Jeff Watson (1952-2007)-A founder of the conservation of Seychelles birds |01 October 2007

Raised in Scotland, Jeff’s interest in birds was inspired by his father, bird artist and ornithologist Donald Watson. He attended Aberdeen University where he took an honours degree in zoology, graduating in 1974. It was then that he moved to Seychelles for four years.

In Seychelles, Jeff spent four years researching the ecology, food and conservation of the Seychelles kestrel (katiti) and was awarded a doctorate by Aberdeen University in 1977. At this time, very little was known about the endemic birds of Seychelles in the outside world, but Jeff’s work greatly stimulated interest in their conservation, including from WWF (World Wildlife Fund) and BirdLife International.

As bird conservation took root in Seychelles, Jeff continued to be a great contributor to the cause for the rest of his life. In 1978, he produced a report for WWF on the status of the Seychelles magpie-robin (pisantez), which was on the brink of extinction at the time. In 1980 he produced the first ever paper on the distribution of the Yellow Bittern (makak zonn) in Seychelles. His many other papers included a summary of the state of knowledge of all endangered land birds in Seychelles published in 1984, a paper on the ecology of the Seychelles paradise flycatcher (vev) published in 1991 and a population estimate of the Seychelles scops owl (syer) published in 2000. He also continued to add to our knowledge of the Seychelles kestrel. In 1992, he published a paper in the highly esteemed journal Ibis on the nesting ecology of the Katiti and as recently as 2000, he contributed a paper in Johannesburg to the fifth World Conference on Birds of Prey and Owls.

Jeff was inspired by birds of prey from the diminutive Seychelles kestrel to the huge golden eagle, resident in the mountain wildernesses of his native Scotland. In 1997 he published the definitive book on this magnificent bird, The Golden Eagle.
 Just days before he passed away, Jeff penned the foreword to its forthcoming second edition, and vividly reflected on the considerable advances made in our understanding of this icon of Scotland’s wildlife.

During his life, Jeff worked for a short time for the Scottish Wildlife Trust before moving to the Nature Conservancy Council, where he began his research on golden eagles, setting the highest of standards for understanding the effects of land uses on raptors. His masterpiece of a book on the golden eagle, published in the famous Poyser/Academic Press series, was lauded throughout the world and was recently translated into Japanese. The book and Jeff’s more recent research has spawned a rich seam of research papers on the conservation and population ecology of golden eagles. Remarkably, right up until days before his death, Jeff corresponded with workers in Kazakhstan, Ireland and USA.

An outstanding photographer, Jeff produced evocative landscape pictures which have been compared favourably with the brilliant hill and raptor paintings by his father. Despite all of these accomplishments, Jeff remained modest, indeed humble, and was genuinely embarrassed if praise came his way.  His dealings with the politics of conservation were, at times, troubling, and he often spoke of the agonies of compromising in the face of development pressure.  But many tough battles were won, often with Jeff marshalling his facts calmly and by disarming those around him with lateral thinking and cogent arguments.  Tragically, his toughest battle was with cancer, which he lost after a courageous and determined fight, during which he showed supreme dignity. 

Jeff had recently been awarded the prestigious Conservation Medal by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds in recognition of his outstanding work in nature conservation.  Jeff is survived by his wife Vanessa and son Ronan, who cherish special memories of their days in Seychelles and where Jeff continues to be admired by everyone working in bird conservation in the islands.

Adrian Skerrett