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In the interest of speed and timeliness, this story is fed directly from the Associated Press newswire and may contain spelling or grammatical errors.
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UC Berkeley ornithology curator and bird expert, Ned Johnson, dies
at age 70
Wednesday June 18, 2003
ORINDA, Calif. (AP) Ned Johnson, a renowned ornithologist and
curator of the UC Berkeley Museum of Invertebrate Biology, has
died, the campus announced Wednesday. He was 70.
Johnson died June 11 at his Orinda home after a long battle with
cancer, UC Berkeley confirmed.
Over the years Johnson collected more than 7,200 bird specimens,
most of which are at the university's museum and available for
study. Johnson's partner and close colleague at the museum, Carla
Cicero, remembered Johnson as having extensive understanding of the
region's birds.
``His knowledge of the distribution and natural history of birds
in Western North America, and his scientific contributions to the
ornithology of the region, are unsurpassed among living
ornithologists,'' Cicero said.
Johnson published his first paper on birds at age 17 and at the
time of his death he was working on a book on geographic variation
and speciation in birds.
He was considered an expert on owls, sapsuckers, flycatchers,
vireos and Sage Sparrows.
Johnson was just weeks away from a planned retirement. He joined
the faculty at UC Berkeley in 1961.
Johnson is survived by his partner, Carla Cicero, of Moraga;
three daughters; one son; and three grandchildren.
(Copyright 2003 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
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