Vic Scheffer has been a pioneer of conservation in Washington and the world. He served as a devoted scientist, an inspired writer, and a tireless advocate for nature. And he was one of the founders of The Nature Conservancy in Washington 50 years ago.

This November, he’s celebrating his 103rd birthday in Washington. Scheffer’s family says he’s spending his days in Langley, on Whidbey Island, where he enjoys listening to National Public Radio. He enjoyed a fall PBS documentary on the national parks, and treasures contact with his friends and family. 

Three years ago, he gathered with friends and a writer for the Nature Conservancy to talk about the Conservancy’s beginnings in Washington state.

The Start of Something Big

Scheffer, a former University of Washington professor, was among 14 concerned citizens who gathered in Bellevue Mayor Charlie Bovee’s home in 1958 to organize the Conservancy’s local office. The national organization had been incorporated on the East Coast in 1951.

Scheffer easily recalled how he and his cohorts got to work saving some of Washington’s most treasured natural spaces, including Cypress Island in the San Juans, Foulweather Bluff Preserve near the tip of the Kitsap Peninsula, Carlisle Bog in Grays Harbor County, and the Mima Mounds south of Olympia.

To draw attention to the value of Cypress Island, Scheffer, Art Kruckeberg , a former UW professor of botany; and Frank Richardson, a fellow UW zoologist after whom Frank Richardson Wildfowl Preserve on Orcas Island is named; cataloged the diverse species of animals, plants, and birds on the island. Their work helped persuade the state’s Department of Natural Resources to preserve Cypress Island, which today remains the last largely undeveloped island in the San Juan group.

The scientists took a similar approach to the other areas they sought to preserve. They highlighted what policymakers already knew was happening. “I don’t think we ever lobbied,” Scheffer explained. “Decision-makers were realizing that natural sites were going rapidly to development.”

Studying Mima Mounds

Scheffer was the first scientist to draw attention to the Mima Mounds south of Olympia. He had learned about them in the early 1940s, when Walter Dalquest, a graduate student, convinced him to go see these peculiar formations. Scheffer’s first thought upon seeing the mounds? “Wow!” he said.

Scheffer later chartered a plane so he could see the mounds from the air. The site of the uniform spacing and size of the mounds “confirmed my belief that it could only be the territorial expression of some animal” that created them, Scheffer said. He and Dalquest developed the theory that prehistoric gophers created the formations. It remains one of several theories explaining the origin of the mounds.

The Conservancy stepped in to protect the mounds until the state Department of Natural Resources took over. Today the 445-acre Mima Mounds Natural Area Preserve includes an interpretive trail and is home to one of the country’s rarest ecosystems.

Such a keen eye has contributed to Scheffer’s other great passion, photography. His photo collections from 1918-1976 have been housed in the special collections division of the University of Washington Libraries. In 1971 he published The Seeing Eye, which makes use of his artistic photographs of nature to study color, form, and texture. Scheffer has published 13 other books, including Seals, Sea Lions, and Walruses; The Year of the Whale (which helped spark the worldwide movement to ban whale hunting); and The Year of the Seal. 

Nature picture credits (top to botom, left to right): Photo © Courtesy of the Scheffer family (Vic Scheffer by the water); Photo © Courtesy of Scheffer family (Vic Scheffer with seal).