Boonsong Lekagul

Who was Boonsong Lekagul?

Dr Boonsong Lekagul was a Thai medical doctor, biologist, ornithologist, herpetologist, and conservationist.

He was born at Songkhla in southern Thailand and received a medical degree from Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok in 1933. In 1935 he established Thailand’s first polyclinic in Bangkok. At first a keen hunter, he became a strong conservationist as he saw Thailand’s forests and wildlife becoming fragmented and destroyed. In 1952 he founded the Association for the Conservation of Wildlife. In the mid-1950s, he and the ACW lobbied for a bird sanctuary on the banks of the Chao Phraya River to protect the only known nesting site in Thailand of the Open-bill Stork. In 1962 he founded the Bangkok Bird Club and worked actively with the International Council for Bird Preservation and the World Wildlife Fund.