Vizgirdas, Ray S. 1960-

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Vizgirdas, Ray S. 1960-

PERSONAL:

Born June 26, 1960; married Edna M. Rey.

ADDRESSES:

Home—ID.

CAREER:

Biologist. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Boise, ID, fish and wildlife biologist. Instructor of field biology at the University of California, Riverside, Boise State University, and Idaho State University.

WRITINGS:

(With wife, Edna M. Rey-Vizgirdas) Wild Plants of the Sierra Nevada, illustrated by Edna M. Rey-Vizgirdas, University of Nevada Press (Reno, NV), 2006.

A Guide to Plants of Yellowstone & Grand Teton National Parks: Natural History Notes and Uses, illustrated by Edna M. Rey-Vizgirdas, University of Utah Press (Salt Lake City, UT), 2007.

Contributor of articles to numerous periodicals and journals.

SIDELIGHTS:

Ray S. Vizgirdas is a biologist. Born June 26, 1960, he is married to Edna M. Rey-Vizgirdas. Vizgirdas serves as a fish and wildlife biologist in Boise, Idaho, for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. In this capacity, Vizgirdas builds upon his more than twenty-five years of experience in mountainous environments in the western states, particularly throughout the Rocky Mountains and Sierra Nevada Mountains. He has worked with a range of plant and animal species, ranging from extremely rare plants to gray wolves. Vizgirdas has contributed his scholarship on the region's plant and wildlife to a number of periodicals and academic and nature journals. He is associated with Boise State University and is an instructor of field biology at the University of California, Riverside, and Idaho State University.

Vizgirdas published his first book, Wild Plants of the Sierra Nevada, in 2006 with his wife, Edna M. Rey-Vizgirdas, who also illustrated the book. The following year, he published A Guide to Plants of Yellowstone & Grand Teton National Parks: Natural History Notes and Uses, with illustrations again by his wife. The book, geared toward general readers, gives a summary of the plant life across Grand Teton National Park and Yellowstone National Park. The plants covered in the text are ordered both alphabetically and by botanical groupings.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, May, 2006, M. Taylor, review of Wild Plants of the Sierra Nevada, p. 1628; October, 2007, W.E. Williams, review of A Guide to Plants of Yellowstone & Grand Teton National Parks: Natural History Notes and Uses, p. 309.

SciTech Book News, June, 2007, review of A Guide to Plants of Yellowstone & Grand Teton National Parks.

ONLINE

Idaho State University Web site,http://www.isu.edu/ (February 12, 2008), author profile.

University of California, Riverside Web site,http://www.ucr.edu/ (February 12, 2008), author profile.

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