{"id":535797,"date":"2026-03-21T01:17:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T01:17:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/535797\/"},"modified":"2026-03-21T01:17:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T01:17:14","slug":"giant-bison-statues-displayed-at-smithsonian-museum-of-natural-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/535797\/","title":{"rendered":"Giant bison statues displayed at Smithsonian Museum of Natural History"},"content":{"rendered":"

Each statue, one depicting a bull bison, the other, a cow and calf, weighs about 2,500 pounds.<\/p>\n

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National Museum of Natural History adds new bison statues outside entrance<\/p>\n

Cranes lifted two giant American bison statues into place on either side of the south entrance of the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History on Thursday night. Each statue, one depicting a bull bison, the other, a cow and her calf, weighs about 2,500 pounds.<\/p>\n

The burly bronze bison busts are a gift to commemorate the nation\u2019s 250th anniversary and are being displayed ahead of major bison exhibits set to debut later this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese sculptures refer to animals the Smithsonian collected in 1886 in Montana, just as the bison were about to go extinct,\u201d the museum\u2019s Sant Director Kirk Johnson said. \u201cThey were just slaughtered across the nation as we expanded. And they got as low as less than a thousand animals in the entire continent.\u201d<\/p>\n

The statues were placed after a weeklong trek that started at a foundry in Colorado, where artist Gary Staab created them over the course of the last year.<\/p>\n

Named the national mammal in 2016, the bison will be a major focus of the Smithsonian this year. An exhibit called \u201cBison: Standing Strong<\/a>\u201d will highlight the species from the point it nearly went extinct in the late 1800s to its resurgence through significant conservation efforts led, in part, by the Smithsonian Institution.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs far as I\u2019m concerned, they are a symbol of the strength of our country,\u201d Naoma Tate, who serves on the Smithsonian National Board, said of bison.<\/p>\n

Tate, a renowned Western art collector and philanthropist from Cody, Wyoming, and her family gifted the bison to the Smithsonian.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe see these magnificent animals all the time,\u201d she said. \u201cThere are about 5,000 there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"bison<\/p>\n

Each statue, one depicting a bull bison, the other, a cow and calf, weighs about 2,500 pounds.
\n(WTOP\/Alan Etter) <\/p>\n

\n WTOP\/Alan Etter <\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The burly bronze bison busts are a gift to commemorate the nation\u2019s 250th anniversary and are being displayed ahead of major bison exhibits set to debut later this year.
\n(WTOP\/Alan Etter) <\/p>\n

\n WTOP\/Alan Etter <\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The animals depicted in the statues represent actual bison that the Smithsonian preserved as the population began to decrease in the U.S. The little calf depicts a famous baby bison named \u201cSandy.\u201d
\n(WTOP\/Alan Etter) <\/p>\n

\n WTOP\/Alan Etter <\/p>\n

\"bison<\/p>\n

An exhibit called \u201cBison: Standing Strong\u201d will highlight the species from the point it nearly went extinct in the late 1800s to its resurgence.
\n(WTOP\/Alan Etter) <\/p>\n

\n WTOP\/Alan Etter <\/p>\n

The animals depicted in the statues represent actual bison that the Smithsonian preserved as the population began to decrease in the U.S.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe little calf next to the cow here was on the (National) Mall in 1886 as a live animal,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cIt was brought back as an orphaned calf. That animal\u2019s name is \u2018Sandy,\u2019 the little baby bison.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSandy\u201d became the face of the movement to protect the American bison through conservation efforts.<\/p>\n

The species has recovered from the brink of extinction and now exists in all 50 states with a population of approximately 500,000 animals. It is currently listed as \u201cnear threatened\u201d by the International Union for Conservation of Nature<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Get breaking news and daily headlines delivered to your email inbox by signing up here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u00a9 2026 WTOP. All Rights Reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Each statue, one depicting a bull bison, the other, a cow and calf, weighs about 2,500 pounds. This…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":535798,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[23755,57362,228,226,227,15627,240326,229,88,240327,240328,240329],"class_list":["post-535797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-alan-etter","tag-america-250","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-bison","tag-dc-statue","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-kirk-johnson","tag-naoma-tate","tag-smithsonian-museum-of-natural-history"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=535797"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535797\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/535798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=535797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=535797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=535797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}