page_title: Carl Akeley
section_title: African expeditions
hierarchical_section_title: Carl Akeley / African expeditions
caption_attribution_description: English: "The Old Man of Mikeno", bronze Bust of a Mountain Gorilla
context_page_description: Carl Ethan Akeley was a pioneering American taxidermist, sculptor, biologist, conservationist, inventor, and nature photographer, noted for his contributions to American museums, most notably to the Field Museum of Natural History and the American Museum of Natural History. He is considered the father of modern taxidermy. He was the founder of the AMNH Exhibitions Lab, the interdisciplinary department that fuses scientific research with immersive design.
context_section_description: Akeley first traveled to Africa in 1896 when he was invited by Daniel Elliot, Curator of the Zoology Department in the new Columbian Field Museum, on an eight month expedition to Somaliland. It was on this trip that Akeley came face to face with a deadly 80-pound leopard which he strangled with his bare hands. Akeley collected hundreds of animal specimens including: hartebeest, gazelles, hyenas, kudus, oryx, and lions. The process of collecting specimens included: killing, measuring, photographing, skinning, de-boning, preserving, and packing them for shipment back to Chicago.
  In 1905, Marshall Field funded Akeley’s next trip to Africa which lasted twelve months and brought back two bull elephants which he would later mount for display. Akeley took nearly 1,000 glass plate photos and collected 17 tons of material including: 400 mammal skins, 1200 small mammal skins, 800 bird skins, and a fair number of bird and mammal skeletons. In addition to zoologic material he also collected more than 900 anthropological specimens and crates of leaves that he would use as models for his dioramas.
  
  In 1909, Akeley accompanied Theodore Roosevelt on a year-long expedition in Africa funded by the Smithsonian Institution and began working at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, where his efforts can still be seen in the Akeley Hall of African Mammals.  Akeley joined the Explorers Club in 1912, having been sponsored by three of the Club's seven Charter Members: Frank Chapman, Henry Collins Walsh, and Marshall Saville. For qualifying, Akeley wrote only, "Explorations in Somaliland and British East Africa." He became the Club's sixth president serving from 1917–1918.
  In 1921, eager to learn about gorillas to determine if killing them for museum dioramas was justified, Akeley led an expedition to Mt. Mikeno in the Virunga Mountains at the edge of the then Belgian Congo. At that time, gorillas were quite exotic, with very few even in zoos, and collecting such animals for educational museum exhibitions was not uncommon. In the process of "collecting" several mountain gorillas, Akeley's attitude was fundamentally changed and for the remainder of his life he worked for the establishment of a gorilla preserve in the Virungas. In 1925, greatly influenced by Akeley, King Albert I of Belgium established the Albert National Park, (since renamed Virunga National Park). It was Africa's first national park. Opposed to hunting them for sport or trophies, he remained an advocate of collection for scientific and educational purposes. One of the members of his 1921 expedition was six-year-old Alice Hastings Bradley, who later wrote science fiction under the name James Tiptree, Jr.
  Akeley began his fifth journey to the Congo with the start of the dry season in late 1926. He died on November 18 of dysentery and was buried in Africa, just miles from where he encountered his first gorilla, the "Old Man of Mikeno".
caption: "The Old Man of Mikeno", bronze bust of a mountain gorilla by Carl Akeley
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