ABSTRACT
As humans have become aware of the extinction or imminent end of non-human animal species over the last 200 years, there have been active attempts to understand, confront, or memorialise the loss of species which have zero individuals remaining. This chapter examines monuments to animal extinction in public settings, covering several different types of public art, including statuary, murals, and funerary forms. Some of the monuments honour particular species that have become extinct, whereas others mark extinction as a general event. The wide array of monuments, which are located in Australia, the United States, and the United Kingdom, serve as witnesses to growing awareness of ongoing contemporary extinction and attempts to circumvent dystopian futures. The chapter reflects upon the author’s encounters with these monuments set up after the population of particular species had been reduced to none as a way of remembering the missing.
