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a decade old Mystery But denver The Museum of Nature and Science includes the hideout of a 650-pound furry taxidermied At last Bison was resolved. Remarkably, it never left colorado,
The mounted bison, which had not been seen for 50 years, was one of an original set of five acquired by naturalist Edwin Carter in the 19th century, before disappearing from the museum sometime in the mid-20th century. Over time, employees and historians speculated about its fate. By the 2000s, the “missing bison” had become a legend among museum staff.
“I had heard all kinds of rumors about where the bison might be. Some people were saying Wyoming, others said closer to the museum, but the truth is that no one really knew where the bison went,” Andrew Doll, the museum’s collection manager of zoology and health sciences, said in a statement. News release,
Now, they have an answer. And the buffalo is back home. Half a century later.
In 2022, new DMNS employee Natalie Patton heard about the museum’s long-lost bison during her orientation tour, which stuck with her.
one 2023 denverite The article renewed public interest in the mystery and, later that year, when Patton began working Buffalo At the Bill Museum in Golden, he spotted a familiar-looking bison mount in the gift shop of the Pahaska Building.
Suspecting a connection, she told curator Rebecca Jacobs, who was also investigating the unexplained origins of the mount.
Jacobs and Patton teamed up to approach the doll, who confirmed the match by identifying the same distinctive horn gauge seen in 1920s photographs.
“That was the moment I knew for sure,” Dolls said. “It lined up perfectly. It was our missing bison!”
The two buildings are just over 20 miles apart from each other.
Although the route by which the specimen traveled to the Pahaska Building may never be fully documented, archival clues suggest that the transfer probably occurred during the era when the DMNS, Denver Zoo, and Buffalo Bill Museum were administered under the City of Denver, and informal loans or transfers were common, and sometimes never properly recorded.
At one point, when the Buffalo Bill Museum moved buildings in 1979, the bison may have been left behind or moved to a less formal display location.
Once confirmed, museum teams from the DMNS, Buffalo Bill Museum, and Denver Mountain Park coordinated the extraction and transportation of the 650-pound mount. The process involved breaking down doors, building ramps, and securing the specimen in a box truck for the trip down the mountain.
Despite decades of exposure and exposure to sun damage, the Bison is in relatively good condition. It is now safely housed in the DMNS’s Avenir Collection Center along with its four “brothers” Carter Bison.
Asked if the bison could return to public display, Doll said there are no concrete plans at this time, but that could change.
He said, “These bison were removed from display several years ago, but we have kept them safe in the meantime. Someday perhaps we will find a good reason to bring them back – perhaps even as part of telling their own remarkable history.”