Henry Sheldon Fitch

Henry Sheldon Fitch ( born December 25, 1909 in Utica, New York, † September 8, 2009 in Stillwater, Oklahoma) was an American zoologist and herpetologist.

Curriculum vitae

Fitch was born on December 25, 1909 in Utica, New York. The following year the family moved to Medford in the Rogue Valley in Oregon. There he grew up on a 0.5 -acre ranch and developed as a child very interested in all reptiles that he could find. In 1926 he enrolled at the University of Oregon, but moved for his thesis to the University of California at Berkeley, where he was the Master of Arts in 1937 and a doctorate ( Ph.D.) in Zoology acquired in 1933.

From 1938 to 1947 he worked for the Nature Protection Agency U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service ( USFWS ) as a field biologist in the Department of Pest and explored rodents such as squirrels, gophers and kangaroo rats. During the Second World War, he served from 1941 to 1945 as a pharmacist in the medical corps. He was in the United Kingdom, France and finally stationed in Germany.

In 1946, he married Ruby Virginia Preston, with whom he had three children. After some difficulties, regain his former post at the USFWS, he left the Conservation Authority in 1948 and accepted a position at the University of Kansas. There he worked as a zoology teacher and director of a 2.5 km ² area in Douglas County, which had been ceded to the University in 1947 by Governor Charles L. Robinson and initially served only the local cattlemen for grazing. Fitch was the first and only curator and made ​​it a species-rich nature reserve.

In this Natural History Reservation, he researched snakes and lizards, led by zoology and ecology courses for students and sat for five decades for the restoration and preservation of the area as a nature reserve. 1986 renamed the university it into Fitch Natural History Reservation.

1949 Fitch was a research assistant and in 1958 professor of the University. In 1965, he conducted research in addition to Costa Rica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Ecuador and the Dominican Republic. Thanks to his commitment managed to bring in Nicaragua a conservation program for the local iguanas, which entered into force in the 1980s.

1980 Henry Sheldon Fitch retired, but remained active until 2006, a herpetologist who studies on snakes and published numerous scientific articles.

The Fitch Award, which is awarded annually since 1998 by the American Society of Ichthyologists and herpetologists to an outstanding reptile and amphibian researchers, honoring him for his many contributions to the understanding of the systematics, ecology, natural history and for his commitment to the conservation of amphibians and reptiles.