Key People in Conservation

1. Key People in Conservation Outdoor Education

2. John James Audubon • Painted and described the birds of North America. • Published life-sized prints that are still considered the standard. • Audubon society named in his honor.

3. Mary Austin • Wrote a book dedicated to the deserts of the American southwest. • Used very descriptive language in her book The Land of little rain.

4. Florence Merriam Bailey • Ornithologist and nature writer. • Worked with congress to pass legislation preventing unnecessary bird slaughter.

5. Hugh Bennett • Father of American soil conservation. • Encouraged conservation in 1920’s & 1930’s. • Created the Federal Soil Conservation Service, now known as Natural Resource Conservation Service.

6. Rachel Carson • Wrote Silent Spring about pesticide abuse. • Spurred a nation into action and started the modern environmental movement. • Her worked resulted in nation wide ban of DDT.

7. Anna Botsford Comstock • First person to bring students and other teachers outside to study nature, implemented course on nature study in NY public schools. • Encouraged observation as the best way to study nature.

8. Jay “Ding” Darling • Attended UW where he began working as a cartoonist. • Published conservation cartoons, designed the first federal duck stamp. • Appointed as the head of the Bureau of Biological Survey. • Founded National Wildlife Federation.

9. Marjory Stoneman Douglas • Wrote Everglades: River of Grass and mobilized Florida against the draining and overdevelopment of the everglades. • Founded Friends of the Everlgades.

10. Rosalie Edge • One of the first female leaders of the conservation movement. • Became active because of outrage against the Audubon Society. • Founded Hawk Mountain Wildlife Refuge.

11. William Temple Hornaday • Chief taxidermist of U.S. National Museum. • Became president of the Permanent Wild Life Protective Association. • Credited with saving American Bison and Alaskan Fur Seal from extinction.

12. John F. Lacey • Wrote legislation that made it illegal to ship game across state lines-the first federal conservation law. • Lacey Bird Act of 1900, and several other land conservation acts passed because of him.

13. Aldo Leopold • Father of Wildlife management. • Served for 19 years in United States Forest Service before working at UW-Madison. • Founded the Wilderness Society while writing about ethical and conservation issues.

14. Robert Marshall • Founder of the Wilderness society. • Helped to preserve large tracts of Alaska. • Shaped US Forestry policy of wilderness management.

15. Stephen Mather • First director of National Park Service. • Evaluate possible sites for National Parks. • Felt scenery was an important factor for parks.

16. John Muir • Settled by Portage, WI and attended UW-Madison were he was influenced to explore nature. • Founded the Sierra Club and helped preserve Yosemite Valley • Image is on the CA quarter

17. Helen Nearing • Advocated self-sufficient living and back to the land movement. • Developed improvements for maple syrup production while advocating an organic food approach, wrote several books on those areas.

18. Gaylord Nelson • From Clear Lake, WI. • Elected as state senator, then governor, and eventually US senate and attended conservation tour with JFK. • Principal founder of “Earth Day.”

19. Frederic Law Olmsted • Brought Nature to the city. • Designed Central Park. • He was the first prominent Landscape Architect

20. Sigurd Olson • Grew up and was influenced by Northern Wisconsin’s nature. • Helped draft the Wilderness Act of 1964 while serving as president of Wilderness Society. • He also helped establish Voyageurs National Park in northern Minnesota.

21. George Perkins Marsh • America’s 1st environmentalist. • Published Man and Nature the first book to pose questions concerning man’s impact on the environment.

22. Roger Tory Peterson • Published Guide to Birds and co-wrote Wild America. • He served as editor of Peterson Field Guides and developed the Peterson identification system still used today.

23. Gifford Pinchot • First chief forester of US Forest Service. • Advocated conservation by planned use and renewal. • Coined the term “conservation ethic”.

24. John Wesley Powell • Lived a mountain man lifestyle by exploring the Rocky Mountains, walking across WI, taking passages on Mississippi river. • Became second director of US Geological Survey shaped Western Land use policies

25. Theodore Roosevelt • Founded the National Parks. • Created federal wildlife and bird refuges, set aside land for nature preserves. • Established the US Forest Service

26. Henry David Thoreau • Wrote On Walden Pond that helped start the environmental movement, a reflection on simple living in the natural environment.