The Passing of Ted Beedy, a Visonary Ornithologist
Tundra Swans, Yolo Bypass, Sacramento River Delta. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair.
At a time when nihilistic bullies glory in doing perverse damage to the environment and to our ability to think and learn about the environment, it is important to remember that there is also a cohort, a community, of scientists and activists whose persistent, principled attention over decades has helped to preserve important remnants of our natural world. Ted Beedy who passed away recently in Nevada City, California was one of those.
Ted was an acclaimed ornithologist. He was part of the team whose close observation of bird life and predation at Mono Lake was the basis for stabilizing the level of the Lake against the depredations of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power in the 1980’s. He did some of the original research at the Kesterson National Wildlife Refuge that identified farm water management and resulting concentration of toxic minerals as a critical factor in bird mortality and population decline. Those practices changed, rooted in good science and careful observation. His long-term observations and research, conducted with his wife Susan Sanders, led to the listing of the tri-colored blackbird as an endangered species in the California Central Valley. His book Birds of the Sierra Nevada, illustrated by his friend Keith Hanson, is the standard reference for birders in that region of California. It is a marvel of attention to detail including behaviors and sounds.
Ted was also a visionary. He was part of the founding of Putah Creek Council, which worked to ultimately turn a dried up and degraded stream in Yolo County California into one of the country’s great restoration stories. This past winter salmon that had been naturally reared within Putah Creek returned to spawn, marking a true restoration of a once extinct salmon run. Through his work with Putah Creek Council Ted and a handful of others saw how the Yolo Basin, a large flood-prone area west of Sacramento, could become a stop-over for migratory waterfowl, leading to the creation of the 17,000-acre Vic Fazio Yolo Bypass Wildlife Area in 1990. He saw that disturbed managed areas could be reclaimed and transformed.
A long-time resident of the Sierra foothills, he wrote habitat conservation plans for Placer County and Nevada County that are still used to contain and manage growth and protect the wild in the Northern Sierras. He was a conscientious steward of the Cedars, the largest remaining area of old-growth in the Northern Sierra at the top of the American River watershed. His children and the children of his friends in the community carry on the vision, the thoughtful approach and the activism, values he expressed through his work and deeds.
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