George Compere was born in Davenport, Iowa in 1858, and moved to California with his family soon after. At the age of 20 he was put in charge of a large orchard in Los Angeles. The orchard was seriously infested with black scale, as were many groves in Southern California, and little was known how to fight the scale. This experience may have had a profound influence on his future pursuits of biological control of pest species.
In 1891 he was given the job as inspector for the Los Angeles County Board of Horticultural Commissioner. In this position he became more aware of how serious a problem the insect pests were to the new citrus industry, as well as to other non-native plants that increasingly were being imported into southern California. In 1898 Compere accepted a position in Hawaii in search for insects in foreign countries. He noticed that some plants that were almost wiped out by various pests in California seemed to grow happily in their native lands. He concluded that although Americans were importing many plants and their associated pest insects, they were not importing the natural enemies that kept the insects at low levels in their native habitats.
Within a few years he accepted the position of State Horticulturalist of California. Thus employed he traveled to the Far East and Australia in search of scale insect parasites and predators.
During
his travels he became known for his work in controlling insect pest and he was
soon hired by the government of Western Australia to search for natural enemies
of the black scale. So valuable were his services that from 1904 to 1910, California
and Australia employed him jointly. At one point he was began a search for natural
enemies of the Mediterranean fruit fly that had recently invaded Western Australia.
This resulted in a 10-year, 'round-the-world odyssey of exploration and discovery,
during which time he sent many shipments of beneficial insects to California
from many parts of the world. His travels brought him to Hong Kong, China, Israel,
and Brazil.
The field notebook preserved in the Bohart Entomology Museum and included on this CD is a record of his tireless efforts to advance the natural control of insect populations. Although not mentioned in the concise entries, one can only imagine the adventures and hardships he endured traveling the world at the turn of the century.
The work of George Compere inspired his son Harold, who became a world-famous leader in the study of biocontrol during the middle of the 20th century.
In 1907 the San Francisco Chronicle published a feature article on the travels of George Compere, who was then working for the governments of both California and Australia. This is a classic piece from an era in which newspaper articles were entertaining bits of literature. Click on the image to see a full version of the article.
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Copyright Bohart Entomology Museum 2003