U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service History

06/16/2025

A Legacy in 88 Boxes: The Chan Robbins Collection Comes to NCTC​

We’re excited to share that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Museum and Archives is now home to a true treasure of ornithological history — the Chan Robbins Collection.​

Recently, our team from NCTC’s History, Library, and Partnerships Branch traveled to the USGS Eastern Ecological Science Center at Patuxent Research Refuge in Laurel, Maryland, to carefully pick up 88 archival boxes of materials documenting the remarkable 74-year career of Dr. Chandler Robbins, one of the most influential ornithologists in the world.​

Robbins was a pioneer in bird conservation and citizen science, leading groundbreaking initiatives such as the Bird Phenology Program, the Breeding Bird Survey, and Operation Recovery, an early cooperative bird-banding effort.​

His colleagues remember him as a “great advocate of bird banding as a tool for conservation and science,” and a passionate mentor who helped shape what we now call Citizen Science.​

Thanks to the efforts of USGS and FWS volunteers Deanna Dawson, David Bridge, and Phil Davis, the collection is now being processed and cataloged. Once complete, it will be fully housed at NCTC and available for researchers and future generations of conservationists.​

Let’s celebrate a life dedicated to birds, science, and public service!

Image: USGS volunteers David Bridge, Deanna Dawson, and Phil Davis stand in front of the boxes they've processed with Steve Floray, curator at the USFWS Museum and Archives. Photo courtesy of USFWS.​

Image: NCTC museum staff load the Chan Robbins collection into a van. Photo courtesy of USFWS.

06/10/2025

Big shoutout to the National Fish Hatchery System, one of the first federal conservation efforts in the country!​
It all began over 150 years ago on June 10, 1872, when the first National Fish Hatchery, known as the Baird Station, was established on the McCloud River, California.

Image: Baird Station National Fish Hatchery in 1875.

06/10/2025

Happy Birthday National Fish Hatchery System!

06/06/2025

Learn more about the amazing history Mid-Columbia River National Wildlife Refuge Complex

Salvatore Caporale is the Archaeologist for the Mid-Columbia River and Central Washington National Wildlife Refuge Complexes. The seven refuges and national monument included in these complexes have an incredible human history. For example, they occur in the ancestral lands of several Native American tribes whose occupation goes back to time immemorial. Also, the Lewis and Clark expedition passed through multiple refuges as did the Oregon Trail. Sal plays the critical role of conducting surveys and informing managers to ensure that these cultural resources, which are a part of our shared history and heritage, are protected. Thank you, Sal!!

Photo Credit: USFWS/Steven Kahl

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service History

05/29/2025

Take a Virtual Tour of the USFWS Museum! ​

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Museum has four online exhibits, available on Google Arts and Culture! Explore our featured collections: Wildlife Portraits for a Cause, The First Stewards, Journey Under the Sea-Wind with Wildlife Illustrations, and Bob Hines, National Wildlife Artist. In addition to the exhibits, explore over 150 artifacts in the online collection that connect the rich history of American conservation. ​

We invite you to visit and enjoy this unique virtual experience! ​

Link: https://artsandculture.google.com/search?q=usfws%20museum

05/27/2025

Happy Birthday to Rachel Carson — a true pioneer in environmental conservation!

Born on this day in 1907, Rachel Carson was a marine biologist, author, and proud former U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service employee. Her groundbreaking book Silent Spring (1962) raised public awareness about the dangers of pesticides and sparked a national movement that helped launch the modern environmental era.

Her legacy lives on in every effort to protect our air, water, wildlife, and natural spaces. Carson showed the world that one voice — grounded in science and guided by conscience — can truly make a difference.

As we remember her today, we reflect on her powerful words:

“The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us, the less taste we shall have for destruction.”

Happy Birthday, Rachel Carson — and thank you for inspiring generations to care for the Earth.

Image of Rachel Carson courtesy of USFWS Museum and Archives.

05/24/2025

A Brief History of Memorial Day.

This weekend the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will remember our fallen veterans. Memorial Day is, by some accounts, more than 150 years old and has a rich history. Memorial Day began as "Decoration Day" observing the long-standing practice of decorating fallen solders' graves with flowers. This practice had gone on throughout the Civil War in both the North and South. After the Civil War, Decoration Day was celebrated widely in the North and South, although often on differing dates.

A particularly moving early celebration of Decoration Day occurred on May 1, 1865 in Charleston, SC where up to 10,000 recently freed African-Americans decorated and cleaned up the graves of 257 deceased Union prisoners of war. On May 5, 1866 Waterloo, NY had a commemorative day with businesses closed and community-wide decorating and cleaning of grave sites and, a hundred years later, President Lyndon Johnson signed a proclamation declaring this the official first Memorial Day.

The holiday was moved from May 5 to May 30 in 1868. The head of the Union Veterans Group, The Grand Army of the Republic, officially declared that May 30, 1868 should be a "Decoration Day" across the nation and it was including speeches at Arlington National Cemetery. May 30 was chosen both because it was not the date of any specific Civil War Battle and it was also a time many flowers were in bloom necessary to decorate the solders' graves. The term "Memorial Day" was first used in 1882 but "Decoration Day" was still the preferred term for the May 30 holiday until after World War II. The name "Memorial Day" was officially adopted in 1967.

On June 28, 1968, the Uniform Monday Holiday Act moved four holidays, including Memorial Day, from their traditional dates to a specified Monday in order to create a convenient three-day weekend. Memorial Day was moved from the May 30 date to the last Monday in May. The law took effect in 1971, although some states refused to change the date for years thereafter and many veterans groups protested the change. There are many solemn Memorial Day traditions that are frequently forgotten in the modern holiday. For example, American flags are to be flown at half-mast till noon and then raised to full height. Also on Memorial Day, a national moment of remembrance is supposed to take place at 3:00pm local time on the holiday.

04/22/2025

04/22/2025

After 22 years in the big sycamore tree at the National Conservation Training Center, we're sad to report that on April 19 around 10:00 p.m., strong winds suddenly came up, lifted the bald eagle nest and blew it away. Unfortunately the three eaglets did not survive the 90 foot fall. We suspect the adults are OK.

📷 USFWS

04/20/2025

Happy Easter from USFWS History!

Image: Antelope Jackrabbit (Lepus alleni). Photographer: W.P. Taylor.

04/19/2025

04/09/2025

NCTC Conservation Lecture Series: “The Last Heath Hen: An Extinction Story” with Author, Christie Palmer Lowrance
Tuesday, April 22, 2025 at 7:00 pm
National Conservation Training Center Byrd Auditorium, 698 Conservation Way, Shepherdstown, WV 25443

Join us on Earth Day 2025 for a 7:00 pm presentation by Christie Palmer Lowrance on her recent book “The Last Heath Hen: An Extinction Story.” The book draws on first-person accounts by naturalist Thornton Burgess and ornithologist Dr. Alfred Gross as well as archival video film footage restored by Bowdoin College and the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife. Despite conservation effort over decades, the Heath Hen species went extinct on the island of Martha's Vineyard in 1933.

This event is free and open to the public at the Byrd Auditorium - National Conservation Training Center, 698 Conservation Way, Shepherdstown, WV 25443.
No tickets or reservations are required. All are welcome!

As the only known North American extinction of which the last individual in the wild has been documented, the story of the Heath Hen is uniquely important to the record of American conservation. It also marks one of the earliest species conservation efforts in the world.

Bowdoin College ornithologist Alfred Gross and naturalist and children's author Thornton Burgess surveyed the dwindling population until only one remained, a healthy male, which they captured, banded, briefly held, and released back into nature.

However, many complex factors, both human and natural, thwarted prolonged efforts to prevent this irreplaceable loss, and in 1933 on the island of Martha's Vineyard, the Heath Hen species was officially declared extinct. “The Last Heath Hen” is intended as a tool to help teachers, conservationists, parents and librarians explore with children the complex subject of extinction.

Lowrance will also discuss Nature's Ambassador: The Legacy of Thornton W. Burgess - a 20th century conservation influencer, best known as a children's author, but who played a vital role in passage of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, among other conservation efforts.

Biographer, researcher, and historian Christie Palmer Lowrance is the author of Nature's Ambassador: The Legacy of Thornton W. Burgess and The Last Heath Hen: An Extinction Story. She has taught writing at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and lives in Sandwich, MA.

This presentation will be recorded and available online April 29, at 2:00pm ET at: https://www.youtube.com//streams

The NCTC Conservation Lecture Series is cosponsored by The Friends of the NCTC, http://www.friendsofnctc.org