John Dennis (ornithologist)

John Value Dennis (1915/1916 – December 1, 2002) was an American ornithologist and botanist.

Early life

John V. Dennis was born in 1915 in Princess Anne, Maryland to Alfred and Mary Dennis (nee Value). Alfred Dennis passed away when Dennis was a teenager. Mary operated a boarding house in Washington, D.C..

Dennis was an undergraduate at George Washington University. His education was interrupted by World War II. During the war, he served as a radar technician with the Flying Tigers aircraft unit in Yunnan, China.

He finished his undergraduate education at the University of Wisconsin, obtaining a degree in political science. This was followed by a master's degree in botany from the University of Florida. He started, but did not complete, a PhD in ornithology at the University of Illinois.

Work and contributions

Botany

In 1976, Dennis and fellow botanist Dr. C.R. Gunn wrote the guide ''World Guide to Tropical Drift Seeds and Fruits''. Additionally, Dennis co-authored ''Sea-Beans from the Tropics: A Collector's Guide to Sea-Beans'' With Ed Perry. While some of Dennis' work, like that on sea beans, the floatation of tropical drift seeds, are written from a more scientific perspective, Dennis' work also guided amateur gardeners and botanists, like ''The Wildlife Gardener'', which describes how to design a garden that attracts local wildlife. Dennis' work was often through a conservation lens, such as his book ''The Great Cypress Swamps,'' where he discusses the importance and history of swampland in the United States.

Search for the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker

Dennis studied woodpeckers extensively, and is credited with creating a repellent to keep woodpeckers off telephone polls.

In particular he was interested in, and searched extensively for, the critically endangered ivory-billed woodpecker in Cuba and in old-growth forests of the southeastern United States.

In 1948, working with Davis Crompton, he traveled to the Oriente Province of Cuba and located a subspecies, called the Cuban ivory-billed woodpecker, after it had not been reported there for several years. He reported a sighting in the Big Thicket of southeast Texas in 1966, which he called his "only good look at a North American ivorybill"; he returned in 1968, recording what he believed to be the bird's call.

Many ornithologists, including James Tanner, generally regarded as the leading authority on ivory-bills, were skeptical of both the sighting and the recorded bird. His sightings formed part of the basis for the creation of the Big Thicket National Preserve.

Bird feeding

He wrote ''A Complete Guide to Bird Feeding'' (1975), a book that increased interest in bird feeding. This book was largely credited for increasing interest in bird feeding in the United States, and was reprinted in 1994.

Personal life

Dennis married his wife, Mary Alice in 1945. They had two daughters, and a son.

Dennis died of a brain tumor in 2002 at his home in Princess Anne, Maryland.

Partial list of works

* Dennis, J. V. (1948). "A last remnant of Ivory-billed Woodpecker in Cuba." ''Auk'' 65:497–507.
* —— (1967). "The Ivory-bill flies still." ''Audubon'' 69(6):38–45.
* —— (1975). ''A Complete Guide to Bird Feeding''.
* —— (1988). ''The Great Cypress Swamp''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dennis, John
American ornithologists
2002 deaths
People from Princess Anne, Maryland
American ornithological writers
American male non-fiction writers
1915 births