Member

Milt was born on March 31, 1927, in Woodbury, New Jersey. Early years were spent afield, often hunting, in the “wilderness” of southern New Jersey, particularly the Maurice River tidelands. After discharge from the U.S. Navy in 1946, he entered Utah State Agricultural College (now Utah State University) in Logan, obtaining a BS degree in wildlife management. In 1950, he worked for the Idaho Department of Fish and Game as a conservation officer and research biologist. In 1952, he returned to Logan, using his studies on waterfowl and muskrats on Dingle Marsh, Idaho, as his MS degree thesis. This ecological study eventually led to the establishment of the Bear Lake National Wildlife Refuge. In July 1953, Milt entered duty with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in the Lower Rio Grande Valley of south Texas where enforcement-management duties focused on white-winged doves and waterfowl of the Laguna Madre. Three summers were spent in Canada on waterfowl air-ground studies and banding. In 1957, he transferred to Aberdeen, South Dakota, as a biologist to head up the Service’s fledgling Wetlands Habitat Protection program. Seven years were spent there assessing and acquiring prairie pothole habitat. In 1965, he transferred to the Minneapolis Regional Office, serving as assistant regional chief (technical) of the Branch of Management and Enforcement for migratory game bird programs. In 1967, he transferred to Laurel, Maryland, to organize the newly funded Accelerated Research Program for “webless” migratory game birds and related activities. Transferring to Washington, D.C., in 1976, he served as chief of the Branch of Operations, Office of Migratory Birds. In this capacity he drafted the annual federal hunting regulations for the Federal Register and related documents, and supervised the Service’s role in flyway migratory game bird management. Overseas assignments took him to Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Venezuela, and the Caribbean. In 1976, he and two colleagues developed the first procedures to implement the use of satellite imagery to monitor presence of snow cover on Arctic goose breeding grounds. During 1983 to 1984, he served as assistant editor for the Journal of Wildlife Management for migratory game bird papers. During his career he authored, edited, or contributed to 50 or so papers and books on migratory game birds or their habitats. Among the latter were A Contribution to An Annotated Bibliography of North American Cranes, Rails, Woodcock, Snipe, Doves, and Pigeons (1975), Flyways (1984), and Ecology and Management of the Mourning Dove (1993). Retirement interests have focused on the “cultural-historical aspects” of various North American species and for introductory chapters in books on the wood duck, moose, and pronghorn. For several years he has been preparing a book on the historical and cultural relationships between man and North American migratory game birds. Milt was elected to the Washington Biologists’ Field Club in 1980, and maintains non-resident membership status in the Club, while in retirement in Amity, Oregon. Milt died on February 1, 2013.