Guy Mountfort, 97; Co-Founder of the World Wildlife Fund

Guy Mountfort, an ornithologist who helped found the World Wildlife Fund, has died. He was 97.

He died April 23 at a nursing home in Bournemouth in southern England.

Mountfort initially served as treasurer, then vice president of the Swiss-based fund, which he established in 1961 with three other Britons: zoologist Sir Julian Huxley, broadcaster Peter Scott and wildlife advocate Max Nicholson.

The group, initially called the World Wide Fund for Nature, campaigned to curb commercial whaling and the trade in endangered species, and worked to preserve tropical forests, wetlands and coral reefs.

In 1972, Mountfort teamed up with the government of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in a campaign to save the tiger by creating reserves for the endangered animal across India.

Mountfort was co-author of the 1954 best-selling book “A Field Guide to the Birds of Britain and Europe.”

His other books included “Portrait of a Wilderness” (1958), “The Vanishing Jungle” (1969), “Saving the Tiger” (1981) and “Rare Birds of the World” (1988).

Mountfort was honorary secretary of the British Ornithologists’ Union from 1952 to 1962, and its president from 1970 to 1975.

He was made a member of the Order of the British Empire in 1971.