Marlin Perkins
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N 37° 10.407 W 094° 18.783
15S E 383433 N 4114921
Statue of Marlin Perkins, Zoologist, Central Park, Carthage, Missouri, USA
Waymark Code: WM3XYK
Location: Missouri, United States
Date Posted: 06/02/2008
Views: 46
Biography:
Marlin Perkins was born on March 28, 1905 in Carthage, Missouri, and attended public school there through eighth grade. In the fall of 1919, he entered Wentworth Military Academy, where he kept two blue racer snakes in his room. One afternoon, while exercising them on a lawn back of the barracks, he was spotted by a faculty officer and got in trouble for handling them. He briefly attended the University of Missouri, but quit school to become a laborer at the St. Louis Zoo. It was the start of a brilliant zoological career. He rose through the ranks, becoming the reptile curator in 1928. He was hired as a curator of the Buffalo Zoological Park in Buffalo, New York in 1938, and eventually promoted to director. He served as director at the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago, Illinois from 1944 until 1962, then returned to the Saint Louis Zoological Park as director in 1962. Perkins joined Sir Edmund Hillary as the zoologist for one of Hillary's Himalayan expeditions in 1960 to search for the legendary Yeti.
Perkins was the host of Zoo Parade, a television program that originated from the Lincoln Park Zoo when he was the director there.[1] During his career, Perkins suffered multiple bites from venomous snakes. During a rehearsal of Zoo Parade, he was bitten by a timber rattlesnake. In other incidents, he was also bitten by a cottonmouth and a Gaboon viper.[2] Later he became host of Wild Kingdom when it debuted in 1963. Through his fame on television, he became an advocate for the protection of endangered species. He retired in 1970.
(Courtesy of Wikipedia)
Mr Perkin's work expanded the knowledge of animals and their role in the world for millions of children in the late 50s and 60s.
Statue dedication reads:
HIS LIFE WAS GENTLE, AND THE ELEMENTS SO MIX'D IN HIM THAT NATURE MIGHT STAND UP AND SAY TO ALL THE WORLD, "THIS WAS A MAN!"
Statue was sculpted by Bob Tommey and Bill Snow in 1988.
URL of the statue: Not listed
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