Sean McKeown (January 1, 1944 - July 11, 2002) was an American
herpetologist, writer, and advocate for Hawaiian wildlife preservation. He was the former curator of reptiles at the
Honolulu Zoo and published frequently on reptiles and amphibians.
Biography
Early life
Sean McKeown was born January 1, 1944, in
Los Angeles, California. As a child, he lived briefly in western Pennsylvania, then returned to California to attend elementary through high school. McKeown graduated from the
University of California at Santa Barbara in 1967 with a bachelor's degree in political science. He attended
California State University for graduate school, receiving his master's degree in biological sciences and anthropology in 1973.
Career
McKeown moved to Hawaii in 1975 and took a job at the
Honolulu Zoo. He became supervising herpetologist at the zoo, where he expanded the zoo's reptile population and developed a number of breeding programs for some
lizard
Lizards are a widespread group of squamate reptiles, with over 7,000 species, ranging across all continents except Antarctica, as well as most oceanic island chains. The group is paraphyletic since it excludes the snakes and Amphisbaenia alt ...
and
tortoise species.
In 1983, McKeown and his staff received the Edward Bean Award for conservation from the American Association of Zoological Parks and Aquariums, for breeding the endangered
Madagascar ploughshare tortoise. Later that year, McKeown returned to California, where he became curator of reptiles for Fresno's Chaffee Zoological Gardens. He received another American Association of Zoological Parks and Aquariums award in 1986 for captive breeding of
Madagascar ground boas.
McKeown did field work for the wildlife departments of
Aruba
Aruba ( , , ), officially the Country of Aruba ( nl, Land Aruba; pap, Pais Aruba) is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands physically located in the mid-south of the Caribbean Sea, about north of the Venezuela peninsula of ...
, New Zealand, the
Seychelles,
Mauritius,
Hawaii, and
Guam. In the Seychelles, he oversaw the construction of an egg incubator for
Aldabra giant tortoises, while in Aruba, he studied the Aruba Island rattlesnake.
He was also an advocate for wildlife preservation in Hawaii, working with former Honolulu Zoo director Paul Breese to prevent the spread of brown tree snakes to the islands.
In 1990, McKeown became managing editor of ''
The Vivarium
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in En ...
'' magazine.
He wrote more than 100 articles about breeding and caring for reptiles and amphibians.
Later life
McKeown was diagnosed with
congestive heart failure in 1996 and received a heart transplant in April 2000 from
Stanford Medical Center
Stanford University Medical Center is a medical complex which includes Stanford Health Care and Stanford Children's Health. It is consistently ranked as one of the best hospitals in the United States and serves as a teaching hospital for the ...
. On July 11, 2002, he died and was survived by his wife, Wendy, and children Dorie and Casey.
Works
*''A Field Guide to the Reptiles and Amphibians of the Hawaiian Islands'', Diamond Head Publishing, Inc., Los Osos, California .
*''The General Care and Maintenance of Day Geckos'', Advanced Vivarium Systems, 1993, Lakeside CA.
*''The General Care and Maintenance of Tokay Geckos and Related Species'' (1997)
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:McKeown, Sean
1944 births
2002 deaths
American herpetologists
20th-century American zoologists