I have a soft spot in my heart for the Diehm Museum of Natural History, which Fort Wayne Parks and Recreation officials announced recently would close after 46 years because of ever-worsening attendance.

If I found out that most of you had never entered the place, I wouldn’t be at all surprised.

The Diehm Museum hearkened back to a time when appreciating nature often involved killing it first. (If I found out that most of you think I do entirely too much hearkening back, I wouldn’t be at all surprised.)

When I was a kid growing up in western New York, a field trip to a natural history museum to view consummate examples of the taxidermic arts was a big deal, ranking right up there with Buffalo Braves games, biking without protective gear and other things we did not know would soon fall out of favor.

The museum I frequented most in the ’70s was the Buffalo Museum of Science.

Back then, there weren’t as many opportunities for kids to see exotic animals as there are today. Most nature documentaries were produced under guidelines provided by the President’s Council for Making Nature Seem as Boring as Possible.

Nowadays, we have whole cable networks devoted to exotic animals, only some of which end up getting eaten alive by Andrew Zimmern.

But in the latter half of the 20th century, the only two entertainment entities that seemed interested in capturing the natural world on film were PBS and Disney, and Disney’s often excellent footage was frequently marred by the sudden appearance on the African Savannah of Pluto or Goofy.

The dioramas at natural history museums, on the other hand, offered kids a relatively realistic glimpse into worlds they could barely imagine.

I was particularly fond of the polar scene with its giant white bears and impressionistic backdrop.

The Diehm has one of those, soon to become “had one of those.”

In this day and age, it is preferable to keep all the remaining polar bears as alive as possible, although the one I saw sweating out the dog days of summer at the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo a few years back looked only slightly healthier than the one at the Diehm.

We are considerably more enlightened now about how best to love the natural world. But a lot of people experienced the first stirrings of that love at natural history museums.

Virginia Taylor, the daughter of the museum’s founder, Berlen Diehm, told me last week that her dad opened the museum initially because interest from area schools in the educational potential of his taxidermy shop had become overwhelming.

“It all started when he had his shop on South Hanna Street,” she said.

“Schools kept calling constantly, wanting to bring kids out.

“It was a top priority for schools to make trips to the museum,” Taylor said. “It wasn’t promoted really well (at the end), but I don’t know if that was the main problem. It was the thing of it’s time and now everyone has different interests.

“Of course, I am sad about it,” she said. “But we have to be realistic about these things.”

Cheryl Piropato, education director of the Fort Wayne Children’s Zoo, opened up the Diehm last week so that I and Swikar Patel, one of The Journal Gazette’s photographers, could have a final look-round.

I understand that part of my love of the place can be chalked up to that least visionary of emotions: nostalgia.

I understand this because I love such unlovable things about the museum as its musty smell, its groovy green ticket counter and its un-ironic bear trap display.

But even if all the animals were junked, there is still much about the museum that is worth preserving, including narration for each exhibit provided by legendary Fort Wayne broadcaster Bob Sievers, who died in 2007.

Sievers’ authoritative recitations are virtually indistinguishable from ones by Walter Cronkite that can be heard in museums across the country. I transcribed a couple of them.

Here’s Sievers’ coda to his narration for a Family Farm exhibit: “This sound system is in celebration of childhood and in memory of Tommy Hart who in his six short years of life brought joy to his family and all who knew him.”

I called Todd Pelfrey, executive director of the History Center, to see whether he has any interest in the recordings. Pelfrey said he intends to contact the parks department to determine whether any artifacts could and should become part of the History Center’s collection.

There’s also a time capsule at the Diehm that was intended to be opened in 2065. Taylor said Sievers placed a number of items in the capsule, including some sort of pre-cassette-era recording device he used on the job.

Al Moll, executive director of the Fort Wayne Parks and Recreation Department, said the time capsule will be preserved and other items will be sold, hopefully, to finance the museum’s renovation into a meeting hall and pavilion that would be available for rent.

“We would love to start renovating as soon as possible so we could open it in spring or summer of 2012,” Moll said. “But it’s all dependent on funding. We’re not exactly sitting with a treasure chest over here.”

Moll said he, too, is sad about the decision to close the Diehm, but he said public interest in the museum had dwindled to an unacceptably low level.

“We floated these trial balloons out there (about closing the museum) and we just didn’t get a lot of feedback – any opposition to it,” he said.

“It’s just a sign of the times.”

There’s an Egyptian-themed wishing well at the Diehm, above which appears the now somewhat depressing inscription: “Give some coins a throw. Watch your museum grow.”

Patel found a dollar on the floor next to it and I threw it into the well. But Patel soon removed it, saying it did not lend itself to photojournalistic truthfulness.

After all, we have to be realistic about these things.