Ellen Paul wrote:
>
> washingtonpost.com
>
> Nature Conservancy Founder Richard Pough
>
> By Adam Bernstein
> Washington Post Staff Writer
> Thursday, June 26, 2003; Page B06
>
> Richard H. Pough, 99, an ornithologist and conservationist who wrote the
> National Audubon Society's best-selling bird guides and was founding
> president of the Nature Conservancy, died June 24 at his home in
> Chilmark, Mass. He had brain cancer.
>
> In his first job after college, at an oil refinery in Port Arthur, Tex.,
> Mr. Pough volunteered to work the night shift so he could spend his days
> watching bird migrations along the Gulf Coast.
>
> By the early 1930s, while owner of a Philadelphia camera store, he led
> the effort to preserve Hawk Mountain, Pa., the site of rampant
> bird-killing by concerned farmers during the hawks' fall migrating season.
>
> With his photographs of thousands of dead birds, he helped persuade New
> York socialite Rosalie Barrow Edge to purchase about 1,400 acres and
> start Hawk Mountain Sanctuary, one of the first refuges to protect birds
> of prey.
>
> The Hawk Mountain Sanctuary Association detailed comprehensive
> statistics about a variety of birds, information used by Rachel Carson
> to write about the effect of pesticides on birds and other creatures in
> "Silent Spring."
>
> "Hawks were a persecuted species," Mr. Pough told the Associated Press
> in 1984. "In those days, some animals were considered good and some were
> considered bad, which was all nonsense. But the only good hawk was a
> dead hawk."
>
> From 1936 to 1948, Mr. Pough worked for the National Audubon Society as
> a "roving warden" who documented such rare birds as the ivory-billed
> woodpecker. He also became involved in a national controversy over using
> feathers of rare birds, such as the roseate spoonbill, for fishing flies.
>
> He helped publicize the society's successful efforts to eliminate
> loopholes in tariff laws. That discouraged fishermen from using plumage
> of exotic birds.
>
> Through the late 1950s, he worked with illustrator Don Eckelberry on a
> comprehensive series of guides to land and water birds that sold more
> than 1 million copies.
>
> Mr. Pough wrote with a distinct slant. In one passage about wood ducks,
> a red-billed, green-headed bird that for a time was severely depleted,
> he wrote:
>
> "Unfortunately, the 2 million or so hunters who hunt ducks have not been
> willing to exempt from hunting even this species so the 150 million of
> us who do not hunt can have it around in abundance where we can enjoy
> its beauty."
>
> With a handful of biologists and ecologists, he helped found the Nature
> Conservancy in 1950, and as president created its land acquisition and
> fundraising programs. Mr. Pough was credited with naming the
> organization, which has become one of the world's largest land
> conservation groups.
>
> Frank Graham Jr. wrote in his book "The Audubon Ark," a history of the
> National Audubon Society, that Mr. Pough "practically invented the
> land-preservation business in this country."
>
> Richard Hooper Pough was a native of Brooklyn, N.Y., and a 1926 graduate
> of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
>
> After Audubon, he spent eight years as chairman of the conservation and
> general ecology department at the American Museum of Natural History in
> New York.
>
> Later, he held national conservation board memberships and was president
> of the Goodhill Foundation, a conservation philanthropy established by
> 3M heir Katharine Ordway.
>
> His wife, Moira Flannery Pough, died in 1986. A son, Edward W. "Wren"
> Pough, died in 2000.
>
> Survivors include a son, Tristram H. Pough of Larchmont, N.Y.; two
> brothers; and two grandchildren.
>
> ?? 2003 The Washington Post Company
>
> --
> Ellen Paul
> Executive Director
> The Ornithological Council
> Mailto:epaul at concentric.net
> Ornithological Council Website: http://www.nmnh.si.edu/BIRDNET
> "Providing Scientific Information about Birds"

--
Mike Patterson
Astoria, OR
celata at pacifier.com

A child who becomes acquainted with the birds about him
hears every sound and puzzles out its meaning with a cleverness
that amazes those with ears who hear not.

-Neltje Blanchan

http://www.pacifier.com/~mpatters/bird/bird.html