Douglas Herrick, 82, Father of the Jackalope, Is Dead

NY Times ^ | 1/20/03 | DOUGLAS MARTIN

[socal_parrot]

ouglas Herrick, who gets both the credit and the blame for perhaps the tackiest totem of the American West, the jackalope — half bunny, half antelope and 100 percent tourist trap — died on Jan. 6 in Casper, Wyo. He was 82.

The cause was bone and lung cancer, his brother, Ralph, said.

Douglas Herrick lived in Casper, but it was in his hometown, Douglas, Wyo., that luck changed his life.

In 1932 (other accounts say 1934, 1939 and 1940, but Ralph Herrick swears it was 1932), the Herrick brothers had returned from hunting. "We just throwed the dead jack rabbit in the shop when we come in and it slid on the floor right up against a pair of deer horns we had in there," Ralph said. "It looked like that rabbit had horns on it."

His brother's eyes brightened with inspiration.

"Let's mount that thing!" he said.

That was tens of thousands of jackalopes ago. A jackalope, of course, is a legendary animal with a jack rabbit's body and the antlers of a pronghorn antelope, which resembles a small deer. The last syllable of the name comes from antelope. (Jackadeer? Nah.)

[socal_parrot]

RIP Mr. Herrick

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[Cultural Jihad]

Rest in eternal peace, Douglas.

Douglas Herrick, inventor of the jackalope, half bunny, half antelope.

[bybybill]

A friend of mine once bought a license to hunt Jackalopes.

[Lion Den Dan]

Truly immaginative.

[SLB]

The first Jackalope sightings happened only about 50 miles from home. Our farm was on one of the major migration routes for them. Hard to see them as they travel only at night and not in herds like other animals.

Douglas reaped the benefits of the Jackalope capitol of the world for years, although now almost all tourist areas of the West sprout with postcards or other Jackalope items.

[jslade]

I have a Jackalope mount on the wall behind my bar in my home. People will ask what it is. I tell them that they come from west Texas....the rabbits are so big they actually mate with antalopes. Some people actually believe it! Unbelievable.

[logos]

You can sell them city boys anything!

[Rebelbase]

People are so gullible. I once had a place in the mountains with nice view of a steep, hillside pasture. One day the cows were all grazing in one direction and a girl I was dating asked me why they did that.

I told her that mountain cows could only travel in one direction on a hill because evolution has made their uphill legs shorter than their downhill legs and if they turned around they'd fall over.

She fell for it.