John Morton Boyd

John Morton Boyd CBE FRSE (31 January 1925 – 25 August 1998) was a British zoologist, writer and conservationist. He was a pioneer of nature conservation in Scotland.

Life

Boyd was born in Darvel, Ayrshire, the son of Thomas Boyd, master builder and Jeanie Morton. He was educated at Kilmarnock Academy. He then attended the University of Glasgow where he began a course in engineering before switching to zoology. As an undergraduate he studied sand dune snails on the island of Tiree in the Inner Hebrides, subsequently undertaking a doctoral study on the earthworms of the machair and further ecological research.

Boyd was influenced by the writings of Seton Gordon and Frank Fraser Darling. He visited St Kilda and recognised the potential for research into its endemic fauna, including the Soay sheep, the St Kilda wren (a subspecies of the Eurasian wren), and the St Kilda field mouse. He was also involved in research on the grey seal on North Rona.

In 1971 Boyd became the Scottish Director of the Nature Conservancy. He retired from the Conservancy in 1985, but continued to be active in conservation until his death, in Edinburgh in 1998.

He married Winifred Rome in 1954. They had four sons and one, Sir Ian L. Boyd, is also a zoologist.