According to Jane Goodall in her book Hope for Animals,[6] the Duke was instrumental in saving the milu (or Père David's deer), which was already extinct by 1900 in its native China.

He gifted Himalayan tahr to the New Zealand government in 1903; of the three males and three females, five survived the journey and were released near the Hermitage Hotel at Mount Cook Village.

Himalayan tahr are near-threatened in their native India and Nepal, but are so numerous in New Zealand's Southern Alps that they are hunted recreationally.

A statue of a Himalayan tahr was unveiled in May 2014 at Lake Pukaki and dedicated by Henrietta, Dowager Duchess of Bedford.

He also gifted many to other estates across the UK and introduced a group to Regents Park, the ancestors of the majority of squirrels in London today.

[8] Bedford was also interested in horticulture, through the orchards at the Woburn estate, and along with Spencer Pickering performed early work into what would now be described as allelopathy between different plant species, the results of which can be found in academic publications.

[1] His grandson Ian Russell, 13th Duke of Bedford describes him as follows: "A selfish, forbidding man, with a highly developed sense of public duty and ducal responsibility, he lived a cold, aloof existence, isolated from the outside world by a mass of servants, sycophants and an eleven-mile wall."

Herbrand and Hastings Russell feature largely in the 13th Duke's memoir, A Silver-Plated Spoon (World Books, 1959).