Kelley-Roosevelts Asiatic Expedition
The Kelley-Roosevelt Asiatic Expedition was a major zoological journey to Southeast Asia in 1928–1929, sponsored by the Field Museum of Natural History and organized by Kermit Roosevelt and his brother Theodore Roosevelt Jr. It was funded by William Vallangdiham Kelley, a Field Museum trustee. The expedition was divided into three sections: one led by the Roosevelt brothers, another led by British ornithologist Herbert Stevens, and a third led by H. J. Coolidge. The collection of mammal skins was described by mammalogist W. H. Osgood, who noted the Roosevelt brothers’ group as the first section, Stevens’s as the second, and Coolidge’s as the third.
The Roosevelt brothers travelled with the naturalist C. Suydam Cutting and their Chinese interpreter Jack T. Young. They moved through Burma toward the Chinese border and then northward into Sichuan and to the Wushi hills, aiming to find large and rare mammals, including the giant panda. They traveled via Bhamo, Tatsienlu, Mouping, Yachow, and reached the railhead at Yunnanfu, where Kermit Roosevelt returned to the United States on a urgent request. Theodore Roosevelt Jr. and Suydam Cutting continued toward Saigon to collect banteng, seladang, and water buffalo.
Herbert Stevens led a second section that started with the Roosevelt party’s route up the Irrawaddy and then toward Tengyueh. In February 1929 Stevens collected near the Lijiang bend, later moving north to Sichuan and spending May in the Wushi hills, before traveling down the Yangtze to Shanghai. He sent about 2,400 specimens to the Field Museum.
The third section, led by Harold J. Coolidge Jr., focused on northern Indo-China, mainly Tonkin. A four‑person team—mammalogist Russell W. Hendee, ornithologist Josselyn Van Tyne, physician-parasitologist Ralph E. Wheeler, and Coolidge—worked first in Annam near Quangtri, then at Haiphong and Hanoi, up the Rivière Noire, into northern Laos, and from Phong Saly down the Mekong to Savannaket and on to Hue. Hendee left Coolidge’s party in Laos on May 14, 1929, and later died of malaria in Vientiane on June 6 after a hospital visit. Coolidge’s group discovered Roosevelt’s muntjac (a new mammal) and the new bird Macronus kelleyi. They collected living specimens for the U.S. National Zoological Park, including three white-faced gibbons, a Bay Bamboo rat, a sun bear, and a Himalayan bear.
In total, the expedition brought back thousands of specimens, including about 5,000 bird skins and more than 5,000 other items from Siam, French Indo-China, and southern China. The birds were mostly collected by shooting and by native traps, with skins prepared in the field and transported long distances under difficult conditions. The expedition also yielded two giant panda skins, with one panda shot by the Roosevelts and another skin purchased from a local hunter. The pandas and other animals were later displayed in the Field Museum, and the living gibbons and other animals went to the National Zoo.
The campaign helped publicize the existence of the giant panda, spurring Western expeditions in the 1930s to obtain panda skins and cubs for zoos. By the late 1930s, the panda’s situation had become critical, and the Roosevelts came to regret their role in its decline, advocating for preservation. Kermit Roosevelt later became president of the Audubon Society, promoting conservation through his work.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 12:56 (CET).