George B. Schaller

George B. Schaller (born May 26, 1933, Berlin, Germany) is an American environmental conservationist and author who is considered one of the world’s greatest field biologists. Schaller has been instrumental in establishing wildlife sanctuaries around the world, using his research and writing to advocate for the protection of ecosystems and the creation of conservation areas that sometimes span national borders. His decades of field research on mountain gorillas, giant pandas, big cats, and other charismatic megafauna have shaped how both experts and the public view these wild animals and their environments.

Early life

Schaller’s father was a German diplomat, and his mother was American. He spent his early childhood in Germany during the turmoil of World War II. In later writings Schaller noted that in the shadow of war, his dual nationality often made him the target of suspicion and social isolation, experiences that continued even after he emigrated with his mother and brother to St. Louis, Missouri, in 1947.

Schaller developed an interest in nature as a teen while exploring the countryside around St. Louis and observing the local flora and fauna. Roaming fields, forests, and streams on his own, he cultivated a deep curiosity about animal behavior and the natural world. These early experiences helped foster a lasting interest in biology and conservation that would shape his future career.

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Education and fieldwork

While attending the University of Alaska in Fairbanks, Schaller conducted his first fieldwork as an undergraduate, recording migrating birds as they traveled between Alaska and Russia. This was followed by an expedition to the wilderness of northeastern Alaska with naturalists Olaus and Margaret Murie to prepare a comprehensive survey of the region’s wildlife. The expedition’s findings were key in the U.S. government’s decision to protect the area by establishing the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, then the country’s largest wildlife preserve. The Murie expedition would become a blueprint for much of Schaller’s later work: using field research to advance both biological knowledge and conservation advocacy.

Schaller graduated in 1955 with bachelor’s degrees in anthropology and zoology. For graduate school Schaller attended the University of Wisconsin in Madison, where he received a master’s degree in 1957. That same year he married Kay Morgan, a fellow alumnus from the University of Alaska. Morgan would remain Schaller’s lifelong partner in his conservation efforts and in raising their two sons.

Two years after their marriage, the couple embarked on an expedition to Central Africa, placing Schaller’s doctorate studies on hold. Living among the mountain gorillas of the Virunga Volcanoes, the Schallers observed the animals’ behavior and social structure. At the time, gorillas were often portrayed in films and other popular media as violent brutes, but Schaller’s two years of fieldwork revealed them to be gentle, social, and intelligent animals. Schaller wrote his dissertation based on his findings, receiving a Ph.D. in zoology from the University of Wisconsin in 1962. The following year, he published his first book, The Mountain Gorilla: Ecology and Behavior.

Other important fieldwork projects conducted by Schaller include studies of:

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• Lions in the Serengeti region of Tanzania, 1966–69
• The Himalayan Bharal (a type of sheep) in the Dolpo region of Nepal, 1973
• Jaguars and various animals living in the Brazilian jungle, late 1970s
• Giant pandas throughout China, 1980–85, 1988

At several points in his career, Schaller was a member of expeditions that revealed animals unknown or thought to be extinct. In 1994 he and zoologist Alan Rabinowitz discovered the saola—sometimes called spindlehorn or Asian unicorn—while doing fieldwork in the forests along the border of Vietnam and Laos. The saola, a rare bovine with long, nearly parallel horns, was one of the most significant large-mammal discoveries of the 20th century. Also in 1994 Schaller found evidence that the Vietnamese warty pig—long thought to be extinct—was still in existence after a local family served the animal to his expedition team for dinner. Two years later Schaller and two fellow researchers discovered a surviving herd of Tibetan red deer, another species previously thought to be extinct.

Conservation efforts

Schaller leveraged his fieldwork to promote environmental conservation and worked closely with governments around the world to establish protected habitats for endangered species. He joined the New York Zoological Society (now the Wildlife Conservation Society) in 1966 and became its director of international conservation in 1979. Through his work within and beyond the Society, Schaller helped spur the creation of more than 20 nature preserves worldwide. Among his most notable achievements was his collaboration with the government of the Tibet Autonomous Region to protect the endangered Tibetan antelope, an effort that contributed to the establishment of the Chang Tang National Preserve, encompassing about 130,000 square miles (335,000 square kilometers) of protected wilderness.

In another notable instance, Schaller collaborated with representatives of Afghanistan, China, Pakistan, and Tajikistan in 2007 to establish a “peace park” encompassing some 20,000 square miles (50,000 square kilometers) of protected habitat for the Marco Polo sheep, the world’s largest species of wild sheep. A year earlier Schaller had explained to Sanctuary magazine that by focusing conservation efforts on large, recognizable animals, he could build public support for protecting habitats that also sustain countless other species within the broader ecosystem.