Rollo Howard Beck was an
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
ornithologistOrnithology is a branch of zoology that concerns the study of birds. Several aspects of ornithology differ from related disciplines, due partly to the high visibility and the aesthetic appeal of birds...
, bird collector and explorer.
Beck's PetrelBeck’s Petrel, Pseudobulweria becki, is a small, recently rediscovered shearwater. It is dark brown above and on the head and throat. It is dark underneath the wings with a fairly distinct white wingbar. The belly and breast are white...
is named after him.
Early years
Rollo Howard Beck was born in
Los Gatos, CaliforniaThe Town of Los Gatos is an incorporated town in Santa Clara County, California, United States. The population was 29,413 at the 2010 census. It is located in the San Francisco Bay Area at the southwest corner of San Jose in the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains...
, and grew up in
BerryessaThe Berryessa District or North Valley in San Jose, California is located in the northeast portion of the city, between Coyote Creek and the Diablo Range foothills. The neighborhood borders Milpitas along Landess Avenue to the north and the Alum Rock neighborhood of East San Jose along Mabury Road...
working on apricot and prune orchards. He completed only 8th grade education, but took an early interest in
natural historyNatural history is the scientific research of plants or animals, leaning more towards observational rather than experimental methods of study, and encompasses more research published in magazines than in academic journals. Grouped among the natural sciences, natural history is the systematic study...
, trapping
gopherThe term gopher as it is commonly used does not relate to any one species, but is a generic term used to describe any of several small burrowing rodents endemic to North America, including the pocket gopher , also called true gophers, and the ground squirrel , including Richardson's ground squirrel...
s after school on neighborhood farms. One of his neighbors, Frank H. Holmes, was a good friend of the ornithologist
Theodore Sherman PalmerTheodore Sherman Palmer was an American zoologist.Palmer was born in Oakland, California and studied at the University of California. In 1889 he joined the Division of Economic Ornithology and Mammalogy of the United States Department of Agriculture under Clinton Hart Merriam. In 1891 he led an...
. Palmer also introduced Beck to Charles Augustus Keeler, who studied birdlife of the
San Francisco BaySan Francisco Bay is a shallow, productive estuary through which water draining from approximately forty percent of California, flowing in the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers from the Sierra Nevada mountains, enters the Pacific Ocean...
area, and Beck learned about upland birds hunting quail with Holmes. Beck’s interest and knowledge of birds grew, and he soon learned how to make ornithological specimens and mount birds for
museum collectionsA museum is distinguished by a collection of often unique objects that forms the core of its activities for exhibitions, education, research, etc. This differentiates it from an archive or library, where the contents may be more paper-based, replaceable and less exhibition oriented...
. He joined the
American Ornithologists' UnionThe American Ornithologists' Union is an ornithological organization in the USA. Unlike the National Audubon Society, its members are primarily professional ornithologists rather than amateur birders...
in 1894, and was among the first members of the newly formed
Cooper Ornithological SocietyThe Cooper Ornithological Society , formerly the Cooper Ornithological Club, was founded in 1893 in California. Its name commemorates James Graham Cooper, an early California biologist. It publishes the ornithological journal The Condor and the monograph series Studies in Avian Biology...
which formed in
San Jose, CaliforniaSan Jose is the third-largest city in California, the tenth-largest in the U.S., and the county seat of Santa Clara County which is located at the southern end of San Francisco Bay...
. He participated in early ornithological expeditions to the Sierra Nevada Mountains, Yosemite, and
Lake TahoeLake Tahoe is a large freshwater lake in the Sierra Nevada of the United States. At a surface elevation of , it is located along the border between California and Nevada, west of Carson City. Lake Tahoe is the largest alpine lake in North America. Its depth is , making it the USA's second-deepest...
with Holmes and
Wilfred Hudson OsgoodWilfred Hudson Osgood was an American zoologist.Osgood was working as a biologist in the United States Department of Agriculture from 1897 to 1909. Then he moved to the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, where he was assistant curator of mammalogy and ornithology from 1909 to 1921, and...
, and collected and helped describe the first eggs and nests of the Western
Evening GrosbeakThe Evening Grosbeak is a large finch. In the past, it was treated in a genus of its own as Hesperiphona vespertina, but is now usually placed in the same genus as the Hawfinch of Eurasia....
and
Hermit WarblerThe Hermit Warbler, Dendroica occidentalis, is a small perching bird. It is a species of New World warbler.Mature Hermit Warblers normally grow to be 4½ to 5 inches long. Hermit Warblers are dark gray in coloration on top, and white below, and their flanks are streaked with black. The wings...
.
California Channel Islands
In the spring of 1897, Beck headed south to
Santa Barbara, CaliforniaSanta Barbara is the county seat of Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Situated on an east-west trending section of coastline, the longest such section on the West Coast of the United States, the city lies between the steeply-rising Santa Ynez Mountains and the Pacific Ocean...
, where he learned to sail a moderate-sized schooner under captain Sam Burtis. He visited the islands of
Santa CruzSanta Cruz Island was the largest privately owned island off the continental United States, but is currently part-owned by the National Park service . The island, located off the coast of California, is long and from wide...
,
Santa RosaSanta Rosa Island is the second largest of the Channel Islands of California at 53,195 acres . Defined by the United States Census Bureau as Block 3009, Block Group 3, Census Tract 29.10 of Santa Barbara County, California, the 2000 census showed an official population of 2 persons. It is part of...
, and
San MiguelSan Miguel Island is the westernmost of California's Channel Islands, located across the Santa Barbara Channel in the Pacific Ocean, within Santa Barbara County, California. San Miguel is the sixth-largest of the eight Channel Islands at , including offshore islands and rocks. Prince Island, off...
, collecting and documenting birds as well as nests and eggs. Beck was the first to collect and document the differences of the Island Scrub-jays that live on the
Channel Islands of CaliforniaThe Channel Islands of California are a chain of eight islands located in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Southern California along the Santa Barbara Channel in the United States of America...
, now recognized as distinct from mainland forms.
Galapagos Islands
Later in 1897, while on his way back to the Sierras, Beck was invited to join an ornithological expedition to the
Galápagos IslandsThe Galápagos Islands are an archipelago of volcanic islands distributed around the equator in the Pacific Ocean, west of continental Ecuador, of which they are a part.The Galápagos Islands and its surrounding waters form an Ecuadorian province, a national park, and a...
organized by Frank Blake Webster and funded by
Lord Walter RothschildLionel Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild, Baron de Rothschild FRS , a scion of the Rothschild family, was a British banker, politician, and zoologist.-Biography:...
, of
Tring, EnglandTring is a small market town and also a civil parish in the Chiltern Hills in Hertfordshire, England. Situated north-west of London and linked to London by the old Roman road of Akeman Street, by the modern A41, by the Grand Union Canal and by rail lines to Euston Station, Tring is now largely a...
. The expedition was launched to study and collect giant tortoises and the land birds of the Galápagos, and here Beck also polished his sailing skills and became better acquainted with
seabirdSeabirds are birds that have adapted to life within the marine environment. While seabirds vary greatly in lifestyle, behaviour and physiology, they often exhibit striking convergent evolution, as the same environmental problems and feeding niches have resulted in similar adaptations...
s and the unique fauna of the Galapagos. Beck returned again to the Galápagos to collect more specimens around 1901, and he personally delivered these specimens to Lord Rothschild in Tring. While in Tring, he planned future potential collecting trips to
ColombiaColombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...
for Rothschild, and he returned to California by way of Washington, DC, in order to apply for the necessary permits.
Cocos and Galapagos
Back in San Francisco, Beck met with Leverett Mills Loomis, Director of the
California Academy of SciencesThe California Academy of Sciences is among the largest museums of natural history in the world. The academy began in 1853 as a learned society and still carries out a large amount of original research, with exhibits and education becoming significant endeavors of the museum during the twentieth...
. Loomis was interested in seabirds (especially
ProcellariiformesProcellariiformes is an order of seabirds that comprises four families: the albatrosses, petrels and shearwaters, storm petrels, and diving petrels...
), and hired Beck to collect in
Monterey BayMonterey Bay is a bay of the Pacific Ocean, along the central coast of California. The bay is south of San Francisco and San Jose, between the cities of Santa Cruz and Monterey....
, the Channel Islands, and the
Revillagigedo IslandsThe Revillagigedo Islands or Revillagigedo Archipelago are a group of four volcanic islands in the Pacific Ocean, known for their unique ecosystem...
of
MexicoThe United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
, while he waited for his Colombia permits. In 1905-1906, Beck was hired by the California Academy of Sciences to organize and lead a large sea-going expedition to
Cocos IslandCocos Island is an uninhabited island located off the shore of Costa Rica . It constitutes the 11th district of Puntarenas Canton of the province of Puntarenas. It is one of the National Parks of Costa Rica...
and the Galápagos Islands aboard the Schooner “Academy.” He organized scientific specialists on
botanyBotany, plant science, or plant biology is a branch of biology that involves the scientific study of plant life. Traditionally, botany also included the study of fungi, algae and viruses...
,
herpetologyHerpetology is the branch of zoology concerned with the study of amphibians and reptiles...
,
entomologyEntomology is the scientific study of insects, a branch of arthropodology...
, and
malacologyMalacology is the branch of invertebrate zoology which deals with the study of the Mollusca , the second-largest phylum of animals in terms of described species after the arthropods. Mollusks include snails and slugs, clams, octopus and squid, and numerous other kinds, many of which have shells...
, as well as ornithology. Together they created the most important scientific records and surveys of the region ever done, leading to our great understanding of the biota of the region. The great
1906 San Francisco earthquakeThe San Francisco earthquake of 1906 was a major earthquake that struck San Francisco, California, and the coast of Northern California at 5:12 a.m. on Wednesday, April 18, 1906. The most widely accepted estimate for the magnitude of the earthquake is a moment magnitude of 7.9; however, other...
and fire struck while Beck was at sea, so their collections and the schooner “Academy” acted as the meeting place and storage place for the California Academy of Sciences for several months after their return, and some historians believe that had Beck not been out to sea and collecting, the Academy would have suffered a lethal blow.
Beck married his wife and lifelong companion, Ida Menzies of Berryessa, in 1907. He went to work for
Joseph GrinnellJoseph Grinnell was a field biologist and zoologist. He made extensive studies of the fauna of California, and is credited with introducing a method of recording precise field observations known as the Grinnell System...
, the Director of the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, University of California, Berkeley, in the spring of 1908, and collected waterbirds for Grinnell’s studies of California birds. Before long, Beck was offered even more money by Dr
Leonard C. SanfordLeonard Cutler Sanford was an American surgeon and amateur ornithologist who served as a trustee of the American Museum of Natural History for nearly thirty years and who was instrumental in building up its bird collections....
, of
New Haven, ConnecticutNew Haven is the second-largest city in Connecticut and the sixth-largest in New England. According to the 2010 Census, New Haven's population increased by 5.0% between 2000 and 2010, a rate higher than that of the State of Connecticut, and higher than that of the state's five largest cities, and...
, to collect birds in
AlaskaAlaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...
for the well-known ornithologist
Arthur Cleveland BentArthur Cleveland Bent was an American ornithologist. He is notable for his encyclopedic 21-volume work, Life Histories of North American Birds, published 1919-1968 and completed posthumously....
, who was collecting for his studies of “The Life Histories of North American Birds”. He did much of the field work with the young
Alexander WetmoreFrank Alexander Wetmore was an American ornithologist and avian paleontologist.-Life:Wetmore studied at the University of Kansas...
, who had recently graduated from college.
Brewster-Sanford Expedition to South America
In 1912, Dr Sanford proposed a larger two-year expedition (that ended up taking five years) to
South AmericaSouth America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
for Rollo and Ida, and financed by Mr F. F. Brewster. They traveled up into lakes and highlands of the
AndesThe Andes is the world's longest continental mountain range. It is a continual range of highlands along the western coast of South America. This range is about long, about to wide , and of an average height of about .Along its length, the Andes is split into several ranges, which are separated...
, along the coast, and out at sea to the
Falkland IslandsThe Falkland Islands are an archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean, located about from the coast of mainland South America. The archipelago consists of East Falkland, West Falkland and 776 lesser islands. The capital, Stanley, is on East Falkland...
and
Juan Fernández IslandsThe Juan Fernández Islands are a sparsely inhabited island group reliant on tourism and fishing in the South Pacific Ocean, situated about off the coast of Chile, and is composed of three main volcanic islands; Robinson Crusoe Island, Alejandro Selkirk Island and Santa Clara Island, the first...
, sailed around
Cape HornCape Horn is the southernmost headland of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago of southern Chile, and is located on the small Hornos Island...
in a 12-ton cutter, and up into the
CaribbeanThe Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...
. This work and these collections proved invaluable to
Robert Cushman MurphyRobert Cushman Murphy was an American ornithologist and former Lamont curator of birds for the American Museum of Natural History....
, who later published “The Oceanic Birds of South America” based in part on the Brewster-Sanford Expedition collection of Rollo Beck.
Whitney South Seas Expedition
In 1920 Beck was contacted by Dr Sanford who proposed an extended
South Pacific expeditionThe Whitney South Seas Expedition to collect bird specimens for the American Museum of Natural History , under the initial leadership of Rollo Beck, was instigated by Dr Leonard C. Sanford and financed by Harry Payne Whitney, a thoroughbred horse-breeder and philanthropist.Beck, an expert bird...
. The fieldwork was funded by
Harry Payne WhitneyHarry Payne Whitney was an American businessman, thoroughbred horsebreeder, and member of the prominent Whitney family.- Early years :...
of New York, and the specimens were bound for the
American Museum of Natural HistoryThe American Museum of Natural History , located on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City, United States, is one of the largest and most celebrated museums in the world...
. This became the longest and greatest of all Beck’s expeditions and, as with the "Academy" expeditions, he was joined by many other accomplished biologists with complementary skills, including E. H. Quayle, J. G. Correia, Dr F. P. Drowne, Hannibal Hamlin, Guy Richards,
Ernst MayrErnst Walter Mayr was one of the 20th century's leading evolutionary biologists. He was also a renowned taxonomist, tropical explorer, ornithologist, historian of science, and naturalist...
, E. H. Bryan Jr., and others. Beck left the expedition in 1929, after sailing through the Pacific, from
TahitiTahiti is the largest island in the Windward group of French Polynesia, located in the archipelago of the Society Islands in the southern Pacific Ocean. It is the economic, cultural and political centre of French Polynesia. The island was formed from volcanic activity and is high and mountainous...
to
New GuineaNew Guinea is the world's second largest island, after Greenland, covering a land area of 786,000 km2. Located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, it lies geographically to the east of the Malay Archipelago, with which it is sometimes included as part of a greater Indo-Australian Archipelago...
to
New ZealandNew Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
and visiting hundreds of islands between. Rollo and Ida Beck returned to the California in 1929 with over 40,000 bird skins and a large
anthropologicalAnthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...
collection. This expedition remains to this day the most comprehensive survey and study of birds in the south-west Pacific islands, and has been written up in dozens of important scientific monographs of birds. The specimens residing at the American Museum form the most comprehensive collection of Pacific birds anywhere.
Rollo and Ida Beck retired to Northern California, where they continued to study natural history and provide specimens of great scientific value. Most of these later specimens are housed at the California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco, and at the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology,
University of California, BerkeleyThe University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
. There is a smaller but very beautiful collection of mounted specimens on exhibit at the Pacific Grove Museum, in the town of
Pacific Grove, CaliforniaPacific Grove is a coastal city in Monterey County, California, USA, with a population of 15,041 as of the 2010 census, down from 15,522 as of the 2000 census...
.
Contributions to Science
The work of Beck and other early ornithologists was undertaken primarily to document biodiversity before it was lost forever without being recorded, and to understand the evolution and ecology of the regions. The work of Beck and others brought an awareness of and a catalog of our biodiversity that is essential to have in order to do modern conservation. Much of what we know about Western US birds and Pacific ornithology - from Bent's "Life Histories of North American Birds" to Murphy's "Oceanic Birds of South America" rests on the work of Rollo Beck and other early ornithologists like him. Our understanding of biodiversity and our modern conservation biology, much of which seems to be anti-collecting, owes much to these early collectors who worked so diligently to document and preserve voucher specimens of our wildlife.
Controversy
Human history is replete with examples of island species that were being persecuted by farmers, ranchers, hunters, sailors; were being harvested unsustainably; and were being decimated by introduced species. By comparison, scientific collectors were relatively few in number and seldom took large numbers of specimens of any one species, but competition between museums and private collectors to acquire the rarest of the rare put disproportionate collecting pressure on species whose populations were teetering on the brink.
Rollo Beck has been blamed for having collected a sample of
Guadalupe CaracaraThe Guadalupe Caracara, Caracara lutosa, is an extinct bird of prey belonging to the falcon family . It was, together with the closely related Crested and Southern Caracara, formerly placed in the genus Polyborus. It was also known as the Quelili or the Calalie.This species inhabited Mexico's...
s in 1900 which were being exterminated by goat herders who viewed the bird as a predator. At the time he assumed the birds were common on Guadalupe Island, but in retrospect he wrote that those he collected might have been the last. Beck also killed three of the last four individuals of the subspecies of
Galápagos tortoiseThe Galápagos tortoise or Galápagos giant tortoise is the largest living species of tortoise, reaching weights of over and lengths of over . With life spans in the wild of over 100 years, it is one of the longest-lived vertebrates...
Geochelone nigra abingdonii, which is native to the
Galápagos IslandsThe Galápagos Islands are an archipelago of volcanic islands distributed around the equator in the Pacific Ocean, west of continental Ecuador, of which they are a part.The Galápagos Islands and its surrounding waters form an Ecuadorian province, a national park, and a...
.
External links