Nature's Scion

Harold Jefferson Coolidge Jr. (1904–1985) was a highly-recognized American primatologist and a founding director of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), where he served as president from 1966–72. He became director of the Pacific Science Board of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences for 25 years after serving in the OSS, where he was awarded the Legion of Merit in 1945. He was a curator at Harvard's Museum of Comparative Zoology and one of his many papers forms the basis of the modern taxonomy of gorillas. In 1980, Coolidge was awarded the J. Paul Getty Wildlife Conservation Prize. As a descendant of Thomas Jefferson, he is buried at Monticello. See Wikipedia for a complete bio.