New York Zoological Society. Center for Field Biology and Conservation records

The New York Zoological Society (NYZS) established the Center for Field Biology and Conservation (CFBC) in 1972. It succeeded the Institute for Research in Animal Behavior (IRAB), which opened in 1966, absorbing the Department of Tropical Research. A joint effort between the New York Zoological Society and Rockefeller University, the Institute included both field researchers (expeditionary field studies) and lab scientists (experimentally-oriented studies). IRAB was the first non-governmental organization to employ a full-time field staff conducting long-term research. Chief field and behavioral studies conducted under IRAB's auspices included George Schaller’s studies of lions in the Serengeti, Thomas Struhsaker’s studies of primates in West Africa, and Roger Payne’s studies of whales. The growth of NYZS’s international wildlife conservation programs, which included IRAB and its later incarnations, was facilitated by William Conway, who became General Director of NYZS in 1966 while continuing to serve as Director of the Bronx Zoo. In 1972, IRAB was discontinued. The experimentally oriented component remained administered by Rockefeller University, while the Center for Field Biology and Conservation, focusing on field research and wildlife conservation worldwide, was established as an NYZS department, with George Schaller as Coordinator. Struhsaker and Payne continued their work with primates and whales, respectively, while Schaller studied several mammals in Asia and South America. In 1978, both Schaller and Payne were awarded the Knight of the Golden Ark, given by Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands. In 1979, the Center merged with the Department of Conservation (formed in 1973 to manage conservation grants to non-staff scientists) to form a new department, which by 1980 was named the Animal Research and Conservation Center. George Schaller became Director of Conservation, while Thomas Struhsaker and Roger Payne continued their research under the auspices of the new department. In 1985, the department was renamed Wildlife Conservation International. By 1992, Conservation had become a full-fledged division of NYZS, named International Conservation until 2007, when the name was changed to Global Conservation.

Roger Payne was born January 29, 1935 and studied at Harvard and Cornell Universities. He was an assistant professor of Biology at Rockefeller University and a research zoologist at the New York Zoological Society. After an early period studying bat echolocation and owl auditory localization, he became best known for the discovery of humpback whale song, a popular recording of which was released by Capitol Records. He also studied other aspects of humpback and right whale physiology and behavior in Bermuda, Hawaii, Argentina, Alaska, and Baja California and was involved in efforts to stop commercial whaling and establish whale sanctuaries. NYZS's Whale Fund was established in 1969 to promote his work and whale conservation. Payne’s wife, Katherine Payne, worked alongside and co-authored publications with him. His work was profiled in the 1975 television special, Magnificent Monsters of the Deep.

George Schaller, Coordinator of the Center and later Director of Conservation, was born in Berlin in 1933 and moved to the United States as a teen, where he studied at the University of Alaska and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In 1956, he joined Olaus and Mardie Murie on their NYZS-funded expedition to Alaska's Brooks Range; three years later, with NYZS funding, he conducted seminal field studies on the ecology and behavior of mountain gorillas in Central Africa. He joined NYZS as a staff member in 1966. His diverse field studies have also included lions in the Serengeti, blue sheep in the Himalayas, snow leopards in Pakistan and Nepal, marsh deer and jaguars in Brazil, pandas in China, and wildlife surveys in Tibet, Vietnam, Mongolia, Myanmar, and Laos. His many books include The Serengeti Lion: A Study of Predator-Prey Relations (winner of the 1973 National Book Award for Sciences), Serengeti: A Kingdom of Predators in 1972, Mountain Monarchs: Wild Sheep and Goats of the Himalayas in 1977, and The Last Panda in 1992. Schaller’s efforts in panda conservation were documented in the National Geographic Society film Save the Panda in 1983.

Thomas Struhsaker received his Ph.D. in Zoology from the University of California, Berkeley. He began studying primates in East Africa in 1962, before establishing a permanent research station in Kibale Forest, Uganda in 1970, where he studied primates (including five species of colobus and mangabey monkeys) through the mid-1980s. He published The Red Colobus Monkey in 1975. He also studied primate behavior in Zanzibar and Colombia and coordinated field work in the rain forests of Kenya and Cameroon. His research helped spur the establishment of a nature reserve in the Kibale Forest Government Reserve by the Ugandan Forest Department in 1980. Kibale Forest Station was transferred to Makerere University in 1987, with Struhsaker remaining as an advisor to the station. In the 1990s, Dr. Struhsaker joined the Evolutionary Anthropology department at Duke University, studying red colobus monkeys in Tanzania.