Joseph James Hickey (16 April 1907 – 31 August 1993) was an American ornithologist who wrote the landmark Guide to Bird Watching and was instrumental in the activism that led to bans on organochlorine pesticides through his research work on the peregrine falcon.
He was a professor of wildlife management at the University of Wisconsin where he obtained his master's degree under the guidance of Aldo Leopold.
Born in New York City, he had an introduction to outdoor life through a scout leader and took to birdwatching while also founding along with nine others, the Bronx County Bird Club where he was a close friend of Roger Tory Peterson and Allan Cruickshank.
Unlike many others, he chose to study history at the New York University but kept an interest in birds, attending talks at the American Museum of Natural History where he met and was greatly influenced by Ernst Mayr who had only recently moved to the United States.
[1] He then moved, with his wife Margaret Brooks, to the University of Michigan with a Guggenheim Fellowship to work on a PhD on avian populations based on bird banding studies.