William Temple Hornaday

William Temple Hornaday ( born December 1, 1854 in Plainfield (Indiana), † March 6, 1937 in Stamford (Connecticut) ) was an American Taxidermist and zoo director.

Life

William Temple Hornaday grew up with a bodily and seven step- siblings on the farm of his parents, William and Mary Hornaday. 1858 the family moved to Iowa, where they lived on a farm again. At fifteen, William Temple Hornaday lost his parents.

He was educated at Oskaloosa College in Iowa and at Iowa State Agricultural College, but the latter left in 1873 without a degree and was an assistant at Ward 's Natural Science Establishment in Rochester (New York), where he worked until 1882. In this time were several expeditions. The first led him into the southeastern United States, among others, later to Asia and eventually to the whole world. He wrote in 1885 the book " Two Years in the Jungle ". 1879, after returning from the great expedition three-year past, he married Josephine Chamberlain from Battle Creek (Michigan). The marriage produced a daughter emerged.

Dissatisfied with the state of taxidermy at this time, he developed new methods and forms of presentation. He wanted to represent the animals in lifelike as possible ambience and led his ideas with the orangutan Diorama "A Fight in the Treetops " in 1879 the audience in mind. In 1880, he was among the founders of the Society of American Taxidermists.

Two years later he became chief taxidermist at the U.S. National Museum in Washington and remained so until 1890. An expedition in 1886 led him to drastic threat to the American bison and other North American species in mind. He wrote the book "The Extermination of the American Bison ", which appeared in 1889, and numerous articles, and campaigned for the protection of endangered species. To protect the animals, he founded the Department of Living Animals and tried to create a kind of reserves to protect the animals. His concept but was torpedoed by Samuel P. Langley, why Hornaday initially withdrew into private life and in Buffalo (New York) lived as a Realtor and a writer. 1891 came out his work " Taxidermy and Zoological Collecting ."

In 1896 he became director of the new Zoological Gardens of New York in the Bronx, he designed and directed until 1926. He tried to make this zoo close to nature and there established the National Heads and Horns Museum. He achieved this with him also realized idea to lock the pygmy Ota Benga, he had "borrowed" from the Natural History Museum in New York in a monkey cage and issued as an animal during the visitors poor winter 1906, what a rain visitor turnout a dubious reputation provided. Furthermore, he was strongly committed to the protection of endangered animals. One of the results was the Alascan Game Act of 1902. 1911 joined the Bayne Law in force, and in the years that followed Hornaday could success in the fight for the migratory birds recorded for the establishment of Bison reserves and the protection of seals and sea lions.

Works

In addition to books and numerous smaller publications already mentioned Hornaday Free Rum on the Congo (1887 ), American Natural History ( 1904), Our Vanishing Wild Life (1913 ), Wildlife Conservation wrote in Theory and Practice (1914), Tales from Nature's Wonderlands (1924 ), My Fifty- Four Years with Animal Life (1929) and Thirty Years War for Wildlife ( 1931). 1905 Hornaday described for the first time Ursus americanus Kermodei.

Others

After the Hornaday Hornaday River is named.