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I had the good fortune of spending a day with
him just a week before his death as we put the
finishing touches on a manuscript on which
we were working. At the end of the day, we
made plans to meet in late winter at Bog
Brook, where we had been surveying turtles
together for nearly a quarter of a century. His
death has been a great shock to me and every-
one who knew him.

Alvin Breisch
New York State Department of

Environmental Conservation

John Luther Behler was born in Allentown,
Pennsylvania. He received his undergrad-

uate degree from the University of Miami and
his master’s degree in biological sciences from
East Stroudsburg University. After teaching
biology at Hobart and William Smith
Colleges, he joined the Wildlife Conservation
Society, which operates the Bronx Zoo, as a
New York State Council on the Arts curator-
ial trainee in 1970. In 1976, he became
Curator of the Herpetology Department.
Since 1996, he also served as program coor-
dinator for the Wildlife Conservation
Society’s Wildlife Survival Center on St.
Catherines Island, Georgia.

Behler assumed leadership positions in
the development of captive breeding pro-
grams for endangered and threatened croc-
odilians, tortoises, and freshwater turtles.
Through his efforts, Batagur Turtles
(Batagur baska and Callagur borneoensis) and
False Gharials (Tomistoma schlegelii) success-
fully bred in captivity for the first time at the
Bronx Zoo. He received the American Zoo
and Aquarium Association’s (AZA) Edward

H. Bean Award in 1980 for most significant
reptilian birth for his work with Chinese
Alligators (Alligator sinensis). Behler’s inter-
ests also focused on the ecology and behav-
ior of reptiles and reptilian diseases. He also
conducted extensive field studies of tortoises
in Madagascar and of Spotted and Bog tur-
tles (Clemmys guttata and Glyptemys muhlen-
bergii, respectively) in North America.

Among his many conservation affilia-
tions, Behler chaired the World Conser-
vation Union’s Tortoise and Freshwater
Turtle Specialist Group and was a member
of the Convention on International Trade
in Endangered Species (CITES) Turtle
Trade Working Group. He was a former
coordinator of the AZA’s Crocodilian
Advisory Group and was a member of the
AZA’s Chelonian and Lizard Taxon
Advisory Groups. Behler worked closely
with the New York State Department of
Environmental Conservation’s Endangered
Species Unit and the U.S. National Park
Service. He served on his community’s
Conservation Board and on the West-
chester County Environmental Manage-
ment Council.

In the early 1990s, he warned about
an increasing trade of wild Asian turtles in
China, where they are prized as food and in
preparing traditional medicines. At the
time, the Chinese had been importing tur-
tles from Thailand, Indonesia, and even the
United States. Behler argued against the
practice and pushed for the opening of tur-
tle farms in China to supply the growing
commercial market.

He authored more than 40 popular
and scientific articles and five guidebooks
highlighting reptiles and amphibians, the
best known of which was the 1979 refer-
ence book that remains in wide use, the
National Audubon Society Field Guide to
North American Reptiles and Amphibians,
coauthored with F. Wayne King.

Raymond Walker

Raymond Walker died on Saturday, 21
January 2006, from complications fol-

lowing surgery to remove a brain tumor.
For the past six-plus years, Raymond
worked for the British Virgin Islands
National Parks Trust, where he oversaw the
Anegada Iguana Headstart and Recovery
Programme. That program experienced
many changes and improvements under
Raymond’s oversight, growing from a basic
headstart operation to one that has repatri-
ated 72 iguanas back to the wild since
2003. Those of us who worked in the BVI
on the iguana project with Raymond knew
him to be a decent, genuine, and hard-
working individual, one who took great
pleasure in contributing to the progress of
the program. He was always helpful and
upbeat, with a contagious smile that made
working with him a pleasure. Some mem-
bers of the Iguana Specialist Group met
Raymond when he attended the ISG meet-
ings in Puerto Rico (1999) and Grand
Cayman (2001).

Personnel at the BVI National Parks
Trust office are deeply saddened by this
tragic turn of events. He will be missed by
all of us who worked with him over the
years.

Please join me as we extend our sin-
cere condolences to his family, including
his wife and two very young children, and
co-workers.

Rick Hudson
ISG Co-chair

O B I T U A R I E S

John L. Behler (1943–2006)1

John Behler with a Spotted Turtle (Clemmys
guttata) equipped with a tracking device.
John conducted extensive field studies on this
species, which is becoming increasingly rare
throughout much of its range.

W
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1 The bulk of this obituary was provided by
Alvin Breisch, much of it based on data
provided by Linda Corcoran, Wildlife
Conservation Society; a small amount of
additional information came from the
obituary published in the New York Times
on 5 February 2006.

Raymond Walker and Nancy Woodfield,
BVI National Parks Trust, during a Cyclura
pinguis Species Recovery Plan workshop held
in Tortola, BVI, July 2001.

JO
H

N
 B

IN
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IGUANA  •  VOLUME 13, NUMBER 1  •  MARCH 2006 81OBITUARIES

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