Fred Zwickel, 1926-2018

[Fern Davies]

Fred C. Zwickel was born in Seattle, Washington, in 1926. He completed B.Sc. (1950) and M.Sc. (1958) programs in Wildlife Biology at Washington State University and began studies of Blue Grouse in 1953, while employed as a wildlife biologist with the State of Washington Department of Game (1950–1961). A return to school in 1961 brought him a Ph.D. in Zoology at the University of British Columbia (1965), followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at the Nature Conservancy (Unit of Grouse and Moorland Ecology) in Scotland, one year in the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife at Oregon State University, and 18 years in the Department of Zoology at the University of Alberta. Population studies of Blue Grouse have been the main focus of his research since 1953, principally in coastal British Columbia (since 1961). A monograph on the biology and natural history of Blue Grouse, in collaboration with J. F. Bendell, was released in 2004.

In 2013, the British Columbia Field Ornithologists awarded Dr. Zwickel the Steve Cannings Award for his decades of work on the Blue Grouse complex