PHOTO:JOSHUA FRANZOS
&
SCIENCE NATURE
SURVIVOR’S
TALE
A beautiful new addition to one of
Carnegie Museum of Natural History’s
most popular exhibit halls is a lesson
in the complexities of respecting the
natural world.
BY JENELLE PIFER
The endangered bontebok is the latest addition to the Hall of African Wildlife.
ne day last spring, John Wible,
curator of mammals at Carnegie
Museum of Natural History, stood
beside a giant wooden crate in the museum’s
research facility in East Liberty. He and three
staff members clustered around the open
side of the box, gently extracting large handfuls of shredded filler paper, occasionally
snapping photographs. After a half an hour,
they finally saw a small, white nose emerge.
O
anything back to the country of origin,” says
Suzanne McLaren, the museum’s longtime
collection manager for mammals. So the federal agents, aware of the Museum of Natural
History’s strong collection of African mammals, called McLaren with a question: Do you
want it?
Though perhaps unexpected, it’s not
entirely rare for museums to acquire animals
in such a fashion (in fact, the museum has
species,” McLaren says. So they accepted
the mount, but still had to come up with just
over $1,000 for shipping.
The bontebok is native to a small area
of the coastal plain in the Western Cape
Province of South Africa. The medium-sized
antelope—standing about 3 feet at the shoulder—flourished there in small herds until
1652, when the Dutch East India Company
settled a port colony in Cape Town. The
“It’s a quintessential picture of how most people don’t want something to be completely wiped out.”
- SUZANNE MCLAREN, COLLECTION MANAGER FOR MAMMALS, CARNEGIE MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY
“That was our first view of the bontebok.
He was sort of peeking through,” says Wible.
In December, the Museum of Natural
History welcomed a new mammal display to
its Hall of African Wildlife—a bontebok, the
rarest antelope in the world and the only animal on display to have been acquired while
endangered. (Many older dioramas include
animals that, though endangered now, were
hunted and collected legally, in some cases
more than 100 years ago.)
It all began with a phone call from the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service nearly one
year earlier: An inspector at the Los Angeles
International Airport had discovered an
endangered species among a shipment of
20 mounted mammals from South Africa and
confiscated it. “The policy is they don’t send
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received numerous research specimens in
this manner over the years, but never a beautifully prepared and ready-for-display mounted
animal). Often, it’s private individuals offering
the heirlooms of a family collection. Big-game
hunting is no longer as popular as it once
was, notes McLaren, and many of those who
participated are becoming quite elderly or
passing away. “These are well-loved specimens in a lot of cases,” she says, “and
[donors] want to feel that the animals are
going somewhere where people will enjoy
them.” While there’s simply not room at the
museum for every donation, the bontebok,
museum leaders decided, was special.
“We thought it was possible to use [the
bontebok] to tell a lot of different stories—
about conservation and endangered
rapid expansion of the city and hunting by
roaming farmers interested in meat and
pelts decimated the species’ population.
In 1931, when South Africa opened the
first Bontebok National Park, merely 17
of the animals remained.
But surprisingly, McLaren says, the bontebok’s story is ultimately one of conservation:
“It’s a quintessential picture of how most people don’t want something to be completely
wiped out.”
In 1837, just after the abolition of slavery
prompted a huge exodus from the Western
Cape through the bontebok’s habitat, a small
farming family corralled several dozen into a
small portion of their farm, creating a reserve.
“The only reason they were able to corral
them is the bontebok can’t jump a 4-foot
fence. They’re just incapable,” says Wible, a
trained anatomist interested in mammalian evolution. The bontebok’s lifestyle and environment
were such that a leaping ability never developed.
Neighboring landowners caught on and
joined forces to protect the population later
transferred to the national park. Initially just 17strong, the herds at the park now contain about
160 bonteboks. And the worldwide bontebok
population, including those at farms, zoos, and
preserves, is approximately 3,000.
Nevertheless, having a bontebok display is
quite rare in the Northern Hemisphere. And
getting the mount from Los Angeles took many
months of logistical planning. The first obvious
obstacle was funding. So last January, Wible
wrote to Richard Moriarty, a retired pediatrician,
founder of the Pittsburgh Poison Center, and
current president of the Carnegie Discoverers,
a group of enthusiastic Museum of Natural
History supporters. Annual membership to the
group includes perks like behind-the-scenes
tours and special lectures by museum staff.
Five years ago, as part of the Discoverers,
Moriarty began a program called the “Wish
List,” wherein the museum’s educational and
scientific staff can request project-based funding of up to $2,500. “Nobody writes a grant for
$2,500, and nobody reads a grant for $2,500.
But I know from when I was looking for money
for the Poison Center that inevitably you’d forget
something,” says Moriarty.
Wible hoped this rare opportunity for the
museum to be given the bontebok would make
the Wish List. To date, the program had funded
some 60 requests to the tune of nearly
$90,000—for items such as deer fencing at
Powdermill Nature Reserve in the Laurel
Highlands, airfare for a research expedition to
Australia, digital cameras, and DNA analysis
software. When Moriarty received Wible’s
request, to avoid any delays, he immediately
footed the bill. The bontebok was shipped by
plane to Detroit, trucked to Pittsburgh, and
transported via moving van to the museum’s
research annex.
A great deal remains unknown about
Carnegie Museum’s very own bontebok—its
age and intended U.S. destination, for example
— because legal proceedings continue on the
West Coast. “It’s kind of like old-time adoptions.
You just aren’t allowed to know that stuff,”
McLaren jokes.
Today the animal sits at the top of the
stairs in the Hall of African Wildlife, next to the
Barbary lions attacking the Arab Courier and
nearby a sign that tells visitors the tale of how
the bontebok arrived. It’s a story McLaren and
Wible hope will inspire visitors to learn more
about endangered species and ponder the
complex relationship between hunting and
conservation worldwide. n
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