The collection is predominantly of the 19th century.
More than 1300 specimens have been catalogued to date, most of which naturalised; there is also a small number of skeletons and skulls. The exhibits cover a total of 525 species.
Unfortunately, many of these (around 70%) are preparations bearing no indication of geographical provenance; of the remainder, most are Italian. One noteworthy item in the collection is a specimen of Atitlán grebe (Podilymbus gigas), dated 1958, which was found in Santa Caterina (Guatemala). Endemic to the Atitlán lake, this species was declared by the IUCN in 1987 to be biologically extinct.
The collection of nests and eggs has been entirely reorganised and revised. There are 283 catalogued samples, in total, comprising 110 nests and 283 eggs. The nests are almost all from the Veneto region. Sadly, there is no geographical indication for the eggs, apart from one documented as coming from Canada.
In 2013, the private collection of Belluno naturalist Ivan Fossa was acquired by the museum. This fascinating collection, including species by now rare in nature due to the gradual destruction of habitats, bears witness to long years of research, collection and cataloguing activity conducted with supreme technical expertise, artistic sensibility and naturalist knowledge. The bequest consists in 362 specimens of naturalised birds, belonging to 173 different species, 19 mammals (10 species) and thousands of molluscs — predominantly terrestrial — these likewise collected in the area around Belluno. Whilst the majority of items in the collection can be associated with habitats in the province of Belluno, there are some specimens from the lagoons of Friuli, from Sicily and Sardinia, and from Slovenia.
