Naturalist, biologist, ecologist, educator, environmentalist, and philanthropist. Growing up in Nebraska, Jaeger moved with his family to California in 1906. After attending Occidental College for a year in Los Angeles, he taught at the Palm Springs, California, one-room schoolhouse. At Palm Springs he met artist Carl Eytel and authors J. Smearton Chase and Charles Francis Saunders. For years the men remained friends and collaborated with each others' work. This Palm Springs group of creative men included cartoonist Jimmy Swinnerton and author Charles Wharton James. In 1918 Jaeger completed his degree at Occidental College and joined Riverside City College as a zoology instructor in 1921. For 30 years he taught at RCC and upon retirement was named Curator of Zoology at the Riverside Municipal Museum. Throughout his career Jaeger made regular weekend trips to the Colorado Desert alone and with students to conduct classes and research. (His trips with friends, scholars and students became known as Jaeger's "Palavers" and continue to this day.) Jaeger wrote some 15 books and hundreds of magazine articles on the natural history of the deserts and other subjects. He also continued to give talks and lectures on subjects of natural history. Among his tributes, Jaeger was awarded honorary doctorates from Occidental College and the University of California, Riverside. He was admitted to the honorary academic societies Phi Beta Kappa and Sigma Xi. The "Edmund C. Jaeger Desert Institute" at the Moreno Valley campus of Riverside Community College is named in his honor. His fellow research biologists have described and named some 28 species and subspecies after him. La Verne University in La Verne, California, maintains the "Edmund C. Jaeger Museum", devoted to natural history, in his honor. Finally, The Nature Conservancy established the "Edmund C. Jaeger Nature Sanctuary" in his honor, completing it in 1986 on land owned by La Sierra University of Riverside. It was at this sanctuary in a canyon of the Chuckwalla Mountains that he discovered, in 1946, bird species Phalaenoptilus nuttallii (the Common Poorwill) hibernating. (This significant discovery confirmed the hypothesis that birds can hibernate and was featured in the National Geographic Magazine in 1951.) It was in this same canyon that Jaeger's cremated remains were scattered by his friends.
Naturalist, biologist, ecologist, educator, environmentalist, and philanthropist. Growing up in Nebraska, Jaeger moved with his family to California in 1906. After attending Occidental College for a year in Los Angeles, he taught at the Palm Springs, California, one-room schoolhouse. At Palm Springs he met artist Carl Eytel and authors J. Smearton Chase and Charles Francis Saunders. For years the men remained friends and collaborated with each others' work. This Palm Springs group of creative men included cartoonist Jimmy Swinnerton and author Charles Wharton James. In 1918 Jaeger completed his degree at Occidental College and joined Riverside City College as a zoology instructor in 1921. For 30 years he taught at RCC and upon retirement was named Curator of Zoology at the Riverside Municipal Museum. Throughout his career Jaeger made regular weekend trips to the Colorado Desert alone and with students to conduct classes and research. (His trips with friends, scholars and students became known as Jaeger's "Palavers" and continue to this day.) Jaeger wrote some 15 books and hundreds of magazine articles on the natural history of the deserts and other subjects. He also continued to give talks and lectures on subjects of natural history. Among his tributes, Jaeger was awarded honorary doctorates from Occidental College and the University of California, Riverside. He was admitted to the honorary academic societies Phi Beta Kappa and Sigma Xi. The "Edmund C. Jaeger Desert Institute" at the Moreno Valley campus of Riverside Community College is named in his honor. His fellow research biologists have described and named some 28 species and subspecies after him. La Verne University in La Verne, California, maintains the "Edmund C. Jaeger Museum", devoted to natural history, in his honor. Finally, The Nature Conservancy established the "Edmund C. Jaeger Nature Sanctuary" in his honor, completing it in 1986 on land owned by La Sierra University of Riverside. It was at this sanctuary in a canyon of the Chuckwalla Mountains that he discovered, in 1946, bird species Phalaenoptilus nuttallii (the Common Poorwill) hibernating. (This significant discovery confirmed the hypothesis that birds can hibernate and was featured in the National Geographic Magazine in 1951.) It was in this same canyon that Jaeger's cremated remains were scattered by his friends.
