William T. (William Temple) Hornaday

Born in Indiana in 1854, William Temple Hornaday became a zoologist, taxidermist, museum collector, and writer at a time when American wildlife was under intense pressure. His field expeditions and museum work made him widely known, and he later became chief taxidermist at the U.S. National Museum before moving into a larger public role.

Hornaday served as the first director of the New York Zoological Park, now the Bronx Zoo, from its early planning years into the 1920s. He pushed for more naturalistic animal displays and became one of the most visible voices in the early conservation movement, using books, lectures, and public campaigns to argue that species loss was a national problem.

He is most often associated with the rescue of the American bison from the edge of extinction. At the same time, modern readers may encounter a more complicated legacy around some of his views and actions, which have drawn criticism alongside praise for his conservation work. He died in 1937, but his writing and activism remain an important part of the history of American conservation.