Page 15 - Gateways_2017-2018 Winter

George lived next door to Brookfield Zoo and was onsite even in the most inclement weather.
Less than a year after Toughie passed,
George Rabb followed suit, at age 87.
George died on July 27, 2017. Like Toughie,
he left no offspring, but he did inspire a
legion of conservationists who are carrying
on the work he was unable to complete.
Laying the Foundation
Born in Charleston, South Carolina,
in 1930, George Bernard Rabb was a true
southern boy. He grew up stomping in
mud flats, collecting salamanders, and
soaking in the sounds and smells of his
home turf. As a little boy, he believed he
could hear ants talking. In his teen years,
at the urging of a favorite teacher, he spent Mary sitting side-by-side monitoring wolf
an afternoon in a field of Venus flytraps—
an experience he would never forget. Those
South Carolina adventures never left him.
After undergraduate work in biology
at the College of Charleston, George
went on to the University of Michigan
for his master’s and doctorate degrees in
zoology. His thesis was on the lizards
of the Bahamas, with a five-month
collecting adventure onboard a schooner
forming the basis of his research. From
then on, he would forever be Dr. Rabb
(or GBR to those around him).
George married Charleston compatriot
Mary Sughrue in 1953, and they moved
to Brookfield in 1956 when he was
appointed curator of research, one of the
first Ph.D.s to hold a position in a major
zoo. Those first few years at Brookfield
Zoo may have been his happiest, he and
behaviors and recording frog vocalizations.
George worked closely with colleagues
at the Field Museum, especially in
the area of evolutionary behaviors.
Arriving at the zoo on the very same
day as George was Museka, a female
okapi. George would forever feel an
association with the species, coauthoring
the definitive description of the animal
in 1992 and helping establish the Okapi
Wildlife Preserve in the Ituri Forest in the
Democratic Republic of Congo. Perhaps
this quiet, introspective man felt a kinship
with the shy, reclusive forest animal.
At the time, his office was in the old
animal hospital, now called the Dan F.
and Ada L. Rice Conservation Biology and
Research Center. The office teemed with
specimen jars, steno pads filled with his
chicken scratch, reel-to-reel films, and
heaps of journal articles. Mary was
appointed zoo librarian and bookstore
manager, and she kept George up-to-date
on the latest research by tagging pertinent
studies in scientific journals. It was all
about scientific discovery, and with his
keen mind and Mary’s assistance, George
BROOKFIELD ZOO | WINTER 2017/18 15