Dr. Benjamin Beck Scientist, Director of Conservation Institute or University Great Ape Trust of Iowa

Great Ape Trust Research Program

Noted scientist, author and conservationist, Dr. Benjamin Beck brings to Great Ape Trust of Iowa a distinguished record in primatology and the study of animal cognition. The former associate director at the Smithsonian National Zoo in Washington, DC, is director of conservation at Great Ape Trust. Beck serves as the project's chief representative to the national and international conservation community and is advising on several ape reintroduction programs.

Over the past 20 years, he has coordinated the preparation, reintroduction and post-release monitoring of 153 golden lion tamarins in Brazil. Through his efforts, the reintroduced population has grown to 466, about one third of the world's entire wild population.

Beck, a comparative psychologist, also will collaborate with Great Ape Trust scientists on ape cognition research.

Biographical Sketch

Wrote Animal Tool Behavior (1980). Co-authored a 1988 survey of zoo gorillas demonstrating the importance of mother-rearing and early social experience for adult sexual and maternal skills. Senior editor of Great Apes and Humans; The Ethics of Coexistence (2001). Co-author of Primates in Question (2003). Coordinated the preparation, reintroduction and post-release monitoring of 153 golden lion tamarins in Brazil since 1983. The reintroduced population has now grown to 590, about one third of the entire wild population. Maintains an international database on reintroduction programs.

BA, Union College (NY), MA from Boston University, and PhD from the University of Chicago (1967). Research Curator and Curator of Primates at Brookfield Zoo from 1970 to 1982; principal in the design and construction of Tropic World, one of the first large-scale mixed species tropical forest exhibits. Served at the Smithsonian Institution's National Zoological Park as General Curator and Associate Director from 1983 until retirement in 2003. Designed the National Zoo's innovative free-ranging golden lion tamarin exhibit, and was project executive for Think Tank, a pioneering exhibit on animal thinking that opened in 1995. Served on the negotiating team that brought giant pandas from China to the Zoo in 2000. Appointed Senior Research Scientist in the Department of Biology, University of Maryland, and Research Associate at the Smithsonian's National Zoo in 2003. Currently Director of Conservation of the Great Ape Trust of Iowa, and advisor to the Iowa Environmental Education Project.

Author of 45 scientific papers and books, and has given over 100 presentations at scientific conferences, colleges and universities. Serves as advisor to the American Zoo and Aquarium Association's Reintroduction Advisory Group, the Management Groups of the Gorilla and Orangutan Species Survival Plans, and the Great Ape Taxon Advisory Group. Member of the Board of Trustees of the Great Ape Trust of Iowa, Chair of the Financial Committee of the Golden Lion Tamarin Association in Brazil, and member of Brazil's International Lion Tamarin Conservation and Management Committee.

Honors

• Alumni Professional Achievement Citation; University of Chicago; 2003
• Keynote Speaker; Annual Meeting of the American Society of Primatologists; 1998.
• Plenary Speaker; Second International Symposium on Physiology and Ethology of Wild and Zoo Animals

Professional Organizations

• American Society of Primatologists
• Society for Conservation Biology
• American Zoo and Aquarium Association

Representative Publications

• Understanding visual barriers: Evidence for level one perspective-taking in an orangutan (Pongo Pyamaeus). Animal Behavior, 69, 679-687.
• Beck, B, et al. In press. The Effects of Pre-Release Environments on Survivorship in Reintroduced Golden Lion Tamarins. In: D.G. Kleiman and A. Rylands. The Lion Tamarins: Twenty-Five Years of Research and Conservation.
• Reintroduction of captive-born animals. In: Olney, P.J.S., Mace, G.M., Feistner, A.T.C. (Eds.), Creative Conservation: Interactive Management of Wild and Captive Animals. Chapman & Hall,London, pp. 265-286.
• Baboons, chimpanzees, and tools. Journal of Human Evolution, 1974, 3:509-516.
• Cooperative tool use by captive hamadryas baboons. Science, 1973, 182:594-597.
• A study of problem solving by gibbons. Behaviour, 1967, 28:95-109.