William Joseph Lambart Sladen

MBE Mbe may refer to: * Mbé, a town in the Republic of the Congo * Mbe Mountains Community Forest, in Nigeria * Mbe language, a language of Nigeria * Mbe' language, language of Cameroon * ''mbe'', ISO 639 code for the extinct Molala language Molal ...

(19 December 1920 – 29 May 2017) was a Welsh American naturalist who was an Antarctic explorer and a specialist on polar bird life. He was

professor emeritus ''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hem ...

in the United States. He researched the mating of Antarctic birds and received the

Polar Medal The Polar Medal is a medal awarded by the Sovereign of the United Kingdom to individuals who have outstanding achievements in the field of polar research, and particularly for those who have worked over extended periods in harsh climates. It w ...

. Two mountains on the continent,

Mount Sladen Mount Sladen is a conspicuous pyramid-shaped mountain, 890 m, standing 1.5 nautical miles (2.8 km) northeast of Saunders Point in eastern Coronation Island, in the South Orkney Islands. Surveyed by the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey (FI ...

and

Sladen Summit Rampart Ridge () is a prominent broken ridge on the west side of the Royal Society Range, standing north of Rutgers Glacier and extending from The Spire to Bishop Peak. Surveyed and given this descriptive name in February 1957 by the New Zealand ...

, are named in his honour. His discovery in the 1960s that

DDT Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, commonly known as DDT, is a colorless, tasteless, and almost odorless crystalline chemical compound, an organochloride. Originally developed as an insecticide, it became infamous for its environmental impacts. ...

residues could be found in

adelie penguins Adelie or Adélie may refer to: * Adélie Land, a claimed territory on the continent of Antarctica * Adelie Land meteorite Adelie Land is a meteorite discovered on December 5, 1912, in Antarctica by Francis Howard Bickerton (1889-1954), a membe ...

contributed to the banning of DDT in the U.S. Sladen was born in Wales and trained in medicine with an MD from London and a Ph.D. in zoology from Oxford and joined a research team to the Antarctic in 1948 as part of the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey. The expedition required him to live alone and sledge with dogs after his colleagues were killed in a fire. He moved to the United States in 1956 and taught behaviour and ecology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health. He worked with the US Antarctic Research Program and undertook studies on diseases in wild birds. He detected DDT traces in Antarctic penguins in 1964 and influenced the EPA's ban on the pesticide. Sladen worked on Wrangel Island in cooperation with Soviet scientists. In the 1970s he studied Tundra swans and advised the US airforce. A film on his studies ''Penguin City'' was produced in 1971 with narration by

Charles Kuralt Charles Bishop Kuralt (September 10, 1934 – July 4, 1997) was an American television, newspaper and radio journalist and author. He is most widely known for his long career with CBS, first for his "On the Road" segments on '' The CBS Evenin ...

and broadcast by CBS. In the 1980s he worked with

Bill Lishman William Lishman (February 12, 1939 – December 30, 2017) was a Canadian sculptor, filmmaker, inventor, naturalist and public speaker, president of William Lishman & Associates Limited, Vice President of Paula Lishman Limited and Chair Emeritu ...

to train Canada geese to follow ultralight aircraft. This would later inspire the movie ''

Fly Away Home ''Fly Away Home'' ( ''Flying Wild'' and ''Father Goose'') is a 1996 family drama film directed by Carroll Ballard. The film stars Anna Paquin, Jeff Daniels, and Dana Delany. ''Fly Away Home'' was released on September 13, 1996, by Columbia Pic ...

'' (1996). He retired to

Fauquier County Fauquier is a county in the Commonwealth of Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 72,972. The county seat is Warrenton. Fauquier County is in Northern Virginia and is a part of the Washington metropolitan area. History In 160 ...

in 1990 and established a research station north of Warrenton where he worked and lived until his death. He was survived by his second wife, the former Jocelyn Arundel, as well as his first wife, Brenda Macpherson Sladen, and his two children, Kate Adélie Sladen and Hugh Sladen, as well as two grandchildren, Evan and Dillon Bush. Sladen's maternal great-grandparents founded the

Salvation Army Salvation (from Latin: ''salvatio'', from ''salva'', 'safe, saved') is the state of being saved or protected from harm or a dire situation. In religion and theology, ''salvation'' generally refers to the deliverance of the soul from sin and its c ...

, and thus his parents, Hugh Alfred Lambart Sladen and Catherine Motee Booth-Tucker, and other family members served as officers in the organisation. His maternal grand-parents were

Frederick Booth-Tucker Commissioner Frederick St. George de Lautour Booth-Tucker, (21 March 1853 – 17 July 1929) was a senior Salvation Army officer of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and the son-in-law of Willam and Catherine Booth, the Army's f ...

and Emma Booth-Tucker, both influential figures in the organisation, although Sladen was not involved in its activities.

References

1920 births 2017 deaths Welsh naturalists Members of the Order of the British Empire People from Newport, Wales Welsh biologists 20th-century Welsh medical doctors Welsh zoologists Alumni of the University of Oxford Johns Hopkins University faculty Recipients of the Polar Medal British emigrants to the United States {{US-zoologist-stub