Uploaded December 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
In the nineteenth century, naturalists anticipated the extinction of innumerable wild animals due to the global spread of Western civilization. Economic development, especially land-intensive practices like farming, logging, ranching, and urban sprawl, destroyed or degraded natural habitats worldwide, driving many species to extinction. Yet development was part and parcel of that quintessential Victorian virtue: progress. Victorian naturalists, then, viewed extinction as the inevitable, if regrettable, byproduct of humanity’s advance. The demise of some species was a pity, many naturalists agreed, but the loss was a small price to pay to maintain the pace of progress. To mitigate the problem of extinction, museum zoologists assumed the role of salvaging the remnants of these threatened species – while they could still be acquired – and preserving them as museum specimens for all time.
The scientific rationale behind salvage zoology was obvious: certain animals were doomed to extinction by the unrelenting spread of Western civilization. Zoologists, therefore, were obligated to harvest their specimens and keep them in museum collections as a permanent record of disappearing nature. The practice of salvage zoology had its heyday in the 1890s, then eventually gave way to conservation in the early twentieth century, as more and more naturalists prioritized the saving of species over the taking of specimens.
About the presenter:
Dr. Brinkman is a historian of science specializing in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century natural sciences. His approach to the history of science is largely sociological: science was what scientists did. He writes narrative accounts of scientific events that reconstruct scientific practice – what scientists did, how they did it, and how this affected their results. He tries to practice what he calls "hands-on" history as much as possible. Likewise, he aspires to write the kind of micro-historical narrative that places the reader in the boots of the naturalist with a Marsh pick or a plant press in hand.
In the nineteenth century, naturalists anticipated the extinction of innumerable wild animals due to the global spread of Western civilization. Economic development, especially land-intensive practices like farming, logging, ranching, and urban sprawl, destroyed or degraded natural habitats worldwide, driving many species to extinction. Yet development was part and parcel of that quintessential Victorian virtue: progress. Victorian naturalists, then, viewed extinction as the inevitable, if regrettable, byproduct of humanity’s advance. The demise of some species was a pity, many naturalists agreed, but the loss was a small price to pay to maintain the pace of progress. To mitigate the problem of extinction, museum zoologists assumed the role of salvaging the remnants of these threatened species – while they could still be acquired – and preserving them as museum specimens for all time.
The scientific rationale behind salvage zoology was obvious: certain animals were doomed to extinction by the unrelenting spread of Western civilization. Zoologists, therefore, were obligated to harvest their specimens and keep them in museum collections as a permanent record of disappearing nature. The practice of salvage zoology had its heyday in the 1890s, then eventually gave way to conservation in the early twentieth century, as more and more naturalists prioritized the saving of species over the taking of specimens.
About the presenter:
Dr. Brinkman is a historian of science specializing in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century natural sciences. His approach to the history of science is largely sociological: science was what scientists did. He writes narrative accounts of scientific events that reconstruct scientific practice – what scientists did, how they did it, and how this affected their results. He tries to practice what he calls "hands-on" history as much as possible. Likewise, he aspires to write the kind of micro-historical narrative that places the reader in the boots of the naturalist with a Marsh pick or a plant press in hand.
