Citizenship United States Nationality American | Name Charles Townsend | |
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Residence Westchester County, New York Institutions United States Fish CommissionNew York Aquarium Spouse Ella Townsend, nee Bean, (1854-1935) Died 1944, Miami, Florida, United States Books The Public Aquarium: Its Construction, Equipment, and Management, Salmon and Trout Institution | ||
Charles Haskins Townsend, Sc.D. (September 29, 1859 – January 28, 1944) was an American zoologist.
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Early life
The son of the Reverend Daniel W. Townsend and Elizabeth Townsend, née Kier, he was born at Parnassus, Pennsylvania, and educated in public and private schools.
Career
In 1883, he became assistant United States Fish Commissioner in charge of salmon propagation in California. For a time, he was in charge of deep-sea explorations on the USS Albatross. From 1897 to 1902, he served as chief of the Fish Commission's fisheries division. He then served as director of the New York Aquarium at Castle Garden, from 1902 until his retirement in 1937.
Memberships and honors
In 1902 Townsend was an expert before the Russo-American fisheries arbitration at The Hague. In 1912-13 he was president of the American Fisheries Society. He was elected a fellow of the New York Academy of Sciences.
He is commemorated in the names of Townsend's shearwater and the Guadalupe fur seal (Arctocephalus townsendi ).
He is also commemorated in the scientific names of three species of lizards: Amphisbaena townsendi, Anolis townsendi, and Sphaerodactylus townsendi.
Writing
He wrote extensively on fisheries, whaling, fur seals, deep-sea exploration and zoology, including ornithology and herpetology. With Hugh McCormick Smith he wrote The Pacific Salmons section of Trout and Salmon (New York: Macmillan, 1902), a volume of Caspar Whitney's prestigious American Sportsman's Library.