The Father of Wildlife Photography

Ernest Hemingway described him as “the most interesting man I know.” Theodore Roosevelt wrote to him urging him to write about his pioneering photography:

“I feel strongly that this country stands much more in need of the work of a great outdoor faunal naturalist than of the work of any number of closet specialists and microscopic tissue-cutters.”

George Shiras III was born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, in 1859. He was from a family long interested in hunting and the outdoors, as well as law and politics. His father was a U.S. associate justice of the Supreme Court.

Shiras graduated from Cornell in 1881 and, in 1883, received his law degree from Yale. He served as a member of Congress from 1903 to 1905, during which time he prepared and introduced the now-famous Federal Migratory Bird Law in the House. He helped write legislation creating Olympic National Park. He discovered several species of wildlife, including Alces americana shirasi, the “Yellowstone” moose.

In his early years, Shiras was an avid hunter, spending his vacation time in Michigan’s remote Upper Peninsula. By 1889, he had laid aside his gun and picked up a camera, becoming the first to photograph wild animals in daytime from a canoe or blind. He developed pioneering techniques for flash-photographing animals and invented special camera equipment, using a specially devised apparatus that enabled wildfowl to be photographed while flying.

Shiras served on the governing board of the National Geographic Society for 25 years. He contributed substantial material to National Geographic magazine over many years. He finally followed Theodore Roosevelt’s admonition and published his observations of North American wildlife along with 950 of his outstanding photographs in the two-volume work Hunting Wild Life With Camera And Flashlight, dedicated to his mentor, Theodore Roosevelt.

George Shiras III was a member of the Boone and Crockett Club. On behalf of the Club and several other wildlife organizations, George Bird Grinnell wrote to him regarding his lifelong work:

“It was your genius which discovered the legal distinction between animals that are migratory and those that are sedentary, or local. Through this discovery we owe to you the greatest single accomplishment ever made in wild life protection. No man has rendered a service in this respect so great as yours.”

George Shiras III donated all his pioneering negatives and equipment to the National Geographic Society. He died in Marquette, Michigan, in 1942 and was buried in Park Cemetery. 

Member Spotlights

Boone and Crockett Club members have come from a cross-section of famous, accomplished people whose lives and careers have written and recorded the history of this country since the late 19th Century. They have been naturalists, scientists, explorers and sportsmen, writers and academicians, artists, statesmen and politicians, generals, bankers, financiers, philanthropists, and industrialists. The diversity of ideas and activities during their careers has made the Boone and Crockett Club rich in its fellowship and achievements. To read more member spotlights, just click here.