About Us

The Augusto Ruschi Memorial was planned by Marilande Angeli, wife of Augusto Ruschi, over more than 3 decades of work dedicated to Augusto Ruschi’s Museum (Museu de Biologia Prof. Mello Leitão), having been founded in 2020, after exactly 34 years since the death of Augusto Ruschi († 06/03/06), by the couple's son, Piero A. Ruschi - biologist specialized in hummingbirds.

Piero lived a long face-to-face journey inside the Museum since he lived there with his parents going through childhood playing with animals and helping researchers until he developed his own research on behalf of the Museum.

Between 2014 and 2017, while studying for a Doctorate in Zoology at the National Museum / UFRJ (Rio de Janeiro) in partnership with the University of California / Berkeley (USA), Piero experienced absurd situations that he only knew through stories. In the capital of Rio de Janeiro, the young biologist discovered that, in fact, there are haters of the Patron of Ecology of Brazil within the Brazilian scientific community. Back to Espírito Santo Estate, inside the Museum, Piero discovered that some of his father’s creations were being planned to be dismantled. At first, the young man sought dialogue to combat the absurdities that threatened the rest of that legacy. But, after a great victory using simple words and common sense to prevent scientific collections and research from being removed from the urban area of ​​Santa Teresa (ES), Piero began to suffer cowardly attacks behind the name of the Museum that his father built, which also prevented him from continuing to pursue his voluntary research activities at the Museum.

Without being affected, the founder of the Augusto Ruschi Memorial observed the situation in a macroscopic way, seeing what really matters in all this history: Augusto Ruschi's own identity and image were being deformed along with his creations. – 

– Piero A. Ruschi:

“I know my father and his legacy well. He deserves honor, he deserves truth, he deserves to be treated in the same virtuous way that he defended human and non-human life. The Augusto Ruschi Memorial does not appear to do punitive justice for those who somehow parasitize or distort his image or legacy. Just as there will always be good, so there will always be evil. The Augusto Ruschi Memorial only brings the truth about the great man who was our Patron of Ecology. I am less and less recognizing my father in the midst of the deceptions and post-truths about him that I see out there. The dirt that has tainted the last 34 years of the legacy he has left continues to accumulate and overshadow his image today. They are like dirty lenses distorting logic and even the Patron's own personal identity. He deserves to be fully known by future generations. This is what this memorial does through the truth - justice to the honor of Augusto Ruschi ”.

Honoring the memory of the Patron of Ecology in Brazil