When he was unable to collect a specimen for himself, he often obtained it from a supply house known as Lattin's, or by trading with other collectors. [91], By the end of 1914, Beebe's pheasant monograph was essentially complete in the manuscript. [194][217] He later described the sense of destiny that marked his introduction to the estate: We had climbed the winding road in a tropical downpour. [219] In 1953, Beebe donated both properties to the New York Zoological Society for one dollar,[211] giving him the position of one of the society's "Benefactors in Perpetuity". GROVELAND ~ William Wayne "Bill" Beebe, 76, of Groveland, passed away at 10:23 a.m. Sunday, September 20, 2020 at UnityPoint Health - Methodist in Peoria.He passed on what would have been his 52nd wedding anniversary. [95], In 1916, Beebe traveled to Georgetown in pursuit of his earlier goal of establishing a permanent field research station in Guiana. The goal of this expedition was to study the area's undersea fauna utilizing dredging and helmet diving, and Beebe and his team were surprised by the diversity of animals that they encountered there. [159], With the financial help of his sponsors, Beebe planned to use his new research station on Nonsuch Island to conduct a thorough study of an 8-mile (13km) square area of ocean, documenting every living thing they could find from the surface to a depth of 2 miles (3.2km). [48], Although Beebe continued to shoot animals when it was necessary for examining them scientifically, he no longer regarded adding to a collection as a valid reason to take a life. [72], The expedition's next destination was Sarawak, on the island of Borneo. [143] While A Monograph of the Pheasants had been a factual account of this expedition, Pheasant Jungles was a somewhat fictionalized account, in which Beebe altered some aspects of his experience to appeal to a wider audience. [103] With his new position, Beebe no longer had the duty of caring for the zoo's animals, freeing him to devote himself fully to his writing and research. William Beebe, in full Charles William Beebe, (born July 29, 1877, Brooklyn, N.Y., U.S.died June 4, 1962, Simla Research Station, near Arima, Trinidad), American biologist, explorer, and writer on natural history who combined careful biological research with a rare literary skill. [194] Like Hollister before her, Crane would eventually become Beebe's lover during the long expeditions that Beebe made without Elswyth's companionship. In addition to the open nature of their marriage, Elswyth described in a 1940s interview with Today's Woman magazine that she enjoyed the knowledge that Beebe was attractive to women. Text size. "[185][186] It is unclear whether Elswyth knew of Beebe's affair with Gloria, but if she did she appears to not have minded it. [237] Both accounts agree that throughout his final years Beebe remained fond of playing practical jokes on his visitors at Simla,[237] and retained his sense of humor even within days of his death. Following his Bathysphere dives, Beebe returned to the tropics and began to focus his study on the behavior of insects. 488 Obituaries Search Beebe obituaries and condolences, hosted by Echovita.com. [280] Meanwhile, as Asa Wright's health began to fail in her old age, her friends began to fear that after her death her neighboring estate of Spring Hill might be lost to developers and established a trust to buy the estate and convert it into the Asa Wright nature center. BEEBE, William Michael February 19, 1954 - August 19, 2016. Leave a sympathy message to the family on the memorial page of William Beebe to pay them a last tribute. [13], In 1896, Beebe was accepted with advanced placement to Columbia University. [190] In 1937 Beebe went on a second expedition aboard the Zaca, documenting the native wildlife along the Pacific Coast from Mexico to Colombia. William Beebe's passing on Wednesday, November 23, 2022 has been publicly announced by Strano and Feeley Family Funeral Home in Newark, DE. William Beebe is regarded as one of the founders of the field of ecology, as well as one of the early 20th century's major advocates of conservation. Anchoring his ship the Lieutenant in the harbor of Port-au-Prince, he performed over 300 helmet dives examining the area's coral reefs and classifying the fish that inhabited them. L.A. Times photographer Bill Beebe, who waded into ocean to snap iconic JFK image, dies at 94 President Kennedy is surrounded by admirers on a Santa Monica beach in the iconic image taken by Los. William met and married Sandra K. Herring. Following Beebe's death, Jocelyn succeeded him as the director of the Department of Tropical Research and continued to run the Simla station along with the rest of Beebe's former staff.[240]. [96] During this expedition, Beebe was also amazed to discover the number and variety of organisms living under a single tree and pioneered the method of studying a small area of wilderness for an extended amount of time. [200], With the financial assistance of Standard Oil and the Guggenheim Foundation, Beebe established his next research station in Caripito, a small city in Venezuela around 100 miles (160km) west of Trinidad and Tobago. [116] At Kartabo Beebe discovered the phenomenon known as an ant mill, a column of ants following itself in an endless loop until nearly all of them died of exhaustion. [174], In 1931, Beebe and Barton's Bathysphere dives were interrupted for a year due to technical problems and uncooperative weather. 1930 United States Federal Census. [169] The Bathysphere was lowered into the ocean using a steel cable, and a second cable carried a phone line which the Bathysphere's occupants used to communicate with the surface, as well as an electrical cable for a searchlight to illuminate animals outside the Bathysphere. [191] Beebe described his two expeditions onboard the Zaca in his books Zaca Venture and The Book of Bays, in which he emphasized his concern for threatened habitats and his dismay at human destruction. [151] He later went so far as to suggest that beachfront homes would someday contain their own underwater gardens, to be experienced with the help of diving helmets: If you wish to make a garden, choose some beautiful slope or reef grotto and with a hatchet chop and pry off coral boulders with waving purple sea-plumes and golden sea-fans and great particolored anemones. [249] Beebe also disapproved of the eugenic ideas advocated by many biologists in the early 20th century, including some of his contemporaries at the zoo, although this was largely out of fear that these ideas would alienate friends of the zoo and cause divisions among its staff. [264] However, Beebe's prolific writing for a popular audience had a downside, in that other scientists of his time were reluctant to hold him in high accord because they regarded him as a popularizer. These expeditions formed the basis for a large quantity of writing for both popular and academic audiences, including an account of his pheasant expedition titled A Monograph of the Pheasants and published in four volumes from 1918 to 1922. [143] The book which resulted from this, titled Pheasants: Their Lives and Homes (also known by the title Pheasants of the World), was released in 1926 and received the John Burroughs Medal. [19], In November 1897, Frank Chapman sponsored Beebe to become an associate member of the American Ornithologists' Union, and the following month Beebe gave his first professional lecture on ornithology to a society called Uncle Clarence's Bergen Point Culture Club. The first issue of the journal contained twenty papers, ten of which were written by Beebe, and two more of which were jointly written by him and Lee Saunders Crandall, the zoo's assistant curator of birds. [101] During a second trip to Kalacoon while his wrist healed, Beebe was further devastated to discover that due to wartime demand for rubber, the entire jungle surrounding the house had been clear-cut to make room for rubber trees. He was born January 23, 1941 in Toledo Ohio to Ronald Sinclair and Mary Jane (Buermile) Beebe. [234] Beebe also began to be afflicted with a throat ailment which may have been Sjgren's syndrome, although lacking a complete understanding of what caused it, Beebe and his doctors referred to it as "mango mouth". [114][263] This was particularly significant in the area of conservation, of which he was one of the most important early advocates. He was born in Chester, PA and attended Penncrest High School. Beebe admired Roosevelt's skill as a field naturalist as well as his advocacy of conservation, and Roosevelt's fame made his support highly valuable in Beebe's scientific endeavors. He attended and graduated from Hennessey High School. [69] After Beebe had finished his documentation in the eastern part of the range, Horsfall refused to accompany Beebe in the western part of the range, causing Beebe to leave him in the town of Jorepokhri and continue his work in the Western Himalayas without him. In return, Beebe would pay for other expenses such as chartering a ship to raise and lower the sphere, and as the owner of the sphere, Barton would accompany Beebe on his expeditions in it. This expedition marked the beginning of a shift for Beebe from ornithology to the study of tropical ecosystems. William Lee Beebe of Marietta, passed on, Friday (Aug. 2, 2013) at the young age of 30 due to injuries sustained in a motorcycle accident. [278] However, because Jocelyn's research required her to travel north for extended periods, by 1965 she had little time to keep the station running. William R Beebe age 79 of Delta, Ohio, passed away at Swanton Health care and retirement Center Sunday, October 25, 2020. The novel was an account of a young woman who falls in love with and eventually marries, a much older adventurer who strongly resembled Beebe. In response to this request, Beebe retorted: Boredom is immoral. [46][47] It also represented an important turning point for Beebe, because in contrast to his youthful fascination with adding animals to his collection, in this book he was beginning to emphasize the importance of wildlife conservation. As he observed the crater, Beebe realized that the air surrounding it was filled with noxious gases, and narrowly avoided suffocation before staggering away from it. [272] Beebe, however, continued to advance his Tetrapteryx hypothesis as late as the 1940s. Since the purpose of Kalacoon station had been to study the jungle, the jungle's destruction left Beebe with no choice but to close the station and return with its supplies to New York. [10][11] During his high school years Beebe developed an interest in collecting animals, particularly after receiving his first gun at the age of sixteen, and trained himself in taxidermy to preserve them. [94], Beebe undertook an expedition to Brazil in 1915, to capture more birds for the zoo. 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