Friedrich Kasy

Friedrich Kasy (born September 25, 1920 in Vienna ; † February 4, 1990 ibid) was an Austrian zoologist and conservationist .

Life

Friedrich Kasy, the son of a train driver and a kindergarten teacher , grew up in the Floridsdorf district of Vienna , where he graduated from the secondary school there. He then attended a class at the Federal Training and Research Institute for the Chemical Industry in Hernals and graduated in 1940 . Immediately afterwards he was drafted into the Wehrmacht and served as a soldier at the front for almost four years. In 1945, like many soldiers, he was taken prisoner by the Soviets, which he had to spend in the Russian taiga for almost three years . At the end of 1947 he returned to Austria.

Kasy then began to study botany and zoology at the University of Vienna and completed this in 1952 with his dissertation in which he lectured on the water balance of butterfly pupae. After working as an assistant for four years, he joined the Natural History Museum in 1956 , where he initially researched crabs and arachnids . It was not until 1960 that he became head of the lepidopteran collection and thus the supervision of the butterfly department, which he headed until his retirement in 1985. He increased his expertise by also working at the British Museum of Natural History in London .

In addition to his knowledge of butterflies, Kasy was also considered a committed environmentalist. He used private funds to buy up properties in Lower Austria and Burgenland that would otherwise have fallen victim to construction projects. He had research areas in Deutsch-Altenburg , Gramatneusiedl and Jois . Research trips also took Kasy abroad, including to the Balkans , the Near and Middle East and Nubia . In Macedonia , he was even briefly arrested because he used a kerosene lamp to search for butterflies in foreign territory in the middle of the night and the military initially could not understand this behavior. After a few hours, Kasy was released.

Kasy was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in the late 1980s . He died in February 1990 at the age of 69.

Awards

• 1965 Science Prize of the State of Lower Austria Promotion Prize
• Nature Conservation Union Austria : Paul Tratz Medal
• WWF : Award for Conservation Merit
• Gold medal for services to the Republic of Austria
• Province of Lower Austria : Josef Schöffel Prize

The last two honors mentioned were later returned by Kasy. The reason he cited was the way politicians dealt with the demonstrators who were driven out by the police when the Hainburger Au was occupied.

Web links

• Austria Forum - Friedrich Kasy