The exact page text, read by your browser's voice.
Local Animals — the Chapman baseline and what the record shows since
The baseline survey: Chapman's natural history of the county, 1880
1880 · Chapman, History of St. Joseph County, Ch. II, pp. 340–344 · Run B #215
The leg's spine is a single dated chapter, and it is a survey of loss already in progress: Chapter II of Chas. C. Chapman & Co.'s History of St. Joseph County, Indiana (Chicago, 1880) — "Natural History — Quadrupeds — Birds …
The bison question, tested: buffalo on this record, and the evidence that is not here
1721–1880, as the record reaches · Run B #216
The verdict is sustained at county frame on Chapman's own testimony, and the two picturesque proofs the test names do not survive as proofs: Chapman states the fact flatly, twice. In the natural-history chapter the buffalo…
The departed predators: wolves, panthers and bears, with the last records sized
By 1850–1908, gone · one bear's return visit, 2015 · Run B #217
All three stand in Chapman's gone-list of 1880, and the state record since is a record of endings with one documented exception: Chapman lists the panther, the black wolf and the black bear among the animals that went with or…
Extirpation and return, four arcs: deer, wild turkey, otter, beaver
1880–2005, the managed returns · Run B #218
Chapman leaves all four on the edge — deer and otter "very rare," the turkey "almost entirely disappeared," the beaver already gone — and the twentieth century brings all four back under management, each on its own dated arc…
The lost birds: prairie chicken and passenger pigeon
1880–1972, the two endings · Run B #219
Chapman prints both birds as warnings, and both warnings came true on dated records: of the prairie chicken he writes that it is "the chiefest among the Grouse family," and that "if not carefully protected, [it] must ere long…
The marsh system and its animals: the Baugo bottoms, Chapman's great marsh, and what the ditches did
1880–2004, drainage and its animal cost · Run B #220
The marsh of this ground is not the Kankakee, and this article keeps the two apart before it joins their stories: Penn Township's wet ground is, first, the Baugo Creek bottoms where the creek crosses the township's north to Baugo…
The river's fish: Chapman's list, the great fish that is not in it, and the managed river
1880–1992 and after, the fishery remade · Run B #221
Chapman's fish list is five families long, and the most important fact in it is an absence: "The waters of this country are quite prolific of the finny tribe," Chapman writes (p. 344), and enumerates: the Sickle-backed family …
The raptor returns, dated by first nests: eagle, osprey, and the downtown falcons
2015, the county's eagle year · falcons from 2003 · Run B #222
Chapman leaves the bald eagle "once quite common, now scarce," the golden eagle gone, and the turkey buzzard almost disappeared — and the returns, when they come, are dated by nests: Bald eagle. Indiana's eagles were reintroduced…
The counted birds: the Christmas Bird Count circles that frame this ground, and the rookery that is not here
Counted every December · Run B #223
The ongoing census exists, it is older than the town's festival, and this ground sits in the frame between its two nearest circles: the Audubon Christmas Bird Count — begun Christmas Day 1900 by Frank Chapman (the ornithologist…
The arrivals: zebra mussels in the river, and carp at the gate
1988–2023, the invasive record · Run B #224
The arrivals are named on the state's own lists, and the feared one has not arrived: Zebra mussel. Dreissena polymorpha , first found in North America in Lake Erie in 1986 and in all the Great Lakes by 1990, stands on the Indiana…
Kept and mascot animals
NAMED GAP · settler named · Run B #225
No kept or mascot animal carrying this town's name stands in any record this section reached, and the item closes as a named gap rather than a decorated negative: What an animal of that class would need to close — a contemporary…
The record now: what stands where, as of November 2026
As of the check date, 11 November 2026 · Run B #226
The closing ledger, species by species, at the size the record supports and no larger: Gone, with no return of record: the bison (Chapman, driven westward by 1880); the elk (Chapman's gone-list; statewide extirpated, no St.…