Washington

The Smithsonian Institution has abandoned plans to close the National Zoo's Conservation and Research Center in Front Royal, Virginia (see Nature 410, 727; 2001), after an outcry from conservation biologists and local politicians.

Smithsonian secretary Larry Small, announcing the reversal on 6 May, said the closure plan had been “misinterpreted” by the public as an abandonment of science. He claimed that keeping the centre open was “necessary to correct that false perception”.

Small said that the Board of Regents of the museum complex had approved his other plans to restructure museum research and focus it on “centres of excellence”. But he announced that a panel of scientists would be set up to advise him on the details of the restructuring. Its members will be drawn from inside and outside the institution.

A subsequent regents' meeting, chaired by former senator Howard Baker, approved Small's reoganization recommendations in principle and the creation of the panel.

Brian Huber, a palaeobiologist at the National Museum of Natural History and chair of the Smithsonian's academic senate, says Smithsonian researchers “feel pretty targeted” by the restructuring proposal. He wants the panel to look at the whole museum complex, not just at science. “Let's not focus cuts and restructuring just on research,” says Huber.

The regents' meeting did approve the closure of the Smithsonian Center for Materials Research and Education, together with the video and audio production facility and two offices at the museum libraries, with the loss of 180 jobs.