Elliott McClure

Howe Elliott McClure, (April 29, 1910, Chicago-December 27, 1998, Camarillo, California) was an American ornithologist and epidemiologist who worked on bird transmitted diseases in Asia, particularly Japanese Encephalitis.[1]

Life and work

McClure was born in Chicago, Illinois and was the only child of Howe A. and Clara Phillips McClure. He studied in Seattle, Washington; Lewisville, Texas; and Danville, Illinois; obtaining his BS degree in 1933 with high honors, Phi Beta Kappa, and his MSc in 1936 at the University of Illinois, Urbana.[1]

His masters work was in entomology and he studied wind dispersed insects. He then worked on a Ph.D. in wildlife management at Iowa State University with studies on the mourning dove. He started bird banding in 1938 and personally banded close to 100,000 birds of 550 species, and may possibly hold the record for number of species ringed.[1]

He became a member of the American Ornithologists' Union in 1942, an elective member in 1973 and a fellow in 1990.[1]

After World War II, when McClure served in the U.S. Navy, he was hired by the State of California to study an outbreak of encephalitis in horses in Bakersfield. As a result of this work, Walter Reed Institutes of Research sent him on a mission to Japan in 1950. McClure went to Japan to study arthropod borne diseases. This work was supported by the US Army, 406 Medical General Laboratory. The work involved collecting bird blood samples for testing viruses.[1]

In 1958 to Japan where he worked as an ornithologist for the US Army Medical Research Unit. This led in 1963 to a major project to study migratory birds in Asia with funding by the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO). This was called the Migratory Animal Pathological Survey (MAPS) and it went on for 8 years and in 18 countries, including Thailand and Japan. This was continued until his retirement in 1975. The program banded 1,165,288 birds of 1,218 species of which 5,601 individuals of 235 species were recovered. O. L. Austin (Auk 92:626) favorably reviewed McClure's "amazingly productive" 478-page report, Migration and Survival of the Birds of Asia (U.S. Army component, SEATO, 1974). Lord Medway in his review (Ibis 117: 119–120) said

Thanks to Dr. McClure, training and experience in ringing has been obtained by a generation of biologists in eastern Asia, amateur and professional. From these men, in due course, activity may resurge.

During his work in Thailand, he took the only known colour photos from a living individual of the now probably extinct white-eyed river martin (Pseudochelidon sirintarae, Thai: Nok Ta Phong; from 1968 Nok Chaofa Ying Sirinthon). This (until 1968 as Nok Ta Phong only locally known) bird was officially discovered 1968 and has never been confirmed again after 1978.

McClure went back to Camarillo, California, teaching non-credit classes at Moorpark and Ventura community colleges, lecturing to various groups, and continuing to band birds. His publications included more than 150 articles and eight books, including Bird Banding (1984) and Whistling Wings (1991). He also wrote an autobiography Stories I Like to Tell: An Autobiography (published privately in 1995), which included many photographs of his family and collaborators.[1]

His association with the US Army led to his being disallowed into China and the USSR during the cold war years. Handbills were circulated in Tokyo in 1950 describing the work as being on biological warfare. McClure described the rumours that they "... were supposed to be inoculating birds with viruses and freeing them to take infection to China and other lands."[2]

Legacy

The Conejo Valley Botanic Garden along with the Conejo Valley Chapter of the Audubon Society has dedicated a trail to him by naming it the The Elliott McClure Birding Trail.[3]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Yoshii M & Kuroda N (1999). "In memoriam: H Elliott McClure, 1910–1998" (PDF). Auk. 115 (4): 1125–1126.
  2. ↑ McClure, Elliot (1995) Stories I like to Tell: An Autobiography, Elliot McClure [published by the author], Camarillo, CA.
  3. ↑ Conejo Valley Botanic Garden. Conejogarden.org. Retrieved on 2013-03-28.

External links

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