Boonsong Lekagul (15 December 1907 – 9 February 1992) was a Thai medical doctor, biologist, ornithologist, herpetologist, and conservationist. He was born at Songkhla in southern Thailand and received a medical degree from Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok in 1933. In 1935 he established Thailand's first polyclinic in Bangkok. At first a keen hunter, he became a strong conservationist as he saw Thailand's forests and wildlife becoming fragmented and destroyed. In 1952 he founded the Association for the Conservation of Wildlife. In the mid-1950s, he and the ACW lobbied for a bird sanctuary on the banks of the Chao Phraya River to protect the only known nesting site in Thailand of the openbill stork. In 1962 he founded the Bangkok Bird Club (the Bird Conservation Society of Thailand since 1993) and worked actively with the International Council for Bird Preservation and the World Wildlife Fund.

Eponymous species

Several species and subspecies are named after Boonsong Lekagul in honour of his work as naturalist and conservationist:

Awards

Publications

Works authored or coauthored by him include: