Aldo Leopold was born in Burlington, Iowa, in 1887. After earning B.Ph. (Bachelor of
Philosophy) and M.F. (Master of Forestry) degrees from Yale University in 1909, he joined
the US Forest Service. He was assigned to the Southwestern district, where he served on the
Apache and Carson National Forests and in the district headquarters at Albuquerque, rising
to Chief of Operations. In 1924 he left the Southwest for Wisconsin, and became the
associate director of the US Forest Products Laboratory in Madison. He left the Forest
Service in 1928 to conduct game surveys for the Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers'
Institute, and during the next few years helped lay the foundations for the new profession
of wildlife management. He accepted a chair of game management created at the University of
Wisconsin in 1933, and in 1939 became chairman of a new Department of Wildlife Management.
He died on 21 April 1948.
Robert McCabe received his undergraduate degree from Carroll College, Waukesha, Wisconsin,
in 1939. He came to Madison as a graduate student under Aldo Leopold and continued as his
assistant. He was appointed student manager (1940-1942) of the Faville Grove Wildlife Arca
in Jefferson County and was employed as a biologist with the UW Arboretum (1943-1945) before
becoming an instructor in the Department of Wildlife Management (1945-1949). He received his
Ph.D. in 1949 and became Department Chair in 1952, a position he held until 1979. McCabe's
research centered on wildlife and plant ecology, farm wildlife management, ornithology, and
wildlife field techniques. He pioneered important experimental and observational practice,
including use of radioiostopes and infrared light in the field. He was noted for his
long-term studies, some of which ran for four decades. Early on McCabe began collecting and
saving Leopold's writing drafts, which were discarded after being typed. He continued
collecting works and materials by and about Leopold until his death in 1995.
For more information about McCabe, see University of Wisconsin-Madison Faculty Document
1192, 1 April 1996, Memorial Resolution of the Faculty of the University of
Wisconsin-Madison on the death of emeritus professor Robert A. McCabe (Memorial Committee:
Scott Craven; Lloyd Keith; Robert Ruff, Chair), available online through the Wisconsin
Conservation Hall of Fame:
https://wchf.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/UWMmemorialresoulution.pdf
