Phoebe Snetsinger, nee Burnett (9 June 1931, Lake Zurich, Illinois, USA - November 23, 1999, Madagascar), a resident of Webster Groves, Missouri, was the most prolific birder in history, having seen over 8,500 species of birds by the time of her death. The daughter of advertising magnate Leo Burnett, she inherited a small fortune, which she eventually used to fund numerous trips in pursuit of her hobby.

Inspired to begin birding after seeing a Blackburnian Warbler in 1965, Phoebe did not follow the hobby ardently until a doctor diagnosed her with terminal melanoma in 1981. Instead of convalescence at home, she took a trip to Alaska to watch birds, and returned home to find the cancer in remission. From then on, she would travel to often remote areas, sometimes under dangerous environmental and political conditions, in order to add to her growing life list. As an amateur ornithologist, she took copious field notes, especially regarding distinctive subspecies, many of which have since been reclassified as full species.

While on a birding trip in Madagascar in 1999, the van she was riding in overturned, killing her instantly. Her final life bird, after almost two decades as a "terminal cancer patient", was the Red-shouldered Vanga, a species which had only been described as new to science in 1997.

Three of her four children are active bird researchers in the United States. Thomas J. Snetsinger, her son, specialises in threatened endemic bird species in Hawaii.

Bibliography

• Bessie, Dan. Rare Birds: An American Family (University Press of Kentucky, 2000) ISBN 0813121795
• Koeppel, Dan. To See Every Bird on Earth (Hudson Street Press, 2005) ISBN 1594630011
• Snetsinger, Phoebe, and H Douglas Pratt. Birding on Borrowed Time (American Birding Association, 2003) ISBN 1878788418

1931 births | 1999 deaths | American ornithologists