The Beginnings of Modern Ornithology in Venezuela

Among all the zoological species, birds are the easiest to observe and study. Their diurnal habits, the songs, and visual features make them conspicuous. These characteristics have made birds one of the best-known animal groups even though ornithologists do not make up a large community among zoologists. For Ernst Mayr, an ornithologist who has made significant contributions that go beyond his own field, the accessibility of birds to research has allowed ornithologists to make important discoveries in several new fields of biology, ranging "from new systematics and speciation research to endocrinology and behavioral biology." ¹

In Venezuela, birds are the best-studied organisms with respect to their taxonomy and geographical distribution. The results of these studies are recorded in catalogues and publications that gather the whole of the territory's bird fauna. These studies have been made possible thanks to the work of national and international institutions and individuals. The most important among them are the pioneering contributions of William H. Phelps (1875-1965), a successful American businessman who became a Venezuelan citizen, and of his son William H. Phelps Jr. (1902-1988). In 1938 they created the Phelps Ornithological Collection and began the systematic study of the birds of Venezuela.

The present work analyzes the beginnings of ornithology in the country, in particular the web of influences and the conditions that favored its establishment. Special attention will be given to the first steps in a period that ranges from the 1930s to the late 1950s. In addition, the state of the discipline today will be considered in its most general aspects, for many of its traits are the consequence of the particular way in which this science began and developed in Venezuela.

Specialists and amateurs alike have considered South America a bird paradise. The variety of species is so great that is it estimated that the region is home to one-third of all the known species of birds in the world. Venezuela, in turn, is fortunate to have in its territory 44 percent of the species of the subcontinent and is also a point of transit and sojourn for birds that migrate from other regions of the world. ²

In the neotropical region, according to Kenneth C. Parkes, the first steps in the search for ornithological information (inventory, classification and zoogeographic description), considered essential for more analytical studies and interpretations, were still at an initial phase, especially in vast areas of South America. The inventory, however, was almost complete for this region. ³

When the systematic and sustained study of the indigenous population of birds began in South America, ornithology was already a well-developed science in the United States and Europe, not to mention other regions and countries. Their bird faunas were exhaustively known as far as taxonomy, distribution and habits.

Erwin Stressemann, an ornithologist and historian of the discipline, points out that well into the twentieth century ". . . anyone could be regarded as an expert who was well acquainted with systematics, distribution and 'habits.' Very few young disciples of the 'scientia amabilis' were interested in the achievements of anatomists, physiologists, geneticists, and psychologists in adding to the knowledge of birds. In other disciplines the situation was much the same. Most representatives of 'scientific zoology' viewed ornithology as the province of amateurs, whose findings could not mean much to researchers into causation." ⁴ In the 1920s, however, ornithology began to change radically in the more scientifically advanced countries. Stressemann remarks: "When the highly organized physical and psychological structure of birds was recognized as offering better opportunities for causal research than any other subject, the barriers that protected our special field of knowledge were demolished on all sides." ⁵

Thus, a vast store of knowledge and experience was already available in the more advanced countries when the systematic study of the birds and their habits began in Latin America. In the case of Venezuela, Americans and American institutions played a significant role in...