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Historical Records of Australian Science Historical Records of Australian Science Society
The history of science, pure and applied, in Australia, New Zealand and the southwest Pacific
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RESEARCH ARTICLE (Open Access)
Online Early

Roger Tory Peterson Down Under: an American’s influence on Australian birding field guides

Russell McGregor https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0033-9242 A *
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A College of Arts, Society and Education, James Cook University, Townsville, Qld 4811, Australia.

* Correspondence to: russell.mcgregor@jcu.edu.au

Historical Records of Australian Science https://doi.org/10.1071/HR24021
Published online: 31 October 2024

© 2024 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing on behalf of the Australian Academy of Science. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND)

Abstract

The American, Roger Tory Peterson, has been the single most influential figure in the evolution of birding field guides around the world. He was also a major contributor to the awakening of an environmental consciousness among the wider public in the second half of the twentieth century. In Australia, he provided a powerful impetus to the renovation of the field guide genre from the 1960s onward; and his Australian followers, like Peterson himself, were driven by a conviction that field guides are potent contributors to the conservationist cause. This article explores the myriad ways in which Peterson helped shape Australian birding field guides, including an exposition of his personal friendship with one of Australia’s major field guide authors, Graham Pizzey.

Keywords: birdwatching, conservation, field guides, Graham Pizzey, nature, ornithology, Peter Slater, Roger Tory Peterson.

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