Thanks for this photo! I have two 1970s-era guidebooks to the Alberta Game Farm, a zoo that operated in Edmonton, Alberta, from 1959 to 1998. This facility held 90 ungulate species at one time back in its heyday. It was the Berlin Tierpark of North America. Anyway, the guidebooks each have the same photo of a pair of Kermode Bears, with the intent to have the species in the future. I always wondered where the photo was from and now I have found the answer. The Denver Museum of Nature & Science is not credited, but it's definitely a photo of this taxidermy display that is to be found in those guidebooks.
@snowleopard that is a pretty cool discovery. I have to say that Denver’s dioramas are very impressive. Easily on par with New York’s AMNH and New Haven’s Peabody museum. I know recently it became fashionable to “modernize “ Natural History museum’s collections away from “dusty old dioramas.” That trend hopefully is being squelched by the realization that in addition to the educational and historical value these dioramas are legitimate works of art. I was pleased by Peabody’s assurance that their beautiful dioramas have been preserved and will be one of the few features of their museum that will remain unchanged when they complete their renovations.
The Denver dioramas look truly spectacular and I'd love to visit one day. On one hand, a lot of animals died but the flip side is that generations of humans can admire many species that they might never see alive.
That is true. I’ve read about the rush to collect when it became obvious to earlier curators that a particular species was rapidly becoming extinct. Not sure any were pushed over the edge as a result…but still…hard to believe in this day and age. The Whitetail Deer Four Seasons Dioramas at the Field Museum were intended to show future generations what the animal, then locally rare and presumed headed for extinction, looked like in life.
