History	Previous Locations	List of Secretaries-General

50 Years of International Ethological Conferences (top)

     The International Ethological Conference was born just after WWII when the organizers and participants wanted to resume the science they loved and renew the friendships they had built before the War.  In July 1949 the Association for the Study of Animal Behavior and the Society for Experimental Biology organized a Symposium on “Physiological Mechanisms in Animal Behaviour.” This meeting brought to Cambridge most of the key players in animal behavior at the time, such as Niko Tinbergen, Gerard Baerends (Netherlands), Konrad Lorenz (Austria), William Thorpe, J.Z. Young (UK), Erich von Holst, Otto Koehler (Germany), Paul Weiss and Karl Lashley (USA), an international group representing both sides of the recent conflict in Europe.  In the following year, von Holst invited some colleagues and their students to his lab in Wilhelmshaven for 10 days (Thorpe 1979).  It was a small informal group, with no proceedings where “only half-baked ideas” were discussed (Nisbett 1976).  The meeting was such a success that the group planned the first International Ethological Conference which was held at Buldern in 1952, a castle in Westfalia and the site of Konrad Lorenz's first institute  (Eibl-Eibesfeldt 1989).  The second IEC was held in Oxford in 1953 with about 80 participants (Dewsbury 1989) and it has been held at regular two-year intervals since then.   “The early fifties were such a marvelous time to be an ethologist.  The science was blossoming and practically everything one touched was new.  Ethological meetings were filled with intense discussion...” (Hinde 1989).

   From the first, the tradition of the IEC has been to hold an informal, international, 10-day conference where a great diversity of topics and ideas could be discussed.  The early  meetings were small, by invitation only, with a single session “so that nobody need miss anything” and they often went on late into the evening (Manning 1989).  Two-way translation was provided by Lorenz, Tinbergen and Baerends.  Speakers would stop every 10 minutes or so to have a section translated, a mammoth task for the most senior researchers in the field (who, as a result, could not miss a single session).  In fact, the meeting was so exhausting for the participants that a day off was provided mid-way through, a “merciful tradition” (Manning 1989) that continues to this day.  Although small meetings certainly have their advantages, by the late ‘70's many felt that a meeting by invitation only was no longer appropriate (Marler 1989) and so it was abandoned at the 1983 meeting in Brisbane.  Although the IEC is now massively larger, requiring many concurrent sessions, it retains much of its earlier character.  The IEC encourages international participation while retaining its European roots with alternate meetings held in Europe and abroad; the ICE (International Council of Ethologists which plans future IEC meetings) remains informal; the long format of the meeting still provides an important means of developing friendships and collaborations; the mid-conference field trips are still an important element; and all aspects of animal behavior are still considered and discussed.

     In its 50th year, the IEC returns to Germany where its initial conference was held, and to one of the centers for animal behavior research over the past 50 years.  Like its predecessors, this Conference will emphasize integrative approaches to ethology: the adaptiveness of behavior as well as how behavior evolved, developed and is controlled.

     The ICE would like to thank Raimund Apfelbach and the Tübingen Committee for their hard work and organizational skills in sponsoring the 2001 International Ethological Conference. 

Bateson, P.P.G. and P.H. Klopfer. 1989.  Preface to Whither Ethology.  Perspectives in Ethology 8: v-viii.

Dewsbury, D.A. 1989. A brief history of the study of animal behavior in North America. Persp. in Ethology.  8: 85-122.

Dewsbury, D.A. 1995.  Americans in Europe: the role of travel in the spread of European ethology after World War II.  Anim. Behav. 49:1649-1663.

Eibl-Eibesfeldt, I. 1985. “Fishy, fishy, fishy” Autobiographical sketches. In: D.A. Dewsbury (ed.)  Leaders in the Study o f Animal Behavior.  Autobiographical Perspectives. Bucknell University Press, Lewisburg PA.  pp. 69-91.

Frisch, K. von. 1967.  A Biologist Remembers.  Pergamon Press.

Hinde, R.A. 1989.  Ethology in relation to other disciplines. In: D.A. Dewsbury (ed.) Leaders in the Study o f Animal Behavior.  Autobiographical Perspectives. Bucknell University Press, Lewisburg PA.  pp. 193-203.

Jaynes, J. 1969.  The historical origins of ‘ethology' and ‘comparative psychology'.  Anim. Behav. 601-606.

Klopfer, P.H. 1999.  Politics and People in Ethology.  Bucknell University Press, Lewisburg, PA.

Manning, A. 1989.  The ontogeny of an ethologist. In: D.A. Dewsbury (ed.) Leaders in the Study o f Animal Behavior.  Autobiographical Perspectives. Bucknell University Press, Lewisburg PA.  pp. 289-313.

Marler, P. 1989.  Hark ye to the birds: autobiographical marginalia. In: D.A. Dewsbury (ed.) Leaders in the Study o f Animal Behavior.  Autobiographical Perspectives. Bucknell University Press, Lewisburg PA.  pp. 315-345.

Nisbett, A. 1976.  Konrad Lorenz.  Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

Podos, J. 1994.  Early perspectives on the evolution of behavior: Charles Otis Whitman and Oskar Heinroth.  Ethology, Ecology and Evolution 6: 467-480.

Thorpe, W.H. 1979.  The Origins and Rise of Ethology.  The science of the natural behaviour of animals.  Praeger Scientific.

Tinbergen, N. 1989.  Watching and wondering. In: D.A. Dewsbury (ed.) Leaders in the Study of Animal Behavior.  Autobiographical Perspectives. Bucknell University Press, Lewisburg PA.  pp. 431-463.

International Ethological Conferences (top)

1952 1953 1955 1957 1959 1961 1963 1965 1967 1969 1971 1973 1975 1977 1979 1981 1983 1985 1987 1989 1991 1993 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007 2009

Buldern, West Germany Oxford, UK Gronigen, Netherlands Freiberg, Germany Cambridge, UK Starnberg, Germany The Hague, Netherlands Zurich, Switzerland Stockholm, Sweden  Rennes, France Edinburgh, France Washington, D.C., USA Parma, Italy Bielefeld, Germany Vancouver, BC, Canada Oxford, UK Brisbane, Australia Toulouse, France Madison, WI, USA Utrecht, Netherlands Kyoto, Japan Torrelominos, Spain Honolulu, Hawaii, USA Vienna, Austria Bangalore, India Tubingen, Germany Florianopolis, Brazil Budapest, Hungary Halifax, Nova Scotia Rennes, France

I II III IV V VI VII VIII X (IX is missing, oops) XI XII XIII XIV XV XVI XVII XVIII XIX XX XXI XXII XXIII XXIV XXV XXVI XXVII XXVIII XXIX XXX XXXI

  Secretaries-General (top)