Bird Man Extraordinaire

By Kathleen Kaska, Austin Ornithologist Robert Porter Allen lived in Texas for only a short time, but his influence is still felt today. If it hadn’t been for Allen, the majestic whooping crane (Grus americana), as well as the brilliant roseate spoonbill (Ajaia ajaja) and myriad other bird species, might be extinct—and fewer birdwatchers might flock to the Texas coast each year between November and April.

As the National Audubon Society’s sanctuary director, Allen was instrumental in the late 1930s in establishing refuges across the country, including the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge near Rockport, for the purpose of providing winter feeding grounds for migratory birds. At the time, the Aransas whooper flock numbered only 18, and the spoonbill population wasn’t much larger. After the ANWR was established, in 1937, the spoonbills’ numbers began to increase, but the whoopers’ did not. The problem called for an extensive study of the elusive bird.

On assignment in 1946 with the National Audubon Society, Allen moved his family to Austwell, where he studied crane behavior. When he wasn’t knee-deep in mangrove swamps and mud flats, the charismatic scientist spent time with the locals. In a posthumous tribute to Allen in a 1969 issue of The Auk, the journal of the American Ornithologists’ Union, Alexander Sprunt IV wrote, “He could go into a community that cared nothing for wildlife, were even hostile toward it, and in a short time turn the whole place into boosters of his project.” Because of Robert Allen’s early efforts, and the work of dozens of other people over succeeding years, today’s Aransas flock of whooping cranes numbers approximately 240.

In 1957, Allen published On the Trail of Vanishing Birds, which won the John Burroughs Medal Award for Writing in Natural History. The same year, the American Ornithologists’ Union honored him with the Brewster Memorial Award. Allen was working on a 16-volume series, Birds of North America, when he died of a heart attack in 1963 at age 58.

See the full article in the May 2006 issue.

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