Biography

American naturalist, Edmund Heller undertook a great many expeditions throughout the world, sponsored by a range of U.S. natural history institutions, and directed both the Washington Park Zoo in Milwaukee and the Fleischhacker Zoo of San Francisco. Born in Freeport, Illinois, he moved as a teenager to California and came to consider Riverside his home town. As a youngster he collected birds and eggs before matriculating at Stanford University in 1896. During his time as a student Heller gained the opportunity to travel to the Galapagos Islands on the Hopkins-Stanford Expedition, spending seven months collecting there in 1897. In 1900 he was employed by the United States Biological Survey as an assistant to W. H. Osgood on an expedition to Alaska and after returning he graduated the following year. Continuing his travels Heller worked as a collector for the Field Columbian Museum working in the western United States, Mexico and Guatemala in 1907 and after this for the same museum on their African expedition. The following year he became curator of mammals at the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology in the University of California and with them again travelled to Alaska to collect mammal specimens.

Perhaps Heller's best known expedition took place in 1909 when he was selected by the president, Theodor Roosevelt, to accompany him in the collection of mammals and birds in Africa. Travelling via the Azores and Gibraltar to the Suez Canal they explored Kenya before returning up the Nile to Khartoum. Heller was one of three naturalists in the party and in charge of the collection and preparation of the large mammals. On returning he and the president co-authored a book, the Life histories of African game animals. Shortly after this he travelled again to East Africa on the Rainey expedition in 1911, temporarily removing him from his work analysing the findings of the Roosevelt trip.

After a while spent researching large game in Canada, he was part of a team sent out to Peru to explore the newly discovered ruins of Machu Pichu; sponsored by Yale University and the National Geographic Society Heller was the expedition's naturalist (1915). Another considerable collection trip was undertaken the following year to China's Yunnan province in order to hunt tigers and Heller also visited Burma (Myanmar), Calcutta, Darjeeling, Singapore, Hong Kong and Shanghai. Following this he travelled by rail across Siberia and from the Cape to Cairo before returning to the U.S. to work for the Roosevelt Wild Life Experimental Station in Yellowstone National Park.

Heller's final expeditions occurred between 1922 and 1926 while he was working as an assistant curator of mammals for the Field Museum: first to Peru and then again to Africa. In 1928 he settled down in Milwaukee, becoming director of the Washington Park Zoo, where he remained for the next seven years. It seems there was some friction with the park authorities and in 1935 Heller relocated to San Francisco and the Fleischhacker Zoo where he worked as director until his death four years later. Heller was a determined character and despite a serious heart attack in 1938 he continued his research and even began planning another book. Married for ten or so years to Hilda Hempl, Edmund Heller is considered one of the most accomplished mammologists and extensively travelled naturalists of his time.

Sources:
Conant, R., 1997, A field guide to the life and times of Roger Conant. Toledo Zoological Society, Toledo, Ohio, U.S.A.
Smithsonian Institution, 2008, "Edmund Heller papers circa 1898 to 1918". Smithsonian Institution Archives: http://siarchives.si.edu/findingaids/FARU7179.htm.