James C. Lewis (biologist)

James Chester Lewis (born January 31, 1936 in Kalamazoo , Michigan ) is an American biologist , ecologist and conservationist .

Life

Lewis is the son of Harold C. and Violet M. Lewis. In June 1954, he graduated from Lakeview High School in Battle Creek , Michigan. In 1957, he received a Bachelor of Science degree in wildlife management from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor . From 1957 to 1959 he was a conservation assistant with the Michigan Game Division. From 1959 to 1960 he worked as a district biologist and from 1960 to 1964 as a wildlife management research project manager for the Tennessee Game and Fish Commission. In 1963 he graduated with a thesis on wild turkeys ( Meleagris gallopavo ) to the Master of Science at Michigan State University in East Lansing .

From 1967 to 1977 he was first deputy director and then director of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service's Oklahoma Cooperative Wildlife Research Unit . During the same period he was an assistant professor and eventually an associate professor in the life sciences at Oklahoma State University .

In 1974 he became the Dissertation Ecology of the Sand Hill Crane in the Southeastern Central Flyway for Ph.D. PhD in Wildlife Ecology from Oklahoma State University.

From 1977 to 1997 he was a technical supervisor in the Office of Biological Services of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. From 1982 to 1984 he was director of the Georgia Cooperative Wildlife Research Unit and an associate professor at the University of Georgia at Athens .

From 1984 to 1997, Lewis was the coordinator and director of the whooping crane ( Grus americana ) reintroduction program . He was instrumental in the development of international agreements with Canada and thirteen US states to protect whooping cranes on their migration routes and in the wintering areas, worked on reintroduction projects at Grays Lake in Idaho and Florida, and was a representative of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service to the Avian Power Line Interaction Committee, a consortium of national utility companies that supported research and developed line markings to reduce collisions with the cranes. In 1970 Lewis published the book The World of the Wild Turkey . He has authored or co-authored six book chapters and more than 70 academic articles, and was editor of the first four editions of the Proceedings of the North American Crane Workshop, where he also served as co-chair. In 1995 he wrote the article about the whooping crane in the encyclopedia Birds of North America . In 2015 he published the novel One Chosen: The Spirit Of Living Creatures .

In addition to the whooping crane , Lewis dealt with the ecology of the sandhill crane and the Carolina pigeon , research on endangered species, deer and turkey management, and wild rabies .

Lewis has received many notable awards over the course of his career, including an Honorary Award from the Whooping Crane Conservation Association.

literature

• James C. Lewis: Ecology of the Sandhill Crane in the Southeastern Central Flyway , 1974 (Dissertation at Oklahoma State University with a curriculum vitae on page 226)
• James Chester Lewis. American Men & Women of Science: A Biographical Directory of Today's Leaders in Physical, Biological, and Related Sciences, Gale, 2008. Gale In Context: Biography, accessed January 12, 2020 (subscription required)
• About the Author (s) In: PG Rodewald (Ed.): Birds of North America , Version 3.0, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA (Biographical entry on Birds of North America Online, subscription required)

Web links

• Biographical entry with the North American Crane Working Group
• Bibliography at Researchgate
• Literature by and about James C. Lewis (biologist) in the WorldCat bibliographic database