When asked to make a list of important environmentalists or conservationists, folks are likely to come up with names of recent public figures who got good press: Jane Goodall, Jacques Cousteau, and even Steve Irwin ("The Crocodile Man") may spring to mind. As accomplished as these folks may have been, our list goes back further in history when we recall ten people who were true pioneers in the American conservation movement:

• Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) and John Burroughs (1837-1921), whose essays, books, and poetry on natural history and phenology popularized going into the woods to observe nature--rather than taming or destroying it.
• Naturalists John Muir (1838-1914) and George Bird Grinnell (1849-1938) who founded, respectively, the Sierra Club and the National Audubon Society, providing venues for everyday citizens to enjoy the out-of-doors AND to take action on behalf of nature.
• Twenty-sixth American president Teddy Roosevelt (1858-1919) who--with strong encouragement and wise guidance from Gifford Pinchot (1865-1948), director under him of the Forest Service--created the U.S. National Park system.
• Rosalie Edge (1877-1962, above right), a steadfast woman who in 1935 in eastern Pennsylvania established Hawk Mountain Sanctuary, the world's first preserve for migratory birds of prey; and marine biologist Rachel Carson (1907-1964), who almost 30 years later sat on the Sanctuary's North Lookout, formulating her thoughts for Silent Spring--a best-selling book that called for quick reduction in pesticide use that, in turn, may have saved American Bald Eagles for posterity.
• Educator and scientist Eugene Odom (1913-2002), who formalized the concept of an ecoSYSTEM in which every living and non-living thing on Earth--including humans--is connected to everything else.
• And finally, slightly out of chronological sequence, there's Aldo Leopold (1887-1948, right)--a forester, author, teacher, and philosopher described by some as the father of wildlife management . . . AND of the U.S. wilderness system . . . AND of environmental ethics. (We're pleased to report he also was a bird bander.) We save Leopold for last because he plays a prominent role in our photo essay that follows.

This week we were far from Hilton Pond Center, marveling--especially after our recent return from tropical Costa Rica--at just how much snow Wisconsin received during the winter of 2007-08. Through mid-March of this year, Madison WI already had been smothered by 92 inches of white stuff, far surpassing its old single-winter record of 76 inches set in 1978-79. (We well remember that particular snow season, it being the first winter we were in grad school in neighboring Minnesota--where snow started on Halloween and stayed until almost May Day.) This year we went to Madison at the invitation of Kathy Miner (left), whom we met through her e-mail responses to our on-line nature essays and who eventually--with her husband Don--came to see Hilton Pond. Kathy, an education naturalist (and poet) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Arboretum, organizes a winter-long series of training workshops for amateur and professional naturalists and decided she'd like to have an end-of-season presentation about hummingbirds. She extended us an invitation--which we happily accepted--and arranged for our travel, lodging, and honorarium, so on 12 March we boarded a plane in Charlotte NC and flew northward, looking down through the starboard window at ever-increasing depths of snow the closer we got to Wisconsin.

After an airport pickup and quick supper, Kathy took us to the University of Wisconsin main campus for our first gig--an evening lecture in the "Wednesday Nite @ The Lab" series sponsored by UW alumni for themselves and the public. We were pleased to see several middle school and junior high students among the 90 or so people present, to meet Kathi and Michael Rock (who publish a hummingbird newsletter), and to learn Wisconsin Public Television was taping our hummingbird presentation for future broadcast.

Thursday was our "big day," however, with more than 130 people assembling at the UW Arboretum Visitor Center (above) for the "Winter Enrichment Lecture Series"--overseen by Kathy Miner to stave off cold weather doldrums. All morning we had opportunity to share with an audience keenly interested in our 25 years of hummingbird research at Hilton Pond Center, and in our just-completed three weeks of field work under warm, sunny, snowless skies in tropical Costa Rica. (We weren't surprised several attendees wanted to sign up on the spot for next winter's hummingbird expeditions to far-off Guanacaste Province--especially when they looked out at all that white stuff on Arboretum buildings and grounds.)

Thursday afternoon following our talk we shuffled around the Arboretum itself--not going far because we were still hampered by an ankle broken during this year's Costa Rica trip; thus, we were fortunate some local wildlife came to us. In one case, a flock of Wild Turkeys (above)--all toms, if we can judge by the sizes of their spurs and enormous "beards"--approached Kathy Miner's office window, allowing us the pleasure of observing their incredibly iridescent plumage from close range. We fired off dozens of digital exposures as these big birds strutted and pecked at seeds in small patches of grass exposed by partial thaw.

The next day--Friday--was another a "big day" for us personally, but for a different reason: Kathy had arranged for a guided tour at the recently constructed visitor center of the Aldo Leopold Legacy Center, about an hour from Madison near Baraboo WI (see map above right). We were delighted by this bonus chance to explore south central Wisconsin and the very place where Leopold further developed and implemented his seminal ideas on wildlife management and conservation--AND where he got his inspiration for A Sand County Almanac.

We were greeted at the snow-covered Leopold Center by education coordinator Jennifer Kobylecky, a knowledgeable and personable young woman who delivered what may have been the most polished guided tour we've experienced in our many years of visiting nature centers around the country. Jennifer knew the new Legacy Center inside and out--after all, she helped construct the building (below left)--and she also had a comprehensive understanding of the history and importance of Aldo Leopold's life and work. (Incidentally, our Madison host Kathy Miner also helped raise the Leopold Center; like Jennifer, she and other Leopold-loving volunteers from across Wisconsin spent time stripping bark from pine logs that eventually became roof beams.) Although deep drifts kept us from a complete tour of the Legacy Center's exterior, Jennifer did a great job explaining all the energy-saving attributes of the structure itself, from photovoltaic solar panels on the roof to staggered stud walls and super-insulation that diminish transfer of heat from inside the building. The structure uses too many innovative techniques for us to outline here; to quote the Aldo Leopold Legacy Center Web site, its headquarters "received a Platinum LEED Certification from the U.S. Green Building Council. Following a rigorous assessment, the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program awarded the Legacy Center 61 points of 69 possible points, more than any other building yet rated in the world." That rating, we'd say, is a feather in the Legacy Center's cap and one of which their namesake would be justly proud.

We suspect Aldo Leopold also would be pleased the Legacy Center--constructed almost entirely of wood--made use of pines and hardwoods planted more than a half-century ago by Leopold and his family. With that comment, this is probably a good point in our essay to explain a little more about who Aldo Leopold was and why we were so pleased to visit the hallowed grounds of his old farm near the new Legacy Center.

Aldo Leopold (right), born in 1887 in Burlington IA, showed an early affinity for nature; as a boy he loved to hunt and fish but also to simply sit in the out-of-doors and make observations and sketches. In 1909 he graduated from the Yale Forest School and began work for the newly created U.S. Forest Service in Arizona and New Mexico, where at the rather young professional age of 24 he was appointed supervisor of Carson National Forest. A decade later he formulated a proposal to make Gila National Forest a wilderness area--the first place in the U.S. so designated. In 1924 he was transferred to Madison WI and in 1933 wrote and published the first textbook in the emerging field of "wildlife management." Shortly thereafter the University of Wisconsin awarded him a chair in game management--the first such appointment in the U.S.

In 1935 Leopold decided to put his theories into practice when he bought for back taxes an old farm on the Wisconsin River near Baraboo. In the middle of a winter snowstorm, he took his wife and children to the site and--much to their initial chagrin--ushered them into a dilapidated cabin that smelled of chickens and other livestock. Through the years the family refurbished this structure--affectionately known by all as "Leopold's Shack" (left)--and went about the arduous task of reclaiming the surrounding land. That first year the family planted 3,000 pine trees--most of which died in the final throes of the Depression-era drought--but Leopold forged ahead and planted similar numbers of pines and hardwoods in subsequent years. Skeptical at first, the children soon bought into Leopold's master plan; their memoirs--and their own life accomplishments in conservation fields--reflect the special nature of the grand experiment their father had designed.

A Sand County Almanac (right)--initially entitled Great Possessions--was published in 1949, a year after Leopold died of an apparent heart attack while fighting a grass fire on a neighboring farm; it stands as one of the greatest conservation books ever written. More than two million volumes have sold, and we've known many naturalists and environmental educators who almost always carry a dog-eared copy in their backpacks.

So what is it about Leopold's writings that are so lasting and inspirational? For one, he was among the first to put into words the idea that humans must live in harmony with their surroundings, lest those surroundings--and humans themselves--disappear. Here are a few quotes:

"This Week at Hilton Pond" is written & photographed
by Bill Hilton Jr., executive director of
Hilton Pond Center for Piedmont Natural History.

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