Thane K. Pratt

Thane Kastle Pratt (born November 8, 1950 in Honolulu , Hawaii ), mostly Thane K. Pratt in publications , is an American ornithologist and wildlife biologist.

Life

Pratt is the son of Scott B. Pratt III and Brenda Pratt, née Cooke. After graduating from Hawaii Preparatory Academy in 1969, he enrolled at Colby College in Waterville , Maine , where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Biology and Ecology in 1973 . Between August 1977 and March 1980 he carried out a long-term study in Papua New Guinea as part of the preparations for his doctoral thesis . He checked the assumption that the seed dispersal by tropical forest birds is more effective in pure fruit-eaters than in partially frugivorous birds and studied the feeding behavior of birds and the seed fall patterns of plants in a mountain forest at medium altitude in Papua New Guinea. In 1983 he was with the dissertation Seed Dispersal in a Montane Forest in Papua New Guinea for Ph.D. from Rutgers University in New Brunswick , New Jersey . In 1986, in collaboration with Bruce Beehler and Dale A. Zimmerman, he published the field guide Birds of New Guinea , which is one of the standard works on avifauna in this region. In 2001, an Indonesian translation of the book was published under the title Burung-burung di Kawasan Papua: Papua, Papua Niugini, dan Pulau-pulau Satelitnya . A second, expanded and revised edition was published in 2014 and the supplementary volume Birds of New Guinea: Distribution, Taxonomy, and Systematics in 2016 . From 1989 to 2009 he worked as a wildlife biologist in the Pacific Island Ecosystems Research Center of the United States Geological Survey , which is located in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park . In 2009 he published the book Conservation Biology of Hawaiian Forest Birds .

Pratt's research focus is the ecology and conservation biology of forest birds in Hawaii, the Marianas and New Guinea . He conducted field studies on the breeding behavior as well as the sex and age determination of the Palilas ( Loxioides bailleui ) and wrote the article about this species in the standard work Birds of North America in 2002 . More Articles of Thane Pratt in this publication are the Po'ouli ( Melamprosops phaeosoma ), the Kauai Sickle clothes bird ( hemignathus hanapepe ), the Oahu Sickle clothes bird ( hemignathus lucidus ) to Maui Sickle clothes bird ( hemignathus affinis ) and 'akiapola'au ( Hemignathus munroi ) (all four in 2001).

Pratt is a research fellow at the Bernice P. Bishop Museum , Assistant Trustee at the Cooke Foundation, and a lecturer at the Volcano Art Center . He has been married to the botanist Linda W. Cuddihy (* 1950) since May 1993.

literature

• Friends of Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. Newsletter Fall 2011 (short biography on page 8)

Web links

• Bibliography by Thane Kastle Pratt at Researchgate
• Literature by and about Thane K. Pratt in the WorldCat bibliographic database