U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Conservation History Women in Conservation

Volume IV, No. 1 (2020) The mission of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is working with others to conserve, protect, and enhance fish, wildlife, plants, and their habitats for the continuing benefit of the American people.

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CONSERVATION HISTORY 2020 Contents

From the Historian Lucille Stickel: Pioneer Woman in ii Mark Madison, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Historian and 37 Conservation Research Founder, Conservation History Matthew C. Perry, Heritage Committee Member, Retired, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Whose Stories Are We Missing? iii Maria E. Parisi, Conservation History Editor, Heritage The Legacy and Lessons of Celia Hunter and Partnerships Branch, National Conservation 41 Roger Kaye, Wilderness Coordinator, Alaska Region, Training Center, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Women’s History Is Women’s Right “Unremarkable,” Helen Fenske’s Unlikely Legacy 1 Catherine Woodward, Biologist, National Conservation 45 Marilyn Kitchell and Jonathan Rosenberg, Great Swamp Training Center, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service National Wildlife Refuge, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Saving Birds over Tea, Sylvia Earle: A Hero for the Planet 5 Harriet Lawrence Hemenway and Minna B. Hall 49 Pete Leary, National Wildlife Refuge System, Paul Tritaik, Heritage Committee Member, South U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Atlantic-Gulf and Mississippi Basin Regions, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Mollie Beattie: The Service’s First Female Director 53 Dan Ashe, Association of Zoos and Aquariums Through the Opera Glass, Florence Merriam Bailey 9 Paul Tritaik, Heritage Committee Member, South Our Beliefs Matter: The Mamie Parker Journey Atlantic-Gulf and Mississippi Basin Regions, 57 Mamie Parker, Former Northeast Service Regional Director U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Assistant Director of Fisheries and Habitat Conservation

Evelene Spencer: “Fish Evangelist” Crystal Leonetti's Story: Healing the Agency 13 April Gregory, National Fish and Aquatic Conservation 61 from the Inside Out Archives, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Kathleen McCoy, Independent Journalist

The Tie that Binds: How the Suffrage Fight Helped Departments 17 Rosalie Edge Advance Conservation Dyana Z. Furmansky, Author and Journalist Retiree News 64 Jerry Grover, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Retirees Witness to Wilderness: The Legacy of Mardy Murie Association Board Member Emeritus and Heritage 21 Steven Chase, Director, National Conservation Committee At-Large Retiree Training Center, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service From the Archives The Service Gave the World Rachel Carson 65 Carson National Fish Hatchery Personnel, National Fish and 29 Robert K. Musil, Ph.D., M.P.H., Rachel Carson Council Aquatic Conservation Archives, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Fran Hamerstrom: An Unconventional Life Oral History Program 33 and Career in Conservation 66 Elizabeth (Betty) Losey (excerpts) Stanley A. Temple, Beers-Bascom Professor Emeritus in Conservation, University of Wisconsin-Madison The Gallery and Senior Fellow, Aldo Leopold Foundation 69 Women tagging fish at the Bozeman Fish Technology Center, circa 1960 Brina Kessell: Pioneering Alaskan Ornithologist 35 Stanley A. Temple, Beers-Bascom Professor Emeritus Reflection—A Personal History of Women in in Conservation, University of Wisconsin-Madison 70 Conservation and Senior Fellow, Aldo Leopold Foundation Gretchen Newberry, Midwest Fisheries Center, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

2020 CONSERVATION HISTORY i From the Historian

Welcome to the second annual issue resources. Finally, I hope you enjoy of Conservation History, this time the exciting new artwork provid- “For most of dedicated to those extraordinary ed by our National Conservation history, Anonymous women who built our environmental Training Center graphic designer movement, but are all too often left Kristin Simanek. In spite of being a was a woman.” out of conservation history. This history journal, we hope to continue issue recalls the forgotten, famous to experiment with new graphics, and infamous women who were new columns and new ways of tell- — Virginia Woolf wildlife warriors as fierce and effec- ing old stories. So, with this context tive as their male counterparts, if in mind, I hope you enjoy this issue (1882-1941) not as recognized. Our editor, Maria and the subsequent ones that will Parisi, has devoted many hours of be available annually, until we run womanpower to create and shape out of new histories (and herstories) this collection, which we hope will to tell. bring to light some less remembered conservation heroes. From the Mark Madison, U.S. Fish and famous pioneers like Rachel Carson Wildlife Historian and Founder to the equally pioneering Elizabeth of Conservation History. Losey and Evelene Spencer, this issue captures the women environ- mental advocates, scientists, writers and leaders who bequeathed us our present wildlife legacy. Rachel Carson

This issue of Conservation History also marks an advance from quan- tity to quality in this living journal. When our current editor took over, we had published a Conservation History issue every 5 years, a woe- Mark with conservation woman? fully slow publication schedule that did little to diminish the backlog of history worth sharing. The initial goal of publishing an issue a year was met with this issue, thanks to unusual adherence to deadlines by contributors and impressive diligence of the editor. This issue also marks the first peer-reviewed issue of Conservation History. Peer-review is the gold standard for scientific and historical journals, and we are proud to add this layer of veracity to this issue—and every issue to follow. In addition, this issue has reached out to a wide-range of historians, conservationists, writers, heads of conservation non-govern- mental organizations, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service employees (both active and retired) to present a depth of experiences and breadth of perspectives as befits a topic as important as our nation’s natural ii CONSERVATION HISTORY 2020 Whose Stories Are We Missing?

That’s where I left off in my editor’s As you read this journal, you’ll see note from the 2019 journal. After the recognition these pioneering noting the accomplishments of six women achieved. You may also no- white men we credit for shaping tice the many nicknames and labels the conservation work we do today, describing them—iconoclast, Fish we decided to feature women in the Evangelist, hellcat, seer, mentor, 2020 journal. We identified women force of nature, Her Deepness, who worked for the U.S. Fish and pioneer, peacemaker. And how about Wildlife Service (Service) or who these? Grandmother of the Conser- influenced the work we do. We begin vation Movement, First Lady of the in the late 1800s and continue to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, or, as today’s conservation heroes. In the one man greeted the Service’s first first essay, Catherine Woodward female director, little lady. If John weaves together themes that con- Muir had grandchildren, would we nect these pioneers over this time in have called him the Grandfather of conservation history. the Conservation Movement? I do not doubt these names stem from Thanks to great interest in this well-meaning intent, and yet, how year’s theme, we’ve found ways to often do we remember successful expand the work. Kristin Simanek men as fathers or brothers or sons? (Design and Publishing Branch) First Lady, Dr. Lucille Stickel? By created the artwork that graces the definition, First Lady is the spouse cover and introduces the feature of a head of state, and not the one essays. From the beginning, we in charge. Little Lady? To Director designed her work to fit on banners Mollie Beattie’s credit, she won over Louella Cable. Courtesy Archives and Special Collections, we’re hanging on lampposts around some of her male colleagues. University of South Dakota the National Conservation Training Center (NCTC) campus. We also Barriers for women, people of color, Our First Female Scientist want to tell the stories of many and others outside the dominant more women in conservation history, culture remain. I hope you’ll enjoy beyond the Service, and beyond learning about these outstanding While preparing this journal, we learned U.S. borders, and so we are creat- women, and while we have work to about Dr. Louella E. Cable, our first ing a poster with an accompanying do, the Service has changed. Indeed, known female scientist. In 1927, the handout to distribute to anyone as this goes to print, Aurelia Skip- U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, one of our interested, even schools. The poster with is the Service’s first Afri- predecessors, hired Cable as an aquatic features the images of 15 women can-American female director. biologist. Cable was an accomplished and lists another 40 women along researcher, author and illustrator. She a timeline, from 1647 to 2016. The So, now, whose stories are we was among the first to rear fish in a lab, handout showcases the contributions missing? The theme for the 2021 and she identified unknown larval stages of all the women noted. In the long journal is our agency’s sesquicen- of fish species. Her doctoral research run, we’d like to create an interac- tennial anniversary. The Service’s tive online resource, where you can origins began February 9, 1871, focused on aging lake trout via their dig deeper to learn more about these when Congress established the U.S. scales, which aided in lake trout resto- women. In the meantime, NCTC Commission of Fish and Fisheries. ration. Cable’s goby is even named after is planning its first virtual lecture Going forward, we will continue to this pioneer among female scientists. and interview with Dyana Fur- share our history and heritage, and She retired from the Service in 1970. mansky, Rosalie Edge’s biographer, we will seek perspectives outside this year—100 years after Edge, the dominant culture and tell stories A more in-depth essay about Cable will suffragist turned conservationist, not often told. appear in America’s Bountiful Waters: successfully lobbied for the 19th 150 Years of Fisheries Conservation Maria E. Parisi, Conservation amendment, granting women the and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service right to vote. History Editor, Heritage and Partnerships Branch, National in 2021. Conservation Training Center, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

2020 CONSERVATION HISTORY iii Rachel Carson CONSERVATION HISTORY 2020 “Women’s History Is Women’s Right”

Catherine Woodward, Biologist, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

We have been celebrating women’s Feature essays in the journal are in chronological history in the United States for the order by birth year. whole month of March since 1987. Prior to that, we celebrated women’s history for the week of March 2-8, since President Carter signed the Minna B. Hall 1851-1941 proclamation in 1980. “Women’s history is women’s right—an Harriet Lawrence Hemenway 1858-1960 essential, indispensable heritage from which we can draw pride, comfort, courage, and long range Florence Merriam Bailey 1863-1948 vision,” Gerda Lerner said as she sat beside the President on proclama- Evelene Spencer 1868-1935 tion day. Before this, there was just 1 day a year to recognize women and their history, starting in 1909. Rosalie Barrow Edge 1877-1962 In this year’s journal, we focus on Mardy Murie 1902-2003 women in conservation history; we raise the voices of remarkable women to commemorate the past, Rachel Carson 1907-1964 inform the present, and inspire the future. We hope to raise awareness Frances Hamerstrom 1907-1998 about their contributions to conser- vation through these stories.

Lucille Farrier Stickel 1915-2007 To be a woman in the early days of documented conservation history, you had to have grit and gumption Celia Hunter 1919-2001 to influence others, especially living in a man’s world. From the 1890s to Helen C. Fenske 1922-2007 1920s, there was mass dissatisfac- tion with corruption, inefficiencies and traditional politics, which led to Brina Cattell Kessel 1925-2016 the Progressive Era. This was a time of many reforms, including Louella Cable 1927-1970 women’s right to vote. Environmen- tal issues at that time involved the plume trade, where hunters and Sylvia Earle 1935- sportsmen slaughtered birds for their feathers and put many species Mollie H. Beattie 1947-1996 on the brink of extinction. The pesticide dichlorodiphenyltrichlo- roethane (DDT), used in World War Mamie Parker 1957- II to control malaria and other diseases, caused thinning of egg- Crystal Leonetti 1976- shells and harmed wildlife when used domestically in postwar America. The fight for stronger legislation to protect wildlife and natural areas, both land and sea,

2020 CONSERVATION HISTORY 1 was not possible without women’s Leopold. These women saved the graduate from the University of voices rising up against powerful birds for future generations to Alaska. She married Olaus Murie, organizations led by men. enjoy. Hemenway, Hall, Bailey, and who was working for the Bureau of Hamerstrom should be honored Biological Survey. That same year, The women we feature in this with high regard for their contribu- Murie joined him on a 550-mile, journal were trailblazers; they tions to the field of ornithology. 8-month expedition to study caribou became role models for future in Alaska’s Brooks Range. Not generations. Most of them had Rosalie Edge grew up privileged in many women would be willing to status, education and resources to a prominent family; she was a honeymoon, as she did, on such a leverage for their cause. They were suffragist, turned bird watcher, long trek in the vast wilderness. She feisty and intelligent, willing to turned conservationist who estab- was a strong advocate for Alaska’s stand up for their beliefs, often at lished the Emergency Conservation wild places. The Muries’ studies in personal cost. They were visionar- Committee and founded the world’s Alaska supported the efforts to ies, and they each left a legacy. first preserve for birds of prey, establish Arctic National Wildlife Hawk Mountain Sanctuary in Refuge in 1960. Mardy played an During the time of the feather Pennsylvania. The conservation important role in protecting wilder- trade, Harriet Hemenway and movement had never seen such a ness in Alaska and around the Minna Hall were two socialites who tenacious agent of change. Edge nation and is rightfully lauded for made a world of difference. By attacked both the Audubon Society her efforts. meeting over tea, they strategized and the Bureau of Biological Survey to end the deadly feather trade. for not living up to their wildlife Brina Kessel was one of the first They began inviting other women of conservation missions; instead, they scientists to complete extensive status, who wore feathered hats, for were killing species deemed research on the birds of Alaska. She tea resulting in 900 people boycot- “non-beneficial.” In spite of fierce was a graduate student Aldo ting feather fashion. At a time when opposition, Edge eventually perse- Leopold, like Fran Hamerstrom, women could not vote, Hemenway vered in protecting raptors and who was the first woman to earn a and Hall, along with other promi- other endangered birds. graduate degree in wildlife manage- nent men and women, started a bird ment. Kessel grew up with a family club that pressed for stronger Edge was also an early voice against that loved wildlife. As with many legislation protecting birds. The the use of DDT and its harm to other female field biologists of the Audubon movement expanded to birds in 1948, 14 years before Rachel time, she experienced sexism: she the national level, and the U.S. Carson wrote Silent Spring and could not conduct research on Congress passed the Lacey Act and warned the public about the dan- certain parts of Alaska, because the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, gers of pesticides. Much of the women were not allowed on petro- prohibiting harm to a migratory evidence Edge and others used leum sites. However, she persisted bird or any of its parts. The initial came from Lucille Stickel, a pioneer- in her research and found ways to actions of Hemenway and Hall ing toxicologist at the Patuxent continue her work with the Univer- protected birds and illegalized the Research Refuge. Stickel was a sity of Alaska. Celia Hunter’s feather trade. wildlife research biologist with a unique career included being a pilot thirst for knowledge. There was during World War II and creating Appreciate birds by observing them little information about the harmful Alaska’s first ecotourism company. through an opera glass, not through effects of pesticides on wildlife, and Hunter told stories and educated the barrel of a rifle, thought Flor- in 1946, Stickel published her first people about Alaskan conservation ence Bailey. She showed the world it contaminant paper reporting the and wilderness as she gained is not necessary to kill an animal to results of DDT. She and her col- support of her community in study it. Bailey enjoyed watching leagues provided the evidentiary establishing the Arctic Refuge. birds, studying their behaviors and support for Carson’s Silent Spring. Through her career, Hunter showed leading others on bird walks. She Through the work of Edge, Stickel intelligence and effectiveness as she was an educated writer who encour- and Carson, the newly established began at a grassroots level and aged women to study science and Environmental Protection Agency rallied big crowds to protect these who recognized female scientists of banned DDT in 1972, and the public threatened lands. Murie, Kessel and the day. She trained teachers in field learned nature is vulnerable to Hunter all made significant impacts and lab ornithology. Another human intervention. through their adventurous and privileged woman who spent her unique careers protecting Alaska’s career around studying birds was Protecting our country’s last wilderness. Frances Hamerstrom. She men- frontier, an unspoiled remote tored thousands of students in wilderness, were the legacies of Many women profiled in this issue ornithology throughout her career; Margaret Murie, Brina Kessel and were impressive pioneers spear- many of whom became conserva- Celia Hunter. Trained in a wide vari- heading movements and pushing the tionists and ornithologists. She was ety of fields, these women conserva- conservation movement into new a student of Aldo Leopold, the tionists were pilots, writers, scien- directions such as: Helen Fenske, founder of wildlife management, and tific researchers and educators. All Crystal Leonetti, Evelene Spencer, in 1940, she was the first woman to of them made their careers in Mollie Beattie and Sylvia Earle. earn a master’s degree in this Alaska. Margaret “Mardy” Murie Helen Fenske’s story was a classic emerging field—the only woman to moved to Alaska as a young girl, ‘David vs. Goliath’ story in winning earn a graduate degree under becoming the first woman to her case against the powerful Port

2 CONSERVATION HISTORY 2020 Authority. Her advocacy helped can-American Regional Director establish the Great Swamp National and the first female African-Ameri- Wildlife Refuge and the Department can Assistant Director. Parker of the Interior’s first Wilderness writes about the value of pushing Area east of the Mississippi. Crystal ourselves to do what is right, not Leonetti was the first Indigenous what is easy. In a time when we face woman to serve as a Native liaison more challenges than ever, we need for the Service. She introduced the to work together, honoring all first Alaska Native Relations perspectives, to continue advancing training to the U.S. Fish and conservation. We are making Wildlife Service (Service), a crucial history today as this year marks the tool for Service employees working first year the Service has a female with tribal nations on wildlife African-American director, Aurelia management in Alaska. Another Skipwith. Catherine Woodward. first was celebrity chef Evelene Ryan Hagerty/USFWS Spencer, hired by the Bureau of This issue of Conservation History Fisheries to help promote eating shares the stories of a fine group of each of these women inspire us in fish. She popularized the idea of fish women, each with their own mean- our careers to be better stewards of as fighting food, to save other foods ingful legacy. They shaped regula- our fish, wildlife, plants, and their for men fighting in World War II. tions to protect birds and create a habitats. Spencer wrote a popular cookbook, cleaner environment, established which still sells today and which protected areas of land and water, Reference benefitted the fishing industry at shattered the glass ceiling in field the time. Another front runner, biology, and created space in today’s Zorthian, J. (2018, March 1). Mollie Beattie, was the first woman conservation movement for women This is How March Became Women’s to lead the Service. She changed to take a seat at the table. Through History Month. Time, many things for the Service, includ- countless awards, and public lands https://time.com/4238999/wom- ing policy for the Endangered bearing their names, they made ens-history-month-history/ Species Act and the framework for history and left legacies. There is a the National Wildlife Refuge lot we can learn from their charac- ■ System—distinguishing purpose ter, persistence and work ethic. May and use on the refuges when it comes to hunting, fishing, trapping Extracting glochidia from a Plain pocketbook mussel using the syringe and more. Beattie left the organiza- method. Ryan Hagerty/USFWS tion better than she found it, while, too, serving as a role model for other women in an agency with predominantly male employees.

Sylvia Earle opened up the world of marine conservation as an early woman oceanographer. She illumi- nated the underwater world for the public and fiercely advocated for protecting the health of the ocean. Earle faced many challenges, such as applying for positions not open to women. Unable to live and work aboard an underwater exploration vessel with men, she led an expedi- tion with all women, and it changed her life. Due to Earle’s work, the Service manages more land and water mass than any other agency, with more than 150 million terres- trial acres and 760 million acres of submerged lands and waters, primarily in the 5 Marine National Monuments.

Mamie Parker spoke words of wisdom when she said, “We are stronger because we had to be.” She started her career in the Service as a biologist, and she rose in the ranks to become the first female Afri-

2020 CONSERVATION HISTORY 3

Saving Birds Over Tea Harriet Lawrence Hemenway and Minna B. Hall

Paul Tritaik, Heritage Committee lives of birds. Indeed, by 1896, 5 Grinnell, editor of Forest and Member, South Atlantic-Gulf and million birds across nearly 50 Stream, formed The Audubon Mississippi Basin Regions, U.S. species were being killed annually Society of New York in 1886 and Fish and Wildlife Service to supply the millinery trade. This published the first volumes of The left fewer than 5,000 nesting egrets Audubon Magazine, it only lasted On a January afternoon in 1896, in in the United States and resulted in until 1889 due to funding issues. The the parlor of a Boston Victorian the extirpation of terns from New Massachusetts Audubon Society, brownstone home, a Back Bay England states. however, has been the oldest socialite read a disturbing article continually operating Audubon about the slaughter of beautiful Harriet and Minna pulled out their Society in the United States. egrets in Florida by plume hunters. lists of high society ladies who likely Harriet and Minna convinced The article described in graphic owned feather hats and invited nationally recognized ornithologist detail the resulting carnage of them to afternoon tea parties, and co-founder of the Nuttall plucked, lifeless bodies of birds and where they served fine tea and Ornithological Club, William their orphaned chicks left to starve, engaged in friendly conversation. Brewster, to become president, and all in the name of high fashion. After countless afternoon tea Charles Minot to be chairman of the Outraged, Mrs. Harriet Hemenway parties and gentle persuasion to board. shared the article with her cousin eschew feather hats, Harriet and across the street, Minna B. Hall. Minna successfully enlisted more The society’s ultimate purpose, as Over tea, they ambitiously strate- than 900 women to boycott the stated by Minna Hall, was “to gized how to end the cruel, multimil- buying and wearing of feather hats. discourage buying and wearing, for lion-dollar plume trade that was ornamental purposes, the feathers decimating whole populations of Harriet and Minna were astute of any wild bird, and to otherwise wild birds. enough to recognize that change further the protection of our native would require the participation of birds.” A major goal of the Massa- Harriet Hemenway was no stranger influential men as well, especially chusetts Audubon Society was to to controversy. She was considered considering that women had not yet influence other states to start independent, energetic and a bit of secured the right to vote. Harriet Audubon societies, and indeed, by an iconoclast. Harriet came from a enlisted the support of her husband, 1898, state-level Audubon societies family of abolitionists, and she once Augustus Hemenway (1853-1931), had been established in 15 other hosted a black man as a houseguest, an heir to a shipping fortune. Mr. states and the District of Columbia. because he couldn’t get lodging Hemenway was also interested and The Massachusetts Audubon anywhere else in Boston. That was active in protecting the environ- Society was a leader in the cam- considered shocking for the time, ment, including helping to establish paign to end the commercial slaugh- even though that man was Booker Boston’s municipal park system. ter of plume birds. In 1897, the orga- T. Washington. The women also recruited promi- nization helped Massachusetts pass nent, affluent families and reached a bill outlawing trade in wild-bird Before reading that horrifying out to esteemed Boston scientists to feathers. It also worked to develop article on plume hunting, both help the cause, including ornitholo- model bird legislation for other Harriet and Minna were among the gist George Mackay and Harvard states to adopt and worked with the many women who had succumbed to naturalists Charles S. Minot and U.S. Congress to pass the Lacey the fashion of wearing feathers Outram Bangs. Act in 1900, which prohibited the adorned on their hats. Once they interstate shipment of animals killed learned that their fashion choices On February 10, 1896, Harriet and in violation of local state laws. The required the killing of breeding Minna invited six other prominent Lacey Act was like the Audubon birds for their nuptial plumes and men and women to Harriet’s home model laws that were recently the subsequent abandonment of to organize a new bird club that enacted in multiple states. This their young, Harriet and Minna not would work to protect birds. They landmark legislation was instrumen- only pledged to never wear such decided to name this club the tal in curbing the illicit plume trade. hats again, but to work on ending Massachusetts Audubon Society for the practice altogether. This was a the Protection of Birds, after the The Massachusetts Audubon monumental challenge as feathers great bird painter and in the Society leaders also recognized the were more valuable than gold at the tradition of earlier English bird need to coordinate efforts among time, placing a heavy price on the clubs. Although George Bird the various state Audubon Societ-

2020 CONSERVATION HISTORY 5 ies. In 1900, they helped organize a take, capture, kill,” or “sell” a conference of state Audubon migratory bird or any of its parts, societies in Cambridge, Massachu- including nests, eggs and feathers. setts and another conference in In 1920, the U.S. Supreme Court New York, the following year, to rejected a challenge to the constitu- coordinate efforts to protect wild tionality of the Migratory Bird birds on a national level. By 1902, Treaty Act, ruling that it does not with the prodding and funding of violate states’ rights. the Massachusetts Audubon Soci- ety, the National Committee of By 1920, no woman with any Audubon Societies was established. sensibility would be seen on the In 1905, this group of state Audubon streets of Boston wearing feathers, societies formally incorporated as at least not without being admon- the National Association of Audu- ished, or at least glared at, by one of bon Societies, which later became her sisters. Indeed, the issue was known as the National Audubon dead. The trade had been made Society. This enabled the Audubon illegal, and feathers were soon out Societies to fund Audubon wardens of fashion thanks to the initial Harriett Lawrence Hemenway por- sworn to protect vulnerable bird actions of two very progressive and trait by John Singer Sargent, 1890. rookeries and to advocate for brave women. stronger bird protection laws. ■ The influence of the Massachusetts Audubon Society reached the References highest levels in 1902, when friend of Charles Minot’s family and former Brewster’s Nuttall Ornithological Club member, Theodore Roosevelt, became President of the United States. President Theodore Roos- evelt listened to the appeals of his Audubon friends and launched the protection of wetland rookeries by executive order, starting at Pelican Island in Florida, thereby establish- ing the first national wildlife refuge. Appeals to the White House didn’t end with the Theodore Roosevelt Administration. In 1909, when the First Lady, Mrs. William Howard Taft, had the audacity to appear at the presidential inauguration with feathers in her hat, Minna Hall promptly wrote her a personal letter of protest.

The Massachusetts Audubon Society continued to press for stronger legislation protecting birds. In 1913, Congress passed the Weeks-McLean Migratory Bird Act, which banned the spring shooting of game and insectivorous birds and declared them to be under the “custody and protection” of the Federal government. In 1916, the United States signed a treaty with Great Britain (acting on behalf of Canada), in which the two countries agreed to stop all hunting of insec- tivorous birds and to establish specific hunting seasons for game birds. In 1918, to implement the new Feathered hat. treaty, Congress passed the Migra- tory Bird Treaty Act, which official- ly made it a crime to “pursue, hunt,

6 CONSERVATION HISTORY 2020

Kelly, K. (2014). Harriet Lawrence Hemenway (1858-1960): Saving Birds One Hat at a Time. America Comes Alive, April 8, 2014.

Leggett, K. (1995). “The Bird Ladies of Boston.” The New York Times. November 12, 1995, Section 7, Page 36.

Mitchell, John H. (1996). The Mothers of Conservation. Sanctu- ary: The Journal of the Massachu- setts Audubon Society, Centennial Issue - January/February 1996, 1-20. https://blogs.massaudubon.org/ yourgreatoutdoors/the-moth- ers-of-conservation/

Packard, W. (1921). The Story of the Audubon Society: Twenty-five Years of Active and Effective Work for the Preservation of Wild Birdlife. Bulletin of the Massachusetts Audubon Society for the Protection of Birds. Boston, Massachusetts.

Souder, W. (2013). How Two Women Ended the Deadly Feather Trade. Smithsonian Magazine, March 2013.

Weeks, L. (2015). Hats Off To Women Who Saved the Birds. National Public Radio History Department, July 15, 2015.

Feather Trade. Wildlife Journal Junior. New Hampshire PBS, 2019.

Lady plume hat. Zhang, T. (2018). The Conflict of Conservation, Fashion, and Indus- try: Compromise between Environ- mentalists, Women, and the Plume Trade. National History Day.

Great egret nesting in a rookery in St. Augustine, Florida.

2020 CONSERVATION HISTORY 7

Through the Opera Glass: Florence Merriam Bailey

Paul Tritaik, Heritage Committee When George Bird Grinnell started priate. What injustice! Here an Member, South Atlantic-Gulf and the first Audubon Society of New innocent creature with an ol- Mississippi Basin Regions, U.S. York in February 1886, one of the ive-green back and yellowish breast Fish and Wildlife Service first to respond to his call to action has to go about all her days known was Florence. In March 1886, as the black-throated blue warbler, A young woman, while attending Florence organized the Smith just because that happens to college, became one of the first College Audubon Society with a describe the dress of her spouse!” leaders of the Audubon movement. classmate, Fanny Hardy, to bring Florence Merriam grew up in attention to this slaughter. She Florence was also active in social upstate New York and was nur- inspired a hundred students—a work. She helped educate and tured in science and nature by her third of the student body—to support young employed women in father (Clinton Levi Merriam), distribute 10,000 circulars and to Chicago and New York City, many mother (Caroline Hart Merriam), write impassioned protests to the of whom were new European and older brother (Clinton Hart newspaper. immigrants. While in New York Merriam). Her father was a banker City, Florence contracted tuberculo- and U.S. Congressman who was One of the ways Florence sought to sis and decided to travel west in interested in science and corre- change attitudes about birds was to 1893 to convalesce. She hardly sponded with John Muir. Her introduce students to the wonder rested though, attending 6 months college-educated mother was the and beauty of birds by leading of lectures at Leland Stanford daughter of a county judge and New groups on bird hikes. She even Junior University and traveling York Assemblyman, who encour- attracted luminary naturalists like through California, Utah and aged Florence to pursue higher John Burroughs to lead bird walks Arizona to observe birds. She education. Her older brother, C. when he visited Smith College. “We compiled her notes into travelogues Hart Merriam, would become the won’t say too much about the hats,” and bird field guides like My first chief of the Bureau of Biological she wrote in Bird-Lore. “We’ll take Summer in a Mormon Village Survey. Family friend, Ernest the girls afield, and let them get (1894), A-Birding on a Bronco Thompson Seton, was also an early acquainted with the birds. Then of (1896), and Birds of Village and influence on Florence. inborn necessity, they will wear Field: A Bird Book for Beginners feathers never more.” (1898), a popular bird guide with Florence attended Smith College in more than 200 drawings by Ernest Northampton, Massachusetts, from Florence left Smith College in 1886 Thompson Seton, Louis Agassiz 1882 to 1886, and by that time had without receiving a degree, but she Fuertes and John L. Ridgway. already demonstrated a unique was later in 1921 granted a B.A, as a passion for bird study. Most natural- member of the Class of 1886. She Her health restored, Florence ists at the time studied birds using continued to work for the Audubon moved to Washington, D.C., to live their skins obtained by shooting Society and wrote articles on birds with her brother, C. Hart Merriam. them or examining those stored in for The Audubon Magazine, includ- There she helped the Women’s universities and museums. Florence, ing her popular “Fifty Common National Science Club get women to however, preferred to study live Birds and How to Know Them.” In start branches throughout the birds and was the first to advocate 1889, Florence compiled those country to promote female scien- using binoculars to identify them articles into her first book, Birds tists. Florence also co-founded the and study their behavior. through an Opera Glass. This was Audubon Society of the District of considered the first field guide to Columbia with Mrs. John Dewhurst Killing birds to study them seemed American birds by suggesting the Patten in 1897, 1 year after Massa- unnecessary to Florence, but killing best way to view birds was through chusetts Audubon Society’s found- birds to wear their feathers was the lenses of opera glasses (binocu- ing. Early leaders included Theo- horrifying. Florence was disgusted lars), not shotgun sights. This book dore. S. Palmer and Robert to see so many women wearing was published under her own name, Ridgway, and even President feathers and even entire dead birds not a pen name, as was the custom Theodore Roosevelt became a on their hats. An estimated 5 million for female authors at the time. In member and hosted meetings. birds a year were being killed for describing a female warbler, she Florence was an active member of fashion. In 1885, Florence began to wrote, “Like other ladies, the little its executive committee and led the write articles on bird protection. feathered brides have to bear their annual spring bird class to provide husbands’ names, however inappro- basic instruction in both field and

2020 CONSERVATION HISTORY 9 laboratory ornithology to teachers. In 1928, Florence completed Birds Florence Merriam Bailey was She was also active with the Com- of New Mexico, the first comprehen- memorialized in ornithology by Dr. mittee on Bird Protection of the sive report on the birdlife of the Joseph Grinnell in 1908, when he American Ornithologists’ Union and Southwest. In 1931, Florence named a subspecies of Mountain helped advocate for bird protection received the William Brewster Chickadee from the higher moun- laws, like the Lacy Act of 1900. Memorial Award of the American tains of southern California–Parus Ornithologists’ Union for this work, gambeli baileyae (now Poecile Florence’s move to Washington D.C. and 2 years later, the University of gambeli baileyae)–in her honor. was fortuitous for personal reasons, New Mexico awarded her an as well. Her brother introduced her honorary doctorate degree “in ■ to Biological Survey naturalist recognition of the educational and Vernon Bailey. They married in scientific value of her work on Birds December 1899 and began traveling of New Mexico.” The Biological to explore the natural world. Vernon Survey published Vernon Bailey’s began a series of field trips for the companion work, Mammals of New Division of Biological Survey and Mexico, in 1931. Florence frequently accompanied him. Using a simple tent, the couple Florence authored 10 books and went camping in Texas, California, published about 100 articles in Arizona, New Mexico, North and ornithological journals, such as The South Dakota, the Pacific North- Auk, Bird-Lore, and The Condor, west and New England. Vernon and in popular periodicals like collected and studied mammals, Forest and Stream, The Outlook, birds, reptiles and plants, and Popular Science, The American Florence documented her ornitho- Agriculturist, and The Chautau- logical observations made on all quan. Florence was the first woman these trips. Like her, Vernon was Associate Member of the American opposed to killing animals and Ornithologists’ Union (1885), the developed one of the first live first woman elected as a Fellow of mammal traps, called Verbail, a the Union (1929), and the first contraction of his own name. female recipient of the Brewster Award (1931). In Arthur Cleveland In 1902, Florence published the Bent’s Life Histories of North Handbook of Birds of the Western American Birds, Florence was United States, which was to serve among the authorities most fre- as the companion volume to Frank quently quoted on bird habits and An illustration from Bailey’s Birds M. Chapman’s Handbook of Birds of behavior. through an Opera Glass. Eastern North America. It became See the entire book at the standard work for half a century https://tinyurl.com/y7jbaxvf and was highly proclaimed by such eminent naturalists as Olaus J. Murie.

10 CONSERVATION HISTORY 2020 Florence Merriam Bailey feeding gulls. Oregon Historical Society Library

References Oehser, P.H. (1952). In memoriam: Florence Merriam Bailey. The Auk Cevasco, G.A., Harmond, R.P., & 69:19-26. Mendelsohn, E.I. (2009). Modern American Environmentalists: A Ruth, J.M. (2007). Florence Merriam Biographical Encyclopedia. Balti- Bailey – Ornithologist. New Mexico more: Johns Hopkins University Ornithological Society Bulletin, 35: Press., doi:10.1353/book.3349 97-100.

Chapman, F.M. (1916). Florence St. Lawrence County, New York Merriam Bailey. Bird-Lore, 18:142- Branch, American Association of 144. University Women. Women of Courage, Florence Merriam Bailey: Florence Merriam Bailey Papers, Pioneer Naturalist. 1865-1942. Smithsonian Institution Archives, Washington, D.C. Wolfe, J. (2019). Overlooked No More: Florence Merriam Bailey, Kofalk, H. (1989). No Woman Who Defined Modern Bird-Watch- Tenderfoot: Florence Merriam ing. The New York Times, July 17, Bailey, Pioneer Naturalist. College 2019. Florence Merriam Bailey. Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press. Women in Nature - Florence Merriam Bailey. Journal of the Maynard, L. W. (1935). The Audu- Sierra College Natural History bon Society of the District of Museum, (2015), vol. 6 no. 1. Columbia. Records of the Columbia Historical Society, Washington, D.C. Historical Society of Washington, D.C. 35/36: 98–108.

2020 CONSERVATION HISTORY 11

Evelene Spencer: “Fish Evangelist”

April Gregory, National Fish and USBF appears in a paper published Aquatic Conservation Archives, in the No. 44 issue of the Bureau U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and of Fisheries Economic Circular in Heritage Committee Member 1919 with Evelyn listed as the au- thor, entitled “Groupers, fishes you The United States Bureau of should try, with recipes for them.” Fisheries (USBF) once employed She was part of the USBF’s nation- a celebrity chef—a chef to whom wide campaign to encourage people people would flock to watch live to eat more fish to save other foods demonstrations at large department for WWI efforts. Evelene traveled stores. This was before the days of around the country giving cooking television and before there were demonstrations and encouraging countless cooking shows. Although people to eat other species besides television was invented in 1927, it those that were widely accepted by was not in most American homes developing recipes with substitu- until the 1950s. This chef was em- tions such as devil fish for crab and ployed during the roaring 20s, when squid for oyster. Saving red meat for folks went to live plays, concerts the soldiers overseas became a na- and shows. The USBF hired her to tional priority, and Evelene helped promote eating fish, and she was to provide alternative recipes using famous among housewives. Her offi- fish that were often overlooked as a cial title was “Fish Cookery Expert food source. for United States Bureau of Fisher- Fish Cookery book cover. Courtesy of the National Fish and Aquatic ies,” and she earned the nickname Evelene is most well known for her “Fish Evangelist.” book, “Fish Cookery, Six Hundred Conservation Archives/USFWS Recipes for the Preparation of Fish, Evelene Armstrong was born in Shellfish and Other Aquatic Ani- 1868 in Toronto, Canada. In 1888, mals, Including Fish Soups, Salads Evelene moved to the United and Entrees, with Accompanying States, where she married Joseph Sauces, Seasonings, Dressings and Spencer in Portland, Oregon. Forcemeats.” She co-authored the Joseph was also from Canada, but book with John M. Cobb, the Direc- details are scarce about why each tor of the College of Fisheries at had moved to the United States. the University of Seattle. Published They had two daughters - Adrienne in 1921, it is still available for sale Spencer, born in 1890 and Evalyn online. The book is much more than Spencer, born in 1893. According a listing of recipes. It includes math- to the U.S. Census records, in 1910 ematical ratios for gauging cooking Evelene was 42 years old and the times for the size and thickness of manager of a restaurant. Her skills the fish. It has information on how in the kitchen surely must have lent to tell how fresh a fish from the mar- themselves to her employment as an ket is and how to fillet a fish. The outreach specialist and cook by the introduction speaks to the culture of USBF, where she worked for about eating across the States—how one 7 years. type of fish may be a highly prized entrée in one area, while it is a trash Evelene created quite the name fish in another part of the country— for herself over the course of her which still holds true today. Fish Cookery dedicaton page. career. She was widely known and Courtesy of the National Fish and Aquatic respected in not only the United Recipes in Fish Cookery range Conservation Archives/USFWS States, but also Canada. Evelene from bass, shrimp, trout and salmon worked for the USBF from at least to eel, shark, roe and turtle. The 1915 to 1922. An early reference to authors explain that they were Evelyn Spencer working for the trying to educate people about un-

2020 CONSERVATION HISTORY 13 conventional food sources that may names that appear as contributors be widely available to them in their and co-authors to research papers, areas, often times for a much more but they are few and far between, economical price. A lasting trade- and we know little about them. mark from the book that helped propel Evelene to cooking stardom While Evelene Spencer did serve in was her baking method, coined a traditional woman’s role as a cook, the “Spencer Hot Oven Method,” she appears to have had great free- which is a healthier method of oven dom in her career—making her own frying of fish and chips than deep choices, scheduling her tours and frying. The book was a success, becoming a well-respected expert and Evelene traveled the country in the field by her peers and deci- giving cooking demonstrations at sion-makers in both American and department stores and answering Canadian governments. Despite her questions. Her oldest daughter, role in the kitchen, Evelene was no Adrienne, often accompanied and ordinary cook. Through experimen- helped Evelene. By 1923, she had tation, she fine-tuned her cooking moved back to Canada to work for methods via various comparative the National Fish Company do- methods she tested. One such meth- ing similar work—promoting the od was even named after her. consumption of fish. Evelene also became well known in Canada for I chose to highlight Evelene for her her fishery-touting ways. successful career and her enduring legacy and to bring awareness of Evelene Spencer passed away in history repeating itself. The USBF January of 1935 in Hamilton, Can- Recipes from Fish Cookery: Tuna tasked Evelene to promote eating ada, at age 67, but she left a lasting Fish Pudding, Steamed or Baked. fish to save red meat for the soldiers. mark on cooking. A section of her Courtesy of the National Fish and Aquatic Today, our agency is promoting obituary that ran in the Toronto Conservation Archives/USFWS eating invasive species to help save paper reads, native species. Although during Ev- For many years Mrs. Spencer Author’s note elene’s time Silver flying carp, for ex- had rendered great service to the ample, had not yet been introduced Department of Fisheries and the Looking back through our agency’s to the United States, she does have Canadian fishery industry through early fisheries history proves it an entire section of carp recipes, her lectures and demonstrations… to be predominately comprised of which I’m sure could be substituted Her work proved of immense benefit male Caucasian employees, with for an invasive carp, proving once to the fishing industry of the Domin- the notable exception of the iconic again, that recipes can be timeless. ion in promoting the consumption Rachel Carson, who didn’t enter of fish by Canadians. Mrs. Spencer the scene until the 1930s. Of the ■ was as well known in the United few women employed throughout States as in Canada, and in the those early years, from 1871 for- American Union she carried on ward, most worked in the accepted campaigns to promote the consump- roles of secretary, egg picker, or as tion of fish, which met with wide in Evelene Spencer’s case, cook. In response. She was well known to the the early years, there are women’s authorities at Washington, where her work on behalf of the Govern- ment was valued highly, and as a result of which she was invited to do similar work in the Dominion.

Evelene’s impact continues today. The “Spencer Hot Oven Method” is commonly used today, just under a different name—roasting or bak- ing—and is still popular for being a healthier low-fat alternative to frying.

The Department of Commerce used this poster as part of its “Eat More Fish” campaign to encourage Amer- icans to eat a wide variety of fish. Courtesy of the National Fish and Aquatic Conservation Archives/USFWS

14 Eat the Carp! poster: This 1911 Bureau of Fisheries poster promotes carp as a delicious fish to eat. The carp was introduced to American waters in 1877 and spread quickly. Courtesy of the National Fish and Aquatic Conservation Archives/USFWS

References

Department of Commerce, Bureau of Fisheries, Economic Circular No. 44, Issued March 21, 1919, “Groupers: Fishes You Should Try/ With recipes for cooking them.” Text by H.F. Moore, Deputy Com- missioner, Bureau of Fisheries. Recipes by Miss Evelyn Spencer, Bureau of Fisheries.

Ancestry.com. Newspapers.com Obituary Index, 1800s-current database on-line. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2019. https://www.ancestry.com/search/ collections/61843/

Spencer, E, and Cobb, J.N. (1921). Fish Cookery: Six hundred recipes for the preparation of fish, shellfish and other aquatic animals, including fish soups, salads and entres, with accompanying sauces, seasonings, dressings and forcemeats. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company.

Courtesy of the National Fish and Aquatic Conservation Archives/USFWS

2020 CONSERVATION HISTORY 15

The Tie that Binds: How the Suffrage Fight Helped Rosalie Edge Advance Conservation

Dyana Z. Furmansky, Author Nature from the Conservationists. York Woman Suffrage Party as and Journalist Another important element was secretary-treasurer and a pamphle- provided by something I found teer. Edge, who had never been shy, In an old suitcase that belonged to buried under the neat bundles of or un-opinionated, hit her stride as the radical conservationist Rosalie envelopes. It was a white sash bor- a blistering soapbox speaker. She Edge (1877-1962), I found dozens of dered in golden yellow stripes that walked miles going door to door, intimate family letters written to are still rich in hue. The fighting leaving behind the latest incendiary her and by her, over the course of words ‘Votes for Women’ call out NYWSP pamphlet that she, as a her long life. As Edge’s biographer, I from the long white space between writer for the organization’s highly read these letters searching for clues the stripes. Spotting her suffrag- persuasive ‘publicity council,’ had into what might have thrust this ist sash among letters from loved penned. snooty, middle-aged matron out of ones, I figured it had been a prized the cloistered and cushioned world possession. Prior to joining the suffrage move- of New York high society, into a field ment, she had “known nothing of she knew nothing about: the pres- Edge wore this sash across her organization, publicity, policy or ervation of hawks and eagles from white dress as she marched with politics,” she wrote. The NYWSP mass slaughter, by bounty hunters thousands of like-uniformed suf- changed her. But shortly after and anyone who believed it was fragists through the streets of New the suffrage movement came to a their civic duty to exterminate them. York, demanding to be counted successful close, Edge drifted away in the national plebiscite. After a from other women’s causes, and Of course, Edge couldn’t have long and bitter fight, the suffrag- instead spent the next several years known anything about raptor ists achieved their goal a century falling ardently in love with birds. preservation; the ‘field’ didn’t yet ago, when three-quarters of the Central Park was where she went exist. She created it in 1929, as states ratified the 19th Amendment to watch them, and started her first founder and sole embodiment of the on August 18, 1920. “The right of bird list. Meanwhile, her organiza- Emergency Conservation Commit- citizens of the United States to vote tional skills slumbered. tee, through her pamphleteering, shall not be denied or abridged by strident consciousness raising and the United States or by any state on The plight of eagles in particular action. Hawk Mountain Sanctuary account of sex,” had finally become aroused her to her new cause, one in Kempton, Pennsylvania, which the law of the land. that had few allies when she took Edge established in 1935, can be it up, and none willing to go public. considered the birthplace of the When I give presentations about Raptor conservation would consume first major campaign to end the Edge, I often show her suffrage the rest of Edge’s life, and would killing of predatory birds. Hawk sash. I say that this narrow strip of gain a new generation of adherents. Mountain’s establishment is just cloth binds together two of the 20th Accustomed to the barrage of verbal one of Edge’s “Committee’s” many century’s great progressive caus- abuse she had withstood while cam- achievements. In the years during es—the women’s movement and the paigning for women’s voting rights, which she was the nation’s preemi- environmental movement. Parading Edge was inured to the insults and nent conservationist, she picked up with it emboldened the suffrag- condemnations of prominent bird where the naturalist John Muir had ist Rosalie Edge to later become, conservation leaders, all of them left off, and began what the marine as she was described in The New male, who opposed her efforts to biologist Rachel Carson completed, Yorker, “the most honest, unselfish, save hawks and eagles. The Nation- with Carson’s publication of Silent indomitable hellcat in the history of al Audubon Society, which to Edge Spring in 1962. Rosalie Edge was so conservation.” was Bird Enemy Number One, effective at preserving wild species castigated her as “a common scold;” and their habitats, that in my book, In about 1913, when Edge joined at least one man on the board hissed she deserves to be recognized as the New York state campaign for that she was that dread thing, “a the very godmother of the modern women’s right to vote, the suffrage suffragist.” environmental movement. battle was entering its last heat- ed phase. After about 40 years of Nevertheless, Edge persevered. The Edge letter collection informed comparatively mild activism, it had She had learned “to stand up at an important part of the story I tell taken on a now-or-never intensity. meeting,” as she put it. She knew in my book, Rosalie Edge, Hawk Edge rose swiftly in the ranks, how to call out her male betters of Mercy: The Activist Who Saved serving Cary Chapman Catt’s New when they were wrong, which in the

2020 CONSERVATION HISTORY 17 conduct of nature conservation of Edge recognized that what she her time, meant refusing to recog- had learned as a suffragist honed nize the need to save all wildlife. her passion and tenacity to wage As her influence widened, Rosalie long-running conservation battles. Edge became the bitterest foe of “These skills were taught under organizations besides the Audubon the leadership and through the Society. Her ladylike demeanor was friendship of such women as Cary a bit of a ruse to disarm men. “Her Chapman Catt, May Garret Hay, sword is a folding one,” wrote the Ruth Morgan, and others,” she de- Christian Science Monitor. “It can clared. “Women for all time to come fit into an evening bag, or even a must ever be grateful” to them, she delicate glove.” wrote. And, it is thanks to the hell- cat Rosalie Edge that conservation If the Audubon Society was Enemy activists owe a debt of gratitude to Number One, Enemy Number Two, them as well. according to Edge, was a federal agency called the Bureau of Biologi- ■ cal Survey. It was created in 1896 to keep a census of the nation’s eco- nomically beneficial wildlife; added to this mission about 20 years later was taxpayer-funded extermination of wildlife deemed to be non-eco- nomically beneficial, like predatory species at the top of the food chain. Owing in large part to the steady stream of damning revelations at the Bureau of Biological Survey in her widely read pamphlets, the Bureau was reorganized out of existence in 1939. Certain functions of the Survey were combined with those considered salvageable in the Bureau of Fisheries. The resulting agency, ordered by Interior Secre- tary Harold Ickes who was Edge’s ally, is called the U.S. Fish and Wild- life Service (Service).

Though Edge significantly helped shape the new Service mission, she still complained of its lack of urgency in ending the wide-scale predator poisoning programs, among oth- er things. Dissatisfaction did not prevent her from fervently pointing out new problems. One arose in 1948, when a scientist informant told Edge that certain golf courses in Westchester County used the pesticide dichlorodiphenyltrichlo- roethane (DDT). “The destruction of birds is appalling,” she wrote to New York’s Fish and Game Department. An investigation by federal wildlife agents confirmed her suspicions of the cause. It was not until 1962 that the accumulation of lethal evidence against DDT made their way into Rachel Carson’s powerful and elo- quent call to action, Silent Spring.

18 CONSERVATION HISTORY 2020 Rosalie Edge at Hawk Mountain Sanctuary. Courtesy of Hawk Mountain Sanctuary

“The time to protect a species is while it is still common.” —Rosalie Edge

2020 CONSERVATION HISTORY 19

Witness to Wilderness: The Legacy of Mardy Murie

Steven Chase, Director, National On a bright autumn day in the wilderness travelers watch the Conservation Training Center, Arctic, bush pilot Don Ross began plane, their last hope of rescue, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service his final approach to land on a vanish over the hill. Regret and narrow strip of broken limestone anxious questions follow, and Writer’s preface: along the Sheenjek River. I rode in sometimes, panic—What the hell the front seat alongside Don. My have we done? We’re 250 miles I met Margaret (Mardy) Murie in 1997 and friend Mark Durham, a long-time north of the Arctic Circle. There are was able to have several conversations climbing partner and New York brown bears here. We are alone. with her over the next few years. I tried not investment banker, sat in the back But, the words of Edward Abbey to be a fanboy and actually engage her in seat. A tricky landing on an uphill inspired and encouraged us as the slope ended at the base of a steep 185 climbed over the west ridges of discussion about the work I was doing and 2,500-foot ridge. Don turned the the valley. Abbey said we are drawn the conservation challenges that we faced. plane 180 degrees, rolled down the to wilderness “... because we like the She was always inspiring and exciting to hill a few yards, and cut the engine. smell of freedom, we like the smell talk with. Why wouldn’t she be, as one of I climbed out of the Cessna 185, of danger.”1 Bold reasons, but not as the first truly active U.S. Fish and Wildlife hauled out my pack, and greeted potent as our dreams. Service (U.S. Bureau of Biological Survey Conservation Fund Alaska Repre- back then) spouses, and then an influential sentative and old friend Brad Some would wonder why we had member of the conservation movement for Meiklejohn and his partner Jo chosen the Sheenjek Valley over the decades. Always the mentor, even though Fortier, a nurse practitioner, from many other backcountry adventures she barely knew me, Mardy made sure that Eagle River, Alaska. They had that Alaska offers. Mark and I were I understood my responsibility to work to hiked west into the valley of the often asked that question back East Sheenjek from the even more and were even queried a few hours protect wild places, and she encouraged isolated Coleen River region the before we landed. On our flight up to me to take joy in that work and in life. At day before, having already spent a Ft. Yukon earlier that day, a young her memorial service, the crowd afterwards few weeks out in the bush. Alaska Native was onboard, with us even got Jim Kurth and I to dance, and that and we talked with him as we made was some spectacle, indeed. As quickly as we had unloaded the the 90-minute flight from Fairbanks. plane, Don was ready to go. He We explained our plans, and he When I was invited to write something throttled up the engine and taxied nodded when we said we were going about Mardy Murie for this publication down the slope to turn around and to the Sheenjek. He had never been about women in conservation, I drafted a gun it up the hill for takeoff—much there, but his grandfather had. “Not piece that I found was too similar to the easier now with a light load. The many people go there now” he said, many biographical sketches that are out on blue and white plane lifted off and “not much reason to.” made a quick right turn, away from the internet. Not happy with the draft, I the ridge towards the valley. A full For us it was different. While we thought back to an essay I wrote for the day of flying still awaited him, had all been in wilderness in the proceedings of the Murie Legacy Sympo- stretching the length of the Arctic past, including many wild places in sium in 2000 at the Murie Ranch in Moose, National Wildlife Refuge. The next Alaska, this trip had additional Wyoming. The essay chronicles a trip I took stop was Arctic Village to pick up incentive for us. We were on a to Arctic National Wildlife Refuge that was John Tremblay, a carpenter and pilgrimage. This was the place inspired by my earlier meetings with climber from Randolph, New where Margaret E. (Mardy) Murie, Mardy. I updated the essay to reflect the Hampshire, and Nancy Shea, known by many as the “Grand- time that has passed, and I hope it conveys executive director of The Murie mother of American Conservation,” to you the gifts of inspiration that Mardy Center in Moose, Wyoming. had spent a summer in 1956, along Murie and her beloved Arctic gave me and with her husband Olaus J. Murie and As the hum of the aircraft engine young researchers Bob Krear, Brina the American conservation movement. Kessell and George Schaller, who vanished, we were enveloped by the has become one the world’s great silence of the Arctic. In less than 24 hours, we had come 5,000 miles from field biologists and a friend to me. I the congested and hectic East Coast had recently met Mardy Murie in to one of the last remaining places of her home in Moose, Wyoming, and wilderness on the planet. I thought we had talked about Arctic National of the cliché where the intrepid Wildlife Refuge and the Sheenjek.

2020 CONSERVATION HISTORY 21 Sheenjek River Valley, Brooks Range. Steve Chase/USFWS

These conversations had primed and Muries did, and thus understand the Brooks Range surrounded us. inspired me to take the trip. how this little-known place on the Long slides of ancient limestone, flat south slope of the Brooks Range gray in color, spilled down from high The Murie’s Sheenjek Expedition, held the power to sway the politics ridges to the east and west. Millen- coaxed on by Starker Leopold, of preservation in a resource hungry nia of freeze-thaw cycles left the Lowell Sumner and New York country. We traveled in 1999. rock shattered, abrasive and sharp Zoological Society President to the touch, leaving very little to Fairfield Osborn, kindled the It was complex terrain, the scale so tempt us rock climbers. The ancient support necessary to protect the grand it easily deceived the uniniti- rock holds fossils of primitive sea Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in ated. What looked like a short creatures leaving sign of other the early 1960s. Their adventures in distance in the crisp arctic air was geological times and climates. The this vibrant wilderness are de- often many miles. Our topographical alpine terrain was steep and covered scribed in wonderful detail in Mardy maps painted intricate patterns of with huckleberries, cotton grass, Murie’s book Two in the Far North. contour lines, waterways and mosses and lichens that yielded to The notion that a place like the nameless peaks. The flat valley was long limestone scree fields higher up. Sheenjek would be the catalyst for a a diverse landscape of river channel, To the north, the ramparts of major milestone in American ponds, bog, grass, tundra, sand and 6,750-foot Double Mountain rose conservation history made us gravel. A vivid mosaic of all shades more than 4,000 feet above the river. wonder what made it special. The of orange, yellow and red, framed Farther up this valley, the high Muries had spent several years in with patches of green and brown country of the continental divide was the 1920s in the Arctic wilderness, showed bright in our eyes. The bright with freshly fallen snow. during all seasons. They knew the Sheenjek had a main channel and Brooks Range well, and yet it was then a number of other courses, We lived with hawk owls, caribou, this river, this valley, this “place of which intertwined across and wolves and grizzly bears. Through enchantment,”2 that had made the through gravel banks and sandy sight, sound and smell, wildness difference for the establishment of flats and dunes. Further upstream, permeated our every moment. Not a Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. We patches of overflow ice could still be single sign or sound of man existed, wanted to find these special charac- seen even as autumn’s chill began to only the wind. Our first camp was on teristics, experience them as the grip the land. The limestone peaks of a bank above the river in a place

22 CONSERVATION HISTORY 2020 where the Sheenjek doglegs for a with the swipe of a claw and the quarter mile to the west before flash of teeth. heading south again. We pitched our tents just above the river at the The next morning, we made a foray base of a wide drainage area made to the east, up the ridges and peaks up of spherical rocks, gravel, lichen that beckoned to us. We started and grass. Each spring this area uphill on rocks that turned to steep was the passage for large flows of slopes filled with blueberries and snowmelt from the 5,000-foot ridges cranberries, separated by narrow above. At this time of year, the terraces. By the end of the week, our water was confined to a small brook clothes became stained with the that came down from the high sweet juice of berries as we walked country through a deep ravine, only through and sat in what seemed like to disappear under small boulders oceans of the sweet fruits. worn smooth by thousands of years of contact with water and ice. We Perched 800 feet above the valley on were very concerned about our a small lawn of rocks and grass, we impact on the land, and it seemed stopped to watch a large brown bear right that our tents were pitched in alternately gorging on berries and an area that was scoured annually swimming in a small pond. We later by the hands of nature. speculated that this bear may have been what John had heard treading As we pitched our tent, Jo, who was through our camp early that morn- Sheenjek River Valley, Brooks wearing a tee shirt that read ing. Sleeping out in his big blue Range. Steve Chase/USFWS “Birding in the Boondocks,” pointed sleeping bag, John had slid further out a bird perched on top of a spruce into the warm cocoon, motionless, as 50 yards from our tents. It was a he thought he heard the soft pads of northern hawk owl, a fairly common four feet walking by him. If this bear canvas painted with a palate of bird to the Alaskan boreal forest, had come through camp, he minded tundra, rock, river, and sky. To the but one rarely spotted in the lower his own business just as we planned north was the pass leading to the 48. With the face and torso of an owl to mind ours, so we were grateful. headwaters of the Kongakut River. and the long tail of a hawk, the hawk “Strip away the day-to-day clutter To the west, a long valley rimmed owl is usually seen on treetops, in and clamor of our civilized lives,” as with high peaks led to the East Fork the daylight, scanning the landscape writer Doug Peacock once observed, of the Chandalar River. To the east for its favorite meal of red-backed “and there is a grizzly deep down in more mountains and the wild voles or mice. Olaus Murie painted all of us, at home in the wild.”4 While country of the Coleen River. Below an Alaskan northern hawk owl in we watched that bear, I snapped a us, the braided twists of the gla- much the same situation that we picture of Brad sitting contemplat- cier-fed Sheenjek ran clear among observed, and we mused that our ing the grand view—mountain, wide gravel flats, while the soaring hawk owl must be Olaus welcoming tundra, river, sky. That picture has crags of Double Mountain eclipsed a us to his most favorite place. become iconic to the Arctic National portion of the deep blue arctic sky. I Wildlife Refuge, and for 20 years has wondered whom beside us and the In Two in the Far North, Mardy been seen in dozens of papers, Muries had sat in this same spot? Murie described their feeling of ease magazines and web pages. The Indigenous people have used this in this place: “It was easy here to valley as a route for hunting trips in forget the world of man, to relax in The next day we hiked to a bluff the Brooks Range for thousands of this world of nature. It was a world near the head of the Sheenjek, a years, and we could easily envision a that compelled our interest and place described in Two in the Far Gwich’in caribou hunting party concentration and put everything North.5 We headed out in the resting at this very spot, content else out of mind. As we walked over direction of the two hills we could beneath the midnight sun. the tundra, our attention was see from our camp. They rose a few completely held by the achieve- miles to the north, at the throat of As we packed up to head back to ments of that composition of moss, the valley. The walk involved camp, Brad was busy eyeing a topo lichens, small plants, and bright tussock hopping, pulling through map, planning a circuit route around flowers...”3 puckerbrush, crossing a stream, and Double Mountain. Like the wilder- after a final short climb, we sat in ness visionary Bob Marshall, Brad We set up our kitchen in grove of soft moss atop the southern bluff. was compelled to walk over every black spruce a hundred yards up the Perched like a sentinel 500 feet bit of the land that his body would river. We hung our food bags on the above the river, the hilltop gave us a allow. He quickly found Jo and John stubs of limbs, broken years before 360-degree view of this grand game to join him, and they were off. by the thick layers of ice that covers wilderness. We savored Swiss We lingered to watch them quickly the ground most of the year. We chocolate, cold Sheenjek River drop down to the river, cross the hoped that the victuals were water, and the incredible panorama. wide braids of the Sheenjek, and sufficiently odorless to keep our It was as if we were in an arctic then climb steadily up a long scree brown bear friends from getting gallery, where each place our eyes slope to vanish onto high alpine curious; else our meals would vanish took us to was a different original meadows beyond.

2020 CONSERVATION HISTORY 23 Sheenjek River view from north of Sheep Mountain. Steve Chase, USFWS

Tired of tussocks, the rest of us at camp, we made dinner, and My observation point was a little headed back to camp along the river. waited for the marathon hikers to shelf of grass and moss perched The sandbars were filled with fresh show up. The Bob Marshall Club6 above a gray outcrop of rock. wolf tracks as big as my hand, and finally stumbled into camp after Nearby, I found what seemed to be a fresher grizzly tracks twice as big. midnight, with nearly 30 miles very old leg bone of some large Our four-legged friends liked under foot that day. They told us creature, probably a caribou. It following the river too, although we stories of crossing the long floor of looked like it had been carefully doubted they had problems with the valley without a flashlight, placed there, but in reality, it had tussocks. Had we been hiking with stumbling through tussocks, wading probably been there for many years. the Muries at this point, we would streams and figuring every bush It was very heavy for a bone and have paused as Olaus prepared to they came upon was another hungry seemed petrified. I thought about make a casting of the finest of the grizzly bear. throwing it in my pack, but winced tracks, making their passage a at that notion. I thought of the timeless one, in plaster. Lacking the The next day we all took different responsibility to minimize the tools to do just that, we walked on routes. Mark, Nancy and Brad impact we had on this fragile place, quietly, leaving our lug-soled tracks headed off to climb a peak across the and it seemed that the best place for with theirs. The main channel ran valley to the west. John grabbed his this bone was here, where it had been swift and clear, with the occasional fishing gear and started working his for unknown generations, not on my backwater curling off to the east or way along the river. Jo and I started bookshelf at home. I gently placed it west. up the steep ridge southeast of back just where I had found it. camp. Again, the weather was Occasionally a quick call was made remarkable, with bright blue skies, I sat for hours, alternately reading to that unseen brown bear before no clouds, and a moderate breeze. and watching with my field glasses we crested a gravel bank. For the After climbing about a thousand the goings on of the land that opened last mile, we cut back towards the feet, I decided to hang out for a up before me. I tracked John, as he mountains and had another bout while. Jo went on, and I sat with fished each pool likely to yield a with the tussocks, finally reaching binoculars, camera, some food and a strike. Across the valley, I could spot the comparative ease of walking on book. through the glasses the three hikers, the limestone scree near camp. Back slowly making their way up the

24 CONSERVATION HISTORY 2020 ridges, meadows and ramps towards river, with no sign of man or his to us as a species, be it open space, the final knife-edged ridge and structures. For this reason alone, pristine laboratory, water purifier, 6,000-foot peak. Between moments the Arctic is worth preserving just playground or cathedral. The only of spying on my friends, I shot as it is.”7 thing she asks us in return, is photographs, ate lunch, and read a whether we have “enough rever- cheesy sci-fi novel. The book told the Further south roared a large creek ence to concede to wilderness” the story of an advanced race that easily of icy, clear water, which challenged right to exist. To anyone who spends conquered the earth, ignoring our rock hopping and fording skills. time in this valley, the answer to humans and our civilization as Brad, Jo and John were able to leap that question is very clear.8 irrelevant. It was an interesting with 50-pound packs the 3 feet theme to read while sitting as an between peaked edges of two We spent our final days at the Last insignificant observer in this im- boulders. The less acrobatic forded Lake camp. The fishing was no good mense wilderness. Later, looking cold water, actually a refreshing in the Lake, but it was a duty to be back across the valley, I could see experience as the temps hovered done nonetheless. John and I tried the climbers reveling on their peak, around 70 degrees. Beyond was a every form of lure we had, to no the long climb behind them. I was final sea of tussocks to attack as we avail. As we walked back to camp disappointed when I finally decided I dropped back down towards the happy but fishless, eight adult must make my way back down the Sheenjek and our next camp. caribou came trotting towards us slope to camp. By evening, we were from the north, heading directly all together again, sitting around our Past the wet area, we walked down towards our camp. As they took campfire, waiting for darkness and a slope where we could see Last long, strong strides up onto the shelf the aurora. These days cleansed us Lake. This was just above the site of where we had pitched our tents, of the shell of civilized living we all the Murie’s camp, where they had they sensed something was amiss. have become too used to. spent many days and had hosted Seeing the yellow bubbles on the guests such as Supreme Court ground and the two-legged crea- After 5 nights, we headed down to Associate Justice William O. Doug- tures holding long slender sticks, set up a new camp at Last Lake. On las. Soon we could see figures their forward motion immediately the way we crossed wild streams, walking up towards us. We were ceased. Without hesitating a second negotiated miles of tussocks, and soon joined by Arctic National more, they swung 90 degrees right tiptoed through serene, small forests Wildlife Refuge Manager Richard and trotted off to the south not of black spruce we never expected to Voss, Chief Biologist Fran Mauer, giving us a second thought. Later find 250 miles north of the Arctic and Wilderness Specialist/ Pilot we watched a wilderness drama Circle. We walked steadily and Roger Kaye. We greeted them and unfold as a young moose, which had quietly, except for the occasional headed down to set up camp on a strayed from his mother earlier in cheer, as we pulled through thickets, long bench perched above and to the the day, returned. Like a scene from to warn the great bears that the west of Last Lake. a campy film, each beast ran to- humans were on the move. We wards the other in blessed relief traveled on caribou, sheep and bear As we cooked dinner, Roger told us that ended in a close discussion and paths, which were as good as any about his doctoral dissertation and scolding that only a moose would trails I had hiked in New Hamp- his deep interest in the work of the understand. shire—but more subtle—truly part Muries in Alaska. “Was there,” of the landscape. After lunch on a asked Roger, “an inherent need for There were hikes through the berry-covered hilltop, we came upon wilderness in the psyche of us busy mountains to the east, which hid an exquisite little meadow tucked humans? Why did we come to the small tarns with resident ducks, below the valley’s eastern rim. It Sheenjek? Did wilderness feed some whom, for the time being, seemed was pristine in every way, 5 acres of inner hunger long buried below content despite the seasonal call of golden grass backed by a forest of layers of civilized living?” We migration. We found Olaus’ eagle black spruce, the high country rising seemed to be good examples of what nest perched on a crag on Camp beyond and the Sheenjek running Roger was trying to get at. Unlike Mountain and discovered Mardy’s past a mile to the west. I know there many who visit the refuge this time mossy fairyland in the drainage are probably a dozen meadows of of year, we did not have rifles and below the same. I sat under a tarp similar characteristics nearby, but camouflaged clothing; rather we on the one rainy day reading Olaus this spot seemed familiar yet secret, carried binoculars, cameras, and Murie’s Journeys To the Far North, unremarkable yet sublime. We wore the pinks and lime greens of drinking tea with Mark and Nancy, stopped, dropped our packs, and sat modern mountaineers. Roger was while our Bob Marshall Club glowing in this place, amidst the investigating the belief that there is members trudged a marathon splendor of a bluebird day in the an inherent value in wilderness that distance through the rain. We Brooks Range. does not rely on material-driven listened to wolves calling through values. There is a need in the human the mist of a foggy and dark arctic Mardy Murie wrote about such species for wilderness. Wild places night, and we all got up electrified places in Two in the Far North, as refuge from modern society? Of and standing in the mist. That we “This is the value of a piece of course. were witness to wilderness that day wilderness—its absolutely un- is known to only a very few. We felt touched character. Not spectacular, Mardy Murie once wrote of five nourished by our experience, it no unique or ‘strange’ features, but reasons that man needs wilderness. answered an urgent need that can just the beautiful, wild free-running Each point yields profound benefit rarely be satisfied. And, it is this

2020 CONSERVATION HISTORY 25 wild sustenance, like the Murie’s ing a moment when my 7-year-old inspirational words and actions that daughter greeted 97-year-old Mardy will stay with us. Murie. The glimmer in Mardy’s eyes, even then, shows her faith in Olaus Murie wrote in Journeys to people to stand for wild places never the Far North: “As the first few diminished. Let us celebrate Mardy days went by, I kept thinking about Murie and all those whom she why we two had come back up here. inspired, share their hope, and We were both accustomed to living ensure that their words and actions in the northland, and I suppose continue to inspire us, our children, much of our lives is influenced by and our children’s children. environment. And, I think there is another deep-seated impulse—one ■ that is emerging throughout the world—to try and improve our culture. There is in all of us the urge to share beauty and freedom with other sensitive people.”9

Many have written about the power Mardy Murie portrait July 18, 1990 of place and how people are moved at home in Moose, Wyoming to action when the land, wild or Chuck Manners/Courtesy of JH News otherwise, comes under threat of development. Wallace Stegner notes these actions are prefaced first by feelings, and then by ideas. He adds that along with these ideas come influential or charismatic figures who tie the ideas together, organize like-thinking individuals, and build political support for a conservation goal.10 The protection of Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in 1960 is a good example of this equation. All the pieces were there, including Mardy Murie, 1923. wilderness, glorious scenery, Courtesy of The Murie Center abundant wildlife, potential threats of development, and visionary individuals—culminating in a series of events meant to protect the place for future generations. It is a far-reaching story, in both location and time, touching people in places far distant from the refuge over many decades of history.

Mardy reminded me to view the landscape with the eye of a natural- ist and to always treat the land with humility and respect. We realize that wild places are part of us, and we to them. They are sacred, especially in this 21st century world. This legacy of feelings, ideas and actions helps us take action to protect what is left.

I was an organizer of the Murie Legacy Symposium in 2000—a gathering that brought together many of those who have been touched by the Murie legacy to meet, talk, and under a blue Wyo- ming sky, reflect on how their lives have been changed. I have a picture Mardy Murie making camp on Old Crow River, Alaska (1926). The Murie Center from one of those July days, show-

26 CONSERVATION HISTORY 2020 Endnotes

1 Edward Abbey, Beyond The Wall. New York: Henry Holt, 1984 (p. 59).

2 Margaret and Olaus Murie, Wapiti Wilderness. New York: Knopf 1966 (p. 169).

3 Margaret Murie, Two in the Far North. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1962 (p. 339).

4 Doug Peacock, Grizzly Years, In Search of the American Wilderness. New York: Henry Holt, 1996.

5 See Margaret and Olaus Murie’s Two in the Far North, page 414. Olaus and Mardy Murie took a several day hike north from Last Murie Ranch Historic District, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming, USA. Lake to the headwaters of the NPS Sheenjek. It seems by the book’s description that the “rocky promon- tory where the river flowed closely Olaus and Marty Murie in Alaska under” could well be the bluff upon which we lounged.

6 I dubbed Brad Meiklejohn, Jo Fortier, and John Tremblay the Bob Marshall Club for the purposes of this essay. Bob Marshall, a promi- nent founder of The Wilderness Society and an early explorer of the Brooks Range, was legendary for his long-distance hikes in the Arctic. Brad’s long-distance hiking experi- ence, exceptional endurance, and many adventures in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and other wild places over the past 3 decades rival Marshall’s, in my humble opinion. There are few people with more passion and love of this wild place than Brad. 7 Two in the Far North page 421.

8 John Haines and Thomas LeDuc, Minus 31 and the Wind Blowing. Anchorage, AK: Alaska Pacific Uni- versity Press, 1980 (p. 89).

9 Olaus J. Murie, Journeys to the Far North. Palo Alto, CA: The Wilderness Society/ American West Publishing Company, 1973 (p. 184).

10 Wallace Stegner, Where the Blue- bird Sings to the Lemonade Springs. New York: Penguin Books, 1992. These ideas come from Stegner’s essay “A Capsule History of Conservation,” a fine introduction to American Conservation history (p. 117).

2020 CONSERVATION HISTORY 27

The Service Gave the World Rachel Carson

Robert K. Musil, Ph.D., M.P.H., Rachel Carson Council

Rachel Carson would have been lost to history but for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service). At the height of the Depression, Carson needed to leave her Ph.D. program at Johns Hopkins in order to support her family. With academic jobs scarce, she followed the sugges- tion from her mentor from the Pennsylvania College for Women (now Chatham University), Mary Scott Skinker, that she speak with Elmer Higgins of the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, later merged into the Service.

Higgins hired Carson part-time, writing radio scripts, and was impressed. He asked her to write a brochure on marine life and, when a Bureau of Fisheries Laboratory, Beaufort, North Carolina, postcard. full-time opening came up, hired Rachel Carson on August 17, 1936 as a junior aquatic biologist starting Carson creates a poetic saga with ner, Chandler Robbins. Robbins, in at $38.48 a week. tremendous empathy for these odd turn, drew additional information at creatures. Such empathy marks the Patuxent from Dr. Lucille Stickel, For years, Carson told the story of core of Carson’s environmental who led the technical studies. Higgins’ reaction to her draft ethic—the belief that there is no brochure on ocean life. Higgins “other,” that all life is intertwined Carson proposed to Readers’ Digest rejected it saying, with a twinkle in and deserves respect. that she write about the potential his eye, “I don’t think it will do… dangers of DDT. The answer? No. It Better try again. But send this one Under the Sea Wind was published would take more than 15 years to The Atlantic.” In August 1937, November 1, 1941 to critical acclaim. before Americans learned from The Atlantic published Carson’s But, Pearl Harbor shifted the Silent Spring about the pesticides essay as “Undersea.” It caught the nation’s attention. Carson’s first killing fish and birds and harming eye of Quincy Howe, senior editor at book sold fewer than 2,000 copies. human health. Simon & Shuster. Rachel Carson Carson continued her Service work, soon had a contract for her first produced a stellar series on national DDT was not the only World War II book, Under the Sea Wind. wildlife refuges called Conservation innovation that got a fresh look. in Action, was regularly promoted, Rachel Carson became friends with Carson drew on her Service re- and saved her own writing for the oceanographer Roger Revelle, search and field trips to places like free-lance magazine articles. the Bureau of Fisheries Laboratory at Beaufort, North Carolina, to One topic that intrigued her was expand “Undersea.” In Under the research at the Patuxent Research Sea Wind, illustrated by her friend Laboratory showing there might be and Service colleague, Bob Hines, adverse health effects from dichlo- we follow lightly anthropomor- rodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT), phized characters like Scomber, the the miracle World War II pesticide. mackerel, and Anguilla, the eel, as Carson had learned from the articles they struggle to survive amidst the written by her Service ornithologist Chan Robbins at Midway National perils and predators of the ocean. colleague, friend and birding part- Wildlife Refuge, 1966. USFWS

2020 CONSERVATION HISTORY 29 Atomic Bomb Testing at Bikini Atoll. Library of Congress

when he headed the wartime Office ic studies, reports from environmen- prose and empathy, enabled her to of Naval Research. Shortly after, tal organizations, influential books draw huge audiences into complex, Revelle led research on the effects and historical accounts she would space age, scientific understandings of atomic bombs on surplus Navy find through scouring libraries and and back through eons of geologic ships at Bikini Atoll. Carson re- used bookstores. She also corre- time. The deep sea had been seen as viewed studies on the animals sponded with and visited world- static and empty; its depths un- tethered on board, including 200 class scientists and experts, such as charted, unexplored. Rachel Carson pigs, 60 guinea pigs, 204 goats, 5,000 Charles Merriman and Daniel Sears wrote, instead, that the oceans were rats, 200 mice, and grains containing of Yale University. Knowing of a dynamic new frontier with moun- insects. From that moment, like Rachel’s gratitude for their help at tain ranges, deep valleys, moving most of the biologists involved, critical moments, her literary tectonic plates, eruptions and Carson was deeply opposed to executor, Marie Rodell, had Carson’s strange creatures living in impossi- nuclear weapons, nuclear tests and papers sent to Yale’s Beinecke Rare bly cold, dark and pressurized nuclear wastes. Book Library. depths. Most of all, Carson wanted people to know that all life had But the war effort also provided Carson’s amazing breadth of evolved and emerged from the sea, positive breakthroughs. World War contacts and her relentless reading that all living forms are connected. II required new technologies to and research, matched with poetic explore, map and navigate the seas through which American ships and submarines fought and delivered troops and material. Sonar, radar, bathyscaphes, and more offered an entirely new understanding of the ocean. From her Service desk, Rachel Carson was atop a mountain of scientific revelations. Through her friendship with Roger Revelle, drawing on technical studies led by Navy Lieutenant Commander Mary Shaw, and corresponding with oceanographers, scientists and writers, Carson began The Sea Around Us. It changed forever the public’s perception of the ocean. A voracious reader since early child- hood, Carson read almost every- thing ever written on the subject, Rachel Carson reading to her dog, Candy, at age 5. The Carson Family including scholarly articles, scientif-

30 CONSERVATION HISTORY 2020 When we watch a sanderling dodging the surf, Carson wants us to be in awe that this particular bird was meant to live in this particular spot; it is the miraculous product of eons of evolution. For humankind to fail to see and feel this wonder, to believe that we can control nature was for Carson pure hubris. The Sea around Us—with illustrations by another Service friend, Kay Howe— surged onto the best-seller list and stayed for 86 weeks. Under the Sea Wind was soon re-issued, giving Carson her second blockbuster.

Rachel Carson, an unknown scien- tist, editor and writer for the Service, was suddenly a national treasure. She was able to leave her job, purchase a home on the rocky Rachel Carson and Robert W. Hines seeking snapping shrimp in a sponge, coast of Maine, and focus on writing. Missouri and Ohio Keys, Florida, May 1952. Rex Gary Schmidt Her next book, The Edge of the Sea, was another best-seller. It, too, was written based on Carson’s continu- vast network of prominent allies. sculpted prose, the imaginative ing connections to government Carson, contrary to slightly mythic power, and the empathy for all scientists at the Service, and to field perceptions of her as a solitary living things connected by eons of work from Maine to Florida, along genius, was never alone in her evolution. She writes, “Perhaps it is research, writing or public influence. not strange that I, who greatly love Nor was she when she came under the sea, should find much in the attack. mountains to remind me of it. I cannot watch the headlong descent In the days before social media, it of the hill streams without remem- was Carson’s vast network of bering that though their journey be friends and colleagues who stood by long, its end is in the sea….and her privately and in public. It is how these whitened limestone rocks on she was able to withstand organized which I am sitting – these, too, were opposition from the chemical formed under that Paleozoic ocean, industry while convincing a huge of the myriad tiny skeletons of audience of the accuracy and creatures that drifted in its waters.” importance of Silent Spring. Yet Rachel Carson was dying of cancer ■ even as she reached the apex of her Kay Howe and Rachel Carson at influence. She asked her closest the Main Interior Building. USFWS friends and colleagues to form an organization to continue her work. the coasts and beaches, exploring It was Shirley Briggs, her office pal tidal pools, birding, and gathering from the early days of the Service, specimens for illustrations with who carried on the Rachel Carson friends from the Service like Shirley Council that continues to this day. Briggs and Bob Hines. Briggs also took the most iconic Silent Spring was published in 1962, photograph of Rachel Carson. It an immediate best-seller. But this captures her as a visionary, a seer. time, in addition to acclaim, Rachel In October 1945, Carson is at Hawk Carson was threatened with Mountain with binoculars, seated on lawsuits, smears and corpo- limestone rocks in a stylish leather rate-backed denials of science. As jacket, peering at the horizon. Even with her ocean books, Silent Spring in the field notes written that day was meticulously and widely by this young Service aquatic researched, but even more so, since biologist—an unknown given the Carson, and close friends like Marie chance to explore her fascination Rodell, anticipated controversy, with the sea and to offer profound Rachel Carson watching migratory backlash and attacks. Her reading, new insights into it—we can see and hawks on Hawk Mountain, research and correspondence was feel Rachel Carson’s great gifts to Pennsylvania, 1945. Shirley Briggs worldwide; her science backed by a the world—the scientific mind, the

2020 CONSERVATION HISTORY 31

Fran Hamerstrom: An Unconventional Life and Career in Conservation

Stanley A. Temple, Beers-Bascom she became the first woman to earn Fran’s language skills gave her Professor Emeritus in Conserva- a master’s degree in the emerging access to European literature that tion, University of Wisconsin-Mad- field of wildlife management and many less cosmopolitan American ison and Senior Fellow, Aldo the only woman to earn a graduate ornithologists knew little about. She Leopold Foundation degree with Leopold. She based her regularly reviewed foreign language thesis on detailed observations of books and articles for profession- Upon first meeting Frances Hamer- dominance hierarchies in flocks of al journals. Her familiarity with strom (1907-1998), one immediately black-capped chickadees. European ornithologists gave her a became aware that she was uncon- global perspective and many foreign ventional. She introduced herself Fran and Hammy graduated and friends and colleagues. as “Fron” not Frances or Fran. began their lifelong professional Unconventional also aptly describes partnership working to preserve Fran received many recognitions for her life and career as a naturalist, the greater prairie-chicken (Tympa- her contributions. Carroll College, ornithologist and conservationist. nuchus cupido) in Wisconsin after Waukesha, Wisconsin, granted her much of the bird’s grassland habitat an honorary doctorate in 1961, and Born Frances Flint, she spent a had been destroyed. They settled Fran served as an adjunct faculty privileged childhood near Boston, into an antebellum farmhouse (with- member at the University of Wis- Massachusetts. Her eccentric out indoor plumbing) in the heart of consin-Stevens Point. The National interest in wildlife developed at prairie-chicken habitat that became Wildlife Federation gave her a a young age, and as she recalled, their lifelong home. Fran lived with Special Achievement Award in 1970. “grownups forbade wild pets and a menagerie of the wild “pets” she She was inducted into the Wiscon- tried to squelch my companionship had been denied as a child. In 1949, sin Conservation Hall of Fame in with creepy crawly creatures.” she became only the second woman 1996. A lifelong falconer and raptor She dropped out of prep school and employed as a wildlife professional enthusiast, Fran was highly regard- flunked out of Smith College after 2 for the Wisconsin Conservation ed within the international falconry years because of her self-professed Department (now the Wisconsin community. Today, the Raptor Re- preoccupation with “birds and Department of Natural Resources). search Foundation gives the Fran boys.” While there, she was, how- From then until 1972, she was the and Frederick Hamerstrom Award ever, inspired by reading Charles assistant project leader of the de- to recognize an individual who has Darwin, Ernest Thompson Seton partment’s Prairie Grouse Manage- contributed significantly to the and Mark Twain. ment Research Unit. understanding of raptor ecology and natural history. After she married Frederick Fran mentored thousands of tradi- Nathan (Hammy) Hamerstrom, Jr. tional and nontraditional students Fran remained active as a scien- in 1931, the couple went to Iowa of ornithology throughout her tist and writer until her death in State College where she graduated career. She invited them to assist 1998. Her eclectic bibliography in 1935 with a bachelor’s degree with prairie-chicken research and contains scientific articles as well in biology and worked with Paul held training sessions for them in as popular books, including Birds of Errington studying pheasants, quail her home. An important component Prey of Wisconsin (1972), a chil- and the feeding habits of birds of of her long-term studies of north- dren’s book Walk When the Moon prey. A resulting publication, The ern harriers (Circus cyaneus) and is Full (1975), Harrier, Hawk of Great Horned Owl and its Prey American kestrels (Falco sparveri- The Marshes: The Hawk That Is in North-Central United States, us) was the training of hundreds of Ruled by a Mouse (1986) and The co-authored with Hammy and Err- student interns, or “gabboons” as Wild Food Cookbook (1989). That ington, won The Wildlife Society’s Fran called them. She was a hard- cookbook landed her a memorable Publication Award in 1940. After nosed mentor known for delivering appearance on the David Letter- graduating, the couple moved to effusive praise and harsh criticism, man Show where she amused—and Madison, Wisconsin, where Hammy when warranted. Her efforts paid frankly grossed out—the host with had been accepted into a doctoral off as many of her gabboons went on her cooking demonstration program under Aldo Leopold, the to be productive ornithologists and (https://www.youtube.com/ founder of modern wildlife manage- conservationists. watch?v=Tnq-og4Z_X0). ment. In an unprecedented move, Leopold also accepted Fran into his graduate program, where in 1940

2020 CONSERVATION HISTORY 33 Her autobiographical books, An Eagle to the Sky (1970), Strictly for the Chickens (1980), Birding with a Purpose: Of Raptors, Gabboons, and Other Creatures (1984), Is She Coming Too?: Memoirs of a Lady Hunter (1989), My Double Life: Memoirs of a Naturalist (1994), ex- plore the depth and breadth of her remarkable and unconventional life and career, revealing her wittiness, disarming candor and story-telling skills.

■

An active raptor bander, Fran Hamerstrom is shown here with Fran Hamerstrom, shown here with a fox snake, had a self-acknowledged a trapped broad-winged hawk. affinity with “creepy crawly creatures” since childhood.Elva Hamerstrom Paulson Marie Stocking

Fran Hamerstrom practiced falconry with a golden eagle and recounts the relationship in her book, An Eagle to the Sky. Dale Paulson

34 CONSERVATION HISTORY 2020 Brina Kessel: Pioneering Alaskan Ornithologist

Brina Cattell Kessel (November 20, 1925 to March 1, 2016) was born in Ithaca, New York. She attributed her interest in nature to childhood experiences: “Both my dad and mother had taken ornithology courses at Cornell under Dr. Arthur Allen. They were both interested in birds, and we had feeding stations and things around the place. My dad would take me out for hikes, identifying birds. I guess that’s where my love of birds began.”

After earning a Bachelor of Science degree at Cornell University in 1947, Brina began graduate study toward a doctoral degree under Aldo Leopold, the founder of modern wildlife management, at the University of Wisconsin. Leopold died shortly after she arrived, but had he lived, Brina would have become the first woman to earn a Ph.D. in Brina Kessel. wildlife management. She returned to Cornell to work under Arthur Allen at the Cornell Courtesy of the University of Alaska Museum Lab of Ornithology, where she studied the European starling (Sturnus vulgaris) and earned Department of Ornithology her Ph.D. in 1951.

Stanley A. Temple, Beers-Bascom After graduating, Brina moved to Alaska and began a lifelong academic career on the Professor Emeritus in Conservation, faculty at the University of Alaska. There she conducted extensive pioneering research University of Wisconsin-Madison and on the birds of Alaska. However, her early field work on the North Slope was restricted Senior Fellow, Aldo Leopold Foundation because, at that time, the Department of Defense would not allow a woman to work on the U.S. Naval Petroleum Reserve, which covered much of the area. Outside of that early sexist setback, she studied birds in most parts of Alaska.

Brina received many honors. She was listed in the American Men and Women of Science in 1954, a biographical directory of the leading scientists of the day. The American Asso- ciation for the Advancement of Science named her a Fellow in 1960. In 1973, she became one of the first women to be elected a Fellow of the American Ornithologists’ Union and later served the society as President (1992–1994). Brina received the University of Alaska President’s Distinguished Service Award in 1981. “Kessel Pond” is named in her honor at Creamer’s Field Migratory Waterfowl Refuge, in Fairbanks. Her extensive archives at the University of Alaska record her experiences as a pioneering woman in Alaskan ornithology.

Brina Kessel (right) and her Ph.D. advisor, Arthur A. Allen (center), examine a Belted Kingfisher specimen. Courtesy of the University of Alaska Museum Department of Ornithology

2020 CONSERVATION HISTORY 35

Lucille Stickel: Pioneer Woman in Conservation Research

Matthew C. Perry, Heritage academic achievements. She Committee Member, Retired, received all A’s and B’s at Eastern U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Michigan University (1932-36); after receiving her Bachelor of Arts Although her full name was Eliza- degree, Lucille immediately en- beth Lucille (Farrier) Stickel, her rolled in a Master of Science pro- close colleagues knew her as Lucille, gram in biology at University of but to most in the wildlife research Michigan. She completed her Master community, she was the highly of Science degree with honors in respected Dr. Stickel. She was a June 1938, but remained enrolled on pioneer woman in conservation a doctoral program there in zoology research getting an early start in for five semesters (1938-41). life under the guidance of her parents in Hillman, Michigan, where Lucille, then, temporarily postponed she was born on January 11, 1915. her Ph.D. program, and in January She acquired her love of nature near 1941, married William H. Stickel in her home, but also with exciting Washington, D.C. Bill was a fellow summer trips to Lake Avalon in University of Michigan graduate Michigan and winter forays to student, who was employed by the Florida (once in a Model T Ford) Civil Service Commission. In 1941, with her family. Bill transferred to the Patuxent Lucille Stickel in High School sports Research Refuge (Patuxent) near with two other students, 1920s. Lucille attended local public schools. Laurel, Maryland, and worked as a Courtesy of Carol Frederick (Dr. Stickel’s niece) At Roosevelt High School, she was wildlife biologist. Lucille was active in athletics and in girl scouts. offered several jobs at Patuxent, She was adventuresome in early including one as an editor, but After World War II, Bill and Lucille years and had a reputation of declined, saying the men with returned to Patuxent and both climbing to the top of homes and families impacted by the Depression received positions as wildlife other buildings as an exciting and World War II needed the paying research biologists. Although they challenge. At an early age, she had a jobs more than she did. In 1943, had personal interests in reptile thirst for knowledge and relatives after spending time as a volunteer population biology, their focus for knew she was destined for high editor, Lucille accepted a job as a official research was on the impact junior biologist. of environmental contaminants to birds. Lucille published her first In 1943, however, Bill was drafted contaminant paper in 1946, report- into the Army and stationed in the ing the results of a study using the Pacific area, mainly in the Philip- new pesticide dichlorodiphenyltri- pines. Lucille took the opportunity chloroethane (DDT). At that early to return to the University of date, virtually nothing was known Michigan and work towards a Ph.D. about the harmful effects of pesti- She had become interested in the cides on wildlife. Early work by dynamics of box turtle populations Lucille and her colleagues helped at Patuxent and used the subject for form much of the basis for Rachel her dissertation, “Populations and Carson’s groundbreaking book, home range of the box turtle, Silent Spring, which in 1962 warned Terrapene carolina (Linnaeus).” the world about the dangers of The value of this remarkable study pesticides. is reflected in the fact that it continues to be considered one of the longest continuously run population studies of any animal species in North America. Lucille Stickel as a girl scout, 1920s. Courtesy of Carol Frederick (Dr. Stickel’s niece)

2020 CONSERVATION HISTORY 37 At that time, biologists did not know Lucille were quick to inform col- what was causing the population leagues that it was the misuse of declines of several species of birds pesticides that caused problems in that feed high on the food chain. In the environment and that safer 1969, scientists at Patuxent, work- pesticides, when used correctly, had ing for Lucille, published two papers a place in agriculture and forestry. linking dichlorodiphenyldichloroeth- This approach possibly distanced ylene (DDE), the metabolite of them from the anti-pesticide DDT, to eggshell thinning in birds, persons in the public arena, includ- which resulted in reduced popula- ing Rachel Carson. tion recruitment. The cause of eggshell thinning is considered one The toxic effects of environmental of the most significant findings ever contaminants, especially pesticides published by scientists at Patuxent. and heavy metals, were the main focus during Lucille’s career at The classic work of Lucille, her Patuxent. She and her large team of husband, and their colleagues with researchers established techniques DDT and other persistent organo- and obtained data paramount to the chlorine insecticides, which began in profession that proved to be so 1945, gained worldwide recognition, effective in understanding concerns and led to the ban of DDT in 1972. in the environment. The techniques Lucille became Pesticide and used and the data obtained were the Pollution Coordinator, and then in factors proving that chemicals were Lucille Stickel on top of Natural 1973, became Director of Patuxent directly related to population Science Building, University of Wildlife Research Center. declines in many bird populations, Michigan, 1939. Bill Stickel including bald eagles. Both Lucille and Bill were known to work long hours for 7 days a week Lucille was also interested in small and seldom left the research center. mammal populations and wrote Lucille and Bill traveled to Hawaii technique papers that benefited for work in the late 1970s. It was future population biologists. She obvious to most staff that they did knew the need for quality data and not want to disrupt their activities analyses. In the 1960s, she took by going on this trip, which of three classes with the USDA course surprised many envious Graduate School on statistics, subordinates. They traveled to experimental design and gas Florida on several occasions with chromatography. Seeing the value in Francis Uhler and other like-mind- these classes, she then required all ed naturalists. These trips were scientists to take refresher classes mainly for plant-collecting and other relevant to their work, which they professional activities. did, not always willingly.

Bill was often seen on weekends personally controlling exotic plant Lucille and Bill Stickel on a working species with herbicides. He and vacation in Florida, 1950. Francis Uhler

Lucille Stickel, November 1943. Courtesy of Carol Frederick (Dr. Stickel’s niece)

38 CONSERVATION HISTORY 2020 Lucille received many awards including the Department of the Interior’s Distinguished Service Award. She was the first profession- al woman awarded the Wildlife Society’s Aldo Leopold Medal and was the first woman to direct a major federal fish and wildlife laboratory. Over the years, she was recognized as the “first lady” of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, a mantle she wore with humility, but also with grace and charm. She received an honorary doctorate degree from Eastern Michigan University in 1970. In 1998, the Society of Environmental Toxicolo- gy and Chemistry presented its prestigious Rachel Carson Award to Dr. Lucille Stickel. Lucille and Bill Stickel after dinner with friends at Patuxent in 1982. While at Patuxent, the Stickels James Fleming lived in the same modest govern- ment house for more than 40 years until retirement in 1982. The Lucille’s profound influence on the Author’s Note: Stickels did not want to retire and field of contaminant research had told relatives they hoped they remains obvious today. The 40-plus Nancy Coon, Carol Frederick and could live at Patuxent until they research scientists she hired at Jim Frederick provided information died. The changes in the political Patuxent have published more than for this essay, and their contribu- climate and attitudes toward the 1,000 scientific papers, chaired many tions are greatly appreciated. work at Patuxent from leaders in symposia, and authored numerous Washington, however, was starting books in the environmental field. to cause conflict with Lucille. Several scientists, who received Saddened staff were sorry to see guidance from Lucille, went on to the highly respected Stickels leave leadership roles in the U.S. Fish and Patuxent, and several times at Wildlife Service and the U.S. parties, when their names were Geological Survey. Dr. Lucille F. mentioned, the words from Kenny Stickel died in a nursing home in Rogers’ song, Lucille, would inspire Asheville, North Carolina, on a mournful chorus of “You picked a February 22, 2007. She was 93 years fine time to leave me Lucille.” old and left behind a lifetime legacy of professional scientific research At Patuxent the Stickels socialized accomplishments that are difficult to with professional friends during replicate. holidays, but during most weekdays and weekends kept to themselves ■ and their own projects. Those who shared meals with the Stickels knew that Lucille was a good cook, but it was well known that both she and Bill disliked household chores of shopping and cooking. The Stickels Lucille Stickel with dog companion, did not own or watch television Sharly, in North Carolina, 1999. when at Patuxent nor in retirement Deborah Cowman living near the mountains of Frank- lin, North Carolina. Their recreation was reading, observing nature, and collecting data on plants and animals. They loved nature and contributed personal funds to save habitat. Lucille’s professional partner and husband for 55 years, Bill Stickel, died in 1996.

2020 CONSERVATION HISTORY 39

The Legacy and Lessons of Celia Hunter

Roger Kaye, Wilderness Coordinator, had been reading Aldo Leopold’s (Society) in 1960 in the log cabin Alaska Region, U.S. Fish and recently published Sand County north of town she and Ginny shared. Wildlife Service Almanac, and with that back- It was Alaska’s first statewide ground, she told me, the Muries’ conservation organization and the Celia Hunter’s legacy as a tenacious idea for a vast, inviolate wilderness beginning of Alaskan grass-roots champion of against-all-odds sanctuary inspired her. “We really environmental activism. environmental conflicts—and as an supported very strongly what they inspiring Alaskan conservation were trying to do,” Celia later Emboldened by the Arctic Refuge leader and mentor—began with the wrote, “and we started fighting for victory, the Society soon took on hard-fought campaign to establish setting the area aside.” two other major battles: the Ram- the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. part Dam and Project Chariot. The Realizing how strongly Alaska’s proposal to dam the Yukon River It was 1957, a decade after Celia and politicians would oppose the pro- near the village of Rampart to her partner, Ginny Wood, arrived in posed refuge, Celia and Ginny set attract big electricity-dependent Fairbanks, having flown war out to gain Alaskan support. Most industry would have created the surplus Stinson airplanes up from notably, in 1960, when Alaskan largest man-made reservoir in the Seattle. They had been Women’s Air Senator Bob Bartlett scheduled world. It would inundate nearly Service Pilots (WASPS) during the hearings on the issue in seven 11,000 square miles of critical war, flying bombers and fighter communities, intending to show that habitat for waterfowl and other planes from factories to training Alaskans opposed the proposal, the wildlife, and 9 Athabaskan villages. centers and shipping ports. The pair sprang into action. The hear- With virtually all of Alaska’s P-51 Mustang was Celia’s favorite. ings turned out to be a disaster—for politicians and President Kennedy the senator. Celia and Ginny had in support, the dam seemed inevita- Perhaps it was inevitable that the coordinated an effort to get conser- ble. The Society began and took the adventurous pair would stay in vation-minded people throughout lead in what became a national Alaska. They did some commercial Alaska to testify, and a substantial campaign. flying and worked in the territory’s majority of testimony supported fledgling tourism industry. “But the refuge. At this point, Celia left traditional catering to large-scale tourism was wildlife conservation advocacy to not our style,” Celia said. Therefore, While organizing support for the others while she adopted a new, in 1951 they, and Ginny’s husband refuge, Celia and others saw the more holistic environmentalism. At Woody, established Camp Denali on need for an Alaskan environmental a time when few activists were the western edge of McKinley, now organization. They founded the competent to argue about econom- Denali National Park. Focusing on Alaska Conservation Society ics, Celia took classes in the subject small-group nature and adventure excursions, it was Alaska’s first Celia Hunter in Cockpit of P-47 Thunderbolt, Farmingdale Long Island, ecotourism venture. NY, 1944. Alaska Conservation Foundation

In the summer of 1974, Celia hired me to help guide camp guests, and it was here that I, like so many before and after, fell under Celia’s influ- ence. She surely helped set the direction of my 41-year Fish and Wildlife Service career.

I remember Celia’s weekly slide shows about Alaskan wilderness and conservation. She often began by telling guests how she met Olaus and Mardy Murie who were leading what would become a 7-year, bitterly fought national campaign to establish the Arctic Refuge. Celia

2020 CONSERVATION HISTORY 41 at the University of Alaska. She “Celia enabled regular ability to listen is part of her legacy. researched the claims of the power- Celia listened, really listened, to ful dam boosters and largely folks to become leaders. those who opposed her as well. discredited their economic argu- She brought out the best Maybe it was the Quaker in her soul. ments. An early adopter of environ- mental justice, Celia also confronted in us and made me a Celia was raised a Quaker. A Alaskans with the ethical question broader, deeper person.” colleague who attended Quaker of forcing 1,200 Native people to meetings with Celia thought her relocate for the benefit of industry. practice of actively listening to and The Rampart Dam became a human —David Foreman, who looking for the good in each person, rights issue, too. The proposal died. worked for Celia at The friend or foe, was a Quaker trait. Perhaps, too, that background Project Chariot, the Atomic Energy Wilderness Society. explains Celia’s intuitive ability to Commission’s plan to use nuclear find the talent or interest—the gift, devises to blast a harbor out of the Quakers say—in each person. northwest Alaska coast, also seemed inevitable. However, when Celia One colleague has a story of Celia’s and her colleagues discovered the not up to the demands of her spirit. mentoring. She was a new school plan, they day-lighted the project’s Ginny found her the next morning counselor when the contentious potentially devastating effects on and called me and other friends over. issue of whether LGBT language both the environment and the should be added to the school region’s Native people. “They That gathering began the continu- district’s non-discrimination policy thought they could push everybody ing conversation of Celia’s legacy. came up for a vote. Also a Quaker, around, and they suddenly discov- We talked about the big battles she she wanted to speak for the rights ered they were up against an led, the innumerable state and local of all students at the hearing, but informed citizenry,” Celia said. As environmental and human rights she was young and had never reported by the Alaska Conserva- issues she championed, and the testified. Nervous, she went to talk tion Foundation, which Celia many awards and honors she to Celia, who passed on her co-founded, she later wrote that it received. But it was Celia’s personal strength, as she did with others. could have been a Chernobyl-scale qualities that made her so effec- Another person, who came under catastrophe. “It was the feisty tive—and endeared her to so Celia’s wing in the mid-1960s, intelligence of Celia Hunter,” many—that she would most want us summarized her mentor’s growth, Chariot historian Dan O’Neill later to remember, and to learn from. “Justice became what Celia was all wrote, that brought the national about, social justice, environmental attention that ended the project. Debbie Miller, a wilderness advo- justice, Earth-justice.” cate and author who credits Celia Celia’s most controversial and for “bringing me into the conserva- As we grapple with global-scale consequential conflict in a leadership tion fold,” aptly summarized Celia’s change, Celia would want us to role was the campaign to pass what greatest legacy as “the example she remember that we must strive to became the Alaska National Inter- set… the way she persevered, change more than laws, policies, and est Lands Conservation Act (AN- inspired, mentored and motivated.” the beliefs of others. That is, surely, ILCA). She began working at the The ripple effect of Celia’s influence why she chose to conclude her grass-roots level, then nationally as is huge, Debbie said, “One can closeout speech at the Arctic Refuge a member of the Wilderness Soci- hardly imagine how much has been 25th anniversary conference in 1985 ety’s Governing Council. Recogniz- done by people because they were by reminding the audience of “The ing her effectiveness and unsur- encouraged and empowered by capacity of each of us to change passed knowledge of Alaskan issues, Celia.” ourselves, and by changing our- the Society made her their execu- selves, to effect far reaching change tive director in 1976. Thus, Celia Celia was a strong woman as a in the world around us…”. became the first woman to head a leader. She did not pretend to be a national environmental organiza- Washingtonian pantsuit executive ■ tion. The Act passed, protecting type and was more comfortable in more than 100 million acres as an Icelandic sweater and her charac- national parks, refuges, forests and teristic long braid. As a leader, she wilderness. was an unforgettable lesson in the power of grace, humility, and humor Celia’s life of advocacy ended as it in response to bias and criticism. began, with the Arctic Refuge. On Even when maligned, Celia re- December 1, 2001, she was up late mained calm and peaceful, never writing letters to congressional confrontational. Stories abound of representatives, urging them to Celia laughing, chuckling, even oppose the latest bill to open the giggling, in the face of cynical refuge to oil development. Some opposition. Her ability to joke about time that night, Celia laid down on opponents and her light-heartedness the carpet to take a break, perhaps in dire times gave others the hope because her 82-year-old body was they needed. Celia’s uncommon

42 CONSERVATION HISTORY 2020 Celia Hunter. Courtesy of Virginia Wood

Author’s note:

The following friends of Celia contributed to the story: Annie Caulfield, Susan Grace, Cathy Walling, Dave Foreman, Pam Miller, Debbie Miller, Susan Morgan, Connie Barlow, Jim Kowolsky, Sean McGuire, Romney Wood, Deborah Williams, Mary Shields, and Martha Reynolds.

References

Alaska Conservation Foundation (2019). Celia Hunter, 1919-2001, Unpublished manuscript at https://alaskaconservation.org/ about/people/history-founders/ celia-hunter/

O’Neill, Dan (2007). The Firecracker Celia Hunter on a 5-day “ladies only kayak trip” (June 1981) in Pybus Boys, Phoenix, AZ: Basic Books. and Gambier Bays in Southeast Alaska. Connie Barlow

2020 CONSERVATION HISTORY 43

“Unremarkable,” Helen Fenske’s Unlikely Legacy

Marilyn Kitchell and Jonathan To characterize Helen Fenske as a that anybody had ever beaten the Rosenberg, Great Swamp National homemaker, though, is quite mis- Port Authority,” she would proudly Wildlife Refuge, U.S. Fish and leading. She was a force of nature, (and rightly) claim. She then turned Wildlife Service and a force for good. She loved an this education—one that had taught audience. She had an incredible her to channel citizen action in You’ve heard this story many times sense of how things should work and partnership with representatives at before. A politically and financially the roles people should play—and every level—into the starting point powerful agency identifies a high- her way was always right. She was of a long and illustrious career in stakes development project. The relentless, and those who ignored natural resource management. proposed site affects a community her did so at their peril. She was who doesn’t share enthusiasm for an inexhaustible source of energy. As the dust settled on the nation’s the project. She was like the proverbial dog newest wilderness area in 1968, Hel- that bites you in the rear and just en turned her attention to creating Here, the agency was led by Austin does not let go, but at the same a meaningful role for municipalities Tobin, the man who authorized con- time earns your respect. She was in managing natural resources. struction of the original World Trade an amazing advocate for natural The Ford Foundation hired her to Center towers. An autocrat who built resources and lived that 24 hours a research environmental activism the Port Authority of New York and day. In an era largely dominated by in other States, and she used her New Jersey into “the most power- men, she was intimidating to many findings to guide the New Jersey ful agency of its kind in the world,” who didn’t dare cross her. She loved legislature to pass a law creating he was purported to be the “high- a good fight and refused to take no municipal environmental commis- est-paid public official in the United for an answer. sions. In 1969, she founded the States except for the President.” Association of New Jersey Envi- In short, she was remarkable. ronmental Commissions to organize The project was an international jet- their efforts, providing local commu- port, the site a swampy, backwoods Over the course of 9 years, Helen nities with leadership, education and chunk of land 26 miles west of Times led the effort to replace the jetport support to advocate for strong state Square in New York City. A home- idea with an even greater idea—one and regional environmental policy. maker, a mother of three young that would establish Great Swamp This group became, and remains, children with a high school diploma National Wildlife Refuge and later an incredibly effective network to and some professional training as a the Great Swamp Wilderness Area. advance conservation issues at the medical secretary led the communi- Four years after passage of the local level, while also generating ty in its fight against the project. Wilderness Act, it became the first women leaders for the conserva- Wilderness designated in the more tion movement. It marked another The contrast between the two sides populated areas east of the Missis- significant achievement for Helen’s is stark. One had financial, legal, and sippi and in the Department of the legacy. political means to long outlast the Interior. other, working in the name of prog- ress, and the support (outright and She had led a national effort to build tacit) of two state governors. Both grassroots support for the Swamp, the autocrat and the mother were mastering and directing the roles used to getting their way. We know that ordinary citizens could play in well who was expected to prevail. partnership with municipal, County, In a speech at the White House ac- State, Federal and non-governmen- knowledging the unlikely underdog tal agencies. Key to her success win, this mother would later say, was the involvement of local artists, “Our story is not remarkable, nor schools and universities, professors, unusual at all.” churches, scouts, small businesses, non-profits, neighbors, friends, chil- How wrong she was. That this wom- dren and journalists in the conserva- an with an unremarkable resume tion effort. In the end, she outsmart- and an unremarkable story changed ed, outlasted and outmaneuvered Helen Fenske with her children, the course of history was quite one of the most powerful organiza- around the time of the fight to save remarkable indeed. tions in the world—“the first time the Great Swamp. Harriett May

2020 CONSERVATION HISTORY 45 In 1970, on America’s first Earth Conservation Service Award, the Day, New Jersey established the De- highest honor that can be bestowed partment of Environmental Protec- upon a private citizen by the Sec- tion (NJDEP), an achievement that retary of the Interior. This award Helen helped guide by keeping 1969 piled up with honorary degrees, voters and gubernatorial candidates Congressional Citations, numerous focused on the environment. Helen achievement awards, and a Visitor was appointed as an assistant to the Center at Great Swamp National first environmental commissioner Wildlife Refuge bearing her name. and served in this role until 1974. Helen had radically altered the Helen Fenske with the Secretary of In 1975, Helen turned her sights trajectory of New Jersey’s conser- the Interior Stewart ​L. Udall as he to the federal level. Appointed as vation achievements, but her impact arrives for the May ​29, 1964 dedi- a special assistant to the head of radiated beyond New Jersey as cation of Great Swamp National the U.S. Environmental Protection well. She mentored scores of young Wildlife Refuge. Molly Adams Agency, Helen set out to assure conservation leaders, especially citizen engagement in federal policy. women, who took up the reins fol- During the 1981 gubernatorial lowing her retirement and passing. campaign, Helen again fought to focus New Jersey’s attention on In her 1968 White House speech at the environment. When staffers the invitation of Lady Bird John- blocked her calls to one candidate, son, Helen said, “Our story is not she instead delivered cassette tapes remarkable, nor unusual at all…. to occupy his time during transport The feeling for nature and beauty to campaign events. In them, Helen by John Browns, Joe Smiths and would share her thoughts and point Helen Fenskes has great depth him to key environmental meetings, and meaning. Their effort to keep befuddling staff whom he asked to in touch with the land and their accommodate these appointments work to preserve it can be creative, Helen Fenske at podium, during the about which no one had told him. inspiring and effective at all levels 1964 dedication ceremony for the of government.” Great Swamp NWR. Molly Adams With Governor Kean’s election in 1982, Helen returned to the NJDEP, Let’s hope that Helen was right. becoming Assistant Commissioner for Natural and Historic Resourc- May the John Browns, Joe Smiths es. The governor would later say and Helen Fenskes within us all aspire that he preferred to have this to be as ‘unremarkable’ as she was. “outspoken force for the environ- ment” inside rather than outside his “We realize more than administration, and that her record was “terrific.” In this role, Helen ever that conservation is was able to orchestrate natural and a continuous battle. A historic resource protections across battle to save, and a battle Helen Fenske at gala to raise the State—chief among them, the awareness during the fight to save Freshwater Wetlands Protection to keep.” the Great Swamp National Wildlife Act of 1987. Its passage became one –Helen Fenske Refuge. James Staples of her greatest and most lasting contributions to natural resource protection in New Jersey.

In 1990, Helen retired as Acting Commissioner of the NJDEP. In a letter to her successor, she said, “You need to be aggressive and relentless in your pursuit of your goals for the state’s natural and historic resourc- es.” Never forgetting the power of ordinary people, she then reminds her successor that they will need the assistance of the natural and historic Helen Fenske at her desk as Secre- resource constituency to do so. tary of the Great Swamp Committee of the North American Wildlife After retirement, Helen served as a Helen Fenske portrait, circa 1960. Foundation, early 1960s. James Staples trustee of numerous organizations Bradford Bachrach that sought to benefit from her advocacy expertise. She won the ■

46 CONSERVATION HISTORY 2020 Helen Fenske, 1937 photo taken in the Berkshire As Acting Commissioner of the New Jersey Depart- Mountains of Northwestern Massachusetts. As one ment of Environmental Protection, Helen attended a of four children with an ailing father, Helen spent convention in Alaska for all the state environmental formative years living with an aunt and uncle in protection agency commissioners. The trip included a Pittsfield, Massachusetts learning to fish, shoot, hunt backcountry fishing expedition, where this photo was and trap. These years formed the foundation for taken (circa 1990). Courtesy of the Fenske family Helen’s later conservation endeavors. Harriett May

Helen Fenske, Assistant Commis- sioner for Natural and Historic Resources for the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection,​ with Smokey Bear and Woodsy Owl ​(circa 1980). James Staples

Helen Fenske fishing in Alaska, circa 1990, at a convention with state environmental protection agency commissioners. Unknown

Helen Fenske, Assistant Commis- sioner for Natural and Historic Resources (New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection) speaking at a parks and open space Helen Fenske overlooking the Great Swamp, which she had helped save. event, mid-1980s. Unknown M. Peters

2020 CONSERVATION HISTORY 47

Sylvia Earle: A Hero for the Planet

Pete Leary, National Wildlife the first Tektite program. Sylvia and Wisdom and the changes that Refuge System, U.S. Fish and was tasked with leading Tektite II, both of them have witnessed over Wildlife Service a team of five women that would the course of their lifetimes. I see live and work underwater (one news Sylvia at conferences every once in Sylvia Earle’s accolades as an article about this project was titled, a while, and she asks for updates oceanographer, explorer, author and “Five Gals Face Plunge with One from Midway about Wisdom or the lecturer often precede her. Her im- Hair Dryer.” The Tektite II experi- nesting short-tailed albatross. pressive list of accomplishments is a ence “changed everything” for her. testament to her passion and dedi- “You’re outside with the creatures One of the things that impressed me cation to discovering and advocating and you get to know them as indi- most about Sylvia is her rare ability for the natural world. Two of the viduals,” she stated, “That’s what as a scientist to pull out the simple more notable achievements include has given me a different perspective messages from the volumes of data setting the women’s world record than most probably have.” and complex topics. “No water, no solo dive at 1,250 feet and becoming life. No blue, no green.” is about as the first woman to be named Chief Sylvia has seen a lot of changes simple as it gets when talking about Scientist of the National Oceanic since her childhood on the gulf coast the importance of the ocean to all and Atmospheric Administration in Florida. As one of the first people life on the planet. (NOAA). Among her many honors, to SCUBA dive, she saw pristine Sylvia is a Time Magazine Hero for coral reefs that no human had been One quality I admire is that Sylvia the Planet, National Geographic Ex- to. Seeing the loss of reefs and doesn’t dictate the details and pro- plorer in Residence and a Library of the declining health of the oceans cedures of conservation—her most Congress Living Legend. She holds spurred her to dedicate her life to effective tool is inspiration. She 27 honorary degrees and has been protecting the ocean, above all else. motivates people to want to take ac- inducted into the National Women’s As Chief Scientist at NOAA, Sylvia tion, to do something before it’s too Hall of Fame and received dozens of felt restrained working within the late. By motivating others, Sylvia other awards. At age 74, she found- confines of a government agency. In facilitated the creation of one of the ed Mission Blue/Sylvia Earle Alli- her resignation press conference she world’s largest marine protected ance (SEAlliance), a global coalition stated, “I feel that I must resign, areas, Papahanaumokuakea-- Marine of more than 200 ocean conservation and as a private citizen, do what I National Monument. The North- organizations focused on protecting can do with more flexibility, more western Hawaiian Islands had been the ocean. freedom.” Since then, she’s been protected to various extents by six traveling the world taking her mes- previous presidents. However, when But Sylvia Earle wasn’t always sage to as many people as possible. Jean Michelle Cousteau screened his known as “Her Deepness”—she speaks frequently about the chal- I met Sylvia during her first visit lenges of being a woman in the early to Midway Atoll National Wildlife days of undersea exploration. In Refuge in 2012. I mentioned to her 1964, Sylvia joined an international that I also have spent thousands of expedition to document the biolo- hours underwater, but in the Navy gy of the Indian Ocean. An article on a nuclear submarine. She replied, about the expedition was titled, “So not the fun kind.” As the refuge “Sylvia Sails Away with 70 Men biologist, I was able to introduce but She Expects No Problems.” Six her to much of the wildlife on the years later, she saw a notice on the islands. The seabirds on Midway bulletin board at Harvard Universi- evolved without predators, so are ty and applied for a position to live very accepting of human presence. underwater in the Virgin Islands As she did while living underwater for 2 weeks. In the usual way she in Tektite II, Sylvia took every Sylvia Earle with President George overcame gender bias, she says, “It chance she could to sit with and be a W. Bush establishing the Papah- didn’t occur to me that women need part of the wildlife, rather than just anaumokuakea Marine National not apply.” However, the project be an observer. She had the chance Monument, 2006. Eric Draper leaders didn’t think that it was prop- to meet Wisdom, the world’s oldest er for men and women to be living known wild bird, banded as an adult together, so an all-male crew staffed in 1956. She still talks about Midway

2020 CONSERVATION HISTORY 49 documentary film “Voyage to Kure” for George and Laura Bush at the White House, a talk with Sylvia, who was also present, was the additional motivation needed to give this area immediate and permanent protection. While announcing the creation of the first marine national monument in 2006, Bush said she “sat me down and gave me a pretty good lecture about life.” Sylvia stood beside President George W. Bush as he signed the proclamation to create this vast marine reserve. Since then, four additional marine national monuments have been created, making the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service responsible for the largest areas of protected ocean and submerged lands under any nation’s jurisdiction. With a red-tailed tropic bird feather in hand, Dr. Sylvia Earle explains the Sylvia still travels the planet with importance of protecting both our land and oceans to elementary students her message of conservation and via teleconference at Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge. responsibility. Through the Mission Bonnie L. Campbell/USFWS Blue/Sylvia Earle Alliance, she pro- motes areas of special importance as Hope Spots to protect and restore the health of the ocean. At age 84, her motivation for continuing to inspire so many people around the world becomes clear in her quote, “I have lots of heroes: anyone and ev- eryone who does whatever they can to leave the natural world better than they found it.”

■

Nick Zukauskas / USFWS

50 CONSERVATION HISTORY 2020 Sylvia Earle, Midway National Sylvia Earle and Pete Leary, Midway National Wildlife Refuge. Susan Middleton Wildlife Refuge. Bonnie L. Campbell

Sylvia Earle with Wisdom on Midway National Wildlife Refuge. Susan Middelton

Sylvia Earle with marine debris on Midway National Wildlife Refuge. Andy Collins

Dr. Sylvia Earle waves as she heads toward her first dive - ever - at Midway Atoll and the first dive together with Wyland. Filming is Cindy McArthur, USFS. Ray Born, John Klavitter, and Amanda Meyer USFWS facilitated the dive. Leanne Veldhuis/USFS

2020 CONSERVATION HISTORY 51

Mollie Beattie: The Service’s First Female Director

Dan Ashe, Association of Zoos and Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge, to Montana to meet with ranchers, Aquariums wearing hip waders, holding binocu- which she did. Upon exiting his lars, and behind her, a Kodiak bear. office, Mollie said, “I know it sounds A forester by training, Mollie H. Be- If Mollie were alive today, and asked strange, but I really like that man.” attie was nominated by then-Presi- about the photo, she would probably She also liked Don Young, “the dent Bill Clinton, and on September say something like, “Oh my, no! I Congressman from all of Alaska” 10, 1993, confirmed by the U.S. just loved that photo, and hated the who famously waived a fossilized Senate to be the first woman to lead idea of a black-and-white headshot.” walrus penis (an oosik) at her during the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Make no mistake; it was an object her inaugural appearance before (Service). She died, tragically, due lesson in the use of soft power, and the House Committee on Merchant to brain cancer, June 27, 1996, at age it, like she, forever changed the Marine and Fisheries. She won him 49. In just 33 months, she changed Service. over too; he was brought to tears the organization, the way it views during their last phone conversa- women leaders, and indeed, the way Today, there is still a gallery of for- tion while she was in hospice, and it views leadership. mer directors in that corridor. Since he sponsored the House legislation Mollie, however, no director has naming the Arctic National Wildlife Mollie, as she was known to one and gone back to black-and-white, and Refuge Wilderness in her honor. all, was born on April 27, 1947, in pressed shirts, ties and jackets are Glen Cove, Long Island, New York. clearly a thing of the past. She was like that with everyone. She earned a bachelor’s degree in Her purse was heavy with change, philosophy at Marymount College, Mollie was the first Service director and she could not pass a homeless and master’s degrees in forestry at to face a Congress with open hostili- person without dispensing it and the University of Vermont, and in ty towards the Endangered Species wishing them well. And, in those public administration from Harvard Act. She defended it ferociously, days, there were many homeless University. She worked for state and simultaneously expanded it, people on the streets of Washington, agencies and conservation organi- advocating conservation of species D.C. She loved people and nature zations in Vermont before coming by managing entire ecosystems. She with equal passions, and she thrived to Washington, D.C., but writer set the essential framework for the in the intersection between them. Ted Gup put it best when he said landmark National Wildlife Refuge she “was many things, but never System Improvement Act by re- Certainly, her best and likely proud- a creature of Washington, never a jecting efforts to recognize hunt- est moment was when she joined composite of accomplishments and, ing, fishing and trapping as refuge then-Interior Secretary Bruce most certainly, not a public being.” system purposes, and articulating Babbitt, returning gray wolves to In fact, she never even owned a a determined distinction between Yellowstone National Park for the television until she came to Wash- uses and purposes. She would hate first time since the 1920’s, an action ington, D.C. being called a diplomat, but she had still unfolding and expanding today. a near-magical ability to forge rela- She was a skilled and savvy lead- tionships with adversaries. She adored wolves, but had a more er. In 1993, conservation was very secret passion for coyotes. As much a men’s profession—more In late 1995, Mollie was called to wolves were making their post-re- accurately, a sportsmen’s profession, meet with Montana’s then-senior introduction recovery, Montana’s especially at executive levels—a Senator, Conrad Burns. He was then-junior Senator, Max Baucus, reality that the Service reflected irascible about wolves and grizzly summoned her to his office to clearly. Mollie quickly gave notice bears, the latter of which he called request authorization for USDA that times were changing. In the “goddam griz.” He greeted her with Wildlife Services to control a wolf hallway leading to the director’s of- a patronizing “hello little lady,” but pack that was denning amongst U.S. fice, was a portrait gallery of former she refused the bait, adroitly turn- Forest Service ranching allotments. directors, which at that time, was a ing the conversation to ranchers and The pack had harmed no livestock, homogenous black-and-white com- how she understood that they were so she refused to allow killing any posite of middle- to old-aged white facing disruptive changes and hard- wolves. To relieve rancher pres- men; head-shots, in pressed white ship like she had seen with dairy sures, and maybe send a signal back shirts, Windsor knots and dark jack- farmers in Vermont. By the end at her, Wildlife Services then killed ets. Mollie chose a color, landscape of the meeting, they were talking many dozen coyotes in the area, photo of herself, at Camp Island in like old friends, and he invited her which angered Mollie. She said,

2020 CONSERVATION HISTORY 53 “When I’m done with this job, I’ll hike up there and place a monument to those coyotes who gave their lives so wolves could recover.”

Sadly, she died before she could fulfill that pledge.

Mollie Beattie led the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in a way that embodied the best sense of the word “leader.” She was authentic, princi- pled, visionary, courageous, curious, compassionate and comfortable in who she was and the opportunity she was given. She was not perfect, as demonstrated after one par- ticularly difficult call with a state wildlife agency executive, when she admitted, “I know I’m being a bit petty, but he has earned it!” She left the organization better than she found it. She set a mark for future leaders. She blazed a path for wom- en and other minorities to follow. And they have!

After her death, President Clinton said, “America lost one of its great spirits.” That’s true in the sense that Mollie is gone, but her spirit lives on in the legions of conservationists she inspired.

■

USFWS Director Mollie Beattie releasing wolf in Yellowstone, 1995. USFWS

USFWS Director Mollie Beattie at Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge with grizzly bear in background. USFWS USFWS Director Mollie Beattie releasing “Hope,” a bald eagle at a downlisting ceremony at Black- water National Wildlife Refuge in 1994. USFWS

54 CONSERVATION HISTORY 2020 The first wolf arrives in Yellowstone National Park (YNP) at the Crystal Bench Pen (Mike Phillips - YNP Wolf Project Leader, Jim Evanoff,- YNP, Mollie Beattie - USFWS Director, Mike Finley - YNP Superintendent, Bruce Babbitt - Secretary of the Interior) Jan. 12, 1995. Jim Peaco/NPS

Mollie Beattie Wilderness Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Danielle Brigida/USFWS

2020 CONSERVATION HISTORY 55

Our Beliefs Matter: The Mamie Parker Journey

Mamie Parker, Former Northeast Of course, additional encouragement I was motivated by the many more Service Regional Director and constantly came from my mother, forms of support that have come my Assistant Director of Fisheries and older brothers, sisters, relatives, way over the next 50-plus years and Habitat Conservation teachers and others in my southern truly believe that classmates, Arkansas community near Overflow coworkers, employees, supervisors, Our beliefs really do matter. They National Wildlife Refuge. They all and leaders, like Jim Warren, Nevin dictate how we get up, show up and believed—and instilled beliefs in Holmberg, Lynn Lewis, Rick move up beyond our fears. Recently, me—that to successfully navigate Lemon, John Blankenship, Noreen I reflected on a 40-year conservation life’s challenges, we must help Clough, Columbus Brown, John journey and captured some of my others, set goals, act on our dreams, Rogers, Jamie Clark, Ron Lambert- discovered beliefs to share with you. overcome fears and take chances, son, Steve Williams, and Dale Hall, remember our roots and focus on among others, kept me going and First, I believe that women and gratitude. still motivate me. I don’t want to people of color in conservation are disappoint them or waste their time, stronger because we had to be. I Lastly, I believe that focusing on wise counsel and encouragement. I believe that we are smarter because gratitude is the one lesson that am grateful for the support, and I of our mistakes. I believe that we really made a difference in this try hard to pay it forward. I believe are happier because we overcame journey. I have vivid memories of that this is the personal debt that I the struggles, isolation and loneli- one particular encouragement from owe other brown girls, women and ness of being pioneers. And I a fellow third-grade class member. every individual that choses to ask believe that we are wiser because Being the first little frightened for or accept my support. we have learned from our journey. African-American girl in the class, after many generations of segrega- This journey began when a U.S. More importantly, we learn and tion and Jim Crowism, I didn’t think Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) grow by accepting help from others. that I could survive the loneliness, biologist, Hannibal Bolton, came to Second, I believe we can’t make it and I just wanted out. This was the the University of Arkansas and without assistance from others: first time I realized I was treated inspired me to want to join his colleagues, mentors and loved ones. differently because my hair and skin family of biologists and other My beloved mother and first mentor, were different. Those first days amazing professionals at the Ser- Cora “Miss Piggy” Parker, always were long and hard, and the strug- vice. Yes, he described the agency believed that when we start some- gle was unbearable at times. as a family, and rightly so. After thing, we must have a strong finish. However, one day, I sat alone during hearing about his jobs, the great But, there were many moments in recess showing all signs of sadness, people that he worked with, and the life when I felt that I was not good when one of the most popular girls opportunities to learn and grow enough, talented enough, strong in the class, little Paula, came over while working outside, I believed enough to continue to advance in and shared a piece of gum. She that I wanted a similar work family this profession, deal with the micro knew that I was sad and lonely, but and job satisfaction. However, when aggressions and difficult assign- she didn’t really know why. She I discovered that the internship was ments, and actually survive in this said, “Here, try chewing this; it in Wisconsin, I was paralyzed with nontraditional profession. However, always makes me feel better.” That fear. I initially declined the offer; in most instances, someone was symbolic gesture gave me hope and however, Hannibal’s and others’ there to push me to the next level changed my whole attitude about words of encouragement and with encouraging words and actions. people who are different and more wisdom helped me overcome my privileged than me, simply because fear. Pioneers, like David Hendrix , that moment, that act of inclusion, Nancy Bannister and Walters immediately changed my attitude Barbara Milne, among others, and that of my classmates. Finally, insisted that this experience would they started to talk to me in class make me stronger and wiser. So, off and play with me at recess. My I went to explore a new culture, a mother encouraged me to focus on new career and new cause in New these small acts of kindness and London, Minnesota, and Genoa, La good people like Paula and to Crosse, Green Bay, Lake Mills and concentrate on our gratitude. Madison, Wisconsin. I learned so much about the devastating impacts

2020 CONSERVATION HISTORY 57 of Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) limited skills and training to navi- was a surprise to many, including and other pollutants, other fish and gate through this relationship. myself. However, this move was one wildlife challenges, and standing Instead, I decided to search for of the best decisions we made, partnerships to restore the ecosys- other jobs. We left the south and particularly since I had the opportu- tem. In addition, I learned about the moved to Washington, D.C., where nity to provide national leadership in life of a pioneer in conservation. the Service provided me with some the development of the National outstanding mentoring and leader- Fish Habitat Action Plan, a land- Later, a rewarding position at the ship training while serving as the mark plan to work collaboratively on Columbia, Missouri Ecological Special Assistant to the Deputy restoring and protecting fish habitat. Services Office helped me gain a Director and Director. This included It also involved my serving as better understanding of the value of some phenomenal self-development co-chair of the Aquatic Nuisance state fish and game agencies, training at the National Conserva- Species Task Force. Our first trip to stakeholders’ interests and citizens’ tion Training Center. Working in the Executive Office Building of the input into decision making. Often, headquarters was some of the best White House included a briefing on our efforts in the Bootheel of experience—Big Time! While most the listing of the snakehead fish and Missouri included work with the of my field and regional office Asian carp as injurious wildlife agricultural community to protect experience centered on Ecological species. Again, the outstanding work fish and wildlife resources, and this Services and the Fisheries program, and accomplishments of the Service is where I learned about the impor- this opportunity broadened my headquarters staff makes my heart tance of listening to those with perspective on the Refuges and smile. Several years later, the views that may be different. I will Migratory Birds program, Interna- Advanced Leadership Development always remember the day that Lynn tional Affairs, among others. Also, I Program cohort awarded me the Ira Lewis called to offer me a job in the gained a better understanding of Gabrielson Leadership Award as Minneapolis Regional Office. The the budget development process outstanding leader of the year. What opportunity to get great advice and and interactions with the Depart- an honor, and a big responsibility, to mentoring, from leaders like Rick ment of the Interior and Congress. work hard to develop great leaders. Lemon, Bob Krska and supervisors in field offices, and learn more about Region 5, now the North Atlan- Finally, I believe that we have to federal permits and projects in the tic-Appalachian Regional Office, was pay it forward—stretch ourselves Great Lakes, and the Big Rivers the next stop on the journey. The and do what is right and not what is region, was life changing. regional directorate team believed easy. Having spent my formative we had outstanding support for years in the segregated south, being While I loved the work in Minneapo- mission-related programs in the constantly told by my mother to lis, going back south was a region, but we lacked superb stay positive, I suppressed a lot of long-awaited dream that finally programs to maintain and improve feelings and anger and never spoke came true when we moved to the employee engagement and morale. openly about the damages of racial Southeastern Regional Office in We established The Invest in People biases and discrimination. This Atlanta. I served as the Deputy program with one-on-one mentoring approach made it easier for me to Assistant Regional Director of and coaching, mid-level leadership avoid the tension. However, reflect- Fisheries and Deputy Geographic development, and Gallup surveys to ing on those bad encounters, what Assistant Regional Director in measure employee satisfaction and really helped me were mentors to Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississip- engagement. These sustainable and talk with and learning how to deal pi. During this time, the Service creative efforts were eventually with it differently. Connecting with leadership struggled with an expanded beyond the region to individuals who faced the same agency-wide reorganization to force other parts of the country and to the challenges I experienced made all a multifaceted and holistic approach Service headquarters. This confirms the difference in the world. Also, to to our conservation efforts among Dr. Stephen Covey’s words regard- see or hear someone (usually a the field offices. Working with ing using your individual circle of white woman, professor, supervisor partners, states and many outstand- influence and watching it grow. As I or peer) stand up or speak up when ing employees in my beloved south reflect on my years in that office, I they saw or felt the biases, inappro- on restoration and recovery of truly believe that the administrative priate actions or words, made it so species, species management and staff, the assistant regional direc- much easier. preservation of habitat on national tors, leaders and employees were wildlife refuges, fish hatcheries and certainly the key to our success. The Head of Fisheries and Assistant private lands restoration was a one They were just amazing! Their Director of Habitat Conservation of those dreams that came true. outstanding work on the Northern position required long hours and an While I was back to my roots in the Forest, Appalachian Mountains, enormous amount of travel, which south, I realized that a troubled beaches, bays, coastal plains and the resulted in neglect of family and relationship with my boss could be a Great Lakes made it less difficult for friends. In addition, there was no career derailment. My practicing the Service’s first African-American time for self-care. Eventually, I what Dr. Stephen Covey identifies regional director, and I will forever believed that I was no longer able to as the “Cancers of Life—Criticizing, be grateful. support those that I was meant to Complaining, Competing and serve, including my leaders, staff, Comparing”—resulted in actions My return to Washington as the and more importantly, my beloved and behaviors that made life difficult head of Fisheries and Assistant husband. Therefore, my journey at for both of us. At the time, I had Director of Habitat Conservation the Service came to an end.

58 CONSERVATION HISTORY 2020 On my late husband’s deathbed, we ney.” I totally agree. We must focus If you take time to share, mentor, discussed what my next big dream on gratitude and keep going and empathize with and encourage would look like. Since those first growing. Like many women in others, the good days will always days in Wisconsin, I made a concert- conservation, I believe that we have outweigh the bad ones. And this, I ed effort to work hard to be known struggled with isolation, exclusion, do believe. as a professional biologist and underlying bias, discrimination and conservationist and not a token, a the lack of role models. In spite of ■ voice or have an advocate for these barriers and challenges, most diversity and inclusion. At times, I of us wouldn’t trade anything for regret this decision and missed the journey, a journey that for me, Mamie Parker joined Valle de Oro many opportunities to speak out. I took me to jobs throughout the National Wildlife Refuge’s Ariel know that it is time. I have to share country and many places around the Elliott and NCTC’s Mark Madison my gifts now, using them to bring world, to a community of problem and Lois Johnson-Mead for the the conservation community solvers, to progressive thinkers, and Service’s Martin Luther King, Jr. together to aggressively address to a family of conservationists. A Day Broadcast, “Working Towards climate change, attack sea-level rise, journey with the help of many the Dream – Past, Present and improve resilience and flow map- mentors made me smarter, stronger Future” in January ping, protect riparian forest buffers, and wiser. (see https://tinyurl.com/vzpvlze). restore streambanks, assess stocks, tackle ocean plastic pollution and other challenges with “all hands on deck” approach as one of my men- tors, Audrey Peterman, would say.

At this point in life, I have learned more about showing gratitude by giving back. This includes work to encourage others to help us address the climate crisis, particularly in vulnerable and underserved com- munities, by looking for opportuni- ties to make a profound impact on the lives of women and diverse employees in conservation by working harder on diversity, inclusion, justice and equity. Serving in nominating and governance roles on multiple boards, I recruit and retain diversity. In addition, I stay engaged with the Service family through these boards, including Mamie Parker. Pierre Bahizi among boards: the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Retirees Associa- tion, Student Conservation Associa- tion, National Wildlife Refuge Association, The Nature Conservan- cy, Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment, the Chesapeake Conservancy and the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries. Further, I assist in conducting Wild STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathe- matics) workshops throughout the world, where more brown girls, people of color and women have a chance to get exposure to careers in conservation.

In conclusion, our beliefs really do matter. Life has not always an easy journey. Oprah Winfrey and Maya Angelou are my sheroes. Both women have made it clear, in many interviews, that they believe they “would take nothing for my jour-

2020 CONSERVATION HISTORY 59

Crystal Leonetti's Story: Healing the Agency from the Inside Out

Kathleen McCoy, Independent To this day, Crystal teaches her the hill from the sea, she was calmed Journalist agency colleagues to save their job by a sense of deep peace. She had title for the end of any introduc- her answer. “Whoever wants that job is crazy!” tion. “Native people want to know your heart,” she says. Naming your “I am going to apply for this job,” That was Crystal Leonetti’s reac- ancestors means you accept respon- she told herself. “And if I get it, I tion when she first heard about a sibility to behave a certain way, am going to pour my whole heart job opening with the U.S. Fish and that you will be accountable. This into it.” She succeeded, becoming Wildlife Service (Service) in Alaska. is the seed of trust with any Alas- the first Indigenous woman to ever ka Native community. She shares serve as a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Crystal was already working for the concrete stories about the difference Service Native American liaison. Natural Resources Conservation it makes in government and tribal Service (NRCS), a federal agency relationships. Crystal entered the agency optimis- she’d been affiliated with since high tic that by 2009, racism was waning school. NRCS was about conserv- So why did Crystal take a job before a tide of open-heartedness, of ing resources, not regulating them. with an agency that historically growing tolerance and acceptance. “The people who regulate our way has caused anguish among Alaska And, indeed, she found right actions, of living, of surviving and being who Native peoples? First, many people if not always-right results. we are,” she said, “they have had a who knew her thought she’d be bad reputation in the villages.” good at it. During her 16 years at the NRCS, she’d earned the title Well, here’s a surprise: Crystal end- of peacemaker between tribes and ed up taking that job herself. She’s her agency. With such widespread now in her tenth year as an Alaska encouragement to take the job, she Native liaison with the Service. The sought advice from elder Larry reasons behind her choice are mean- Merculieff. ingful and worth understanding. “As elders do, he had a completely Let’s start with how Crystal intro- different thought process,” she said, duces herself. She begins in Yupik. smiling. “He asked, ‘Do you wonder why Mother Earth is crying?’” “Waqaa! Ciisquugua. Quyana Tai- luci!” Crystal found his question frustrat- ing; she had her own answers. But, (“What’s up! My name is Ciisquq. he continued. “People don’t take Thank you for being here.”) care of Mother Earth because they don’t respect themselves. In turn, She continues in English: “My they treat others badly. We have Yupik name is Ciisquq. My mom and to work on respecting and loving dad are Al and Grace Poindexter ourselves first, in order for Mother Crystal Leonetti, Yupik, USFWS from Anchor Point. And, my mater- Earth to heal. And the Fish and Alaska Native Affairs Specialist, nal grandparents are Daisy and the Wildlife Service needs to heal from shared Akutaq (pronounced Ah- late Harry Barnes from Dillingham. the inside out.” goo-duck) at a 2016 Alaska Migra- My paternal grandparents are the tory Bird Co-Management Council late Chuck and Beulah Poindexter He never told her to apply for the meeting in Anchorage. She learned from Anchor Point. I am married to job. Instead, he suggested she go to make the dessert from her mom, my best friend Ed, and we have 2 somewhere quiet, somewhere where who learned from her mom, and daughters, Audrey and Gigi.” she could stop thinking. “An answer was handed down from ancestors. will come to you,” he promised. Traditionally, it is made with frozen Only at the very end, she adds, berries, caribou or seal lard, and “I am the Alaska Native Affairs So, she sat beside the ocean near wild greens. Sometimes, whitefish is Specialist from the U.S. Fish and her home in Anchor Point and did as added to provide protein. Wildlife Service.” he said. She stopped thinking. After Sara Boario/USFWS a time, when she climbed back up

2020 CONSERVATION HISTORY 61 Crystal Leonetti in St. Paul, Alaska, 2017. Lisa Hupp/USFWS

She describes an early meeting at ticularly in Alaska, they recognized which Native liaisons from various the interconnection between people agencies were called together to and the land. give advice on forming tribal consul- tation policy. Clearly, a good result. Plus, there were important break- throughs. Crystal was approved to But, “Everything we said was im- bring to the Service the first ever mediately dismissed, thrown away, Alaska Native Relations training passed over,” she said. “I had never she’d experienced with NRCS. In been treated like that before. I was it, elders teach a history that begins in shock.” A bad result. long before Vitus Bering ever spotted Alaska. Students learn how Her first few years at the agency diverse Native groups are, how rich were like that. None of it was overt, they are in arts, food, dance and life- she said. “It was graceful, in a way.” ways. Her colleagues’ reaction was She’d be greeted with warmth, electric: “People were like, ‘Why with, “Oh, it’s so nice to see you….” haven’t we had this before? This is Then she’d share her expertise, her amazing…” training, her education as a way to build a relationship with tribes and So, Crystal and the agency’s chief Alaska Native people. To no avail: law enforcement officer approached “It was like I was just filling a space the regional director, requesting for a few minutes, and they’d forget permission to make the training all about it when I left the room.” more broadly available. He en- dorsed the idea, even making it But, eventually, attitudes and mandatory. The agency has 600 responses began to change. And, employees in Alaska. Twice a year Crystal had lessons to learn, too. Crystal leads 40 of them through She came to appreciate the work of the Native relations program. her colleagues, to understand their She’s confident it makes them more roles (not all regulatory) were fo- comfortable and more aware as they Crystal Leonetti, dancing. cused on conserving resources. She approach tribal groups to discuss Patricia Schwalenberg saw that the agency and resource wildlife management. users share this value, and that, par-

62 CONSERVATION HISTORY 2020 “I view my job as educating my “For loved ones lost, and for intern- colleagues,” she said. “So many of ees who suffered from hunger, cold- the mistakes we’ve made in our ness, and illness, I am sorry,” Jim history are from not knowing. My Kurth, the agency’s acting director colleagues are not malicious. They at the time, told a gathering on St. don’t mean to do harmful things Paul Island. to Native people. They just don’t know; they don’t understand their More recently, two agencies—Alas- impact.” ka Department of Fish and Game and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Keeping that awareness in daily Service—jointly apologized for his- thinking has changed policies. It torical policies that forbade spring became the springboard for better harvesting of migratory birds, a relations in an important federal and nutritional necessity for Alaska tribal co-management council for Natives after winter’s depleted food migratory birds. “Now, traditional stores. Many hunted illegally, and knowledge is treated with the same suffered emotional, physical and importance as the Western science legal consequences. and the academia and the published papers,” Crystal said. “Conserva- In their 2018 apology, the agencies tion happens, and it happens in a wrote, “We recognize your tenacity, respectful way so the subsistence your brave vision, and your resil- community is not harmed.” ience in the face of the insensitivity of the past harvest regulations…We And, very significantly, twice now, ask your forgiveness…” the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has issued formal apologies for his- Crystal’s contributions, and the torical actions that harmed Alaska powerful work of her colleagues, are Natives. manifest; from the inside out, the agency is healing. Crystal Leonetti. Lisa Hupp/USFWS The first, in 2017, acknowledged injury to Aleut families evacuated ■ by Service vessels to an abandoned fish cannery at Funter Bay on Admiralty Island in 1942, 6 months after the United States declared war on Japan. They stayed 2 years; 47 people died.

Crystal Leonetti. Lisa Hupp/USFWS

2020 CONSERVATION HISTORY 63 Retiree News The FWS Retirees Association Welcomes Retirees and Retirees-in-Training

Jerry Grover, Board Member The Work of the Association – Emeritus and Heritage Committee, Helping Field Stations Celebrate Preserving Our Conservation Heritage At-Large Retiree Milestone Anniversaries with Matching Grants Soon after the Service chartered the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Heritage Committee, three retiree (Service) retirees who cared deeply The Association awards small committee members—Jerry Grover, about the mission gathered to create matching grants to Service Friends Denny Holland and Jerry French— the non-profit U.S. Fish and Wildlife Organizations to help support major established the Association with its Service Retirees Association anniversary events that promote 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status. The (Association). Members stay the rich heritage and mission of the purposes of the Association are to: connected with others who care, Service. maintain friendships with their ■ Facilitate camaraderie among colleagues, make new friends with Supporting Retirees’ Volunteer Work Service retirees and between similar interests, travel together with Mini-Grants retirees and the active Service; nationally and internationally, vol- unteer to support fish and wildlife Retirees working at their favorite ■ Recognize the rich history of the conservation, help the Service pre- field stations can identify small U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service serve its rich heritage, or otherwise project needs, and apply for funding and the many contributions of its stay connected to the Service. to purchase materials or meet other past and present employees; needs to complete a volunteer proj- Retiree Reunion—D.C. Booth Historic ect at the site. ■ Foster the preservation and use National Fish Hatchery and Archives, of the historical documents, Spearfish, SD, 2021 Learn more about the Association’s objects and information that grant programs and applications at illustrate the Service’s invaluable A highlight among retirees is the https://www.fwsretirees.org/Sup- contributions in natural resource national reunion they host about port.html. conservation; and every 18 months in a variety of locations in the United States. More ■ Involve the present and past than 100 retirees and more than 30 employees in the history and Service employees enjoyed the pro- heritage of the Fish and Wildlife gram and field trips in Annapolis, Service. Maryland in November 2019. The Association actively supports Retirees and retirees-in-training are the Service and the Heritage Com- welcome to attend our next reunion mittee by supporting the Service’s the week of June 21, 2021 in Spear- history program, preserving the fish, South Dakota. The Association Service’s heritage by conducting selected the site (the home of the oral histories of its employees, iden- D.C. Booth Historic National Fish tifying historical information and Hatchery and Archives) in honor artifacts, and supporting field sites. and in support of the Service’s 150th anniversary on February 9, 2021. Association Membership In addition to the regular program, which includes a banquet dinner and Anyone can ask to be listed in a the Heritage Committee Award, database to receive Association reunions always include a field trip newsletters and other notices. to a Service facility or project area. Membership is open to any Service The Heritage Committee also has a employee or retiree, including their meeting to coincide with the re- spouses or partners. It is free for union, and attendees are welcome the first year. Dues-paying members to attend the daylong committee enjoy voting and other benefits. meeting, too. Retirees enjoying the Greenwalk To learn more about the Association, Walk for Wildlife at the 2019 reunion. become a member, or for reunion Lew Gorman III updates, visit https://www.fwsretirees.org/. 64 CONSERVATION HISTORY 2020 From the Archives Carson National Fish Hatchery Personnel, National Fish and Aquatic Conservation Archives

A 1976 Fish and Wildlife Annual Report from headquarters, housed at the National Fish and Aquatic Conservation Archives (NFACA), reads, “As of June 30, 1976, the Service’s full-time permanent work force of 4,165 included 298 (7.2 percent) minorities and 739 (17.7 percent) women. Of the 1,256 employees GS-12 and above, there were 33 (2.6 percent) minorities and 19 (1.5 percent) women.”

In this 1972 photo, also housed at NFACA, is a typical pre-1980s Na- tional Fish Hatchery Annual Report staff photo—the single female in the photo is the hatchery clerk-typist. Up until the mid-to-late 1970s, if a woman was present in the staff photo, she almost always served as a clerk-typist, not as a fisheries biolo- gist or superintendent. Though wom- en sometimes assisted with picking fish eggs and feeding fish, their main responsibilities were general office duties such as paying bills, ordering supplies and typing reports. Female fisheries biologists began appearing, more routinely, on personnel payroll records beginning in the late 1980s. 1972 staff photo, Carson National Fish Hatchery, housed at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service National Fish and Aquatic Conservation Archives. The great courage and dedication National Fish and Aquatic Conservation Archives/USFWS of pioneering women in conserva- tion, who overcame great obstacles, blazed the way for younger gener- ations of women. Today’s National Fish Hatchery staff photos have women holding any and all of the po- sitions available—from administra- tive officer to maintenance chief to fisheries biologist to superintendent.

Biologist holds Texas Wild Rice. Biologist releases salmon. Biologist working with Lake Sturgeon. Ryan Hagerty/USFWS Ryan Hagerty/USFWS Ryan Hagerty/USFWS

2020 CONSERVATION HISTORY 65 Oral History Program Elizabeth (Betty) Losey (excerpts)

Betty Losey was the Service’s first MS. LOSEY: My first job was with known female wildlife biologist. J. the Fish and Wildlife Service. It was Clark Salyer (Chief, Division of offered to me by J. Clark Salyer, II. Wildlife Refuges, Bureau of Biologi- I was to go up the Seney National cal Survey, from 1934 to 1961) Wildlife Refuge as a female Water- recruited Betty in 1947. Excerpts of fowl Research Biologist. Betty’s oral history follows. To see the full transcript, visit the Service’s MR. MADISON: What year was National Digital Library at that? https://digitalmedia.fws.gov/. MS. LOSEY: 1947. It was at the San INTERVIEW WITH ELIZABETH LOSEY Antonio North American Wildlife Conference. BY MARK MADISON AND GEORGE GENTRY MR. GENTRY: Tell me a little bit about what you consider to be your MARCH 15, 2003 area of expertise when you worked for the Service. MR. GENTRY: Let’s give some information to identify the tape. Give MS. LOSEY: Waterfowl manage- today’s date and where we’re at and ment and marsh ecology. Then, I that sort of thing. Today is March 15. taught those subjects at the Univer- sity of Michigan for several years on MS. LOSEY: Today is March 15, the graduate level. 2003. We’re in Melbourne, and have been to Pelican Island celebrating MR. MADISON: When you joined the Centennial. the Service in 1947 were their other women waterfowl biologists? MR. GENTRY: If you would, say Elizabeth “Betty” Losey: “My your name slowly and spell it. MS. LOSEY: Not to my knowledge. favorite workplace was right in the

middle of a marsh, listening to the MS. LOSEY: Elizabeth Browne MR. MADISON: You were the first. birds and inding waterfowl nests Losey. [Spells it out] and ducklings.” USFWS MS. LOSEY: Which makes it more The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service MR. GENTRY: Do I dare ask your outstanding that Mr. Salyer literally (Service) recognizes the rich history date of birth? stuck his neck out when he asked and heritage of the Service and the me if I would do that. I was a fresh many contributions of employees MS. LOSEY: Oh sure! I’m proud of graduate with a Master’s Degree, and others to the mission of the it. December 25, 1912. and I had gone to our Michigan Service. The Service has an oral State Game Division. They knew me history program to acknowledge MR. GENTRY: Education? Where very well, and knew my work. I was and record these stories. To learn did you go to school? thinking that was where I’d get my more, visit https://nctc.fws.gov/ job. And the reply was, “Yes, I know history/OralHistories.html. The MS. LOSEY: Mount Holyoke for 2 you are well qualified, and sure we’ll National Conservation Training years, University of Michigan AB, find a place for you. You can go to Center uploads oral history tran- and then the School of Natural conservation groups, you can write scripts to the Services’ National Resources at University of Michi- for periodicals, you can go to school Conservation Library on an ongoing gan with an MS. groups.” I told them, “That isn’t basis. what I am trained for. That isn’t MR. GENTRY: What is your work what I want. I am a waterfowl and history, starting maybe even before marsh management person. I did the Service? Everything you did in my thesis on it.” They said, ‘Betty, the environmental or conservation we can’t give you a job like that!’ I field. asked why not. “Well, in the course

66 CONSERVATION HISTORY 2020 of your work you’d be out in the great. And, then of course, I was field; it might be necessary to spend there when Mr. J. Clark Salyer came overnight wherever you are, and on one of his annual inspection trips. you would have a male associate.” We kind of shuttered and shivered a So that was that, but it’s to my little bit, but we managed to survive! dying regret that I didn’t say, ‘Well oh goodie’! But I didn’t, and I MR. MADISON: So what were you obviously didn’t get the job. Then, 2 studying up there? months later at San Antonio, J. Clark Salyer, II came up to me and MS. LOSEY: My main assignment asked me would I like to go up to was the relation of Beaver to the Seney Refuge as a Waterfowl waterfowl management. So, I set up Biologist. various test areas and really worked hard at it. I am proud to say that it MR. MADISON: So what was it like Elizabeth “Betty” Losey (1912-2005) resulted in a publication, which was when you first went up to Seney as She was hired in 1947 by U.S. Fish printed in the Journal of Wildlife a field biologist? and Wildlife Service as the first Management, and at the next female refuge biologist. Before her, meeting of the North American MS. LOSEY: It was absolutely it was not seen as suitable for a Wildlife Conference, it received wonderful, for a lot of reasons… My female to work and stay overnight Honorable Mention. So, my main conditions there were a bit unusual. in the field.George Gentry/USFWS satisfaction was the fact that Mr. Where I stayed overnight on the Salyer must have felt he was Refuge; where I lived; was what we justified. That gave me a lot of called the WPA shack. It was where MR. MADISON: Did any of the satisfaction. they made the paychecks for the employees have a hard time adjust- WPA crew. So there was nothing in ing to working with a woman? MR. MADISON: That’s a great it but one double iron bunk bed and story! How long were you up at an old wood burning stove; a trestle MS. LOSEY: None of the males. Seney? table with a bench. And, when I say The fellows took me just as equal. there was nothing else, I literally They took me as an equal. We got MS. LOSEY: As an employee of the mean, there was nothing else! along beautifully. And also, I was Fish and Wildlife Service, I was Fortunately, there were a lot of supervising one or two of them, for only there for 3 years. But then, I bushes behind the building. And, I example, when we did the aquatic got a grant from the University of wasn’t too far from the main garage, inventory. He didn’t know the Michigan to continue my work up which did have a restroom. The aquatic plants, which of course, I there on duck brood behavior. So I Refuge Manager and his wife were did. So, I was teaching him. He took was there 2 more years. And, that kind enough so that, once a week, I the instruction beautifully. The only paper also was published in the went up there and took a bath. problem I had actually was with the Journal. Then, the time came when wives. They were not always too they were going to assign me to MR. MADISON: So you didn’t mind happy to know that I was out in the Lower Souris, which is paradise for the primitive conditions up there? field all day; not overnight, but all a person that likes ducks. And Merle day with their husbands. I can Hammond was there, as well. But, MS. LOSEY: I made up my mind remember that we’d be doing an in the meantime, romance had crept that no matter what they threw at inventory of the impoundment, it in and I had to make a decision. So, I me, I was not going to murmur, and would be 4:30 or so, and I’d say, reluctantly took the romance, I didn’t. Because I felt this way; they “Well gee, we’re almost done; do although I am very happy I did. But had opened the door a crack, my foot want to stay a little bit later so we then, they contacted me; and that’s was in it, and I was going to go in can finish this one impoundment?” where that letter comes in. They the rest of the way. But I had to They’d say, “Sure!” We would, and asked me if I would take a tempo- laugh because at Christmas, I get a then we’d put the canoe on top of rary job out of the Ann Arbor office note from C.S. Johnson and he said, the vehicle and drive through the and work there and produce a “We’ve got a Christmas present for streets of Germfask at about 8 layman’s version of, oh what was the you! When you come back, you’ll see o’clock at night. That was the cause name, Wilford Banco, who did the it.” But no, he sent me a picture of of some of the problems. But, Trumpeter swan story. They them hauling an outhouse on the basically, everybody with whom I thought maybe it should be reduced dredge to install at the back of my worked was just marvelous. And, I a little bit for more popular con- building. That was my Christmas had the support of Mr. Johnson. sumption. So I worked all winter on present. A beautiful outhouse! And, really, the man who gave me that. So that must be what that my assignment was Richard Grif- letter was referring to, because we MR. MADISON: That was probably fith, who was Manager of Habitat didn’t have Trumpeter swans then, one of the best Christmas presents Management out of Washington. He at Seney. Of course, now we do. you ever had! was just marvelous. He came out to There is a wonderful population. the Refuge two or three times and We’ve been very successful with MS. LOSEY: Absolutely! Highly would check to see what I was doing that. So then, it’s kind of like a full appreciated! and how I was making out. He was cycle. I was away from that work. I

2020 CONSERVATION HISTORY 67 went into another hobby; well, more plants or something. Then I’d go out MS. LOSEY: Oh, yes. To begin with, that a hobby, I went into the fur again about 3 and come back at the office, for example was one large trade history of Canada; the Hudson dark; 7 days a week. Then if we had room with two desks strictly Army Bay Company. We spent a lot of any “VIP” visitors, I was the one issue. They were you know, the time, and published a book on that. elected to take them around. But it metal type thing. C.S. sat at one, the But, then, my husband died. I still was… clerk Leo Vanwalt sat at the other. I lived in Germfask, which is only 5 think they had two telephones. They miles from the Refuge, so I went MR. MADISON: You mentioned might have had only one. It was the back to the Refuge just like a full how you dressed to go to the kind that you hold like this. There circle. Now, I’m so happy. I work 3 Rotary. How did you dress every was a mimeograph machine, the or 4 days a week and I do research day? You didn’t have a uniform then. kind with this thing. [Demonstrat- or, we produced that booklet, and ing turning a handle] we’re working on grassland ecology; MS. LOSEY: No, nobody had a sharptails and so on. Tracy just told uniform. I had a pretty sharp outfit. MR. GENTRY: No, we don’t know me this morning; ‘I’ve got a job for It was white slacks and a tangerine what that is. What is a mimeograph you when you get back.’ It’s to work blouse and a white jacket. Of course, machine? up a mailing list for our celebration I had a nice tan; so it looked all on May 24th. So, I don’t think I’ll right. MS. LOSEY: Well, it’s a rotary, and run out of work. when you use it you get yourself MR. MADISON: What about in the smeared with ink because you can’t MR. MADISON: That is a great field? do it without! story; you coming back there. MS. LOSEY: Oh, the field? Well, MR. MADISON: What about the MS. LOSEY: Oh, I love it, and it’s usually 90 percent of the time I was tools you used as a waterfowl biol- keeping me young. It really is. I in hip boots and even when I got out ogist? wake up in the morning, and I can of them I kept the straps on so that hardly wait to get there. they’d be handy. I wore ‘suntans.’ MS. LOSEY: Basically, it was my You call them khakis and a khaki spotting scope, my binoculars. We MR. MADISON: Let’s go back to shirt. That was it. I lived in that. I didn’t… the word computer? No- the couple of years you worked at don’t think I even wore a cap. body had that. I remember maybe Seney. We don’t actually have great Maybe I did. I hate hats, never wear some years after when I was out of records for this period. What was them! the field they had a meeting of wa- the typical workday like as a water- terfowl people up in Duluth, Minne- fowl biologist? What did you do? MR. MADISON: … In your career, sota. They invited me to attend, and what was your favorite place to be, I went. I sat there and that’s when MS. LOSEY: Well, I had no hours. I or favorite experience in the I began to know the progress that mean, as a biologist you do not keep outdoors? had been made in the techniques. office hours. So, I’d be up at the These younger biologists were crack of dawn and carry my pack- MS. LOSEY: Well, my favorite place speaking up and telling what they sack and my plotting scope and my was Seney Refuge. Number one; were doing. Many of them were binoculars and my camera. And I’d back in those days we had ducks trained at Delta incidentally. I re- take off and go to any one of these there. Not ducks like Souris, but we member the one that impressed me four areas that I had set up for my had nesting waterfowl. You could the most; they were injecting dye studies. Then of course, I conducted drive during the nesting or brood into the eggs of the ducks so that the waterfowl survey. I was the only season along the dikes and you’d be as they hacked they could follow one there to do anything. I mean, I seeing broods of ducklings which, them and so forth. I thought that had to do everything. We were unfortunately, you’re not seeing was just fantastic. But I remember planting emergents along the edges now. It’s very disturbing to me that I had guts enough, I guess, to of the dikes because they needed to because the area is drying up. It’s get up and say that these techniques be stabilized. See, the Refuge was changing so. But, my favorite place are fine, we need them, they are just being developed back then so was Seney, and my favorite work extending our knowledge, “but don’t we needed to plant the emergents to place was right in the middle of a forget, the bricks of waterfowl bi- prevent erosion. I took the aquatic march listening to the birds and ology are the life histories.” You’ve inventory surveys. Oh, and then I finding waterfowl nests and duck- got to know your different ducks. surveyed sharptail dancing grounds. lings. That was it. I loved it! It was You can’t talk ducks. You have to That was fun! Get up as early as my, other than marriage days, which talk species, and you have to know daylight and then go out and stop were wonderful; and our experience their life history. So, I know that’s and listen. When you could hear a with the fur trade was exhilarating. fundamental and you build on top of call, you’d make a beeline for it. Actually, that picture in the back that, but just don’t overlook it. I got That’s how you discovered them. I page of the booklet exemplifies my up and made my little speech. think I discovered oh, about 14 happiest day. lecks, and of course mapped them. ■ My hours were from daylight; I MR. GENTRY: Is there any com- usually or normally would come in parison between the tools that you about 11 or 12 o’clock and write up had to do research with in those some notes or identify some aquatic days, compared to now?

68 CONSERVATION HISTORY 2020

Gallery

Women tagging fish at the Bozeman Fish Technology Center, circa 1960. National Fish and Aquatic Conservation Archives (D.C. Booth NFH)/USFWS

Did you know? The National Fish and Aquatic Con- scientific institutions for research, servation Archives at the D.C. Booth and some items support wildlife The USFWS houses four archival Historic Fish Hatchery in Spearfish, regulation and trade educational facilities. South Dakota. The Service’s Fish programs. and Aquatic Conservation Pro- The USFWS Museum and Archives at gram’s archives preserves historic The DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge’s the National Conservation Training objects and archival materials from Steamboat Bertrand Museum in Harri- Center (NCTC) in Shepherdstown, National Fish Hatcheries, some son City, Iowa. This museum houses West Virginia. At the home of the of which are on display in the Von a premier archeological collection of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Bayer Museum of Fish Culture. more than 250,000 artifacts exca- NCTC houses films, photos and vated from the 1865 wreck of the documents chronicling the rich The National Wildlife Property Repos- Steamboat Bertrand, once buried in heritage of wildlife conservation. itory at Rocky Mountain Arsenal in the Missouri River. A changing museum and state-of- Denver, Colorado. The Repository the-art research archive help the is a secure environment for storing ■ public, researchers and professional wildlife items forfeited or aban- conservationists better understand doned from the Service’s Special the rich history of American wildlife Agents and Wildlife Inspectors. The conservation. Repository shares some items with

2020 CONSERVATION HISTORY 69 Reflection—A Personal History of Women in Conservation

Gretchen Newberry, Midwest from Leopold’s protégées. Had I Wisconsin’s Flambeau River as an Fisheries Center, U.S. Fish and followed the University of Wiscon- outdoorsy kid. Few opportunities to Wildlife Service sin-Stevens Point lead, I might have hunt or fish were presented to her met these women and followed their as a girl, but she insisted on pursing In the mid-1990s, I was a student at path into local conservation. both. And, so, it was with her career University of Wisconsin-Madison choice as a fish biologist. Gifted with with an interest in conservation From the outset, our offices have high math scores, as a University of biology and few ideas of how to employed many women, and Ann Wisconsin-Stevens Point undergrad, proceed into a career. I had been and Pam were here in the begin- she joined a Service cooperative working at the university’s Har- ning. How did Pam and Ann find education program and interned low Primate Lab with squirrel and their way here? I met with each at Jordan River National Fish rhesus monkeys, but the prospect of of them, now retired, to hear their Hatchery and the Winona Fisheries a lifetime in a primate lab or spend- stories. Each had met many women Assistance Office. In addition, she ing half my year in the field in the in the Service and the Wisconsin worked for Frances and Freder- southern hemisphere seemed daunt- Department of Natural Resources ick Hamerstrom, students of Aldo ing. I had an inkling that I should (DNR) here in Wisconsin’s Driftless Leopold, in their kestrel research check out the wildlife program at Area, all deserving of their own and on fish telemetry data with Pam the University of Wisconsin-Ste- story. Thiel at the Wisconsin DNR. After vens Point, but instead I followed graduation, she accepted a perma- the path of least resistance and Pam and I met at the La Crosse nent position with the Service’s took the opportunity to apply for District of the Upper Mississippi Sea Lamprey Control Program in University of Wisconsin-Madison’s River National Wildlife and Fish Marquette, Michigan. journalism program in the hopes of Refuge to talk about her journey. becoming a science writer someday. Pam had an interest in science early As an undergrad and for much of on, and spent her free time as a her career, Ann was the only woman Meanwhile, Pam Thiel and Ann child recreating Mr. Wizard’s TV on the field crew and at many of in- Runstrom were quietly killing it in experiments with her father. With teragency meetings. She gave that conservation a few hours away in an interest in biology, she briefly en- little thought, and never let that the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Ser- tertained the notion of following her discourage her from her goals. vice (Service) La Crosse Fisheries cousin’s footsteps and becoming a Resource Office. In 1995, the La nurse. Instead, she graduated with When Ann returned to Wisconsin, Crosse Fisheries Resource Office, a Master of Science degree from she, like Pam, worked for Hannibal the La Crosse Fish Health Center, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. Bolton, a manager known for hiring and the La Crosse District of the women and minorities. Working Upper Mississippi National Wildlife An early mentor for Pam was Wis- with him, Ann learned much about and Fish Refuge moved to Onalas- consin DNR biologist Ruth Hines. developing relationships with Min- ka, Wisconsin, on the outskirts of La As a student of Aldo Leopold, nesota and Wisconsin’s First Na- Crosse. These days, the La Crosse Ruth’s efforts in aquatic conserva- tions. Lake sturgeon reintroduction District offices are out at Onalaska’s tion led to becoming the namesake was a growing interest for agencies Brice Prairie, and the fisheries of- of the federally listed Hines Emer- and tribal nations, and Ann took an fices remain here on Lester Avenue ald Dragonfly. From the day that active role in the Service’s tribal and are collectively known as the Pam graduated college, she became responsibilities by participating in Midwest Fisheries Center. a groundbreaker on her own. She sturgeon, walleye and brook trout became the first female fish manag- monitoring with partners like the Eventually I, too, would arrive at er with the Wisconsin DNR in the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wiscon- the Midwest Fisheries Center by early 1980s. From there she became sin and the Chippewa Tribes of the way of graduate school and a Ser- an invertebrate specialist with the Great Lakes region. vice career pathways position, but Service and eventually the project I wondered how did other women leader for La Crosse Fishery Re- Like these women, I have my own start their careers in conservation? source Office. roots in Wisconsin’s conservation In Madison, while I was taking tours history. I grew up camping in the of the university’s arboretum and A month later, Ann and I sat on woods of Minnesota in an old green learning about Aldo Leopold, Ann that same bench to talk about her canvas tent once used by my grand- and Pam were learning conservation story. Ann grew up on the banks of father, who as a young man joined

70 CONSERVATION HISTORY 2020 the Wisconsin’s Civilian Conser- vation Corps in the 1930s. Each weekend, my parents would drive an hour north of the Twin Cities and set us loose in the woods. Many of my questions about the natural world have their genesis within sight of that old tent.

In my brief year and half here at the Midwest Fisheries Center, I learned much from Ann and Heidi Keuler, another fish biologist whose mentor was Pam Thiel. I can say now that I am part of Wisconsin’s conserva- tion history through Heidi, Ann and Pam, and that each of us can trace our conservation lineage back to Aldo Leopold and the beginning of the conservation movement

Each of these women, taught by both men and women, had female mentors that were part of Wiscon- sin’s conservation history from the beginning. At times, for women of my generation, the barrier ahead seemed to loom large. We need not have worried, for these women were quietly part the conservation movement at the outset, whether La Crosse Fishery Resource Office biologists Ann Runstrom (now retired they were along with Aldo Leopold from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service) and Lara Oles (presently working at the inception of the land ethic for U.S. Forest Service) in the 1990s. USFWS or elsewhere. Across the United States within the Service, we have seen this story play out over and over again. The stories told in this journal reflect this rich history of women since the birth of the United States’ conservation movement.

■

The La Crosse Fisheries Resource Office moved to Onalaska in 1995. Present staff includes Dave Wedan (upper left), Regional Watercraft Safety Coordinator. Also pictured are (left to right), Mark Steingraeber, Scott Yess, Nancy Christopherson, Pam Thiel, and Ann Runstrom. USFWS

2020 CONSERVATION HISTORY 71 Child and FWS biologist with monarch butterfly. The Mexican wolf recovery program. Brett Billings/USFWS A. Maestas/USFWS

FWS biologist and wildland firefighter on a prescribed Directorate Fellow and FWS biologist with kangaroo burn at NCTC. Ryan Hagerty/USFWS rat. Brett Billings/USFWS

FWS biologist tests a blood sample from a grass carp. Ohio River Islands biologist holds Purple cat's paw Ryan Hagerty/USFWS pearlymussel. Ryan Hagerty/USFWS

Fisheries technician holds a Southern redbelly dace. Fishery biologist monitors acoustic hydrophone data. Cole Brittain/USFWS Ryan Hagerty/USFWS 72 Biologist nets a Panama City crayfish. Ryan Hagerty/USFWS Biologist Banding a Northern shoveler. Kevin Holcomb/USFWS

Biologist holds freshwater mussels. Ryan Hagerty, USFWS Measuring a Long-tailed duck. Lisa Hupp/USFWS

Laboratory analysis by geneticist. Analyzing a Cackling goose blood Directorate Fellow with radio Ryan Hagerty, USFWS sample. Lisa Hupp/USFWS tagged bog turtle. Brett Billings/USFWS

Refuge law enforcement officer veri- Examining a Spruce-fir moss spider. Tagging a female Horseshoe crab on fying documents. Steve Hillebrand/USFWS Gary Peeples/USFWS Bowers Beach, DE. Robert Pos/USFWS 73 Assisting the Minnesota National Guard and Minnesota Dept of Natural Resources with their annual black bear hibernation study on Camp Ripley. Shauna Marquardt/USFWS

74 CONSERVATION HISTORY 2020 USFWS Heritage Committee Mission and Members

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service North Atlantic-Appalachian Region (R1) Cultural Resources: Heritage Committee Peggy Hobbs*, Admin, Parker Eugene Marino, USFWS Federal Chartered 1998 River National Wildlife Refuge Preservation Officer and National Curator The mission of the Heritage Libby Herland, Retired Manager, Committee is to preserve the East Massachusetts National National Fish and Aquatic cultural heritage and history of Wildlife Refuge Complex Conservation Archives at D.C. the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Booth Historic Fish Hatchery: reinforcing the mission of the Missouri Basin (R5) Carlos Martinez, Director agency to ensure that fish, wildlife, Upper Colorado Basin (R7) April Gregory, Curator plants, and their habitats are Vacant* preserved for the continuing benefit National Wildlife Property of the American people. John Cornely, Retired Chief, Repository: Migratory Birds, Denver Elisa Dahlberg, Wildlife Chair Repository Specialist Charlie Wooley* Alaska Region (R11) Regional Director, Great Lakes Debbie Steen*, Visitor Services Research Region Chief, Regional Office Dr. Richard Coon*, Research

Columbia-Pacific Northwest Region (R9) Debbie Corbett, Retired, Alaska Fish and Aquatic Conservation: Vicki Finn*, Chief of Staff Regional Office, Archeology Dave Miko, Division Chief, Programs Bennie Williams, Fish Biologist, Cindy Uptegraft Barry, Retired Lower Colorado Basin Region (R8) Communications and Partnerships Deputy Assistant Regional Director, California-Great Basin Region (R10) Eco Services Vacant* National Wildlife Refuge System: John Schmerfeld, Acting Division Arkansas-Rio Grande-Texas-Gulf Mendel Stewart, Project Leader, Chief, Visitor Services and Region (R6) Carlsbad Ecological Services Communications Upper Colorado Basin (R7) Lower Colorado Basin (R8) Headquarters (R9) Emeritus Members Amber Zimmerman*, Deputy Mark Madison*, Service Historian, Dale Hall Refuge Manager, Wichita Mountains USFWS Museum/Archives, National Jim Kurth Wildlife Refuge Conservation Training Center John Blankenship Patrick Leonard Deborah Holle, Retired Project Dr. Mamie Parker, Retired, Rick Bennett Leader, Balcones Canyonlands Washington Office * voting member Great Lakes Region (R3) At Large Retiree Greg Dehmer,* Sherburne National Jerry Grover*, Pacific Region, Questions? Wildlife Refuge Retired Ecological Services/Fisheries Contact Historian Mark Madison at [email protected] or 304/876 7276 Tom Worthington, Retired Deputy Research Regional Chief of Refuges, Dr. Matthew C. Perry*, Retired, Twin Cities Regional Office Patuxent Research Center

South Atlantic-Gulf Region (R2) Ex-Officio Members Mississippi Basin (R4) National Conservation Training Paul Tritaik*, Acting Assistant Re- Center: gional Chief of Hunting and Fishing, Steve Chase, Director South Atlantic-Gulf and Mississippi Nate Hawley, Division Manager, Basin Interior Regions, National Creative Resources WILDLIFE H & SE Maria Parisi, Heritage and FIS RV Wildlife Refuge System . IC .S E U

Partnerships Coordinator, and

Sandy Tucker, Retired Project Steve Floray, Curator, Heritage H E E Leader, Ecological Services, Georgia and Partnerships Branch, R E I T TA IT G M USFWS Museum/Archives E COM

U.S. Department of the Interior U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service History https://nctc.fws.gov/history/

304/876 7276

May 2020

Cover image: Artwork inspired by Shirley Briggs’ photo of Rachel Carson at Hawk Mountain Sanctuary