Theodore Sherman Palmer

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Theodore Sherman Palmer (January 26, 1868 - July 24, 1955) was an American zoologist.

Palmer was born in Oakland, California and studied at the University of California. In 1889 he joined the Division of Economic Ornithology and Mammalogy of the United States Department of Agriculture under Clinton Hart Merriam. In 1891 he led an expedition to study the biology of Death Valley. He was Assistant Chief of the Department from 1896 to 1902, and then from 1910 to 1914. He became interested in the legislation affecting wildlife, leading a branch of the organisation to deal with it from 1902 to 1910 and from 1914 to 1916. He wrote the preliminary draft of the treaty for protection of birds migrating between Canada and the United States (1916), and was Chairman of the Committee which prepared the first regulations under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (1918). He retired in 1933.

Palmer was a member of about 25 North American and 4 foreign scientific or conservation organisations. He was vice-president of the American Society of Mammalogists from 1928 to 1934, and a co-founder of the National Audubon Society.

Note: He was the great-great-great grandson of American founding father Roger Sherman. His uncle, Ira Hart Palmer, married Harriet Trumbull; who was the daughter of Connecticut Governor Jonathan Trumbull, Jr. (who was the son of Roger Sherman's fellow judge on the Connecticut Superior Court, and who was also the son of Connecticut Governor Jonathan Trumbull, Sr.)