Frank Chapman (ornithologist)
Frank Chapman | |
---|---|
Born | Frank Michler Chapman June 12, 1864 |
Died | November 15, 1945 | (aged 81)
Known for | Audubon Christmas Bird Count |
Awards | Daniel Giraud Elliot Medal (1917) John Burroughs Medal (1929) |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Ornithology |
Institutions | American Museum of Natural History |
Author abbrev. (zoology) | Chapman |
Frank Michler Chapman (June 12, 1864 – November 15, 1945) was an American
Biography
Chapman was born in the West Englewood section of present-day Teaneck, New Jersey, and attended Englewood Academy.[2][3] He joined the staff of the American Museum of Natural History in 1888 as assistant to Joel Asaph Allen. In 1901 he was made associate Curator of Mammals and Birds and in 1908 Curator of Birds.
Chapman came up with the original idea for the Audubon
In the winter seasons, starting from his mother's home in Gainesville, Florida, he made numerous field trips to collect small mammals and birds; thus he went to various localities in Florida, Texas, Cuba, Trinidad, B. W. I., Yucatan and Vera Cruz, Mexico, and later to many countries in South America. The story of his local expeditions in the United States and of his one visit to England is told in his Camps and Cruises of an Ornithologist (1908) and much later his many expeditions to Mexico, Central and South America are dealt with in his all too brief, authentic Autobiography of a Bird Lover (1933).[9]
Chapman fathered one child, Frank Chapman, Jr., who first married
Chapman was interred at
The Legacy of Distribution of Bird-life in Colombia
Published in 1917, Distribution of Bird-life in Colombia collated data and records from Chapman and the American Museum of Natural History’s eight ornithological expeditions into Colombia.[11][12] These expeditions, like others in the 1910s, emphasized the collection of avian specimens as the predominant form of data collection.[11][12] Chapman and his team from the American Museum of Natural History collected 15, 775 avian specimens from their expeditions, along with 1,600 mammal specimens.[12]
Later
The Colombia Resurvey Project is a collective of researchers who began reproducing Frank Chapman’s original expeditions in 2020.[13] The goals of this project according to its website is “to document the current status and past changes of bird assemblages and their habitats throughout the country, and to establish a quantitative, publicly-available database for future assessments and monitoring”.[13] The surveys carried out in this project have expanded upon the methodology of studies from the 2010s, incorporating citizen training and citizen-led data collection.[14] Additional modifications to the project’s resurveys included decolonial practices such as emphasizing and crediting local contributors and sharing information gained from the studies to support long term conservation efforts in the study’s vicinity.[14] Another all-women expedition led by members of the Resurvey project occurred in 2020.[15] This project was reportedly inspired by the team member's rediscovery of Elizabeth Kerr's contributions to Chapman's and the American Museum of Natural History’s collections.[15] Letters between Kerr and Chapman owned by the American Museum of Natural History suggest that Elizabeth Kerr was the first women to partake in ornithological expeditions in Colombia, and made significant specimen contributions to the museum's collections.[15] These specimen were often identified by Chapman himself, and in some instances included newly identified species.[15] One such species, the Choco tinamou (Crypturellus kerriae), was named in her honor by Chapman.[15]
Publications
As well as numerous papers in scientific journals and magazines such as the
- (1894). Visitors' Guide to the Local Collection of Birds in the American Museum of Natural History.
- (1895). Handbook of Birds of Eastern North America.
- (1897). Bird-Life: A Guide to the Study of Our Common Birds.
- (1898). Four-Footed Americans and Their Kin. (by Ernest Seton Thompsonas illustrator)
- (1899). Descriptions of five apparently new birds from Venezuela. Bull. of the American Museum of Natural History 12 ( 9): 153-156
- (1900). Bird Studies with a Camera.
- (1901). The Revision of the Genus Capromys.
- (1903). Color Key to North American Birds; (1912) revised edition
- (1903). The Economic Value of Birds to the State.
- (1907). Warblers of North America.
- (1908). Camps and Cruises of an Ornithologist.
- (1910). The Birds of the Vicinity of New York City: A guide to the Local Collection.
- (1915). The Travels of Birds.
- (1917). The Distribution of Bird-life in Colombia.
- (1919). Our Winter Birds.
- (1920). What Bird is That?.
- (1921). The Habit Groups of North American Birds.
- (1921). The Distribution of Bird Life in the Urubamba Valley of Peru. A report of the birds collected by the Yale University - National Geographic Society's expedition.
- (1926). The Distribution of Bird-life in Ecuador.
- (1929). My Tropical Air Castle.
- (1931). The Upper Zonal Bird-Life of Mts Roraima and Duida.
- (1933). The Autobiography of a Bird-Lover.[16]
- (1938). Life in an Air Castle: Nature Studies in the Tropics.
References
- ^ Vuilleumier, François (2005). "Dean of American Ornithologists: The Multiple Legacies of Frank M. Chapman of the American Museum of Natural History," The Auk, Vol. 122, No. 2, pp. 389-402.
- ^ Zimmer, David M. "A Bird’s-Eye View: Frank Chapman was a pioneer in bird conservation", The Record, April 25, 2024. Accessed April 25, 2024. "Born in June 1864 in West Englewood (now Teaneck), Chapman grew up next to an orchard on then-rural Teaneck Road. After he graduated from Englewood High School at 16, he followed his father to Wall Street and entered the banking industry."
- ^ Chapman, Frank Michler (United States 1864-1945), Western Kentucky University. Accessed March 12, 2008. "born in West Englewood, New Jersey, on 12 June 1864."
- ^ Frank M. Chapman (1900), Bird studies with a camera with introductory chapters on the outfit and methods of the bird photographer, New York D. Appleton and company
- ISBN 978-0-8166-5478-9
- ^ "Daniel Giraud Elliot Medal". National Academy of Sciences. Archived from the original on 29 December 2010. Retrieved 16 February 2011.
- ^ "Frank M. Chapman". www.nasonline.org. Retrieved 2023-09-11.
- ^ "APS Member History". search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved 2023-09-11.
- ^ Gregory, William King (1947). "Frank Michler Chapman 1864–1945". Biographical Memoirs V.25—Fifth Memoir (PDF). National Academy of Sciences (NAS). pp. 111–143.
- ^ Hevesi, Dennis. "Buff Cobb, Actress and TV Host, Dies at 82", The New York Times, July 21, 2010
- ^ S2CID 231873777.
- ^ .
- ^ a b "Colombia Resurvey Project". Colombia Resurvey Project. Retrieved 2023-02-24.
- ^ S2CID 244600597.
- ^ a b c d e Velandia, Omar. "Las mujeres que hicieron historia con la primera expedición femenina sobre aves en Colombia". www.humboldt.org.co (in European Spanish). Retrieved 2023-03-17.
- JSTOR 4077481.
Further reading
- Sterling, Keir B., ed. (1997). "Chapman, Frank Michler". Biographical Dictionary of American and Canadian Naturalists and Environmentalists. Greenwood Press.
- Vuilleumier, François (2005). "Dean of American Ornithologists: The Multiple Legacies of Frank M. Chapman of the American Museum of Natural History". The Auk. 122 (2): 389–402. .
- "Frank M. Chapman," in Tom Taylor and Michael Taylor, Aves: A Survey of the Literature of Neotropical Ornithology, Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Libraries, 2011.
- THE MAN WHO LOVED BIRDS: Pioneer Ornithologist Dr. Frank M. Chapman, 1864-1945," by James T. Huffstodt. Tallahassee: Self-published. (2022)