and the nonprofit group running the museum shuttered the building. City officials said they have retained a large part of the museum’s stuffed animal collection as collateral for the portion of the loan that was spent.

Anderson could not be reached for comment.

City Councilwoman Linda Brewster, who criticized the city Redevelopment Agency for not doing a more thorough background check of Anderson, said there are no plans to reopen the museum.

“I think we learned a very valuable lesson,” she said. “It was an accident waiting to happen.”