Robert S. Ridgely

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Robert Stirling Ridgely (born January 14, 1946 ) is an American ornithologist and conservationist .

Life

Ridgely is the son of Beverly Sellman and Barbara Ridgely, née Tomkins. His father was a professor of French studies at Brown University . Robert Ridgely developed his interest in ornithology while serving as a lieutenant in the United States Army in the Panama Canal Zone . In 1971 he received a Bachelor of Arts from Princeton University . In 1972 he married Julie Ripley, the eldest daughter of ornithologist Sidney Dillon Ripley . In 1975 he graduated with a Masters of Science from Duke University in Zoology and in 1981 he received his Ph.D. from Yale University. PhD in forestry . In 1980 he became managing director of RARE (Rare Animal Relief Effort), a conservation organization founded in 1973 and headquartered in the National Audubon Society in New York City . In 2008 he became a voluntary trustee there.

In 1977 he traveled through South America for a year to assess the endangered status of macaws and other parrots . A number of expeditions followed, particularly to Ecuador , where the undisturbed habitat was shrinking at an alarming rate. Over the years, his exploration of little-known regions has led to the discovery of several new species of birds. These include the Orc parakeet ( Pyrrhura orcesi ) in 1980, the chestnut- bellied kotinga ( Doliornis remseni ) in 1989 and the rein-spotted ant pitta ( Grallaria ridgelyi ) in 1997. The latter was first described in 1999 by Niels Krabbe and his colleagues and named in honor of Ridgely.

From 1982 to 2003, Ridgely worked at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia as an expert on Neotropical birds, where he directed several conservation efforts. In 1998 Ridgely was one of the co-founders of the nature conservation organization Fundacion Jocotoco, whose aim is to protect the habitat of globally endangered bird species in the Andes of Ecuador and the associated biodiversity . It operates 10 nature reserves in Ecuador and also performs habitat restoration by replanting deforested areas with native trees and shrubs. From 2003 to 2006 he was Vice President of Endangered Species for the American Bird Conservancy and then joined the World Land Trust-US . He is currently Honorary President of the Rainforest Trust . He worked closely with the ICBP-IUCN Parrot Working Group and was a director of the Pan-American section of the International Council for Bird Conservation. He was also a member of the board of trustees of Hawk Mountain Sanctuary in Pennsylvania and a member of local conservation agencies.

In 1976 Robert Ridgely's first book A Guide to the Birds of Panama was published , which was illustrated by John A. Gwynne and which was published in an expanded edition in 1989 under the title A Guide to the Birds of Panama with Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Honduras . This work is considered pioneering work for subsequent field guides and played an important role in popularizing bird watching in Panama. In 1982 he began preparations for his four-volume monumental work The Birds of South America . The first two volumes, The Oscine Passerines and The Suboscine Passerines , which were illustrated by Guy Tudor , appeared in 1989 and 1994. In 1989, in collaboration with John S. Dunning, he published the field guide South American Birds: A Photographic Aid to Identification . In 1996 Ridgely was part of the team of authors on Wings from Afar: An Ecoregional Approach to Conservation of Neotropical Birds in South America , published in collaboration with The Nature Conservancy . In 1998 the English-Spanish field guide An Annotated Checklist of the Birds of Mainland Ecuador was published . In 2001 the two-volume work The Birds of Ecuador: Status, Distribution and Taxonomy was published, illustrated by Paul J. Greenfield. In 2010 the work Birds of Brazil: The Pantanal and Cerrado of Central Brazil was published in collaboration with the Wildlife Conservation Society . In 2016 the follow-up volume Birds of Brazil: The Atlantic Forest of Southeast Brazil, including São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro was published.

Awards and dedication names

In 2001 Ridgely received the Eisenmann Medal from the Linnaean Society of New York and in 2006 the Chandler Robbins Distinguished Service Award from the American Birding Association . In 2011 he received the Ralph W. Schreiber Conservation Award from the American Ornithologists' Union . This award is presented annually to an individual who has made exceptional scientific contributions to the conservation of birds and their habitats. In addition to the already mentioned rein-spot ant pitta, the South American snail snake species Sibon bobridgely was named after Robert Ridgely in 2018 .

literature

  • Robert S. Ridgely: American Men & Women of Science: A Biographical Directory of Today's Leaders in Physical, Biological, and Related Sciences. Gale, 2008. Biography In Context, accessed January 20, 2019.
  • Bo Beolens, Michael Watkins, Michael Grayson: The Eponym Dictionary of Birds. Bloomsbury Publishing 2014, p. 467.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Robert Ridgely Fiance of Julie Ripley. The New York Times, December 12, 1971
  2. ^ Charles A. Krause: Ripley's Son-in-Law Given Smithsonian Aid for Work. The Washington Post March 15, 1977
  3. ^ Niels Krabbe, DJ Agro, NH Rice, M. Jacome, L. Navarrete, Francisco Sornoza Molina: A New Species of Antpitta (Formicariidae: Grallaria) from the Southern Ecuadorian Andes , The Auk, Vol. 116, No. 4, October 1999, pp. 882-890
personal data
SURNAME Ridgely, Robert S.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ridgely, Robert Stirling (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American ornithologist and conservationist
DATE OF BIRTH January 14, 1946