Somewhere deep in the halls of the Field Museum in Chicago,
there's a diorama that's missing.
Legend has it that it's been hidden behind a wall
in the Asian Hall of Mammals for the last eighty-seven years.
But where?
Gaurs...
Orangs...
Diorama-sized green wall...
Wait, diorama-sized green wall?
It's hollow.
Let's gut it!
[Eleven minutes, seven seconds later]
Behold! It's the missing diorama space!
But there's something not quite right here.
Where's the painted mural?
Where's the meticulously created and scientifically accurate habitat?
Where are all the taxidermied animals!?
No, not you, Soon Raccoon.
Wait, how'd you get in here?
Could it have been stolen by treasure hunters
or lost at the bottom of Lake Michigan in a pirate shipwreck?
Maybe there was a diorama-sized rip in the spacetime continuum.
[In the mammal library at the Field Museum]
It's the 1920s.
Construction starts on the dioramas in the Asian Hall of Mammals:
tapirs, sloth bears, leopards, gibbons.
In total, twenty are planned.
Then: The Great Depression.
Money runs out, people move on.
Nineteen of the twenty dioramas are finished;
the last one is boarded up and left untouched for eighty-seven years.
So the way I see it, we've got an empty diorama for the taking.
Let's fill it with something!
But... what?
[In the Hall of Reptiles at the Field Museum]
American alligator...
weird giant tadpole models...
climbing lizards... striped hyenas...
Striped hyenas?!
What're they doing here in the Reptile Hall?
Guys?
Not just any striped hyenas, Carl Akeley's striped hyenas!
Gadzooks!
The year is 1896, and the Field's chief taxidermist Carl Akeley
– pioneer of modern taxidermy, inventor of a motion picture camera,
cool friends with President Teddy Roosevelt –
accompanies a team to Africa
on the world's first American-led museum expedition to Somaliland.
In pursuit of animals wild and weird,
they specifically search for the endangered African wild ass.
These animals were at risk for extinction from a virus
that had already wiped out many species of buffaloes,
antelope, deer and giraffes.
In order to ensure that future generations might study and know these species
the expedition brings back a range of specimens to the United States,
including four striped hyenas.
Also on this expedition: Akeley famously encounters a leopard,
is attacked and nearly eaten by the mighty beast,
and ultimately the two battle to the death.
Akeley is forced to strangle the leopard [actual cartoon dramatization]
with his bare hands, [actual cartoon dramatization]
shoving one arm down its throat with the other holding on for dear life.
... his life, I mean.
The leopard dies, obviously.
After five months in the field, Akeley returns to Chicago,
where he spends the next nine years [Field Museum taxidermy workshop]
making taxidermy mounts [Field Museum taxidermy workshop]
for these animals for display in Field Museum dioramas.
Akeley's goal: to bring the public face to face
with African wildlife for the first time ever.
The Field Museum soon moves to its new location here on Lake Michigan.
The striped hyenas, [the diorama time forgot]
some of the finest in the world, [the diorama time forgot]
are put into overflow storage and end up in our Hall Of Reptiles.
So we've got an empty diorama space and some orphaned hyenas.
Seems to me like we've got a project!
In an unprecedented move,
The Field Museum wants you to be a part of our history in a very real way;
to help us restore this diorama and give the Akeley hyenas a home.
So we've formed a crack team of scientists,
conservators, builders, artists and exhibitors to—
[Introducing the project hyena diorama team]
- Aaand action!
That's a wrap!
I'm Michael Paha. [Michael Paha, exhibits]
I'm working on the hyena project to move the cases,
open up the glass, you know, get in where people need to get in,
get things in for them a bit, building support for landform, and um...
move the case wherever it needs to go.
Yeah.
'Cause I'm Mike the Mover!
- I'm Sarah Crawford and I'm an exhibit developer, [Sarah Crawford, exhibits]
and my job is essentially to talk to curators,
and to get their stories about the hyenas.
Why do I like dioramas?
Uh...
Because I remember being a little kid, it felt like—when you stood in front of them,
that you were travelling the world, you know.
And I remember coming to—actually to the Field Museum when I was younger,
and looking at the dioramas in this hall and feeling that way,
you know, like I could just step right into them.
- The hall that this is going to be installed in has several, uh,
specimens that were collected by Kermit and Theodore Jr. Roosevelt.
And, one of my favourite dioramas is at the beginning of the hall
with the sheep coming down across an alpine slope.
And I can actually feel the winds,
the chilly winds blowing off the slopes as I'm watching the sheep run down this mountainside.
I'm Bill Stanley, [Bill Stanley, mammals]
I'm the director of the Gans Family Collection Center
and also the collection manager for the collection of mammals,
and I'll be advising on the natural history habitat distribution
of striped hyenas for this diorama.
- My name is Shelley Paine [Shelley Paine, conservation]
and I am the exhibitions conservator,
and it's my job to examine the hyenas,
to see if they need any repair prior to exhibition,
and to help the team determine the best way to preserve the hyenas
while they're in the diorama.
- I'm Susan Phillips, [Susan Phillips, exhibits]
I'll be the production manager for the hyena diorama project,
and I will work with the whole team to schedule, budget, plan the work
and I'll also be working in the shop making, um,
landforms and plants for the diorama.
- I'm gonna paint the mural! Um...
I'm gonna—
I'm gonna rock out the mural, man.
I'm Aaron Delehanty and I'm gonna paint the mural. [Aaron Delehanty, exhibits]
- In total we're looking at a cost of $170,000, and here's where you come in.
Natural history museums across the world are struggling with how we reach audiences
that aren't only in our backayard.
We want to make valuable connections with people from all over the world,
to prove that our museum is your museum
and to allow you to help conserve history with us.
So if you can't make it to Chicago next month,
or next year or in the next twenty years,
you could come visit decades from now
and along with millions of other visitors enjoy the collective efforts
born from fans of The Brain Scoop all over the world.
So it's already been eighty-seven years, why do this now?
We've got television, the internet, zoos, touchscreens, and interactive exibits;
why put the energy behind recreating a century-old artform
that is walled off from the world?
Number one: since Akeley endevoured [(no. 1) The decline of species]
on that initial expedition more than a century ago, [(no. 1) The decline of species]
the geographic ranges of the majority of those species
– including the striped hyena –
have become increasingly limited.
Once abundant across northern Africa [striped hyenas & golden jackals]
and into central Asia, [striped hyenas & golden jackals]
it's now estimated that the striped hyena's population is around 10,000 adults
and decreasing annually.
If their population disappears, the Field and museums like ours
will be the only places anybody will be able to study these creatures.
But it won't be possible until we begin conserving these one hundred year old specimens, today.
Number two! Dioramas are historically relevant.
They're time capsules for a region over time,
in ways ranging from the specimens themselves to the geography of the landscape,
the types of plants represented in the habitat
and the interactions of different species within the group.
Because of our Hall Of Mammals [argali sheep]
we're allowed a unique insight [snow leopard]
into the habitats of South-east Asia [snow leopard]
at the end of the nineteenth century, [giant panda]
which is something that can't be replicated [asian leopard]
in public spaces anywhere else. [asian leopard]
Number three: dioramas create valuable connections between humans and nature.
As our cities and building projects expand it is more important than ever
to remember that we are not encroaching on nature,
we are a part of nature.
Nature, wildlife, and natural enviroments do not exist separately.
Life exists everywhere, and dioramas put us face to face with nature
in a way that gets lost behind screens in the digital sphere.
Number four: Carl Akeley was a key player [(no. 4) Carl Akeley is a badass]
in revolutionizing a marriage between art and science,
and contributed to how the public sees and interacts with our natural world.
He was like the Beethoven of taxidermy.
He's like the Michelangelo of dead animals!
One of the greatest honours [taxidermy by Carl Akeley]
a taxidermist can receive today [taxidermy by Carl Akeley]
is the Carl Akeley Award for most artistic entry at the World Taxidermy Championship.
His legacy is far-reaching and his life's work deserves preservation.
Number five: museums are places of permanency.
While the world around us might not look anything like it did
ten or twenty or two million years ago,
museums help us preserve views into the past.
And this is only going to become more important to remember
as we lose natural habitats at an unprecedented rate.
We've got an obligation to care for our collections,
but we can't do it without your help.
Check out our Indiegogo campaign, you can donate by clicking here
or checking the link in the video description.
Please.
The Brain Scoop is brought to you by The Field Museum in Chicago
It still has brains on it.