Joseph P. Grinnell (February 27, 1877 – May 29, 1939) was an American field biologist and zoologist. He made extensive studies of the fauna of California, and is credited with introducing a method of recording precise field observations known as the Grinnell System. He served as the first director of the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology at the University of California, Berkeley from the museum's inception in 1908 until his death.
He edited The Condor, a publication of the Cooper Ornithological Club, from 1906 to 1939, and authored many articles for scientific journals and ornithological magazines. He wrote several books, among them The Distribution of the Birds of California and Animal Life in the Yosemite. He also developed and popularized the concept of the niche.
Early years
Joseph Grinnell was born February 27, 1877, the first of three children by his father Fordyce Grinnell MD and mother Sarah Elizabeth Pratt. Grinnell's father worked as the physician for the Kiowa, Comanche and Wichita Indian Agency near Fort Sill, Oklahoma. His distant cousins included the Massachusetts politician Joseph Grinnell (1788–1885) and George Bird Grinnell (1849–1938) who founded the Audubon Society.
The Grinnells moved to the Pine Ridge Indian Agency in 1880.
In 1885 the Grinnell family moved to Pasadena, California, but the collapse of Southern California's boom forced Dr. Grinnell in 1888 to accept a position at the Indian school in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. The Carlisle Indian school commander was Captain Richard Henry Pratt, a friend of the Grinnells.
