Cahalane, Victor H. (Deceased)
Victor was born on October 17, 1901, in Charleston, New Hampshire. He was the son of David Victor and Elizabeth Harrison Cahalane. He received a BS degree in 1924 from the Massachusetts Agricultural College in Amherst with a major in landscape and a master’s degree in forestry in 1927 from Yale Forest School, New Haven, Connecticut. In 1929, he completed course work for a PhD degree at the University of Michigan, but left without completing his dissertation.
Victor served as the assistant director of the New York State Museum in Albany. He was the chief biologist for the National Park Service, Washington, D.C. He also was director of the Cranbrook Institute of Science, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. Victor served as a deer investigator with the Michigan Department of Conservation in Lansing. He also was a junior instructor at the School of Forestry and Conservation at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
His honors include becoming a fellow at the Cranbrook Institute of Science and a fellow of the Museum of Arts and Sciences in Rochester, New York.
Victor wrote eight books and about one hundred articles on birds, mammals, national parks, and conservation. One of his best known books is Mammals of North America (1947).
Victor was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1939.
Victor lived in Clarksville, New York, after retirement. His wife predeceased him. They had one daughter, Margaret Cahalane Hayes. He died in Dormansville, New York, on May 6, 1993. A memorial plaque was installed on Plummers Island for this well-known and admired biologist.