Sidney Dillon Ripley

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Salim Ali (second from left in the front row), Mary Livingston Ripley (second from right) and S. Dillon Ripley (right)

Sidney Dillon Ripley (born September 20, 1913 in New York City , † March 12, 2001 in Washington, DC ), often called S. Dillon Ripley , was an American ornithologist and conservationist . From 1964 to 1984 he was Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution .

Live and act

Ripley's great-grandfather was Sidney Dillon , a railroad entrepreneur who was twice president of the Union Pacific Railroad . At the age of 13, Sidney Dillon Ripley took his sister on a trip to India , Ladakh and western Tibet , resulting in a lifelong interest in Indian avifauna . After studying at St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire, he graduated in 1936 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in law from Yale University. Since Ripley showed more interest in birds than in law, he then graduated from Columbia University with a degree in zoology . In 1936 he took part in a zoological expedition to New Guinea . In 1943 he received his Ph.D. in Zoology from Harvard University .

From 1942 to 1945 Ripley worked at the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the predecessor of the Central Intelligence Agency . He was responsible for training Indonesian spies, all of whom were killed during the war. In an August 26, 1950 article in The New Yorker magazine , Ripley's work was described as a reversal of the usual pattern of spies posing as ornithologists to gain access to sensitive areas. Instead, Ripley used his position as an intelligence officer to go bird watching in restricted areas. For his support of the Thai underground, Ripley was awarded a national prize by the Thai government. While at the OSS, Sidney Dillon Ripley met Mary Livingston, whom he married in 1949.

In 1947 Ripley went to Nepal. He became a close confidante of Jawaharlal Nehru and diplomatic relations between Nepal and the independent state of India enabled him to gather birds in the region. However, when Nehru learned of the OSS article in The New Yorker, Ripley was declared India's number one public enemy. The work of Salim Ali , Ripley's co-author of the Handbook of the Birds of India and Pakistan and Birds of Bhutan , has also been hindered. However, thanks to the mediation of Horace Alexander , a confidante of Nehru and Gandhi, the matter was settled. Ripley's OSS past had led scientists in India to be suspected of being CIA agents. David Challinor, a former administrator of the Smithsonian stated that many CIA agents were working in India and that some of them were posing as scientists. He went on to explain that the Smithsonian sent a scientist to India for anthropological research to interview Tibetan refugees from China-occupied Tibet, while also confirming that there was no evidence that Ripley worked for the CIA after the Had left OSS in 1945.

In 1938 Ripley joined the American Ornithologists' Union . In 1942 he became an elected member and in 1951 he was made a fellow. Between 1946 and 1964 he taught at Yale University, in 1950 he was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship and in 1954 a Guggenheim Scholarship . After being appointed professor, he was director of the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale University from 1960 to 1964 .

Ripley served on the board of the World Wildlife Fund for many years . From 1958 to 1982 he was the third president of the International Council for Bird Preservation (now BirdLife International ). From 1964 to 1984 he was Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. In 1967 he was a co-founder of the Smithsonian Folklife Festival and in 1970 a co-founder of Smithsonian Magazine .

Honors and Dedication Names

In 1966, Ripley was awarded the New York Zoological Society's gold medal . In 1985 he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom , one of the highest civilian awards in the United States. In addition, Ripley received honorary doctorates from 15 colleges and universities, including Brown University , Yale University , Johns Hopkins University , Harvard University and the University of Cambridge in England . The Smithsonian Institution's S. Dillon Ripley Center bears his name. The following taxa are named after Ripley: the Mangaia Rail ( Gallirallus ripleyi ) Neocrex columbiana ripleyi (subspecies of Colombia Crake ), Collocalia linchi ripleyi (subspecies of Linchisalangane ) Oligura castaneocoronata ripleyi (subspecies of Rotkopftesia ) Hydrornis irena ripleyi (subspecies of Malaiienbindenpitta ), Coracina mindanensis ripleyi (subspecies of the Philippines caterpillar ) and Phodilus badius ripleyi (subspecies of the masked owl ). He was also an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences (since 1968), the American Philosophical Society (since 1980) and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1984).

estate

Ripley intended to publish a comprehensive reference work on the South Asian avifauna. However, he got sick before he could realize this project. Ripley's assistant, Pamela C. Rasmussen , and illustrator John C. Anderton named the first two volumes of their work Birds of South Asia in 2005 . The Ripley Guide in honor of Sidney Dillon Ripley. A second revised edition of this book was published in 2012.

Fonts (selection)

  • Search for the spiny babbler; An adventure in Nepal. Houghton Mifflin CO. (1952)
  • A paddling of ducks . Harcourt, Brace, and Co. (1957)
  • A Synopsis of the Birds of India and Pakistan together with those of Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan, and Ceylon . Bombay Natural History Society. (1961)
  • The Land and Wildlife of Tropical Asia (1964; Series: LIFE Nature Library)
  • Handbook of the Birds of India and Pakistan , with Salim Ali (10 volumes, 1968–1974)
  • The Sacred Grove: Essays on Museums , Smithsonian Institution Press (1969)
  • Rails of the World - A Monograph of the Family Rallidae (1977)
  • A Pictorial Guide to Birds of the Indian Subcontinent , with Salim Ali (1983)
  • Birds of Bhutan , with Salim Ali and Biswamoy Biswas (1996)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Michael T. Hellman Curator Getting Around , The New Yorker, Aug. 26, 1950. pp. 31-49. On-line
  2. ^ A b Lewis, Michael (2002) Scientists or Spies? Ecology in a Climate of Cold War Suspicion. Economic and Political Weekly 2324-2332

literature

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Ripley, Sidney Dillon
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ripley, S. Dillon
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American ornithologist and conservationist
DATE OF BIRTH September 20, 1913
PLACE OF BIRTH New York City
DATE OF DEATH March 12, 2001
Place of death Washington, DC