Moss, Cynthia (1940–)

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Moss, Cynthia (1940–)

American zoologist. Born Cynthia Moss, July 24, 1940, in Ossining, NY; dau. of Julian Moss (publisher) and Lillian Moss; Smith College, BA in philosophy, 1962.

Celebrated for her significant, long-term elephant research and conservation efforts, worked as Newsweek reporter and researcher; visited and worked at British researcher Ian Douglas-Hamilton's elephant camp in Tanzania (c. 1967–70); wrote for Life and Time; studied more than 1,600 elephants in one of last undisturbed elephant herds in Africa, as founder and director of Amboseli Elephant Research Project at Kenya's Amboseli National Park (1972); funded research in large part by Washington DC-based African Wildlife Foundation (AWF); worked with Joyce Poole (1976), a former Kenya Wildlife Service employee; honors include Smith College medal for alumnae achievement (1985), Friends of the National Zoo and the Audubon Society's conservation award.

See also Elephant Memories: Thirteen Years in the Life of an Elephant Family (Morrow, 1988).