David Fleay
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David Howells Fleay AM MBE |
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David Fleay and a brown snake, 1954
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| Born |
6 January 1907 Ballarat, Victoria, Australia |
| Died | 7 August 1993 (aged 86) |
| Education | Ballarat Grammar School |
| Occupation | Naturalist |
| Known for | Captive breeding of endangered species |
David Howells Fleay AM MBE (/ˈdeɪvɪd/ /ˈflaɪ/) (6 January 1907 in Ballarat, Victoria – 7 August 1993) was an Australian naturalist who pioneered the captive breeding of endangered species, and was the first person to breed the platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus) in captivity.
Fleay had an aesthetic upbringing: His mother, Maude Glover Fleay, had studied painting under Fred McCubbin; his father, William Henry Fleay, was a manufacturing chemist in Ballarat. After education at a state primary school and later a private high school, Ballarat Grammar School, Fleay was first employed in his fathers chemist shop and then was briefly a teacher at Ballarat Grammar.
He left for Melbourne in 1927 to study for a Bachelor of Science degree and Diploma of Education at Melbourne University. There, he met another student, Mary Sigrid Collie, and they married in 1931, the same year that Fleay graduated having majored in zoology, botany and education. He was employed as a teacher in Ballarat until 1934.
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