Oscar De Beaux

Oscar de Beaux (5 December 1879 – 29 September 1955) was an Italian mammalogist. His studies of mammals primarily concerned the Italian colonies of Africa. De Beaux was also a conservationist, authoring one of the first papers to argue the ethics of conservation, "Biological ethics: an attempt to arouse a naturalistic conscience".

Early life De Beaux was born 5 December 1879 in Florence, Italy. While at the Museum he managed a small zoo so as to make scientific observations on living mammals. Drawing from this work, he published one of the first scientific papers on the possible effects of captivity on the skeleton and fur color of animals.

De Beaux undertook several studies of mammals of the Italian colonies of Africa. He described a number of new mammal species and subspecies, including Patrizi's trident leaf-nosed bat, the Somalian trident bat, and Parissi's slit-faced bat.

Conservation In 1923, de Beaux joined the International Society for the Conservation of the European bison. In it, de Beaux defined biological ethics as the "study and definition of man's moral position before the living beings which do not belong to the human race, beginning with the moral premise that man was not able to create the species." "Biological ethics" has been called "one of the first works on the ethical aspects of conservation". In his letter, Leopold enclosed his own publication in a similar vein, "The Conservation Ethic". De Beaux's conservation publication actually predated Leopold's by several years, as the English translation was not published until 1932, which was around when Leopold wrote "The Conservation Ethic".

Death De Beaux died on 29 September 1955 in Torre Pellice, Italy.