Dennis's 1948 photo of a Cuban ivory-billed woodpecker demonstrated that this subspecies remained extant.

John Value Dennis (1915/1916 – December 1, 2002)[1] was an American ornithologist and botanist.

Dennis was an undergraduate at George Washington University but his study was interrupted by World War II. During the war, he served as a radar technician with the Flying Tigers aircraft unit in China. He finished his undergraduate education at the University of Wisconsin, obtaining a degree in political science. This was followed by a master's degree in botany from the University of Florida. He started (but did not complete) a PhD in ornithology at the University of Illinois.[2]

He studied woodpeckers in particular and searched extensively for the critically endangered ivory-billed woodpecker in Cuba and in old-growth forests of the southeastern United States. In 1948, working with Davis Crompton, he traveled to the Oriente Province of Cuba and located a subspecies, called the Cuban ivory-billed woodpecker, after it had not been reported there for several years.[3] He reported a sighting in the Big Thicket of southeast Texas in 1966, which he called his "only good look at a North American ivorybill";[2] he returned in 1968, recording what he believed to be the bird's call. Many ornithologists, including James Tanner, generally regarded as the leading authority on ivory-bills, were skeptical of both the sighting and the recorded bird.[4][5] His sightings formed part of the basis for the creation of the Big Thicket National Preserve.[6][7]

He wrote A Complete Guide to Bird Feeding (1975), a book that increased interest in bird feeding.[1]

He was born in Princess Anne, Maryland and died of a brain tumor there in 2002.[8]

Partial list of works

  • Dennis, J. V. (1948). "A last remnant of Ivory-billed Woodpecker in Cuba." Auk 65:497–507.
  • —— (1967). "The Ivory-bill flies still." Audubon 69(6):38–45.
  • —— (1975). A Complete Guide to Bird Feeding.
  • —— (1988). The Great Cypress Swamp.

References

  1. 1 2 "John V. Dennis, 86; Wrote on Feeding Birds". The New York Times. December 9, 2002. Retrieved October 29, 2019.
  2. 1 2 Barnes, Bart (December 7, 2002). "John Dennis Dies". The Washington Post. Retrieved October 29, 2019.
  3. ↑ Sykes, Paul W. Jr. (2016). "A Personal Perspective on Searching for the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker: A 41-Year Quest". USGS Staff – Published Research: 1026.
  4. ↑ Moser, Don (April 7, 1972). "The Last Ivory Bill". Life. pp. 52–60.
  5. ↑ Hall, Phil (April 1, 2019). "The holy grail of birds". Wag. Retrieved October 31, 2019.
  6. ↑ United States Congress (1969). Congressional Record: Proceedings and Debates of the ... Congress, Volume 115, Part 30. U.S. Government Printing Office. pp. 40392–40393.
  7. ↑ United States. Congress. Senate. Interior and Insular Affairs (1971). Hearing before the Subcommittee on Parks and Recreation of the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs United States Senate Ninety-First Congress Second Session on S. 4 To Establish The Big Thicket National Park in Texas. Washington, DC.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  8. ↑ Gallagher, Tim (April 25, 2017). The grail bird. ISBN 978-1-328-85911-2. OCLC 988087126.
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