Ian McTaggart-Cowan dead. Before there was Suzuki...
DanNospamSay
Before there was Suzuki in Vancouver, there was Ian
McTaggart-Cowan.
Tall, rangy and with a terrible stutter which we all
suffered with him waiting
for his marvelous nature films and the first undewater
CBC films in the early
years. We watched and waited for him to get over the
stutter, but the
black and white pictures (in those days) were
marvelous.
"In all, his 36 years of conservation studies took him to 6 continents
and resulted in more than 260 publications, 12 teaching films and 110
television programs.
Ian [was] recognized as a pioneer in the use of television as a medium
to provide information to educate the public about conservation and
the wonders of the natural world. The Fur and Feathers series and The
Living Sea series, both produced by the CBC, went to air live. Only
The Web of Life series, also a CBC production, was taped. In the
popular Fur and Feathers series of 52 episodes in 1955-56, the
approach was to confront a youngster with a natural history object
that had never been seen before, and provide facts by responding to
the child's questions. The award-winning Web of Life was aired during
1960-63 and used footage shot in B.C., Uganda, southern United States,
the Arctic, the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico. "
Later picture in his 80s getting a provincial medal
http://www.hctf.ca/images/sidebar/IanMcTaggartCowan_med.jpg
from long appreciation at :
http://www.hctf.ca/AboutUs/mctaggart.html
http://www.film.queensu.ca/cbc/Fra.html
Fur Or Feathers
Wed 5:00-5:15 p.m., 6 Jul-21 Sep 1955
Mon 4:30-4:45 p.m., 26 Sep 1955-25 Jun 1956
Ian McTaggart Cowan showed live animals in this fifteen minute program
for children produced in Vancouver.
http://www.fandango.com/furorfeathers[tvseries]_v268869/summary
Another "local" Canadian series which went national through the
facilities of the CBC, Fur or Feathers was originally telecast
exclusively in Vancouver. Hosted by Ian McTaggart Cowan, the series
specialized in showing live animals, domesticated or otherwise, to an
audience of kiddies who might otherwise have never seen these species
in the wild. The network version of Fur or Feathers was seen in a
weekly 15-minute slot (first Wednesdays, then Mondays), from July 6,
1955 to June 25, 1956. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
http://www.film.queensu.ca/cbc/W.html
Web Of Life
Sun 3:30-4:00 p.m., 10 Oct 1959-3 Jan 1960
Sun 3:30-4:00 p.m., 3 Apr-26 Jun 1960
Fri 5:30-6:00 p.m., 14 May-26 Aug 1961
Fri 5:30-6:00 p.m., 19 Apr-28 Sep 1963
The host and narrator of Web Of Life, a nature series produced on film
by Tom Connachie at CBC Vancouver, was Ian McTaggart Cowan, professor
of zoology at U.B.C. The series started as a twenty- six week
examination of different forms of animal life, and added more programs
in subsequent years. It used footage shot locally in British Columbia,
and film from Uganda, the southern U.S., the Caribbean, the Arctic,
and in the Gulf of Mexico region, and concerned living beings as close
as the viewer's backyard and issues as foreign as animal husbandry in
East Africa. The footage was shot by Robert Reid and edited by John
Fuller. A well respected program, in 1963, one of the shows in the
series won an award for educational television films at an
international television festival
http://www.tvarchive.ca/database/17590/living_sea%2c_the/details/
Living Sea, The (Series) (1957-1958)
Ian McTaggart-Cowan, professor of zoology at the University of British
Columbia, hosted this CBC summer documentary series on animal and
plant life in the sea. Programs dealt with such subjects as theories
of origins of the earth and the oceans and of the origins of living
creatures; early concepts of the sea; the development of navigation;
the causes and effects of tides; ocean diving; and oceanic life below
the levels that light can penetrate.
------------- Globe and Mail Obit
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/deaths/before-environmentalism-was-fashionable-th
ere-was-ian-mctaggart-cowan/article1541388/
Before environmentalism was fashionable, there was Ian McTaggart-
Cowan
As a professor, activist and administrator he worked to preserve
British Columbia's biodiversity
by TOM HAWTHORN
VICTORIA — Special to The Globe and Mail
Published on Wednesday, Apr. 21, 2010 12:00AM EDT
Last updated on Thursday, Apr. 22, 2010 2:54AM EDT
.A scholar and early activist in the cause of wildlife conservation,
Ian McTaggart-Cowan informed generations of British Columbians about
the natural wonders around them.
He encouraged management of nature's bounty, a somewhat radical
approach in a province where pillaging the seas, forests and wildlife
once seemed a privilege of residence.
The eminent zoologist produced hundreds of papers, pamphlets and
books, yet it was undoubtedly his appearances on the fledgling medium
of television that won his message its widest audience.
In 1955, already established as a distinguished figure in academia,
the dapper professor hosted a television show called Fur and Feathers.
Filmed live, it taught children about animals and encouraged them to
appreciate nature.
He later served as host of two other documentary series for CBC
television. The Living Sea was shown in British Columbia in 1957 and
on the national network in 1962. This was followed by The Web of Life,
an 11-part series that aired in 1963. These programs were sold to
other broadcasters around the globe.
McTaggart-Cowan, who died on Sunday at the age of 99, remained active
well into his advanced age. He was a director emeritus of the Nature
Trust of British Columbia, a non-profit, non-advocacy group on whose
board he sat for more than 30 years.
Born in Edinburgh on June 25, 1910, he immigrated to Canada at age 3
with his family, who settled in North Vancouver. The boy, the eldest
of four children, was encouraged by his mother to take note of natural
history. At age 12, according to Rod Silver, who profiled McTaggart-
Cowan for the Vancouver Natural History Society's Discovery magazine
six years ago, Ian completed a year-long diary of all birds spotted
around his home to fulfill the requirement for a Boy Scout proficiency
badge. From this simple beginning emerged a scientist with an
encyclopedic knowledge.
He began studies at the University of British Columbia, spending his
summers in the field, studying Rocky Mountain fauna in national parks.
In 1931, a fruitful spring spent with Kenneth Racey, a naturalist who
served as a mentor, resulted in several finds, including the Pacific
pallid bat in the southern Okanagan, as well as the rediscovery of the
Vancouver Island marmot.
After graduating in 1932, he began work on a doctorate at the
University of California, Berkeley. He then joined the staff of the
Provincial Museum (now the Royal B.C. Museum) in Victoria as a
biologist.
After five years, he joined the faculty at UBC as a zoology professor,
becoming department head in 1953. He was dean of graduate studies from
1964 until retiring from the university in 1975.
McTaggart-Cowan encouraged the application of scientific methods to
wildlife management. He felt British Columbians, as custodians of the
richest biota in the land, had a particular responsibility to ensure
this "extraordinary diversity of living organisms is passed on to our
successors with all options intact."
He had an extensive list of public service contributions, including
seven years spent with the National Research Council of Canada, for
which he was the first chairman of an advisory committee on wildlife
research. He also sat on the board of governors of the Arctic
Institute of North America and sat as chairman of the Canadian
Environmental Advisory Council.
Having moved to Vancouver Island in retirement, he began serving a
five-year term as chancellor of the University of Victoria at the age
of 69 in 1979.
As a zoology professor, he developed a diet, called UBC 14, consisting
of alfalfa hay and a mash of corn bran and corn gluten, designed to
make deer as efficient meat producers as sheep. The diet, developed
with an animal nutritionist, was tested on waifs rescued from forest
fires.
At one point, he had more than 60 deer sampling his high-protein diets
from the safety of campus enclosures.
One of his more exotic television performances included a look at the
preservation of wild animals in Africa, produced for CBC-TV's
Discovery in 1962. He also appeared in a 1982 film opposing the use of
leg-hold traps.
His papers ranged widely, from studies of white-footed mice to
definitive looks of the mammals and birds of British Columbia.
He was invested as an officer of the Order of Canada in 1971 for his
contributions to zoology and as a conservationist. (His younger
brother later joined him in the Order.) He was named to the Order of
B.C. in 1991.
His name graces the Cowan Vertebrate Museum on the UBC campus, which
boasts 17,000 mammal and 15,200 bird specimens.
In 2005, the provincial government contributed $500,000 to establish a
professorship in his name at UVic's school of environmental studies.
The university raised an equal amount to fund the professorship, for
which Brian Starzomski was hired last year.
As well, a $25,000 endowed scholarship at the university carries the
names of the wildlife biologist and his late wife, Joyce.
On his birthday in 2007, 97 trees - one to mark each of his years -
were planted at the Swan Lake Christmas Hill nature sanctuary. Cedars,
Douglas fir and black cottonwoods were planted at a site that the
conservationist had been instrumental in establishing as a sanctuary.
Until its acquisition in 1976, Swan Lake, in Saanich, just north of
Victoria, was a dumping ground for raw sewage and wastes from dairy
farms and a winery.
The subject of the honour was on hand to encourage the tree planting