Take a look inside Lethbridge College’s Hubbard Collection, one of the largest collections of wildlife taxidermy in the country, and you can get up close with grizzly bears, cougar, bison, bobcat, pronghorn, mountain goat, deer, wolf, birds of prey and more. Here’s what a student, a recent grad and an instructor have to say about what’s so memorable about going where the wild things are.
This lab is so important for our development as professionals in the field. You really learn so much more when you can see an animal just inches from your face. The collection is always big stop for any Environmental Science student when showing friends and family around the school –it really is a showstopper! The light switch to the collection is along the back wall of the room so you have to go through the dark to enter and exit, and it always seems to be a bit of a race to get out of there before the shiver of those all the eyes on you goes up your spine!
Ashlyn Herron
Renewable Resource Management 2020, current Ecosystem Management student
Many of our labs for wildlife use the specimens in the Hubbard Collections. In classes such as Zoology, Mammology, and Ornithology, these specimens really helped me enhance my identification skills – especially with different colour morphs and winter plumage. I use my identification skills of species and their associated habitats nearly every day when I’m out in the field for work. It provided me with the baseline knowledge which I used to fuel my passion and made me eager to want to learn even more on my own.
Eric Pollard
Renewable Resource Management 2018, Ecosystem Management 2020
With more than 200 specimens, the Hubbard Collection provides an excellent learning opportunity for our students to hone their identification skills using real life examples of nearly every Western Canadian game bird, waterfowl, raptor, ungulate, carnivore and furbearer. It’s also a great informational tool for helping the public understand the work of our School of Environmental Sciences students.
Brad Taylor
Renewable Resource Management 2001, Chair of the School of Environmental Sciences
