William Hanna Elder
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William Hanna Elder (24 December 1913, Oak Park, Illinois – 14 August 2006, Columbia, Missouri) was a zoology professor, who worked in "wildlife management, range and wildlife habitat management, ornithology, and mammalogy".[1] He was a Guggenheim Fellow for the academic year 1956–1957.[2]
Elder graduated from the University of Wisconsin in 1936 with a bachelor's degree in science education, in 1938 with a master's degree, and in 1942 with a Ph.D. in zoology.[1][3]
Elder worked from 1941 to 1943 as a game biologist for the Illinois Natural History Survey and from 1943 to 1945 as a pharmacologist doing research in chemical warfare in the University of Chicago's Toxicity Laboratory. At the University of Missouri's department of zoology he was from 1945 to 1947 an assistant professor, from 1947 to 1951 an associate professor, and from 1951 to 1984 a full professor, retiring as professor emeritus in 1984. He also chaired the department from 1950 to 1953 and was named the William J. Rucker Professor of Zoology in 1954.[1]
In general terms William Elder's research interest was the physiology of wild birds and mammals as related to their productivity, populations, and management. Specific research ranged widely, however, and included ornithology, hunting pressures in waterfowl, fertility in waterfowl, bats in Missouri, endangered species, the Hawaiian Nene goose (funded in 1956 by a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Yale-Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum Fellowship), and elephants in Zambia (funded by a 1968 National Science Foundation Grant). He published more than 50 technical papers and many other general articles.[1]
Elder discovered that anticholesterol compound SC-12937 (22, 25-diazacholestanol dihydrochloride) reduced fertility in captive pigeons.[4] In 1964 he received patent rights for an oral chemosterilant for feral pigeons and other nuisance birds. The patent was first assigned to the University of Missouri and licensed to G. D. Searle and Company and then assigned to the Avitrol Corporation headquartered in Tulsa, Oklahoma.[1] In 1967 Wofford and Elder published their field tests of the chemosterilant.[5]