James W. Wiley, 1943–2018

AmericanOrnithology.org Volume XX, 2019, pp. 1–3 DOI: 10.1093/auk/ukz037 RESEARCH ARTICLE James W. Wiley, 1943–2018 IN MEMORIAM Noel F. R. Snyder,1 Herbert Raffaele,2 Arturo Kirkconnell,3 and Joseph Wunderle4 P.O. Box 16426, Portal, Arizona, USA 371 Route 28, Unit 15, Harwich Port, Massachusetts, USA 3 Curator, National Museum of Natural History, Havana, Cuba 4 P.O. Box 490, Palmer, Puerto Rico, USA *Corresponding authors: Noel F. R. Snyder, ; Herbert Raffaele, ; Arturo Kirkconnell, ; Joseph Wunderle, 1 2 We meet few people in our lives who command unblemished lifelong respect and affection based on both their scientific accomplishments and their admirable personal qualities, and it is with profound sorrow that we recognize the passing of someone with these attributes, one of the most outstanding individuals in the tribe of field ornithologists— James Warren Wiley. Jim died on September 19, 2018, a victim of the cancer he had been battling for a number of years. This fate seems to us a supreme irony for a person who always kept himself in the best of physical shape, even to the extent of him representing the USA as a cyclist at the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City. Jim’s cancer was first diagnosed in Cuba, where he devoted most of his last years to continuing field studies and to guiding the development of this country’s budding ornithologists. It had been earlier misdiagnosed as just an infection by stateside physicians. In our view, Jim’s accomplishments in Cuba and on other islands of the West Indies rank him as the most important ornithologist of the Caribbean in modern times, although his legacy also encompasses worthy achievements in other regions. Together with his wife Beth, who collaborated in some of his research and conservation projects over the years, he played a crucial role in guiding the truly desperate struggles to prevent the extinction of the Puerto Rican Parrot, but this is only one of his many pivotal efforts with West Indian birds, especially various psittacids, columbids, and accipitrids. His Cuban studies included intensive natural history research on the Cuban Parrot, the Cuban Parakeet, the Cuban Kite, Gundlach’s Hawk, Fernandina’s Flicker, and the Bare-legged Owl. Particularly comprehensive was his study of the Cuban Pygmy Owl. His last days of fieldwork, as his health was seriously declining, were focused on the Bee Hummingbird, the world’s smallest bird. James Warren Wiley was born to Robert Mark and Ruby Lorene Wiley on January 16, 1943, in Los Angeles. His sister Joanne’s remembrances of Jim as a young boy were of Jim Wiley on a field trip in Cuba. many adventures afield. He credited his twin aunts, Betty Wiley Searles and Jean Wiley Brockett, with instilling a love of wildlife and science with many trips to the Los Angeles Museum of Natural History, the La Brea Tar Pits, and the Copyright © American Ornithological Society 2019. All rights reserved. For permissions, e-mail: . Submission Date: 4 April 2019; Editorial Acceptance Date: 4 April 2019; Published 26 July 2019 2 In Memoriam N. F. R. Snyder, H. Raffaele, A. Kirkconnell, et al. The Auk: Ornithological Advances XX:1–3, © releases of captive Hispaniolan Parrots to the wild in the Dominican Republic. From 1986 to 1991, Jim’s base of operations shifted to Camarillo, California, where he participated in efforts to develop release methods for captive California Condors for the USFWS through work with surrogate Andean Condors both in California and in South America. Additionally, he continued ongoing studies of contaminant problems affecting California’s scavenging birds. These studies were concurrent with field studies of the endangered Lightfooted Clapper Rail and with studies of hurricane effects on avian species of the Caribbean in collaboration with JW. In late 1991, Jim became leader of the Grambling Cooperative Wildlife Research Project of the U.S. Geological Survey as a professor at Grambling State University, a position he held until 2001, when he transferred to another Cooperative Wildlife Research Unit at the University of Maryland, Eastern Shore, which he supervised until his retirement in 2006. His primary duties at both co-ops centered on guiding the graduate training of students in wildlife sciences, especially students from the West Indies, but he also continued numerous research and outreach projects with a special emphasis on Cuban birds, until his death. As most alumni will attest, Jim had high expectations of his students. He was known for his academic rigor and devoted considerable time and effort to reviewing student research papers, theses, and examinations. There were no easy grades in Wiley courses, but his students were uniformly appreciative of all the help he provided them in acquiring research and writing skills. While Jim was editor of El Pitirre, many even developed editing skills by contributing to the work on manuscripts submitted for publication. From our admittedly personal view, Jim’s most outstanding achievements over his long career were (in no particular order): (1) his success in promoting effective recovery of the severely endangered Puerto Rican Parrot; (2) his highly informative studies in collaboration with Will Post on the Yellow-shouldered Blackbird under stress from the Shiny Cowbird; (3) his ground-breaking studies of various raptor species of the West Indies; (4) his many studies of various columbid species of the West Indies; (5) his exhaustive and incredibly useful annotated bibliography of references pertaining to birds of the West Indies, published by the Western Foundation of Vertebrate Zoology in 2000—a publication covering more than 11,600 references; (6) his close collaboration with ornithologists of Cuba (including AK) in studies of many its endemic avian species; (7) his detailed studies of the parrots of the Cayman Islands; (8) his mentoring of numerous young West Indian ornithologists, especially in Cuba, but also through his leadership of Cooperative Wildlife Units in Louisiana and Maryland; (9) his collaborations with other 2019 American Ornithological Society excellent zoos and aquaria of southern California. His early field observations included the fortuitous and stunning sighting of a mountain lion stalking and killing a deer while he watched from a nearby blind on Palos Verdes Estates. Jim completed his B.S. at the University of Montana in 1964 where his love of raptors and fieldwork flourished under the mentorship of the Craighead families. In 1969 he earned a M.A. under David Greenfield at California State University, Fullerton. His thesis was on the taxonomy, behavior, and ecology of the eastern Pacific gobiid fish (Coryphopterus nicholsii), reflecting another of his early interests, scuba diving (he was a 2-time national spear-fishing champion). From there, Jim went on to begin Ph.D. studies on the ecology of the Red-shouldered Hawk at the University of South Florida under one of us (NFRS). The (...truncated)