taxidermy is in a sense an archive of
life that is with us and life that is
also under threat here at the American
Museum of Natural History
taxidermy really came into museum
exhibit tree at a very early stage at
the time there was a different ethic or
philosophy about wildlife that it was
plentiful and plunder Robel many of
these specimens came to New York for
taxidermy and the record was just all
the glories of Africa today people look
at a taxidermied specimen with mixed
feeling in the sense that well it’s so
beautiful but it’s a shame that this
species is actually on the verge of
extinction or has gone extinct we also
have specimens of creatures that were
very recently extinct like the Tasmanian
wolf like the passenger pigeon like
lonesome George in the 19th century the
Tasmanian wolf was regarded as a past
farmers on the island thought it was
responsible for killing livestock the
continual hunting of this species really
drove it presumably to extinction no one
has seen a verifiable living Tasmanian
wolf since about 1930
there were estimated in the 1800’s to be
about 2.2 billion passenger pigeon we’re
talking about a species of bird that
literally blocked out the Sun for three
days as flux flew overhead it was easy
prey because so many birds flew overhead
there were shotgun parties to shoot
these down in some ways it’s the the
forces that we have today were the
forces that drove the a central pigeon
to extinction around 1914 the loss of
hardwood force that the birds depended
on as well as the over hunted and it’s
it’s an extraordinary thing how
effective humans are and the destruction
of a species that was so plentiful in
the early 1800s there may have been as
many as 200,000 Galapagos Tortoises
occupying the various islands of the
Galapagos
there’s recognized as much as about 14
species on various Island but in recent
decades at least four of these species
have gone extinct in 1970s just one
Pinta island tortoise was left and that
was lonesome George all by himself no
mate no family and George unfortunately
died in 2012 we were able to do the
taxidermy on lonesome George and ring
tones of George to New York the response
to lonesome George at the Museum was
quite moving
I think people pause to reflect about
the ephemeral nature of life and the
vulnerability of even great creatures
like lonesome George I think people get
that sense of all from that they’re
really a memorial to what is no longer
with us
life that is with us and life that is
also under threat here at the American
Museum of Natural History
taxidermy really came into museum
exhibit tree at a very early stage at
the time there was a different ethic or
philosophy about wildlife that it was
plentiful and plunder Robel many of
these specimens came to New York for
taxidermy and the record was just all
the glories of Africa today people look
at a taxidermied specimen with mixed
feeling in the sense that well it’s so
beautiful but it’s a shame that this
species is actually on the verge of
extinction or has gone extinct we also
have specimens of creatures that were
very recently extinct like the Tasmanian
wolf like the passenger pigeon like
lonesome George in the 19th century the
Tasmanian wolf was regarded as a past
farmers on the island thought it was
responsible for killing livestock the
continual hunting of this species really
drove it presumably to extinction no one
has seen a verifiable living Tasmanian
wolf since about 1930
there were estimated in the 1800’s to be
about 2.2 billion passenger pigeon we’re
talking about a species of bird that
literally blocked out the Sun for three
days as flux flew overhead it was easy
prey because so many birds flew overhead
there were shotgun parties to shoot
these down in some ways it’s the the
forces that we have today were the
forces that drove the a central pigeon
to extinction around 1914 the loss of
hardwood force that the birds depended
on as well as the over hunted and it’s
it’s an extraordinary thing how
effective humans are and the destruction
of a species that was so plentiful in
the early 1800s there may have been as
many as 200,000 Galapagos Tortoises
occupying the various islands of the
Galapagos
there’s recognized as much as about 14
species on various Island but in recent
decades at least four of these species
have gone extinct in 1970s just one
Pinta island tortoise was left and that
was lonesome George all by himself no
mate no family and George unfortunately
died in 2012 we were able to do the
taxidermy on lonesome George and ring
tones of George to New York the response
to lonesome George at the Museum was
quite moving
I think people pause to reflect about
the ephemeral nature of life and the
vulnerability of even great creatures
like lonesome George I think people get
that sense of all from that they’re
really a memorial to what is no longer
with us
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