The ducks, geese and swans of North America and all admirers of waterfowl lost their most beloved champion when Frank C. Bellrose died on February 19, 2005. He was 88. Death came shortly before Frank had nearly completed the latest update of his best seller, “The Ducks, Geese and Swans of North America.” Previous editions of this book sold 350,000 copies and much new information had accumulated since the last edition went to the printer.

To the casual reader, the 17 pages Frank devoted to the wood duck might seem all anyone would need to know about the species. Not to Frank. The woodie was Frank’s favorite duck and he had spent 50 years studying it. With co-author and associate Daniel Holm, Frank also wrote a 588-page book called “Ecology and Management of the Wood Duck.”

These two prize-winning works would assure Frank’s place among the nation’s leaders in waterfowl biology but they are not his greatest contributions which were the development and design of artificial nesting boxes for wood ducks and his studies of lead poisoning as a major mortality factor in waterfowl that contributed significantly to the ban of lead shot by waterfowl hunters.

Frank wrote 110 scientific and popular articles. He was a recipient of the Aldo Leopold award, the most prestigious in the field of wildlife management. Each of his two books won the Wildlife Society’s Book of the Year award. He received two honorary doctoral degrees from Illinois colleges. And two wetland projects, one on the Cache River in Illinois and one in Manitoba, carry Frank’s name

* * *

Frank Bellrose and I met in Illinois in December 1935 at the first North Central States Wildlife Conference. We were students at the time, he an undergraduate at the University of Illinois, and me a grad student at the University of Wisconsin. The conference featured a virtual who’s who of leaders in the new wildlife management field. It was hosted by Dr. T. H. Frison, chief of the Illinois Natural History Survey (INHS). Ding Darling, who would soon become chief of the U.S. Biological Survey, was the featured speaker. Darling possessed a fiery oratorical style and left no doubt that waterfowl were in trouble and that information about them was scarce. We were impressed.

After the conference the INHS hosted a field trip to the Chautauqua National Wildlife Refuge near Havana and a boat trip along the Illinois River aboard the Anax (named after the dragon fly), the INHS’s floating biological laboratory. Frank managed to sit next to Aldo Leopold during the trip and greatly enjoyed his chat with the father of modern game management. Outdoor writer Mike Rotide described what followed: “Debarking from the Anax, Leopold and others talked of pheasants and prairie chickens and especially the greenhead mallards bursting from the tiny wooded creek along the levee. Here at crickside were Harry Ruhl, head of the country’s first professional game department (Michigan), and Miles Pirnie, the Michigan State University professor who wrote the first book on the Michigan waterfowl management. There was also Paul Errington, Iowa State University pioneer in wildlife population dynamics.”

Frank told me later that the conference and field trip had a profound effect on the goals he set for the future. He remarked: “Oh, my, these were absolutely my heroes and I was a heroes-worshiper. As we walked up the levee, the ducks were streaming out of Quiver Creek. I thought, boy, if only I could spend the rest of my life right here.” His wish was granted because that’s exactly what happened.

The INHS hired us in the summer of 1938 to initiate a waterfowl research program in belated recognition of the importance of Illinois to waterfowl and vice versa. I was the leader due to my recently acquired MS degree under Aldo Leopold. (Years later Frank would outrank me with two honorary doctoral degrees.)

I soon realized that Frank was a natural for his new job. He was a river man at heart. He was born in a town along the Illinois River, grew up along the river, and traveled its waters as much as possible by canoe. He had studied under Drs. V.E. Shelford and S.C. Kendeigh, both pioneers in the relatively new science of ecology. Frank’s senior paper focused on food plants of the Illinois River bottomlands. He also had begun wood duck observations.

Frank’s knowledge of the river got our project off to a fast start. He made friends easily – from the duck club president down to those picking the ducks after the day’s hunt. He was a hard worker and very determined – sometimes too determined for his own good. When asked about his job, he once told a reporter: “I almost killed myself. I covered both valleys (Illinois and Mississippi) by car, by boat and on foot, leaving home in darkness to be at some observation post by sunup. Depending on the weather, I might not get into some areas at all. Hence duck flights would come and go. I missed a lot of them.” It bothered Frank not to have the full picture of migration within his sights. This would come later when a pilot friend offered to fly Frank around his census route for the price of fuel.

Our section staff doubled in size when the INHS hired Harry G. Anderson to analyze duck stomach contents and John M. Anderson to head the banding program. All of us were delighted to work for the prestigious INHS, a research organization of long standing. Dr. Frison left it up to us to develop the program and was supportive of most of our actions. Once, however, when we made a citizen’s arrest of a party of hunters who were deliberately shooting protected wood ducks (Frank’s favorite bird), Frison told us in no uncertain terms that our job as researchers was not to enforce the law but to determine, good or bad, what was happening along the river.

Frank and I soon began a survey of wood duck nesting cavities. Neither of us felt comfortable using climbing irons and many natural cavities were higher than our ladder. A riverman Frank knew, Dan Avery of Bath, Illinois, was an accomplished climber and a thoroughly dependable person. We had no budget for such help so Frank paid him out of his own pocket. As I recall, the wage was one or two dollars per day. Later we used Dan in other ways as our part-time helper.

We visualized our job of putting the pieces together as something like a modern overlay process. Maps of the river valley showed the locations of duck concentration areas. The aquatic vegetation of each area was charted. Then during migration, duck counts were made at these locations. Hunting activity and success were recorded from club records and bag checks. Duck stomach contents were collected to determine which food sources were most important to the birds. When we added a banding program, we were able to further integrate our findings to form a complete picture.

Following our initial fall study, we prepared our first paper, entitled “The Duck Flight and Kill along the Illinois River during the Fall of 1938.” It was published in 1939 in American Wildlife. Although Frank and I had examined hundreds of ducks in hunters’ bags that fall, we made no mention of age-ratios. The reason for this omission stemmed from the fact techniques for aging waterfowl were still under careful study at the Delta Waterfowl Station and not yet ready for general use.

From the beginning of our studies in Illinois, we enjoyed a strong partnership with the Delta Waterfowl Research Station in Manitoba. In 1942, H. Albert Hochbaum, director of Delta Duck Station, presented his paper, “Sex and Age Determination of Waterfowl by Cloacal Examination” at the Seventh North American Wildlife Conference. I quote from that paper: “We have examined the cloacal characters of more than 5,000 ducks in hunters’ bags, banding traps and the Delta pens. In addition to this, Arthur Hawkins and Frank Bellrose have studied these cloacal characters in several thousand ducks on the Illinois River. Both the Delta and Illinois studies indicate that the cloacal characters are reliable and greatly expand the possibilities of autumn bag tallies. Already the Delta Duck Station and the Illinois Natural History Survey have a four-year record of the sex and age composition of ducks in hunters’ bags in Manitoba and Illinois.” This method of aging ducks became standard practice and greatly enhanced the value of bag checks.

Stephen P. Havara’s classic, “Waterfowl of Illinois - Status and Management,” described our early years by saying, “Bellrose and Hawkins were given carte blanche to formulate the goals and select the projects that would define waterfowl problems and improve management practices.”

This was our challenge as we parked our pick-up truck at the Windsor Hotel in Havana and checked into the rooms that were to be our temporary headquarters. Our two rooms were clean and adequate, with the bathroom down the hall. The room rate was one dollar per day. Within walking distance was Miller and Toland’s restaurant where the food was good and a catfish plate for dinner cost 50 cents. I also liked their fried turtle lunch for 35 cents.

But we soon encountered a problem – lack of storage space. As our activities increased so did our need for places to put all our stuff. We found it inconvenient to lug our valuables back and forth from room to vehicle every day. Then Frank learned that an unused ice cream stand downtown was for rent. Instead of ice cream the stand soon contained duck eggs from abandoned nests, plant specimens and various pieces of equipment. This too proved unsatisfactory. Relief came late in the summer when the INHS floating laboratory, the Anax, was no longer needed. The boat was moored at the coal-loading dock in Havana. Frank and I received permission to move into it and we enjoyed living along the river. Our bunk beds hung by chains from the ceiling and when a barge tow came up or down the river, our bunks would swing and bang.

One weekend during duck season our chief, Dr. Frison, visited us on the Anax. By then John M. Anderson had joined our team to supervise the duck-banding program. When Dr. Frison arrived, Frank, John and I met him on the dock to help carry aboard his gear. In crossing to the boat on the gangplank, Dr. Frison slipped. His briefcase fell out of his hand and landed in the cold, murky Illinois River. Without hesitation, John jumped in and retrieved it, a noble thing to do and our chief appreciated it. He promptly dubbed John with a new name – “Frosty.” Henceforth wherever he went, he was known by the name “Frosty” Anderson.

Living on the Anax did not solve our space shortage. We could park our vehicle on the dock but it was vulnerable to break-in. We still had to carry valuables in and out or take chances. It was a great relief when in 1939 the U.S. Bureau of Biological Survey issued a special use permit to the INHS, permitting the survey to build a field station along Quiver Creek on the Chautauqua National Wildlife Refuge. In January 1940, Frank, Frosty and I became its first occupants. Its three bedrooms, bath, kitchen and lab space were perfect. But for Frosty and me this ideal arrangement was not to last long. In May 1941 both of us were inducted into the U.S. Army.

Years later Glen C. Sanderson, principal scientist emeritus of the IHNS, summed up our work by saying, “These now famous biologists developed a unique and still active program in waterfowl research, including aerial estimates of waterfowl numbers, documentation of food habits, monitoring seed yields of waterfowl plants, an enormous banding endeavor, verification of lead poisoning in waterfowl, and the development of nesting structures for wood ducks.”

After Frosty and I left the INHS in 1941, Frank carried on alone until replacements could be found. He grew in his job and reached heights in his profession that few have achieved. Over the years we kept in close touch and often exchanged views on the duck situation. Besides being a brilliant scientist Frank was a humble gentlemen and a friend who loved the land and its beautiful natural resources.