Victor van Straelen (14 June 1889 – 29 February 1964) was a Belgian conservationist, palaeontologist and carcinologist.
Van Straelen was born in Antwerp on 14 June 1889, and worked chiefly as a palaeontologist until his retirement in 1954.[1]
He was director of the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences from 1925 to 1954.[2] In 1926, he instigated the world's first gorilla sanctuary in what became the French: Parc National Albert (now Virunga National Park).[3] In 1933, he was appointed head of the French: [[Institut des Parcs Nationaux du Congo Belge]], and in 1948, he was on the executive committee at the foundation of the organisation which would become the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).[3] He was the first president of the Charles Darwin Foundation from its foundation in 1959 until his death in 1964.[3]
He was awarded a silver Darwin-Wallace Medal by the Linnean Society of London in 1958.[4]