George Bird Grinnell was born in 1849 in New York. He attended school in John James Audubon's mansion in Ossining, New York, where he developed a love for birds at an early age. George, as well as his brothers and sisters knew the Audubon family and were allowed to roam the grounds of their estate and play in the barn that held large collections of bird specimens and skins.
Grinnell furthered his education at Yale, where he studied under O.C. Marsh. While he was there Grinnell helped Marsh with his monograph on Cretaceous toothed birds and took part in Marsh's first fossil collecting expedition to the west in 1870.He graduated with only a mediocre record, but still maintained an intense desire to become a naturalist.
Grinnell served as a naturalist on Custer's expedition to the Black Hills in 1874. While there he developed an interest in what he could learn from the local Indian Tribes. He was well known for his ability to get along with the tribe elders, and the Pawnee eventually adopted him into their tribe. He also studied other tribes including the Gros Ventre and the Cheyenne, and his writings on the Indians during this time are considered some of the best in the anthropology field. He served as an advocate for Native Americans for the rest of his life and went on to work for fair and reasonable treaties with Indian tribes.
In addition to his studies on the Native Americans, Grinnell was also an advocate for environmental protection. He was editor of a weekly magazine for sportsman and naturalists called Forest and Stream, and used it to help him channel the dissatisfaction of outdoorsman with disappearing habitats and dwindling game populations into a fight to conserve natural resources. He advocated a game warden system to be financed by small fees from all hunters in order to ensure effective enforcement of game laws. His revolutionary regulation of hunting activity on the state level with financial support from the hunters themselves became a cornerstone for game management.
Grinnell was also active in the fight for habitat conservation. In 1882 he started an editorial effort to persuade Americans to mange timberlands efficiently . He was also involved with the preservation of Yellowstone National Park, and launched a campaign to help protect it against commercialization and to expose federal neglect. Theodore Roosevelt admired and supported Grinnell's efforts, and joined Grinnell's battle for Yellowstone Park before he became president. Grinnell's conservation philosophy served as the basis of the American Conservation Program when Roosevelt became president in 1901.
George Bird Grinnell founded the first Audubon Society in 1886 and began publication of the magazine the following year. He was a central figure in the fight for the environment and studies on Native Americans. He spent a lifetime protecting the land and worked for treaties for the preservation of America's wild lands and resources. He died in 1938 at the age of 89.
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Written by: Jillian L. Bird