Series II: Johnson Neff’s Letters as a Handbook on Bird Control, 1940 - 1964

Johnson A. Neff (1900-1972) began working for the Food Habits Division of the U.S. Bureau of Biological Survey in Washington, D.C., in 1930. He later transferred to California and then to Arizona where he worked on mitigation and prevention of bird damage to agriculture. In 1940, Johnson moved to the Denver Wildlife Research Center (DWRC) of the newly reorganized U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife. There he began studies of bird depredations in Arkansas rice fields and southern pine seedlings, and initiated the Bureau's development of nontoxic chemical bird repellents for seed protection. During two assignments on Midway Island, he studied methods of preventing bird-aircraft collisions without the necessity of drastic reductions in the nesting colonies of albatrosses and other sea birds. His more than ninety published papers cover the population dynamics, movements, food habits, and life histories of many bird species. Neff retired from the DWRC in 1964.