Bernard Master

Bernard F. Master (born May 17, 1941) is an American birder and conservationist after whom the Chocó vireo (Vireo masteri) was named. Master is the first American to have seen a representative of all 229 bird families in the world and has observed more than 7,800 birds in the wild. He is the author of No Finish Line: Discovering the World’s Secrets One Bird at a Time.

Early years
Master’s passion for birding started when he was four years old, at the encouragement of his father Gilbert with whom he’d accompany on bird walks. His family’s vacation home in North Wildwood, New Jersey was near Cape May Bird Observatory, a birding mecca and in the path of the largest fall migration in the eastern North America. Master graduated from Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine on June 11, 1966 and began his medical career.

In 1968, Master was drafted into the Vietnam War where he served one year as a battalion surgeon in an Army combat unit and one year as post-surgeon for the U.S. Army’s Military Intelligence School. Following discharge, Master spent the next 35 years as a primary care physician in the inner city of Columbus, Ohio.

During his medical years, Master often watched birds at Green Lawn Cemetery, a popular birding spot in Columbus, Ohio, He became a founding board member of the Ohio Ornithological Society in 2004.

Discovery of the Chocó vireo (Vireo masteri)
The Chocó vireo was first observed on August 25, 1991, when it flew into a mist net set up by a team of ornithologists in western Nariño located in southwest Colombia. The site, located at an altitude of 1,500 meters (five thousand feet), was in a narrow strip of intact, very wet forest along the Rio Nambi, in the Chocó region which is famed for its high biological diversity. Ornithologist Paul Salaman extracted the bird from the net but could not identify it. The bird was small, a little more than four inches, lightweight at 11.4 grams, and greenish in color with a broad, wide yellowish wing bar. It had a distinctive facial pattern with a long white stripe above its eye. A specimen was collected but it was subsequently lost.

In early June, 1992, ornithologist Gary Stiles was working independently in Alto de Pisones and observed a small canopy bird he could not identify. He collected a specimen. Meanwhile, the Salaman specimen was relocated in a collection at Bogotá, Colómbia. Comparison of the two specimens confirmed that they were indeed the same species, and new to science. The discoverers decided to sell the naming rights of the new species in exchange for funds to preserve the Rio Nambi and the Alto de Pisones areas. Master's bid was accepted, and the bird was named Vireo masteri. Master’s donation (in excess of $100,000) went to establish and maintain an endowment fund for the Rio Nambi Community National Reserve, the first ProAves bird preserve in Colombia. The reserve protects 7,500 acres of pristine rainforest and was the first reserve in South America in which the local community owns, administers, and manages a protected area.

Master's contributions to world bird conservation were later honored by the late HRH Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands (aka Prince Bernhard of Lippe-Biesterfeld or the 'Flying Prince of Conservation'), who helped found the World Wide Fund for Nature.