Member

John was born on September 27, 1912, in Berne, Indiana. He attended Earlham College and received a BA degree in 1934 and an LLD degree in 1966. He attended the University of Indiana and received a MA degree in 1943. John was employed as a park ranger with the Indiana Conservation Department in 1930, later becoming park naturalist and superintendent of fisheries. During World War II, he was production laboratory director in the Schenley penicillin manufacturing plant. He began his federal career as a fisheries biologist for the Fish and Wildlife Service. He organized the Federal Aid in Fish Restoration program in 1951, and was successively chief of the Division of Sport Fisheries, regional director of the Northeast Region, and, in 1964, director of the Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife. John initiated the first formal endangered species program, several innovative waterfowl management concepts, including the “point system” bag limit, and the search for lead shot substitute. During his tenure as director, Bureau scientists determined the biochemical cause of eggshell thinning and brought about the ban on use of DDT. John left the U.S. Department of the Interior in 1970 to become assistant to director of the National Marine Fisheries Service for recreational and environmental programs. John retired from government service in 1973 and was appointed executive vice president of the International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies. He represented the Interior Department and the Association at numerous international meetings and served as a member of the Survival Service and Ecology Commissions of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, as a member of the International Migratory Bird Committee, the U.S. delegations on the Antarctic Conservation Treaty, the U.S./Japan Migratory Bird Treaty, and the U.S. delegation to the meetings leading to the Convention on Control of Trade in Endangered Species. In 1979, he became a legislative counsel for the International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, and in 1981, on retirement from active duties, became its counsel. John was vice president of The Wildlife Society; president of the American Fisheries Society and the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay; and a member of the board of directors of the National Wildlife Federation and the Audubon Naturalist Society, where he also served as conservation chairman. John received the Conservation Award of the Nash Motor Company in 1955; John Pearce Award of the Northeast Wildlife Society in 1965; the Distinguished Service Award of the Department of the Interior in 1971; Seth Gordon Award of the International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies in 1975; the Aldo Leopold Medal of the Wildlife Society in 1976; the Paul Bartsch Medal of the Audubon Naturalist Society in 1989; and the Marcellus Hartley Dodge Award of the Great Swamp (New Jersey) Watershed Association in 1996. He was an honorary life member of the American Fisheries Society, The Wildlife Society, the Whooping Crane Conservation Association, and the Izaak Walton League of America. John was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1965 and served as president from 1979 to 1981. John died in 1999.