WHITEHEAD, G(eorge) Kenneth 1913-2004

OBITUARY NOTICE—

See index for CA sketch: Born May 16, 1913, in Bury, Lancaster, England; died June 9, 2004. Conservationist, business manager, and author. Whitehead was widely respected as an expert on wildlife, especially deer, and worked to promote conservation and responsible hunting practices. A nature lover from a young age, he started hunting deer as a teenager. While serving in the Royal Artillery during World War II, he was stationed near Scotland, where he had the opportunity to assist local forest owners with the culling of deer populations. This eventually led to his writing on the subject, beginning with regular contributions to the Shooting Times and other hunting magazines. After the war, Whitehead became a paper mill manager in Chorley, Lancashire, later working as a raw material buyer for the same mill until 1980. His passion, however, was for wildlife and hunting. Concerned about animal welfare, he strongly objected to the practice of using shotguns to shoot deer, and he consequently pushed for the passage of what became the 1963 Deer Act, which made the use of shotguns to hunt deer illegal in Great Britain. A founding member of the British Deer Society, and active in other conservation and wildlife groups, Whitehead was known for his large private collection of heads, antlers, skeletons, and other items associated with deer, elk, and other cervine species. He was also the author of several books on deer and deer stalking, including Deer and Their Management (1950), Deerstalking in Scotland (1964), Deer of the World (1972), and The Whitehead Encyclopedia of Deer (1993).

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Times (London, England), July 10, 2004, p. 45.

ONLINE

Northtrek Web site,http://www.northtrek.co.uk/ (August 31, 2004).