Frank and John Craighead

Frank Cooper Craighead Jr. and John Johnson Craighead, twin brothers, were American conservationists, naturalists, and researchers who made important contributions to the studies of falconry and grizzly bear biology. The brothers were born in Washington, D.C., where both graduated from Western High School in 1935. The brothers began collecting and identifying animals and plants they found alongside the Potomac and soon expanded their interests to birds and hawks. They traveled west in 1934 to begin studying falconry. After World War II, during which they were employed as survival trainers, they each married and resumed their work in falconry. During the 1950s, the Craighead brothers expanded their work to other animals, including many species living in and around Yellowstone, and eventually separated.