Robert G. Goelet, 1923–2019

AmericanOrnithology.org Volume 139, 2022, pp. 1–2 https://doi.org/10.1093/ornithology/ukac025 IN MEMORIAM Robert G. Goelet, 1923–2019 George F. Barrowclough Department of Ornithology, American Museum of Natural History, New York, New York, USA Published: July 27, 2022 2022 (Left to right) Ernst Mayr (AOU president: 1957–1959), Bobby Goelet, Lester Short, and Tom Howell (AOU president: 1982–1984) at the AOU Centennial Meeting Reception, September 1983 (photo courtesy of AMNH) The management and conservation of the island became a focus of his interest in natural history; he and his wife managed the largely undeveloped island as a wildlife sanctuary. Although Bobby was not a professional scientist, he was quite familiar with current issues in ornithological research, partly based on his role at the AMNH. Shortly after I arrived at the museum, I was required to give a formal (i.e. wearing a tuxedo) description of my research to the museum’s Board of Directors. When I finished, he was the first to ask a question: Myrtle Warbler or Yellow-rumped Warbler, and what are species anyway? Bobby took part in numerous field trips to Argentina and loved the remote regions of Patagonia. Three of these expeditions were with his friend Bill Conway, a researcher at, and eventually president of, the New York Zoological Society. They explored and filmed penguin and marine mammal colonies in the Patagonian steppe and together produced natural history films in Spanish and English Copyright © American Ornithological Society 2022. All rights reserved. For permissions, e-mail: . Robert Guestier (Bobby) Goelet, a lifetime member (1952) and Patron of the American Ornithologists’ Union (AOU) (now the American Ornithological Society [AOS]) (1965), died on October 8, 2019, at his home in New York City, at the age of 96. He was the president of the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) from 1975 until 1988 and welcomed the Union to the city and the museum during the opening ceremonies of the AOU’s Centennial Meeting in September 1983. He was instrumental in arranging for the museum’s financial support for that meeting (providing one-third of the total expenses) and earlier had been a donor to the AOU’s 1958 annual meeting, also held at the AMNH. He was a past president of the New York Zoological Society (now known as the Wildlife Conservation Society [WCS]) and of the New York Historical Society. He also served as treasurer of the National Audubon Society, served as president of the French Institute Alliance Française, and sat on the board of the Carnegie Institution for Sciences. He was made an Officier de la Légion d’Honneur in 1982 for his contributions to French culture. Bobby Goelet was born on September 28, 1923, in Amblainville, France; his father was American, and his mother was French. His family owned a large chateau and were wine merchants and railroad and real estate owners. Sent to a boarding school in Normandy as a child, he there became friends with Jean Delacour, an ornithologist (and Fellow of the AOU) who owned a nearby estate; Delacour was an aviculturist with a large private aviary and those visits fostered Goelet’s interest in birds. He moved to New York in 1935 to begin his secondary schooling. Bobby graduated with a bachelor’s degree in history from Harvard in 1945, but his undergraduate years were interrupted by the Second World War when he served as a bomber pilot in the U.S. Navy. He later served as a lieutenant in the U.S. Naval Reserve. Along with his brother, he subsequently began managing his family’s real estate business as well as serving as a director of the Chemical Bank (now JP Morgan Chase). In 1976, he married Alexandra Creel, a Yale graduate student in its School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. Alexandra’s family owned Gardiner’s Island, a 3,300-acre island in Long Island Sound. 2 In Memoriam Ornithology 139:1–2 © 2022 American Ornithological Society supported herpetological and entomological (especially bee) research as well as that on birds. He contributed specimens of birds from the United States and Argentina to the AMNH and also gave his bee collection to the museum. A genus of bee, Goeletapis, was named in his honor, as were a species of lizard and several species of flies found in fossil amber. Bobby is survived by his wife, a son, Robert, and a daughter, Alexandra. The family plans to maintain Gardiner’s Island as a wildlife sanctuary. A longer obituary can be found in the New York Times (October 13, 2019), and a profile appeared in The New Yorker (October 18, 1976). Memorials Editor: Ted Anderson, that were shown in schools in both Argentina and the United States. He helped create, along with the WCS, a Patagonian reserve to protect one of the largest penguin colonies outside of Antarctica. However, it was as a philanthropist and benefactor that he most influenced scientific research. In addition to being one of the AOU’s early Patrons and providing support for two of its annual meetings, he was a continuing financial supporter of the Great Gull Island Project, a long-term study of the large Common and Roseate Tern colonies nesting on an island in Long Island Sound. In the 1990s, he funded two major museum expeditions to the tepuis of southern Venezuela; this included contracting for two months of helicopter time and providing financial support for Venezuelan researchers accompanying the expeditions. Bobby’s interests in natural history were quite broad, and he G. F. Barrowclough  (...truncated)