October 18, 1943 - September 4, 2020. [281] In 1974, Beebe's property was donated to the newly established Asa Wright Nature Center. [16], While attending Columbia, Beebe persuaded his professors to sponsor him and several fellow students taking research trips to Nova Scotia, where he continued his hobby of collecting, as well as attempting to photograph difficult-to-observe scenes of birds and other animals. [244] As a scientific writer who participated in both the popular and academic worlds, he occupied a similar role to the role later occupied by Stephen Jay Gould. [127] Beebe continued to battle depression during this trip to Kartabo, both over his earlier loss of Blair, and over the death of his mother Nettie, who had died shortly before the beginning of the expedition. [58] Another goal of this expedition was to find and capture a hoatzin, a bird whose clawed wings caused it to be considered an important link in the evolution of birds from reptiles. [89] Despite her assistance during the pheasant expedition, Beebe excised any mention of her from the monograph he was preparing based on the data gathered during it. Beebe's Tetrapteryx hypothesis is now regarded as prescient for its prediction of both the anatomy and likely gliding posture of Microraptor gui,[274] which Richard O. Prum has described as "[looking] as if it could have glided straight out of the pages of Beebes notebooks. [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. [263], A lingering controversy exists in ichthyology over the validity of the four species Beebe described based on visual descriptions only, which he had observed during his Bathysphere dives. Born in Brooklyn, New York and raised in East Orange, New Jersey, Beebe left college before obtaining a degree to work at the then newly opened New York Zoological Park, where he was given the duty of caring for the zoo's birds. [120] Passing through the Sargasso Sea on the way to the Galpagos, Beebe was fascinated by the diversity of life that could be found in the sargassum weed floating on the surface and spent several days scooping the weed from the water to examine the creatures that lived in it. Mr. Beebe was born on September 22nd, 1946 at Holland. Death Notice. [203] Although Beebe's research at Caripito was productive, he felt that the extremity of its wet-dry cycle made it impractical as a research station,[204] and the expanding oil operations in the region were in danger of destroying the local environment. Beebe compared the knowledge that could be gained of the deep ocean from dredging to what a visitor from Mars could learn about a fog-shrouded earthly city by using a dredge to pick up bits of debris from a street. [140] Observing the eruption from his ship for another two days, as well as again at a later point in the expedition, Beebe recorded how numerous birds and marine animals were killed after either failing to escape the lava or drawing too close to it in an attempt to scavenge other animals that had died. [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. In 1901, Beebe returned to Nova Scotia on his first expedition for the zoo, intending to collect marine animals by searching tide pools and with additional dredging. To prevent this possibility, he left all of his papers and journals to Jocelyn. 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. Published on September 4, 2020. [68] By this point Beebe was beginning to conflict with Horsfall, who was unaccustomed to such expeditions. A. Milne. [272] Beebe, however, continued to advance his Tetrapteryx hypothesis as late as the 1940s. William met and married Sandra K. Herring. [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. [122] During this expedition he documented the unique ways that animals that inhabit the Galpagos have evolved in response to the absence of predators. [150] She disliked the heat of the tropics and was unwilling to go with Beebe to Kartabo. Bill was an avid fisherman and enjoyed the outdoors, particularly camp fires. During this expedition, rather than focusing on either sea animals as he had at Nonsuch Island or on birds as he had earlier in his life, he attempted to document all aspects of the ecosystem. [115] Beebe was enthusiastic about the new station, and it proved very successful for conducting the same detailed analyses of wildlife within small areas that had been performed at Kalacoon. [213] He was by this point the only remaining member of the zoo's original staff,[214] and had produced more scholarly papers and publicity than any other employee. Beebe had far more field experience than either of the two others accompanying him on the expedition, G. Inness Hartley and Herbert Atkins, making this his introduction to the role of a mentor. For this gift, he was made a life member of the New York Zoological Society. This study yielded a collection of 3,776 fish of 136 species, many of them also new to science. [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. Leave a . [205], Rancho Grande was located at a mountain pass in a branch of the Andes known as the Venezuelan Coastal Range, which was an important migration route for butterflies, and the station proved very lucrative in the study of insects. Born August 7, 1944 in Manito to Rollin A. and Rosie B. Wedge these into crevices, and in a few days, you will have a sunken garden in a new and miraculous sense. [198], With the loss of their station in Bermuda, Beebe and Elswyth gave up on their compromise of finding a research station where they could both be happy. After following several leads which came to nothing, his goal was realized when George Withers, who owned a rubber plantation on the Mazaruni River, offered him the use of a large house on his property for this purpose. Age: 88 City: Anamosa Funeral Date 10:30 a.m., Saturday, 6/5, at United Church of Christ Church, Central City. [147] These dives involved several technological innovations: a watertight brass box which could be used to house a camera for underwater photography, and a telephone which was incorporated into the diving helmet, allowing the diver to dictate observations to someone on the surface instead of having to take notes underwater. [31] A week after her divorce from Beebe, Blair was remarried to their next-door neighbor Robin Niles, suggesting that the true reason for the divorce may have been cuckoldry. For his contributions to science, he was elected a fellow in the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Family and friends are welcome to send flowersor leave their condolences on this memorial page and share them with the family. A large number of military ships made docking difficult, most of the island's reefs were being destroyed to construct an airfield, and the combination of construction activity and pollution observed the sea life impossible. [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. Anchoring in a small cove, Beebe and his assistant John Tee-Van searched for an active crater where they could observe the eruption and were nearing exhaustion by the time they found one. [99] During his first season at Kalacoon in 1916, Beebe brought back 300 living specimens for the zoo. 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]. [175] A second year-long interruption occurred in 1933, and was caused in part by a lack of funds due to the Great Depression. Although this evolutionary model is now taken for granted, in William Beebe's time it was a novel idea. A MEMORIAL SERVICE will be held at St. Peter's Roman Catholic Church 100 Argyle Street, Regina, Saskatchewan on Thursday, May 12, 2005 at 11:00am. [226][227] Jocelyn accompanied him on this expedition for the purpose of documenting Asia's fiddler crabs. The last chapter was written by Blair and was an explanation of how to plan and execute a vacation in the wilderness. [256], William Beebe was a pioneer in the field now known as ecology. He is remembered for the numerous expeditions he conducted for the New York Zoological Society, his deep dives in the Bathysphere, and his prolific scientific writing for academic and popular audiences. [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. I was walking across our compound last month when a queen termite began building her miraculous city. [168], From 1930 to 1934, Beebe and Barton used the Bathysphere to conduct a series of dives of increasing depth off the coast of Nonsuch Island, becoming the first people to observe deep-sea animals in their native environment. [156], Although Riders of the Wind was partially based on Beebe's pheasant expedition,[157] Elswyth did not enjoy Beebe's current research. [4][5] Early in his life, his family moved to East Orange, New Jersey, where he began to acquire both his fascination with the natural world and his tendency to record everything he saw. William Beebe Obituary With heavy hearts, we announce the death of William Beebe of Enid, Oklahoma, who passed away on September 4, 2020. Governor Bols and Prince George subsequently offered Beebe Nonsuch Island, a 25-acre (0.10km2) island off the east coast of Bermuda, for use as a research station. William Thomas Beebe. [21], Osborn appointed Beebe to the position of assistant curator of ornithology. His theory that organisms must be understood in the context of the ecosystems they inhabit was completely new for its time and has been highly influential. William D Beebe. William 'Bill' Harley Beebe. [91], By the end of 1914, Beebe's pheasant monograph was essentially complete in the manuscript. To plant a tree in memory of William D Beebe, please visit Tribute Store . Beebe returned to Rancho Grande in 1948, where he completed several technical papers about the migration patterns of birds and insects, as well as a comprehensive study of the area's ecology which he coauthored with Jocelyn Crane. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. [126], In 1924, Beebe went on another expedition to his Guiana research station of Kartabo, intending to continue the detailed documentation of the tropical ecosystem that he had begun at Kalacoon. I saw them because I was looking up. Born December 7, 1930 in Dover he was a son of the late William "Earl" and Bessie Herron Beebe.An infant brother, William E. Beebe, also preceded him in death. [205] Unlike Beebe's other tropical research stations, which had been located in lowland regions, Rancho Grande was located on a mountainside in what Beebe described as "the ultimate cloud jungle". [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. William W. Beebe, Jr. of Silver Springs, Florida passed away on Wednesday, July 6, 2022 at the age of 64. As birds collect about the luxuriant growths of a garden in the upper air, so hosts of fish will follow your labors, great crabs and starfish will creep thither, and now and then fairy jellyfish will throb past, superior in beauty to anything in the upper world, more delicate and graceful than any butterfly. [12] Beebe's first article was published while he was still in high school, a description of a bird called a brown creeper, which appeared in the January 1895 issue of the magazine Harper's Young People. Predeceased by his father Ford Beebe, mother Anna Fraser Beebe, brother Dr. David Beebe, sister Janice Lise Beebe, niece Anna Beebe and brother-in-law Dave Lavallee. To plant a tree in memory of William D Beebe . In 1957, at the age of eighty, he was still capable of climbing slippery tree trunks to study bird nests. During the course of his expeditions, Beebe gradually developed an interest in marine biology, ultimately leading to his 1930s dives in the Bathysphere, along with its inventor, Otis Barton, off the coast of Bermuda. [229] Snow became a regular visitor to Simla,[230] and in return Beebe provided financial assistance for some of Snow's own research. In 1923, Harrison Williams agreed to finance such an expedition, and Beebe was provided with a 250-foot (76m) steam yacht called the Noma for this purpose along with a support crew. [121], Beebe's first expedition to the Galpagos lasted twenty days, broken into two ten-day periods, between which the Noma was forced to return to Panama for fresh water and coal. [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. [9] Although Beebe did not formally drop his first name "Charles" until 1915, before attending high school he was already commonly known as "William Beebe", as he would be known from this point onward. [212], In January 1950, the New York Zoological Society celebrated to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Beebe's work for them. [72], The expedition's next destination was Sarawak, on the island of Borneo. Dr. William A. Beebe of Weeki Wachee, Fla., formerly of Edison, died Tuesday at his home, surrounded by his loving family. [59][60] Beebe summarized this expedition in his book Our Search for a Wilderness, which was enthusiastically well-reviewed. 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. [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. [161] Beebe began planning to create an underwater exploration device, which he could use to descend into the depths and observe these environments directly. [187], Beebe continued to conduct marine research after 1934, but he felt that he had seen what he wanted to see using the Bathysphere and that further drives were too expensive for whatever knowledge he gained from them to be worth the cost. [125] The book in which Beebe summarized this expedition, titled Galpagos: World's End, was an instant best-seller and remained on the New York Times top ten list for several months. 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