Gerard Frederick van Tets

Gerard Frederick van Tets (1929-1995), otherwise known as Jerry van Tets, was a twentieth century English ornithologist and paleontologist. Born in London on 19 January 1929, he became a member of the American Ornithologists' Union in 1958 and studied at the University of British Columbia, obtaining his PhD in 1963. In November 1963, he married Patricia Anne Johnston in Vancouver, British Columbia, moving shortly thereafter to Australia, where he joined the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation in the Division of Wildlife and Ecology, now the Division of Sustainable Ecosystems.

Gerard van Tets received recognition for his studies on bird strike damage to aircraft, and later for his studies of the bird bones in the Australian National Wildlife Collection, including those of the extinct Tasman Booby which he described scientifically in 1988, and became a specialist authority on the mutton bird. He died on 14 January 1995.

The extinct New Zealand Stiff-tailed Duck, Oxyura vantetsi, was named in his honour.

Selected publications of Garard van Tets

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