As far as end-of-life honors go, not much beats a monument. If your head ever ends up cast in bronze, it’s a pretty safe bet that you accomplished something important. People aren’t made to walk under the statue of some schmo before entering a building or a park, so if you want to be glinting in the sun long after your physical body has perished, you better start working on something big.
Of course, it’s not just humans that can have an effect on history. Shamefully, though, the monuments of the world are overly tilted toward the bipedal, which is unfortunate, because monuments of accomplished animals are absolutely delightful.
To that end, here are five monuments to animals of the past that will brighten your day — outside of the whole “they’re dead” thing, obviously.
Monument to the Laboratory Mouse
This thoroughly adorable memorial stands in Novosibirsk, Russia, in front of the Institute of Cytology and Genetics. It’s a tribute that’s long overdue to the unimaginable number of little mice that have unknowingly given their lives in the pursuit of science. It seems like humans can’t pull off even the most basic experiment without sending a couple of mice to the big cheese wheel in the sky, so the least we could do is give them a statue.
Now, are mice able to appreciate or recognize the statue in any way? That’s an experiment I’d like to see, even though we’d probably still somehow manage to kill one.
Laika the Space Dog
Let’s be clear, there are plenty of things that Russia shouldn’t be applauded for. Making sure famous animals get cool statues, though, is one positive thing that they’re all over. This one commemorates Laika the Space Dog, who was sent into space in 1957. Unfortunately, the details of the story are less heartwarming than the monument. Laika was a stray dog that the Russians thought was cute enough to get a lot of media coverage, and they fired her into space where she almost immediately died. FWIW: Her corpse did orbit the earth over 2,000 times.
Balto
Yes, that Balto, the one you probably watched a movie about as a kid. The heroic husky wasn’t a dog invented whole or half-cloth to make money off adorable animated animals. Balto was a real sled dog that really traveled almost 700 miles in a blizzard with medicine to treat the residents of Nome, Alaska, who were laid up with a real humdinger of a diphtheria outbreak. Years later, he was rewarded for his efforts with a statue in New York City’s Central Park. Also, by being voiced by Kevin Bacon, which ain’t half bad either.
Secretariat
Sometimes, an animal can earn not one, but multiple statues across the country just for being among the best versions of that animal ever. Such is the case with famous racehorse Secretariat, who was asked for nothing more than to be really, really fast, and provided. He’s one of only 13 horses ever to win the Triple Crown, and earned himself monuments aplenty (including the one above at Belmont Park on Long Island), a movie and a Wikipedia page with a length that would make most humans jealous.
Winnipeg the Bear
I understand that, due to the nature of consciousness, most of the animals on this list don’t understand exactly what they achieved. Winnipeg the bear, the bear memorialized in this statue at the London Zoo, has nothing to understand, because his achievements had nothing to do with him. Winnipeg was just a cute bear, adopted by soldiers and eventually donated to the zoo.
The reason for the enduring fame, and the cast bronze representation, is that Winnipeg was beloved by a young boy named Christopher Robin, whose father was A.A. Milne. In fact, you probably know him better from the nickname Christopher Robin gave him: Winnie.