Columbia Environmentalist, Naturalist, Scientist, Bill Elder dies at 92

William H. Elder, 1913-2006
Dr. William Hanna Elder, 92, of Columbia, MO died August 14, 2006 after a short illness.

Bill was born December 24, 1913 in Oak Park, Illinois, the son of Robert A. and Margaret Hanna Elder, and grew up outdoors in Forest County, Wisconsin.

Fascinated by the natural world, he graduated from the University of Wisconsin in 1936 with a bachelor's degree in science education, then earned a Ph.D. in zoology (endochrinology) in 1942. He was a student of renowned Wisconsin naturalist Aldo Leopold, whose daughter Nina he married in 1941. They had two daughters, Nina and Trish. Following a divorce, he married Glennis Fast in 1973.

Bill worked with the Illinois Natural History Survey and the University of Chicago Toxicity Laboratory before joining the zoology faculty of the University of Missouri in 1945. He chaired the department and in 1954 became William J. Rucker Professor of Zoology. He studied rabbits, geese, elephants, and numerous other species, traveling with his family to do field work in Manitoba, Hawaii, Holland, Rhodesia, Botswana, and Zambia on Fulbright, Guggenheim and National Science Foundation grants. He authored more than 100 scientific papers and secured a patent on an oral contraceptive for birds.

Beloved as a teacher of ornithology, mammalogy, and wildlife management, he regularly invited undergraduates to his home for bird banding and supervised more than sixty graduate students. He was named Conservation Educator of the Year in 1973 by the Conservation Federation of Missouri and given the E. Sydney Stephens Professional Wildlife Award of the Wildlife Society.

He served on the board of the Missouri Nature Conservancy and guided students in early natural area surveys of Missouri. He was also active in Audubon, Sierra Club, the Idalia Society (butterflies), and the Westerners (history) as well as professional societies, and he served for decades on the editorial board of the Journal of Wildlife Management. He meticulously collected and labeled bird eggs, butterflies and moths, fossils, shells, rocks and minerals, arrowheads and glass insulators. Upon retirement in 1984, he took up wood carving, carving all the great whales, many species of waterfowl, and a full-size swan.

Bill is survived by his wife Glennis; daughters Nina Meunier Loeffel and husband Carl of Waunakee, WI, and Trish Stevenson and husband Gordon of Black Earth, WI; stepson Frank Martin and wife Sue of Millersberg, MO; seven grandchildren—Rachel Larson; Amelia, Jed, Josie, and Sam Meunier; and Hanna and Bergere Stevenson; and four great grandchildren—Noah, Gabe and Luna Larson and Seamus Birmingham. One brother preceded him in death.

There will be a celebration of Bill's life Saturday, August 19, at 2pm at Parker Funeral Service, 22 N. 10th Street, Columbia. In lieu of flowers, memorials are suggested to the Aldo Leopold Foundation, P.O. Box 77, Baraboo, WI 53913.