"Taxidermy might sound like a topic for dusty academic journals and strange back-street shops. But the way Carl Akeley practiced it at the turn of the 20th century, taxidermy was a thrill ride of a job, full of exotic safaris, brutal killing, and bloody encounters with the very creatures he was trying to preserve." (All Things Considered, De., 2010)
This is the life and work of Carl Akeley in his own words. He attempted to preserve the image of an animal world that was perceived to be heading to extinction. Akeley turned the world of nature preservation on it's head by transforming the craft of trophy animal stuffing into the art of museum-grade taxidermy. He then took the image to a further degree by building life-like environments to realistically house or frame his animal subject. In effect, he created a life-like snap frozen in time for a public that would most likely never see these animals or experience the actual scene in real life.
To create these incredible dioramas required safaris to Africa for Akeley to personally 'collect' the proper exhibits. Notably, Akeley's safari experiences became the grist of legend. Besides his collecting adventures, he was famous for having to save himself from a leopard attack by strangling the animal with his bare hands when he lost his rifle. He also survived a brutal mauling by an enraged elephant.
In the end, the killing of animals for preservation started to weigh heavy on Akeley's conscience. He eventually reasoned that the better method of preservation would be to set aside large tracts of land as animal reservations. Let the animals be free of human intervention to live their lives. His effort was eventually rewarded with the creation of a gorilla preserve in the Congo mountains. To this day, it is accepted that without Akeley's advocacy for the gorilla, there would be no gorillas in our world today.
Akeley's amazing dioramas are still on exhibit at Chicago's Field Museum and New York's American Museum of Natural History.