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Although widely recognized for his book, A Sand County Almanac, and for his contributions to modern conservation, Aldo Leopold was also a life-long birder. A well-worn pair of birding binoculars was often around his neck whenever he was in the field. Leopold not only enjoyed bird watching, he also wrote some of his most poignant essays about birds and their conservation. He faithfully recorded many of his bird observations, providing important historical records that allow us to understand how birds are responding to such environmental factors as climate change. Stan Temple will review Leopold’s love of birds and birding and explain why his writings are so important for bird conservation efforts today.

Stanley (Stan) Temple is the Beers-Bascom Professor Emeritus in Conservation in the Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology and former Chairman of the Conservation Biology and Sustainable Development Program in the Gaylord Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at UW–Madison. For 32 years he held the academic position once occupied by Aldo Leopold. He is currently a Senior Fellow with the Aldo Leopold Foundation. He has received major conservation awards from the Society for Conservation Biology, The Wildlife Society and the Wisconsin Society for Ornithology. Among other recognition of his achievements, he is a Fellow of the American Ornithologists’ Union, Explorers Club, Wildlife Conservation Society, American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters. He has been President of the Society for Conservation Biology and Chairman of the Board of The Nature Conservancy in Wisconsin.