When Aldo Leopold came to Madison in 1924 to serve as Associate Director of the Forest Products Laboratory, he was a forester.  The Forest Products Laboratory, located on the western edge of University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW) Campus, overlooked a pastoral landscape.  During his time in Madison, Leopold became an ecologist and did his most important work including writing his posthumously published A Sand County Almanac.

As the first Chair of Game Management (subsequently called Wildlife Management and then Wildlife Ecology) in the United States, at the UW-Madison (1933-1948) Aldo Leopold established this field as an academic discipline, wrote the seminal text book Game Management (published in 1933 before his appointment), and developed a field research program.  Leopold and his students used both the Arboretum and the University Farm including adjoining private lands (parts of which became the CNA).    

Aldo Leopold also played a key role in the development of the Arboretum, serving on the Arboretum Committee as the animal research director.  He served as spokesman for the Arboretum, articulating the mission of the Arboretum as a re-creation of original Wisconsin communities, promoted wildlife research at the Arboretum, and helped restore the Arboretum.  Not surprisingly, he also became involved in the management and preservation of the lands of the West Campus.

Research in the University Farm

Leopold and his students studied Ring-necked Pheasants, Bobwhite, and other species at the University Farm by University Bay and other sites.  He believed that scientific field research was an essential part of wildlife management and required his students to do field research in order to obtain a degree.   Professor Leopold and his students were the first to study the introduced Ring-necked Pheasant in the United States.  UW officials asked Leopold to help them control the serious damage to the University Farm corn fields caused by an estimated 300 pheasants.   From 1934 through his death he and his students monitored (using winter drives or feeder counts) and studied these pheasants.  In the hayfields at the University Farm, there were 2 nests per acre and 57% of nests were destroyed by a June 1936 mowing.  After noting the other wildlife killed, Leopold says that “the trail of the mowing Juggernaut is a gruesome one” (Leopold, “1936 Pheasant Nesting Study,” The Wilson Bulletin, 1937).  Today we know that early hayfield mowing kills many grassland bird species and is one factor causing a decrease in grassland bird populations.

During the winters of 1936, 1937, and 1938, about 250 pheasants were removed from the Bay area by trapping or shooting. In 1937, 129 of the estimated 220 pheasants were trapped and transplanted to other sites.  By feather marking the birds (gluing colored feathers on the tail), the researchers were able to determine that when transported to good habitat (food and shelter), the pheasants often survived and stayed in the new area.  The researchers concluded that transplanting wild pheasants “may be cheaper and better than” releasing cage reared birds (Leopold et al., “Wisconsin Pheasant Movement Study, 1936-1937,” J of Wildlife Management, 1938, pp 3-12).  In addition, Leopold convinced the local landowners to protect surviving foxes, so that they might control pheasant and rodent populations. This was a progressive step in an era of predator extermination.

Protection of University Bay

In 1940 Aldo Leopold protested the idea of dredging and filling University Bay to make a yachting club and harbor, calling the university marsh “the sole bit of natural landscape remaining on the campus” (Leopold, Letter to A. M. Brayton, Aug. 31, 1940) and adding that the UW needed to set a good example in order to encourage farmers to preserve marshes.  In 1941 the UW acquired the greater Picnic Point property, protecting the area from development (See T. Brock’s Spring 2004 article).

After testifying about the danger of shooting near a campus dormitory and the bad moral effect of hunting in a refuge, in 1944 Leopold convinced the Conservation Department to extend the University Bay Refuge to include the Bay.  This stopped shooting from the sandbar, ending hunting in the area.

Recommendations on Picnic Point Management

Professor Leopold played a key role in the University Bay Committee, which, shortly after Picnic Point was acquired, set the agenda for the Picnic Point and the nearby natural areas for years.  In the spring of 1944 the Committee was appointed to “‘deal with the possibility of declaring Lake Mendota a wildlife sanctuary and with other similar or like biological problems’” (McCabe, R., A Niche in Time, unpub. ms.).  The Committee, made up of members of the Arboretum Committee, James Dickson, Norman Fassett, Arthur Hasler, Aldo Leopold, and William Longenecker, produced two papers suggesting possible educational uses.  Professor Hasler’s “Teaching Exhibits Which Should be Installed in the University Bay Area”* recommended setting up five teaching exhibits: plant succession, rodent pressure, shade tolerance, erosion, vegetation understory, and a red cedar plantation (Hasler, 1944).  Professor Leopold’s “Wildlife in the Picnic Point Program”* suggested that the area had readily observable wildlife which could be used for education:  birds (owls, spring waterfowl, and pheasants) and mammals (foxes, rabbit damage, muskrat and mink).  It noted the necessity of preserving the marshes and woodlots and solving problems including the pollution of Willow Creek and the plantation of exotic trees and shrubs (Leopold, 1944).

The University Bay Committee’s “Preliminary Detailed Development Program for Picnic Point - University Bay Preserve”* recommended that this property should be developed “as a recreation and aesthetic area, as an outdoor laboratory for teaching, demonstration and research, and as a museum of natural history and early agriculture of the state” (University Bay Committee, May 1944).  They suggested minimizing buildings, roads, and automobile traffic, removing exotic trees and shrubs, and conducting restoration or “the careful planning and development of natural plant associations” (Ibid.).  In addition, they urged the “maintenance of University Bay and adjacent shores in a natural state” (Ibid.) for a biological station.  The final report* summarizes the importance of this area:

The area is of outstanding value because of its natural beauty, its diverse plant and animal life, and because it is within walking distance of campus, and hence can be quickly reached by students and by classes. . . . The proposed preserve is similar in concept to the University Arboretum, and might well be administered by the Arboretum Committee (University Bay Committee, “The Development of Picnic Point - University Bay Preserve,” June 1944). 

Finally, it recommended the acquisition of Second Point, now Frautschi Point. 

In June 1944 the Arboretum Committee agreed to supervise the new Picnic Point property, allowing the foresighted members of the University Bay Committee, including Aldo Leopold, to oversee the development of this special area.

Leopold’s Death

Aldo Leopold died unexpectedly in 1948, leaving his students to continue his projects.