David B. Wingate

For other people of the same name, see David Wingate (disambiguation).

Dr. David B. Wingate

Dr David Balcombe Wingate OBE, born October 11, 1935, is an ornithologist, naturalist and conservationist. He was born in Bermuda.

In 1951 he helped Robert Cushman Murphy and Louis S. Mowbray re-discover a bird species thought extinct since the 1620s, the Bermuda petrel or Cahow.

This spurred him on to study Zoology at Cornell University, returning to take on the challenge of saving the Cahow in 1958. He went on to become the Conservation Officer for the Bermuda Government Parks Department from 1966 to his retirement in 2000.

He was credited with rediscovering the Black-capped Petrel in Haiti in 1963.

His lifelong efforts to bring back the Cahow from near-extinction led him to undertake the holistic restoration of an entire barren island's pre-colonial ecology, in a project known as the Nonsuch Island 'Living museum', reintroducing several other species in the process.

He has been honoured with a number of awards. These include the Queen's Honours (UK), the MBE and OBE; King's Honours (Netherlands), Ridder, Order of the Golden Ark; the United Nations' Global 500 Award and Dr.of Sci. Honoris causa, Clark University, Massachusetts. In 2007 he was nominated for the 2008 Indianapolis prize.

He has three daughters. His eldest daughter Janet has written an award-winning educational autobiography about her father's Nonsuch project, which has been adopted by the Bermuda Education Ministry as a schoolbook.

External links

• 'Island treasure' a short biography of David Wingate in the Bermudian newspaper The Royal Gazette cf the Indianapolis prize nomination .
• 'Assembling Complexity' more on Wingate's holistic restoration methods, from Kevin Kelly's book 'Out of Control'
• 'Strategies for successful biodiversity conservation...' illustrated article by David B. Wingate
• 'Nonsuch Summer' (2005) ISBN 80-902811-1-7 by Janet A. Wingate, is, like the Cahow, only found in Bermuda
• about 'Rare Bird' (2005) Feature film documentary about David Wingate's lifetime achievement by Lucinda Spurling
  • sample from Lucinda Spurling's film Rare Bird, on YouTube
• [1] Film about David Wingate website
• [2] IMDB page on Rare Bird
• 'Bermuda's Treasure Island' and 'Sceilligs and Bermuda - A Last Refuge', (2005) two film documentary versions by Deirdre Brennan and Éamon de Buitléar featuring David Wingate's Cahow and Nonsuch Island restoration projects - news release and review
• 'Nature's Restoration' (2006) ISBN 1-55963-085-X by Peter Friederici features David Wingate's restoration work
• Citations and Articles
• [3] There Are Problems When Man Plays God, an article on Wingate and the Cahow in Sports Illustrated magazine, November 4th, 1968

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Name	Wingate, David Balcombe
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Date of birth	1935
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