Roger Tory Peterson

The Post-Journal
Monday, July 29, 1996
Cover story and page 3

"I would say that Roger Tory Peterson will probably be known as the person who brought bird watching and         birding to the world.

Peterson Dies At 87

Ornithologist, Wildlife Artist Known Worldwide

   By Manley J. Anderson

   Jamestown native Roger Tory Peterson - who won international acclaim as an ornithologist, wildlife artist, naturalist, lecturer, filmmaker, photographer and environmentalist - has died.
   Peterson died Sunday night at his home in Old Lyme, Conn., at the age of 87.
   Generally recognized as the world's greatest bird watcher, his renowned Peterson's Field Guides have sold millions of copies since the first was published in 1934.
   The series extends beyond birds to encompass many other areas of nature with his wife, Virginia, as collaborator on later editions. The more than 60 titles include wild-flowers, mammals, stars and butterflies.
   "I would say that Roger Tory Peterson will probably be known as the person who brought bird watching and birding to the world," said James M. Barry, president and executive director of Roger Tory Peterson Institute in Jamestown. "Before Peterson's field guides, most natural history guides were written for university or student-type audiences and his field guides were written for the average man on the street, so discovering the natural world would be easily open to all of us."
   "Peterson has already been recognized as one of the greatest naturalists of the 20th century and the reason is he is able to reach the general public with natural history education."
   William Mealy, naturalist for Chautauqua Bird, Tree and Garden Club and who has known Peterson since 1957, looked to Peterson as a role model.
   "I first met Roger at the wildlife film he presented in 1957 as the first one he presented in Jamestown and he became my mentor when I first joined the Roger Tory Peterson Junior Bird Club in the seventh grade at Washington Junior High School and ever since then he has almost  guided my life by my choice of courses in college which were built around bird watching and nature and because of my association with Roger Tory Peterson," he said.
   "I've lived in Texas the last 30 years, working on nature projects down there but our paths would cross every few years. One time I spent a week with him in Point Pelee National Park in Canada as one of the great migration points in the world.
   "The thing I've known about Roger is there isn't a time when he wasn't aware of nature. He would identify the invisible birds migrating overhead by their chirps and lead on to the rainforest, just one thing after another.
   "We also had a mutual interest in art. I've collected wildlife art for 40 years and he was the impetus for that. Every time we met, we'd discuss art.
   Peterson was born in Jamestown on Aug. 28, 1908 and this is where his lifelong interest in nature first bloomed.
   At age 11 he joined a Junior Audubon Club organized by one of his teachers, which was the start of his distinguished career. He graduated from Jamestown High School at age 16, with his yearbook photo caption stating "the makings of a great naturalist."
   After high school, Peterson studied at the Art Students League as a realism school of art and spent three years at the National School of Design, both in New York City.
   During his lifelong career as an artist, his original paintings and limited-edition prints have appeared in more than 50 private exhibitions and public museum collections nationally.
   As a teacher at Rivers School in Brookline, Mass., he termed Elliott Lee Richardson, U. S. attorney general during the Nixon Administration, as his greatest student. In turn, Richardson named Peterson as his most influential teacher.
   It was at the Rivers school that Peterson wrote and illustrated the book that would make him famous: "A Field Guide to the Birds."
   Peterson traveled the world in his bird and environmental observations, visiting every continent- including 12 trips to Africa and 15 to Antarctica.
   Between his travels, he returned several times to his hometown. Among them was the dedication Oct. 16, 1976, for the dedication of the original Roger Tory Peterson Nature Interpretive Building at the Jamestown Audubon Society's Burgeson Wildlife Sanctuary on Riverside Road.
   He also returned late in August 1993 for the dedication of the Roger Tory Institute of Natural History, an 23,000-square-foot structure on a 27-acre site at 311 Curtis St. in Jamestown.
   "The institute serves as a national center for teachers, exhibits by internationally known nature artists, educational research and curriculum development.
   The building also houses a 40,000-volume library of literature in the field of nature and environmental education.
   Peterson's long career gained him two Nobel Peace Prize nominations, along with 22 honorary doctorates.
   He has received almost every major award in the fields of ornithology, natural history, wildlife conservation and public service.
   Among organizations that have presented him medals for his work are the World Wildlife Fund, National Audubon Society, Explorers Club, American Birding Association, Garden Club of America and the Humane Society of the United States.
   Foreign awards include France's Geoffrey St. Hillaire Gold Medal of the Natural History Society and Sweden's Linnaeus Gold Medal.
   The Swedish medal was presented in 1976 by King Carl XVI Gustav on behalf of the Swedish Academy of Sciences. In 1980, Peterson accepted the U. S. Medal of Freedom, the county's highest civilian award, from President Jimmy Carter for his cultural contribution to America.
   Dillon Ripley, former head of the Smithsonian institution asked, "What if there had been no Roger Tory Peterson? ...he entered a world in which identification and the study of birds was the exclusive realm of the specialist with a shotgun and he transformed us into a world of watchers."
   "In this century, no one has done more to promote an interest in living creatures than Roger Tory Peterson, the inventor of the modern field guide," said Paul Ehrlich, the author of  The Birders Handbook. "His greatest contribution to the preservation of biological diversity has been in getting tens of millions of people outdoors with Peterson field guides in their pockets."
   Peterson has viewed all life as interlocking and has contributed to this understanding of the total relationship of nature through his writing, painting, lecturing and photography.
   His name has become synonymous for birds and the natural world.
   Funeral arrangements have not been announced.

10/31/2003