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Published quarterly from 1953 - 1955

About the Author: Joseph C. Moore

A number of people in south Florida can answer more questions about birds than can park biologist Joseph C. Moore. His graduate training and research experience before coming to Everglades National Park had nothing to do with birds. Birdlife being a focal point of interest in the park, however, he soon found himself investigating birds more than anything else. After three years of field investigations, mostly directed at wading birds, apparently he has begun to find out things about some of the birds. GLOSSY IBISES IN THE EVERGLADES NATIONAL PARK is an account of what he has learned about one of the rarer of these.

Born (1914) and reared in the nation's capital, author Moore "grew up in the zoological park," enjoyed many visits to the natural history exhibits of the Smithsonian institution, and lived out his early adolescence in the city libraries. At the age of nine he received from his discerning mother, a set of six volumes of Ernest Thompson Seton's natural history books for boys. That, apparently, did it.

Educated at the University of Kentucky and University of Florida, author Moore served during the war as a naval officer in the Amphibious Force in Europe. His training is in mammalogy, and he has published research done in Florida on the short-tailed shrew, the long-tailed weasel, and the (flat-tailed?) manatee. In 1940 he marred a coed, Evelyn Lannert, whom he mad met in a botany class, and they now have three daughters, Rosalind, Diana and Melliny, ages nine, seven, and six.

Adventure attends many a biologist's quest in wilderness areas such as those of the Everglades National Park. The article A MOUND ON A KEY IN FLORIDA BAY is an account of one of the most dangerous situations that park biologist Joseph C. Moore has experienced while peacefully pursuing investigations of certain fauna of the park. The goal of this particular trip was to examine a strange sand mound to learn if it were a crocodile's nest and, if so, to find out as much as possible about it. Author Moore made several subsequent visits to this mound and has published the results of investigations of it in a recent issue of Copeia.

Peepings into the privacy of lives of raccoons such as park biologist Joseph C. Moore reports in RACCOON PARADE seem to emphasize how little is known about them. Even though it is one of our commonest mammals in south Florida and the one which we most frequently see, who knows where it sleeps? Who knows where it brings, forth its young? Has anyone found a raccoon in a panther's stomach? A diamondback rattlesnake's? Anyone observing something of this sort should write in to Everglades Natural History.

A long time member of the Florida Academy of Sciences, author Moore has just returned from a council meeting with an interesting natural history report. He was being introduced on the steps of a college building to the vice president of the institution, a history scholar of some renown. As they shook hands a pigeon on the cornice above celebrated the event by dropping a copious blob of fecal matter upon the scholarly gentleman's head. It splashed upon his glasses, on both suits, and upon the clasped hands. A veteran of many such annointments from work in bird rookeries, author Moore states with a smile that he has never shared one with a more distinguished person.

THE STORY OF CUTHBERT ROOKERY comes from Joseph C.Moore, another author with whose articles, notes and background,readers of this magazine have had some opportunity to be acquainted. A recent wind from the north brought news that assembled in annual meeting at Rollins College in Winter Park, the Florida Academy of Sciences honored author Moore by making him their president-elect. Around Homestead for a week or so afterward, he seemed rather stunned. He says he wrote about Cuthbert Rookery because of administrative plans for making the rookery more accessible this winter. Author Moore seems a little concerned that his articles on the glossy ibis and the raccoon wells were a bit documentary for easy reading, and tried to present the Cuthbert Rookery article in a more readable style. This was in large part prompted by a long, highly critical letter written to him by a reader.