September 4
September 4
John was (and is) a wonderful, kind and courageous person.
I first met him when John Morton spoke about his study enumerating the brown bear population on the Kenai peninsula. The public meeting was attended by the directors of Alaska Fish and Game and by the State Game Board. I was astounded by the hatred our state officials had toward the bears! They had stacked the room with other bear haters to demand that the excess bears be exterminated. As usual the state didn't have any idea how many of the animals they were managing actually existed, and when Dr Morton proved there were actually twice as many brown bears as they had guessed, they insisted that the "excess" should be slaughtered. The testimony against the bears was hateful and awful. Then John got up to speak. Kindly and eloquently he defended the bears and their right to exist in a room where I was afraid that stating that position would be life threatening. I knew I wanted to stand with him and be on his side.
We had weekly coffee together afterward. He wanted AWA to continue after he left Alaska. He was very concerned that the state wildlife haters would continue to make policy and that it would be unopposed. I agreed to replace him at AWA when he moved. He has been a constant source of great advice and support ever since.
While he especially loved Loons, he also loved all the birds on his lake. I will never forget the story of his neighbors on the lake who bought a power boat and took it out to test it. They roared around the lake for five minutes running over both the Grebe nests John had loved, wiping out the babies. John was distraught. He saw the wife in the grocery store later that week and with great kindness tried to explain how he felt. She just looked at him blankly and said "What's a grebe?" The grebes never returned to his lake.
While his spirit lives on in AWA, we have lost an eloquent spokesman against the ignorance and wasteful destruction of wildlife in Alaska by one of the kindest men I have ever met
I first met him when John Morton spoke about his study enumerating the brown bear population on the Kenai peninsula. The public meeting was attended by the directors of Alaska Fish and Game and by the State Game Board. I was astounded by the hatred our state officials had toward the bears! They had stacked the room with other bear haters to demand that the excess bears be exterminated. As usual the state didn't have any idea how many of the animals they were managing actually existed, and when Dr Morton proved there were actually twice as many brown bears as they had guessed, they insisted that the "excess" should be slaughtered. The testimony against the bears was hateful and awful. Then John got up to speak. Kindly and eloquently he defended the bears and their right to exist in a room where I was afraid that stating that position would be life threatening. I knew I wanted to stand with him and be on his side.
We had weekly coffee together afterward. He wanted AWA to continue after he left Alaska. He was very concerned that the state wildlife haters would continue to make policy and that it would be unopposed. I agreed to replace him at AWA when he moved. He has been a constant source of great advice and support ever since.
While he especially loved Loons, he also loved all the birds on his lake. I will never forget the story of his neighbors on the lake who bought a power boat and took it out to test it. They roared around the lake for five minutes running over both the Grebe nests John had loved, wiping out the babies. John was distraught. He saw the wife in the grocery store later that week and with great kindness tried to explain how he felt. She just looked at him blankly and said "What's a grebe?" The grebes never returned to his lake.
While his spirit lives on in AWA, we have lost an eloquent spokesman against the ignorance and wasteful destruction of wildlife in Alaska by one of the kindest men I have ever met