Obituary: Thomas James (Mac) McIntyre (1940–2024)

The American Society of Mammalogists (ASM) is truly remarkable for the extent to which members devote their time and energies to advancing the science of mammalogy, creating a positive impact on effective education and conservation of mammals, and broadening the representation of people involved in our science by creating a genuinely welcoming environment. A glance at a list of members of ASM committees shows some of the breadth and depth of contributions that are made. But one person in particular stands out as having been an especially inspiring leader in these efforts—Thomas J. McIntyre (Fig. 1)—for some reasons that are widely known, and others that are less apparent. Mac, as he was known to his friends, learned his encyclopedic knowledge of mammals the old-fashioned way—he earned it first-hand both in the field and in the museum. Thomas (Mac) McIntyre (1940–2024) at the 98th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Mammalogists in Manhattan, Kansas, June 2018. Photograph by Robert M. Timm. Mac passed away on 11 January 2024 and is survived by his wife, Dr. Nancy Muckenhirn, their son Robert (Rob) Palmer McIntyre, daughter-in-law Mandy, 2 granddaughters (Norah and Isla), and an extremely large family of members of the ASM who greatly respected him and valued their friendship. Mac seemed to function as the unofficial greeter for new members, actively seeking out people who looked bewildered in the throng of our busy meetings. He readily made first-time attendees feel comfortable, always expressing real interest in who they were and what they were interested in and in sharing the wonders of marine mammals, pertinent conservation legislation, and all aspects of first-hand research on mammals. Several members point to Mac as one of the first senior mammalogists met at their first ASM meeting, not only making them feel welcome, but taking the time to introduce them to luminaries in our Society. Mac was a crucial part of the glue that held the ASM together. Mac was born on 13 September 1940 in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, and principally grew up in Racine, which lies not far north of the Illinois–Wisconsin state line. Early in life he developed an interest in reptiles and amphibians, including garter snakes that escaped into his home, to the considerable consternation of his mother. Early in his high school years, he volunteered with the veterinarian at the Racine Zoo, helping with necropsies, hooked on the hands-on opportunity to learn directly about anatomy and pathology. Soon thereafter, he began taking a roughly one-and-a-half hour ride each way on the train to the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, where he worked as a volunteer in the Anatomy Department with Dwight Davis, in Reptiles and Amphibians with Robert Inger and Hymen Marx, and in Mammals with Philip Hershkovitz. That experience led him to join the ASM before he graduated from high school in 1958 and to head for California to pursue his broadening interests in biodiversity science. From 1958 to 1960, he took classes at a community college (Diablo County Junior College), then applied and was admitted to University of California, Berkeley in 1960, but soon left to return to briefly work at the Field Museum. Always one to look for opportunities for hands-on work in the field, Mac spent June through September 1961 with UC Berkeley herpetologists in Arizona and Sonora, collecting mammals for the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology along the way. He soon found a job that seems almost inconceivable today: he worked at the 2 whaling stations located at Point Richmond, California, from late 1961 into 1962. During the 1962 whaling season, Mac worked for one of the founders of modern marine mammal studies, Dale W. Rice, of the Marine Mammal Biological Laboratory of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Commercial Fisheries. Mac helped to collect biological data from sperm and baleen whales as they were landed and processed at Point Richmond. During the 1962 season, 252 whales were landed at the 2 stations, of which 190 were examined by McIntyre and Rice (Abegglen et al. 1963). Hundreds of tissues (ovaries, testes, earplugs, etc.) initially were sent to the National Marine Fisheries Service in Seattle; they were later transferred to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History (NMNH), where they form one of the few collections of this nature anywhere. Several whale skeletons were deposited in the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, with Mac credited as collector. At the end of the 1962 whaling season, Rice took Mac on the first U.S. tagging cruise for 30 days, on one of the Pt. Richmond whale catchers, the Lynn Ann. From central California they surveyed south to Isla de Guadalupe, off the coast of Baja California, Mexico where they went ashore among the elephant seals and counted Guadalupe fur seals along the east coast of the island (Rice 1963a, b, c). In 1963, Mac jumped at the chance to do field work in Uruguay from February to May 1963, with an American Museum of Natural History team that included Richard Van Gelder, Sydney Anderson, and Karl Koopman. Van Gelder’s research at the time was focused on the systematics of skunks of the genera Mephitis and Conepatus. A large series, on which an important part of his study was based, was collected in the course of the American Museum–Uruguay Expedition, 1962–1963, which was supported by the United States Army Medical Research and Development Command with a grant for “Neotropical mammalogical and entomological investigations in relation to arthropod borne diseases.” Despite the project’s focus on land mammals, having worked hands-on with hundreds of dead whales apparently left Mac enthused about collecting a special cetacean near Montevideo, a franciscana or La Plata Dolphin, Pontoporia blanvillei, then little known to biologists. This trip gave Mac exposure to the medical research conducted by the United States military, and his first long-term field research on (relatively) small mammals; it also played a crucial role in his next major decision. The war in Vietnam was ramping up rapidly at that time (early 1960s). Mac’s decision to focus on field work left him without a college deferment, and vulnerable to being drafted as a private into the Army. Instead, after a brief stint back at the Field Museum, he joined the Navy on 29 October 1963 and was trained as a Corpsman and Medical Zoology Technician and assigned to a Naval Medical Research Unit (NAMRU) under the direction of Commander P. F. D. (“Dirk”) Van Peenen, on a project studying disease transmission from mammals and reptiles to American troops in Vietnam. But before being shipped out to Vietnam, he was temporarily assigned to the Naval Medical Center in San Diego, where he participated in a whale-watching cruise (late December 1963) with Raymond M. Gilmore, who is considered to be the founder of whale-watching in California and one of the early researchers on gray whales (and where Mac first met Bob Brownell, coauthor of this obituary). Once in Vietnam, his experience with collecting mammals was quickly put to use in studies of mammals and reptiles as disease vectors from July 1965 to May 1966, often by sending him into contested war zones (including Da Nang, Hue, and along the Ho Chi Minh Trail) where other American troops carried firearms while Mac carried a bag of rat traps and a medic kit. Specimens he and other NAMRU personnel collected now form much of the collection of mammals from Vietnam at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History (NMNH), and formed the basis for the Preliminary Identification Manual for Mammals of South Vietnam (Van Peenan et al. 1969). Never one to miss an opportunity for some fieldwork, in early 1966 he took shore leave in the Philippines to collect giant flying foxes and other bats, also deposited at the NMNH. Upon completing his Vietnam tour (remarkably, in good health), Mac was assigned to the Walter Reed Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, but spent most of his time at the NMNH, curating the mammals he had been involved in collecting. While volunteering on a study of Chagas disease on one of his free days, a laboratory accident at the hospital led to a life-threatening Chagas disease infection followed by 7 months of hospitalization. Those who remember Mac as having the metabolism of a shrew can trace that condition back to the Chagas disease. (It was during this time that Larry Heaney, then a high school student, met Mac, who adopted Heaney as a kindred spirit, much like himself at the Field Museum a decade earlier). After his lengthy period of recovery from the Chagas disease, Mac was discharged from the Navy on 19 June 1967 with full medical retirement benefits. After a brief period working with the Navy Civil Service, he quickly went to work for Henry W. (Hank) Setzer (along with Duane A. Schlitter) on the African Mammal Project (AMP) at the NMNH. Mac played a key role in organizing equipment for the many field teams, and cataloging and processing specimens sent back to the museum. He joined one of those field teams in Ivory Coast and Ghana from June to August 1969, collecting and field-cataloging many hundreds of specimens of then-poorly known species of bats and other small mammals. He also learned of a large, uniquely valuable collection of marine mammals in a museum in Abidjan that was about to be discarded. Using his Navy connections, he quickly made arrangements for the collection to be shipped to Washington and deposited at the NMNH (much to the chagrin of Hank Setzer, a confirmed “small mammal guy”). By the end of the AMP, about 63,000 mammal specimens had been added to the NMNH collection, along with uncountable ecto- and endo-parasites that went to various Department of Defense research units. In 1971, as the AMP began ramping down, Mac moved to the emerging program to create a complete computerized inventory of the NMNH collection. Among the first of the collections to be entered into a computerized database were the mammals. This effort was under the leadership of James F. Mello, director of the Automated Data Processing Program, NMNH. Mac worked with David Bridge to establish the data processing procedures used in mammal collections, one of the first collections to be “computerized.” Initially, data records were punched onto paper tape (Fig. 2). The paper tape could then be processed (read) by the Smithsonian’s mainframe computer for editing, sorting, and subsequent printing. Data input was limited and primitive at that time. Mac as a museum practitioner on the “front lines” made numerous suggestions for improving the computer systems and the editing functions. These ideas were incorporated into the SELGEM system. SELGEM was used by many Smithsonian museums and organizations, and subsequently SELGEM computer software was given to several other museums to begin their automation efforts. Thomas J. McIntyre in the Division of Mammals at the National Museum of Natural History in 1971 capturing data from museum specimen tags onto a paper tape (seen to his left) using a Friden Flexowriter, model 2300 paper tape typewriter for input into the Smithsonian’s computer system. McIntyre worked in the National Museum of Natural History, Automated Data Processing Program, for the Division of Mammal Division from 1971–1974. Photograph courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution Archives Accession 11-009 (ID 71-510.tif) and the Journal of Mammalogy. During his time with the Division of Mammals (1967 to 1974), Mac responded to numerous marine mammal strandings, forming ad hoc response teams that included anyone and everyone who showed an interest, usually driving one of his personal vehicles (one station wagon became notorious for its persistent odor of decomposing seal). This effort operated under the guidance and encouragement of curator Charles O. Handley Jr., who was intent on reviving interest of the museum in marine mammals. It was during this time that Handley, in part due to Mac’s proven efforts that worthwhile data and specimens could be recovered from stranded cetaceans, and who was a founding member of the ASM’s Marine Mammal Committee, made successful efforts to restart a quiescent program for salvaging marine mammals and conducting marine mammal research at the NMNH (Fig. 3). This led in due course to the hiring of Charles W. Potter and James G. Mead, and most recently Michael R. McGowen. During this period and long after, Mac often provided lodging at his home to visiting domestic and foreign mammalogists at the museum, young and old—sometimes for months at a time, an enormous benefit to them personally and to the science of mammalogy. TJ McIntyre sharpening a flensing knife that he is using to process a Humpback Whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) on the coast of North Carolina in December 1973. Flensing knives were used extensively in the whaling industry to remove the blubber and outer integument and varied in size and shape with the different nationalities who harvested whales. This flensing knife had a long, recurved blade and 1½ m long handle. From left to right—Thomas J. McIntyre, Charles W. Potter, James G. Mead. Photograph courtesy of C. W. Potter. After working on inventorying the NMNH mammal collection, Mac went to work for the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), from 1974 until his retirement in August 2000. During Mac’s time at NMFS, he processed and issued dozens of scientific research permits under the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972 that authorized researchers to conduct field and laboratory studies on marine mammals. As someone who quickly seemed to know everyone, he began serving as a liaison and NMFS contact person for the many enforcement branches of the Federal government that shared responsibility for importation of marine mammal specimens, including scrimshaw products. He played an important part in establishing the fisheries observer program for the Japanese high-seas salmon program, focused on its interception of U.S.-origin salmon and the massive incidental catch of Dall’s Porpoise (Phocoenoides dalli). During this part of his career, one of us (RLB) got Mac to serve as a visiting scientist for the American Guest Scientist Program during the 1975–76 Antarctic whaling season, where he spent 6 months onboard a Japanese mothership, the Tona Maru No. 2. During his time on the factory ship, he collected important biological specimens and photographs that were deposited in the NMNH for later study. He also assisted one of the Japanese scientists, Yasuaki Masaki by editing the English translation of his doctoral thesis on the biology of the North Pacific Sei Whale, Balaenoptera borealis (Masaki 1976). In 1981, Mac was highly influential in obtaining, on loan from the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, a number of 19th century paintings of the Pribilof Islands and its wildlife by the naturalist Henry Wood Elliot. Mac drove to Pittsburgh to select the paintings from the Carnegie collection, transported them to DC, and arranged for framing. They were then displayed at the State Department for the 1981 opening of the North Pacific Fur Seal Commission, and viewed by government officials from the U.S., Canada, Japan, and the Soviet Union. Afterwards, they were displayed for several months at the NMNH. Later, after he officially retired, Mac worked as a marine mammal naturalist onboard whale-watching boats that operated out of Ocean City, Maryland, and consulted on a Time-Life book titled The Whalers for its Seafarer Series. Mac first attended an ASM meeting in and attended meeting for the next and a In in of his knowledge from his work with NMFS, he was to serve on 2 Marine Mammals and and and with them until the time of his in January the Marine Mammal Committee, Mac was at and often up to the was not to he was one of the most members of the and for including as During his 29 of on the Committee, Mac helped with important helped the through the of in a way that be effective with the and then where the be He the in several that the helped to He provided to the to important for knowledge the ASM to stands on many important which the conservation of mammals to his to those Mac also lengthy on the Program, and and to his of He often was the ASM’s of about Federal often the that gave the ASM a of into that been to without his Mac was not interested in these he them at a of that gave our efforts to and to an impact on a of that not been without In Mac the for to the ASM for his contributions to the Society. person his on committees up to that time as it of the of that his was especially valued for the from his at the National Marine Fisheries Service from 1974 to which in began he had helped to data and scientific specimens from the of the whaling in the his contributions to studies of mammals, Mac was in by the of a of the from initially as a and later to full species et al. The used English is after Mac’s retirement in he to with those who shared his of the Smithsonian and marine mammals. about the next years, he volunteered as a in the of Marine taking from to and and about the massive Whale in the and about life and the that most of the Mac’s of not his of a crucial ASM ad Mac was always of the of people to and at often in the after had it is in that many of the most important about all of the ASM’s are moved Mac that mammalogists readily to and a in the is the most effective for many of our in the at a time to be or made of up of of friends, Mac to some in a central a of the where many members were He used a of his large station and especially large that he drove to the meeting almost with a of people from the like bats in a to up a of and everyone to in a to his In at the State meeting, the attendees that Mac was for most of the out of his and that for up to the several notorious ASM up was at and that an be held to for the It was and people it much that the became a major but unofficial part of meeting, in people the were began to the meeting for the some field and some not of off as ASM J. first field and first by it became to Mac and others that the be a way to for the ASM’s Mammalogists which as a major of for research The as one of the ASM’s most and McIntyre an as a his to field to of and in sharing his knowledge to many The American Society of Mammalogists is a and successful Society of his for sharing many of Mac’s life and made use of the from Mac’s for the ASM’s for that were by and David Bridge provided many about Mac’s contributions to the of for collections at the Smithsonian and contributions greatly our of his life and and for their suggestions for improving this

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