Marzluff, John M.

(John Marzluff)

PERSONAL: Male. Education: Degree in wildlife biology, 1980; attended Northern Arizona University and University of Vermont.

ADDRESSES: Office—College of Forest Resources, University of Washington, Box 352100, Seattle, WA 98195-2100. E-mail—corvid@u.washington.edu.

CAREER: University of Washington, Seattle, began as associate professor of ecosystem sciences, became Denman Professor of Sustainable Resource Science and professor of wildlife science. Leader of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Recovery Team for the Mariana Crow; Cooper Ornithological Society, board member.

MEMBER: American Ornithologist's Union (councilor).

AWARDS, HONORS: H.R. Painton Award, 1989, for outstanding paper published in The Condor.

WRITINGS:

NONFICTION

(With Russell P. Balda) The Pinyon Jay: Behavioral Ecology of a Colonial Cooperative Corvid, illustrated by Tony Angell and Caroline Bauder, Poyser (London, England), 1992.

(Editor, with Rex Sallabanks) Avian Conservation: Research and Management, Island Press (Washington, DC), 1998.

(Editor, with Reed Bowman and Roarke Donnelly) Avian Ecology and Conservation in an Urbanizing World, Kluwer Academic Publishers (Boston, MA), 2001.

(Editor) Radiotelemetry and Animal Populations, Academic Press (Burlington, MA), 2001.

(With Tony Angell) In the Company of Crows and Ravens, illustrated by Tony Angell, Yale University Press (New Haven, CT), 2005.

Also author of numerous scientific papers on bird behavior and wildlife management. Member of editorial boards, Bird Behavior, Acta Ornithologica, Ecological Applications.

SIDELIGHTS: John M. Marzluff is an ornithologist who has published several books about bird life and wildlife conservation. Along with Rex Sallabanks, he edited Avian Conservation: Research and Management, a collection of papers that cover past and present philosophies of conservation, techniques used in conservation research, and conservation methods suitable to working with endangered species, forested and non-forested landscapes, and even urban landscapes. According to Robert W. Butler in the Wilson Bulletin, "Marzluff and Sallabanks should be commended for assembling concise reviews of many important topics for conservationists and applications for land managers…. This book contains a wealth of information and is an excellent review of the topic."

In the Company of Crows and Ravens, written with and illustrated by Tony Angell, is of more interest to general readers. The authors point out that crows share many traits with humans, including large brains, complex social orders, and extensive vocabularies. They go on to document the ways in which humans and crows have interacted over the years. Human reaction to crows has ranged from respect to hatred, and even attempts at extermination. The authors analyze the current trends in crow population and ways to control crows. Nancy Bent, a reviewer for Booklist, wrote that the text's coverage of science, folklore, and literature, along with the "lively" illustrations, "recommends this book highly."

Marzluff told CA: "I got interested in writing as a way to share my fascination with the natural world with others. I studied with Bernd Heinrich, whose writing has influenced my scientific and literary approach to nature. I am most surprised by strange encounters other people have had with the animals I write about. By stimulating others to consider my interests, I learn secondhand much more than I could directly experience. In this way, I learn from readers about strange and intriguing bird behavior (like the crow that landed on a sunbather and left her a wooden bead) that will fuel my scientific curiosity for decades. My book with Tony Angell on the mutual interactions between people and crows (In the Company of Crows and Ravens,) is my favorite because it summarizes my (and my students') long-term scientific investigations of these amazing birds in a way that I have tried to make accessible and engaging to all readers.

"I hope people who read my works will learn that nature influences us as much as we influence her. In so doing, I expect that people will recognize that we must become better stewards if we are to continue to reap cultural, ecologic, and economic benefits from our surroundings. If nothing else, I aspire to have readers of my work look carefully and thoughtfully at the birds that share our world—to recognize that we are all connected in a complex web of cultural, ecological, and evolutionary interactions."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

BioScience, January, 1999, John L. Curnutt, review of Avian Conservation: Research and Management, p. 71.

Booklist, October 15, 2005, Nancy Bent, review of In the Company of Crows and Ravens, p. 15.

Library Journal, October 1, 2005, Robert Eagan, review of In the Company of Crows and Ravens, p. 106.

Wilson Bulletin, September, 1999, Robert W. Butler, review of Avian Conservation, p. 445.

Wilson Quarterly, autumn, 2005, Roxana Robinson, review of In the Company of Crows and Ravens, p. 119.

ONLINE

University of Washington Urban Ecology Department Web site, http://www.urbanecology.washington.edu/ (January 21, 2006), biographical information on John M. Marzluff.