You haven’t herd?
A decades-old mystery at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science about the whereabouts of a beloved 650-pound stuffed bison has finally been solved. Remarkably, it never even left Colorado.
The stuffed bison, which had not been seen for fifty years, was part of an original set of five that naturalist Edwin Carter acquired in the 19th century and disappeared from the museum sometime in the mid-20th century. Over time, contributors and historians speculated about its fate. By the 2000s, the “missing bison” had become something of a legend among museum workers.
“I had heard all kinds of rumors about where the bison might be. Some people said Wyoming, others said closer to the museum, but the truth was no one really knew where the bison had ended up,” Andrew Doll, the museum’s collections manager of zoology and health sciences, said in a statement. press release.
Now they have an answer. And the Buffalo is home again. Half a century later.
In 2022, new DMNS employee Natalie Patton learned about the museum’s long-missing bison during her orientation tour, which stuck with her.
A 2023 Denverite article renewed public interest in the mystery and later that year, after Patton began working at the Buffalo Bill Museum in Golden, she spotted a familiar-looking bison in the Pahaska building’s gift shop.
She suspected a connection and told curator Rebecca Jacobs, who had also researched the mountain’s unclear origins.
Together, Jacobs and Patton contacted Doll, who verified the match by identifying the same distinctive horn gouge visible in photographs from the 1920s.
“That was the moment I knew for sure,” Doll said. “It lined up perfectly. This was our missing bison!”
The two buildings are just over 20 miles apart.
Although the route by which the specimen traveled to the Pahaska building may never be fully documented, archival records suggest that the transfer likely occurred at a time when DMNS, the Denver Zoo, and the Buffalo Bill Museum were under the city of Denver, and informal loans or transfers were common and sometimes never properly recorded.
At some point, when the Buffalo Bill Museum moved buildings in 1979, the bison may have been abandoned or moved to a less formal display area.
Once confirmed, museum teams from DMNS, the Buffalo Bill Museum and Denver Mountain Parks coordinated the extraction and transportation of the 650-pound mountain. The process involved dismantling doors, building ramps and securing the specimen in a box truck for the ride down the mountain.
Despite decades of display and exposure to sun damage, the bison remains in relatively good condition. It is now safely housed at DMNS’ Avenir Collections Center, along with its four “brothers” Carter bison.
When asked if the bison could be shown to the public again, Doll said there are no concrete plans at this time, but that could change.
“These bison were removed from exhibit years ago, but we have kept them safe in the meantime. One day we may find a good reason to bring them back out – perhaps even as part of the telling of their own remarkable history,” he said.
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