Storer, Tracy Irwin, 1889-

Biography

Biographical Narrative

Tracy Irwin Storer (1889-1973) completed his education in the San Francisco Bay Area. He attended high schools in Oakland and entered the University of California at Berkeley in 1908. Majoring in zoology, he received his B.S. degree in 1912, the M.S. in 1913, and the Ph.D. in 1921. In 1960 the University conferred upon him the LL.D. and in 1969 named the new zoology building on the Davis campus after him.

From 1914 to 1923 he was on the staff of the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology on the Berkeley campus, first as assistant curator of birds and later as field naturalist. These services were interrupted during World War I in which he served as a first lieutenant in the Sanitary Corps. In 1923 he joined the faculty of the University of California at Davis as assistant professor of zoology and assistant zoologist in the Experiment Station of the College of Agriculture. He was not only founder of the Department of Zoology at Davis but its sole faculty member until expansion began in 1935. He became professor emeritus in 1956.

His bibliography contains over 200 titles of scientific articles and books. He was co-author of Animal Life in the Yosemite (1926) and Sierra Nevada Natural History (1968). He authored several textbooks of zoology, including General Zoology (1951) and Elements of Zoology, (1955) which were translated into a number of foreign languages. In addition to his zoology texts, he wrote (with Lloyd P. Tevis, Jr.) California Grizzly (1955). This book which was reissued in 1996 is still considered the most comprehensive book on the bear's history in California. As a result of these studies, he was called upon to assist in designing the bear on the California state flag.

He was a member of numerous societies; in several of these he contributed his skills as administrator and editor. He was vice president and president of the Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists, the Society of Mammalogists, the Society of Naturalists, and the Wildlife Society; three times president of the Cooper Ornithological Club; associate editor of Ecology and of Ecological Monographs, and editor of The Journal of Wildlife Management. In 1968 the California Academy of Sciences bestowed on him its Fellow's Medal.

Source: Spieth, Herman T. et al. "Tracy I. Storer." In Memoriam. [Berkeley, Calif. : Academic Senate], 1976.