Page 141 - Early Naturalists of the Black Range

articles began in the October 3, 2019, issue of that magazine (Volume 2, Number 4). Steven Siegfried also wrote an article about Leopold for the Black Range Naturalist (Volume 2, Number 1 - January 2019).
Leopold’s concepts of alpha predators and their key roles changed the way natural history was studied. These concepts were the basis for later thinking in ecology, like that of keystone species.
Ralph Todd Kellogg
Kellogg, who lived in Silver City for most of his life, was an ornithologist who worked with the Biological Survey in 1912. Although not from the Black Range, his report on the Arizona Cardinal in The Condor, November 1922, foretold its range expansion eastward from Arizona into the New Mexico and the Black Range:
“Arizona Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis superbus). On May 8, 1922, at Red Rock, Grant County, New Mexico, these Cardinals were abundant, at least a dozen being seen, and a pair taken. The Gila River comes out of a tight “box” just northeast of Red Rock, and at that point their distribution up the river seems to end.”
Kellogg worked along the Mimbres River from 1919 to 1922.
Edwin Richard Kalmbach
Kalmbach was an American ecologist specializing in applied entomology and ornithology. In 1913 he was working for the Bureau of Biological Survey in New Mexico. Most of his work was done in the northern part of the state.
Jack Welch, in “In Memoriam: Edwin Richard Kalmbach” noted some of the “administrative” side of early field work at page 367. “Not all his work was done in Washington. Various studies required extensive field trips, mostly in the West. As he liked to recount later, these trips had their frustrations. Expense money was limited, and he frequently had to dip into his own funds to get by. Travel in those early days was largely by train, and this left the field investigator without transportation when he arrived at his destination. Dr. Kalmbach solved this problem by buying a motorcycle, but when the accounting office in Washington learned it had a sidecar, they immediately classed it as a passenger vehicle and disallowed the expenditure. Only with difficulty did he convince them it was to haul field equipment and supplies, not people.” (The Auk 90: 364-374, April 1973)
Among his many accomplishments, he promoted the enactment of the Federal Duck Stamp Act of 1934 and designed the 1941-1942 stamp, a Ruddy Duck (image above right).
J. Stokely Ligon
Ligon was active in this area from the second decade of the century to the 1950’s. He was doing deer surveys in Black Canyon during 1920, for instance. Among other significant accomplishments, he completed the first comprehensive bird survey of New Mexico. See Harley Shaw’s, Twelve Hundred Miles by Horse and Burro, for an account of that effort. Among Ligon’s works is New Mexico Birds and Where to Find Them.
In February 1920, Ligon was listed as a Predatory Animal Inspector for the Bureau of Biological Survey in New Mexico.
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