From Sonoran Topminnow to Good Oak, My Life’s Journey

By Gary Meffe

In 1979, early in my Ph.D. program at Arizona State University, I met Phil Pister at a meeting of the Desert Fishes Council. I learned over time that this unassuming individual (a former student of Starker Leopold) was already becoming a legend in conservation. Among other accomplishments, he had single-handedly saved an entire species of pupfish from extinction! We became friends. Pister casually asked at one point if I was familiar with this Aldo Leopold fellow, and his book, A Sand County Almanac. I was not, and he suggested that I might want to take a look at it. Well, I did, and was hooked.

Years later, my wife Nancy and I were in Wisconsin and spent a day or two with our dear friend Curt Meine. He took us to the International Crane Foundation and to the Leopold Foundation. Wow!

Nina Leopold Bradley gave us a tour and of course we ended at the Shack. I got chills just looking at it. So simple, and yet so profound. We sat down inside to chat, and Nina casually mentioned that “Dad” had built the chair I was sitting in. I immediately sprang up, said I had no idea that was his chair, and apologized profusely for sitting there! She and Curt laughed, and she assured me it was fine, the chair meant to be sat on. They finally convinced me to settle back down, but I did not feel close to worthy of such an honor. I was simply awestruck that I was sitting in Aldo Leopold’s chair!

I was a Zoology major in college and fell in love with ecology in my sophomore year, thanks to a fantastic teacher and role model—Ted Stiles at Rutgers. The man knew every vertebrate, invertebrate, and plant, and by example pointed me in the right direction. I always liked freshwater fish, so when I went to ASU for my Ph.D., I worked on an endangered desert fish, the Sonoran topminnow. Becoming steeped in things endangered and—with Phil Pister’s influence over the years—of course land use, habitat destruction, and a land ethic were central to my work.

My career eventually developed to the point where I co-authored two college textbooks on conservation biology and ecosystem management. I also was Editor-in-Chief of the journal Conservation Biology* for 12 years. Leopold and the land ethic were always deeply underpinning all of that work.

‍
The mission and work of the Aldo Leopold Foundation is….foundational! It underlays and informs everything we do in conservation practice. Without an ethic to guide us, our work would be like a missile without a guidance system (as Phil Pister has said).

I met executive director Buddy Huffaker many years ago when he attended a training course on ecosystem management that I was teaching along with three colleagues. It was quickly apparent during that week that the Foundation was in excellent hands with Buddy. His devotion to and leadership of the Foundation over the years has proven my judgment to be accurate.

So, in thinking of the legacies, we wish to leave when we depart this world, Nancy and I wanted our resources to go to places that we trust to use them wisely. It was a ‘natural selection’ to include the Good Oak Society in our bequests. The work of the Leopold Foundation continues to instill trust, and to educate and expand the circle of love for the land, and hope for the future.

‍

*a Wiley-Blackwell imprint

Gary was a Research Professor at the University of Georgiaand then an Adjunct Professor at the University of Florida. Gary and Nancy areretired and living happily in Brandon, VT, a fantastic community of genuine andcaring people.

The Good Oak Society is a society of honored land lovers who pledge a legacy gift to the Aldo Leopold Foundation. Learn more here.

Explore the stories of Leopold Foundation donors, Jim Van Ness, and Peter Dunwidie.