Date/Place of Birth:  22nd October 1932 in Berlin

University education:   1950 – 1957 Natural Sciences, majoring in zoology, Free University of Berlin; 1957 Dr. rer. nat.; title of dissertation: “Verhaltensstudien am Trauerschnäpper” (Behaviour studies of the Pied Flycatcher), Suppl. Z. Tierpsychol. No. 3, 1959

Career:
Summer 1957    Research associate at the Federal Bird Observatory of the Land Baden-Württemberg at Ludwigsburg.
1957 – 1964       Research associate at the Max-Planck-Institute for Behavioural Physiology at Seewiesen (Department Lorenz).
1964 – 1967       Assistant Professor at the Department of Zoology, Tübingen University.
1968                 Habilitation at Department of Biology, Ruhr-Universität Bochum; “Dozent” and founder of the Animal Behaviour  Research Group (“Arbeitsgruppe für Verhaltensforschung”), Faculty of Biology.
1971 –               Professor of Zoology

Research:
1950 –      Comparative behaviour research and population ecology of songbirds, with emphasis on visual mechanisms (enemy recognition in birds, prey recognition in reptiles), the functional organization of complex activities, ethometry. Research trips to Southern Macedonia (1958), Spain (1960), Galapagos (1962/63), Jamaica (1969), Panama (1979), Tonga (1990), Fiji (1990/91), and Philippines (1993 – today).
1963 –      Studies on the behavioural and morphological phenomorphism of neo-tropical hawkmoths and the measurement of the selective coefficient of larval phenomorphs; stochastic determination of intra-specific behavioural variation of a Jamaican lizard. Sociobiology and life history of parental care in songbirds.

Books:
– Doctoral Dissertation (1959, Parey, Berlin, Hamburg)
– The Ethology of Predation (1976, Springer). A review of the ethology and behavioural ecology of predator hunting strategies.

Teaching:
Physiological practical; excursion in marine biology to Italy; courses, seminars and practicals in “Behaviour”;
further courses in “Zoology for Psychologists”;
“Introduction to quantitative evolutionary research”;
“Behavioural ecology: empirics and modeling”.

Public education, lectures and seminars, e.g. “Models in biology” together with K. STEINBUCH on the European Forum at Alpbach (Austria).

Supervision of 12 dissertations and ca. 40 High School teacher and master’s theses.

Intramural activities:
1968 – 1972 Representative of the Deans of the mathematical and natural sciences of the Ruhr-University at the West German Mathematical and Natural Sciences Faculties Meeting. Member of the coordination committee during the initial build-up of the Ruhr-University as well as member of University Parliament.
1968 – 1997 Faculty member of the Department of Biology, Ruhr-University; various activities in councils and committees.

Extramural activities:
Honours:
1965 – 1977   Serving on the Scientific Advisory Committee of the German Ornithologists’ Society (“DOG”);
1973              President of that Committee
1974              President of the Society´s Research Committee
1966 – 1972   Scientific Advisory Committee of the Charles Darwin Foundation for the Galapagos Isles
1967 –            Member of WWF (Worldwide Fund for Nature)
1970              Elected member of the American Society of Naturalists.
1970              Member of German Conservation Organization („Bund für Umwelt- und Naturschutz Deutschland“)
1973 – 1985   Editor of “Zeitschrift für Tierpsychologie”, now “Ethology”.
1980 – 1996   Co-editor of “Bird Behaviour”.
1980 – 1998   Election member of the International Ethological Committee.
1987 – 1990   President of the Ethological Society (“Ethologische Gesellschaft”).
1986 –            International Society for Behavioural Ecology.
1988 – 1998   European Society for Evolutionary Biology.
Plenary session lectures on meetings 1970 – 1991 of the following societal or other institutions: Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour (twice); German Ornithological Society; German Zoological Society, Sociéta Italiana di Etologia, Association of German Biologists, European Society for Evolutionary Biology, International Ethological Conferences (each one, the latter twice).
1991              Member of the Society for Conservation Biology.
1992              Tinbergen lecture of the Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour.
1994              Member of the International Ornithological Committee
1995              Ornithologists’ Prize 1995 of the German Ornithologists’ Society.
1995              Founder and Director of Philippine Endemic Species Conservation Project
1996              Research Award towards studies in tropical biology of the Smithsonian Institution in Central America.
1998              Election Member of IUCN Survival Service Commission and its Re-introduction Specialist Group.
1999              Election into the Editorial Board of the “Silliman Journal”

2000              Honorary member of Ethological Society (“Ethologische Gesellschaft”)
2000 – 2001   President and co-founder of Bioresource Conservation Trust for the Philippines (BioCon), Pandan, Antique, Philippines
2001 – 2003   Board Member of BioCon
2001              Chair for Biodiversity, first in the ASEAN states, assigned by EU ASEAN Regional Centre for Biodiversity Conservation
2011              Renewal of the Philippine conservation project  and it’s umbrella NGO under new names with slightly updated aims.

2017              President of PhilinCon