Category: Memorials

On January 27, 2018 Benjamin M. Poirier died in a helicopter accident near Pomeroy, Washington. Poirier was working for Hells Canyon Helicopters under contract with the Washington State Division of Wildlife to capture and radiocollar mule deer. Pilot Blake Malo, 33, of Clarkston, Washington, and another crew member, Garrett Bradshaw, 30, of Eagle Point, Oregon, were injured and were taken to St. Joseph Regional Medical Center in Lewiston.

He was born March 14, 1998 in Thornton, Colorado.

Sources: Associated Press story, January 30, 2018. Loveland (CO) Reporter-Herald, February 6, 2018.

Dr. Laura McClellan, age 60, was electrocuted when a metal pole she was using to set up a bat net touched an electric line at Jonathan Dickinson State Park in Florida on August 21, 2016. She was an adjunct professor at Indian River State College in Florida, however the project she was working on at the time of her death was not associated with her work at the college.

Dr. McClellan earned her BS and MS degrees at Michigan State University prior to earning a doctorate at Kansas State University in 1988. After a postdoctoral position at the Smithsonian she was a Visiting Professor at Coastal Carolina University and then an Assistant Professor at Central Missouri State University from 1991-1997. She then moved to Kean University and Ocean County College before starting at Indian River State College in 2013. Her work focused on shrews, mice, bats, and other mammals.

Source: Dr. Laura McClellan Linked-In Profile, accessed August 23, 2016; www.wptv.com;

Former U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist David Sherwood Pitkin died in the crash of a small plane on January 27, 2010 while performing an aerial survey of migratory waterfowl near Corvallis, Oregon. At the time Pitkin was working under contract to the USFWS. In 1992 Dave began work with the USFWS as a volunteer at the Nestucca Bay National Wildlife Refuge before becoming a biological technician. In 1999 he was promoted to the position of wildlife biologist at the Oregon Coast National Wildlife Refuge Complex. He left the service in 2007, but continued to volunteer and do contract work for the Service until his death.

A plaque dedicated to Pitkin was placed at the Coquille Point Unit of the Oregon Islands National Wildlife Refuge in Bandon Oregon.

Dr. Gordon Haber, an independent biologist, died in a crash of a small plane in Denali National Park, Alaska on October 14, 2009 while performing aerial observations of Denali’s wolves, which he had studied since the 1960s.

Rocky Spencer, a wildlife biologist with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, was killed near Yakima, WA on September 8, 2007 after being hit by a helicopter rotor while walking around the aircraft as part of a project to capture big-horn sheep.

Spencer joined the department as a technician in 1978 after graduating from Western Washington University.

Dr. Ronnie Marie Sidner was killed in a car accident on August 2, 2014 while returning from a birding and nature festival in Arizona where she had been educating participants about bats by using night vision equipment to show them foraging at hummingbird feeders. She obtained a Bachelors degree from Kansas State University and later attended the University of Arizona where she earned Masters and PhD degrees in Mammalogy.
Sources: EIN News; www.obitsforlife.com

Eric C. York, a wildlife biologist with the National Park Service, died on November 2, 2007 died of pneumonic plague contracted after conducting a necropsy on a mountain lion. York earned a Bachelors Degree from the University of Maine at Orono in 1992 and a Masters Degree from the University of Massachusetts.

Sources: Greenfield (MA) Recorder November 13, 2007; KMGH TV, Denver CO November 13, 2007.

Tami Wagner, a wildlife biologist with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, died in a vehicle accident on October 25, 2010. While driving a state vehicle on Highway 20 near Toledo, Oregon another vehicle crossed the highway median and was struck by a large truck which flipped over and hit the pickup truck driven by Ms. Wagner.

Originally from South Norwalk, CT she earned a bachelors degree in wildlife biology from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1980. After working for the Idaho Department of Fish and Game she moved to Oregon in 1989. She had been an Assistant District Wildlife Biologist at the office in Newport for 21 years.

A 141 acre wildlife area along the Yachats River was named in her honor in 2011.

Sources: Newport (OR) News-Times October 29, 2010. Oregonlive.com

Dr. David S. Maehr, of the University of Kentucky, died June 20, 2008 in an airplane accident near Lake Placid, Florida while monitoring radio-collared black bears using radiotelemetry. He earned his BS in wildlife from the University of Ohio and MS and PhD degrees from the University of Florida. He was among the pioneers in the study of the endangered Florida panther as a biologist with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission from 1980-1994.

Source: Tampa Bay Times, June 21, 2008; http://sofia.usgs.gov/memorials/maehr/

Shannon “Bubba” Tunnell, an employee of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, died on June 5, 2015, when the airplane in which he was serving as an aerial gunner crashed near Raton, New Mexico while on a coyote control flight.

Sources: Portales News Tribune June 12, 2015;