Raymond Gilmore

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Raymond Gilmore
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, San Diego Natural History Museum

Raymond Maurice Gilmore (1 January 1907 - 31 December 1983) was an American zoologist and a recognized authority on whales. He conducted the first census of California gray whales and is credited with creating public interest in their conservation by leading the earliest whale-watching excursions for the San Diego Natural History Museum.[1][2][3] Guiding groups of whale-watchers beginning in 1958, Gilmore was the first onboard naturalist in San Diego; he continued his popular excursions for 25 years.[4] Known as the father of whale watching, Gilmore was the leading expert on California gray whales.[5]

Biography

Gilmore was born in Ithaca, New York, on January 1, 1907, the son of Elizabeth M. Hitchcock and agronomist John W. Gilmore.[6] He was raised in Honolulu, Hawai'i and Berkeley, California. Gilmore received both his A.B. degree (1930, Zoology) and his M.A. (1933, Zoology and Anthropology) from the University of California, Berkeley. He was the Virginia Barret Gibbs Scholar at Harvard University (1934-1935), and completed his PhD in zoology at Cornell University in 1942.[7]

From 1935 to 1938, Gilmore worked for the International Health Division of the

Julian Haynes Steward's Handbook of South American Indians.[8]

From 1946 to 1958, Gilmore worked for the

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, first in the San Francisco Bay area, and from 1952, on the Scripps Institution of Oceanography campus in La Jolla. In 1954, participating in Carl L. Hubbs's seven-year gray whale breeding survey, Gilmore (with Gifford C. Ewing) discovered the species's mainland calving sites in the Gulf of California.[7] In 1969, Gilmore led a National Science Foundation research team to Antarctica; on the expedition, the team discovered the breeding grounds of the right whale off the coast of Argentina.[7]

Gilmore's association with the San Diego Natural History Museum began in the early 1950s, and in 1955, he was named a Research Associate in Marine Mammals. Retiring from the Fish and Wildlife Service in 1972, Gilmore expanded his involvement in cetology at the museum, opening the Office of Marine Mammal Information in 1977. He popularized whale conservation and promoted public education via radio, television, popular writing, and guiding public whale-watching excursions from 1958 until his death in 1983.[7]

Professional Societies

  • Phi Beta Kappa (Berkeley, 1929)
  • Phi Sigma (Berkeley, 1928)
  • Sigma Xi (Ithaca, 1942)
  • American Society of Mammalogists (1925)
  • American Society of Systematic Zoologists (1948)

Selected publications

References

  1. ^ "R. M. Gilmore, Whale Expert, Dies on Brink of Expedition". New York Times. January 4, 1984.
  2. ^ "Raymond Gilmore, expert on whales". Chicago Tribune. January 3, 1984.
  3. ^ Jones, Lanie (January 2, 1984). "R. M. Gilmore, Whale Watcher, Is Dead at 77". Los Angeles Times.
  4. ISBN 978-1-84593-345-6
    .
  5. ISBN 978-1-55963-088-7
    .
  6. ^ University of California (System) Academic Senate. "John Washington Gilmore, Agronomy: Davis. University of California: In Memoriam, 1942". Calisphere.
  7. ^ a b c d e Rea, Amadeo M. (Spring 1984). "Raymond Maurice Gilmore". Environment Southwest (505): 1–8.
  8. ^ Gilmore, Raymond M. (1950). "Fauna and Ethnozoology of South America". Physical Anthropology, Linguistics and Cultural Geography of South American Indians (Series: Bulletin / Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology). 6 (143): 345–463.

External links

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