William Temple Hornaday, the first head of the Smithsonian’s Department of Living Animals, with a ba
William Temple Hornaday, the first head of the Smithsonian’s Department of Living Animals, with a baby bison, 1886. In the same year, Hornaday, a taxidermist as well as a zoologist, traveled to the American west to kill and stuff at least four bison. Hornaday had estimated that hunting had taken the numbers of bison in the United States from 15 million to almost zero in two decades. Sure that they would become extinct, Hornaday was determined to collect a few specimens so that future museum visitors would know what bison looked like. Luckily, Hornaday was a bit too pessimistic, and the species survived.{WHF} {HTE} {Medium} -- source link
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