The famed sculptor Anna Hyatt Huntington (AHH) loved big cats. Beginning with her first cat sculptures in 1898, she created dozens of jaguars, leopards, lions, and tigers in all shapes and sizes. AHH’s father, the zoologist and paleontologist Alpheus Hyatt (1838-1902), who worked at the Boston Society of Natural History from 1870 until his death in 1902, undoubtedly nurtured her love of animals. During the 1890s, AHH began studying wild animals in earnest at Norumbega Park in Newton, Massachusetts, and Bostock’s Live Animal Show in Boston.   Continue reading →

Scattered throughout the scrapbooks of William T. Hornaday is ephemera from the Boone and Crockett Club. Founded in 1887 by Theodore Roosevelt and George Bird Grinnell, the Boone and Crockett Club formed, as they later stated in their 1923 certificate of incorporation, “to promote the conservation and management of wildlife, especially big game, and its habitat, to preserve and encourage hunting and to maintain the highest ethical standards of fair chase and sportsmanship in North America.” Boone and Crockett was originally organized as a very exclusive club, accepting only members in high social and cultural standing, all of whom must have personally hunted a pre-requisite breadth of wild game.  Continue reading →

If you descended the stairs to the WCS Archives on a Wednesday over the last four months, you might have seen tables and holding shelves set up in the outer room, and boxes, storage tubes, building plans, artwork, and large documents (and lots of interleaving tissue) everywhere–along with two unfamiliar but friendly faces!  Continue reading →

As we’ve discussed in a previous post, women became an important force in early campaigns for wildlife protection, and in the early decades of the twentieth century more and more wives, mothers, and daughters joined the cause. One woman in particular, Mrs. Charles Cyrus Marshall, went above and beyond to provide bountiful aid wherever it was needed. Though most of Mrs. Marshall’s documented work with state and national preservation may have been created through local action, her projects most certainly had national and historical impact.  Continue reading →

William Bridges, in his history of the early years of the New York Zoological Society, relates that “in 1901, William T. Hornaday, the Bronx Zoo’s founding director, sought to acquire a ‘particolored bear’ for exhibition” (Gathering of Animals, p.222).  In 1938 Hornaday’s successor, W. Reid Blair, acquired the Society’s first giant panda, Pandora.  Pandora–and to a lesser extent her compatriot, Pan–was a smashing success.  Her sojourn at the Society’s pavilion at the 1939-1940 World’s Fair was so popular that her return to the Bronx was celebrated with an enlarged enclosure and increased visitor viewing areas.  Continue reading →

In 1911, William T. Hornaday was hard at work in his efforts to protect birds from unnecessary slaughter. The Bayne-Blauvelt Bill (more commonly known as the Bayne Bill) to prevent the sale of wild American game in New York State had recently passed in July of 1911. The Bayne Bill, said by journalists at the time to be the most important measure for the protection of game brought before New York legislature, was a notable victory for Hornaday and wildlife conservationists alike. The law prohibited the sale and importation for sale of any species of wild game, regardless of where it may have been killed. The bill passed by the state senate 38 to 1 and unanimously by the assembly. However, there was still much to be done in the fight to protect wildlife. Continue reading →

In the United States, bison once roamed in numbers greater than 20 million. However, over the course of the nineteenth century, the bison population plummeted to barely a thousand due to settlers, railroad development, and hunting.

Although some thought the extinction of the American bison was an inevitable effect of civilized expansion into the West, many others believed that this symbol of American strength and power deserved a chance to thrive. In 1905, members of this latter group came together at the Bronx Zoo to found the American Bison Society with the goal of preventing the extinction of the American bison; the organization’s first success came in 1907 when they sent 15 bison by railway from the Bronx Zoo to Wichita Mountains Wildlife Preserve in Oklahoma to restore the western Plains’ depleted bison population. Continue reading →

While we have high hopes for this little blog, we’re not talking about its birth here. Instead, we’re celebrating the 114th birthday of the Bronx Zoo, which opened on November 8, 1899.

Actually, the Bronx Zoo, formally known as the New York Zoological Park, was slated to open July 15, 1899. But heavy snowstorms the previous winter halted construction on the park for nearly four months. Indeed, by July 15, there was still much work to be done, as a To Do list held in the WCS Archives shows. From “Plan new water and sewers” to “Order birds and reptiles, generally,” a flurry of activities was underway. Continue reading →