Phil H. Sander | Wisconsin Conservation Hall of Fame

1906 – 2006
Inducted 2012

“Sportsmen, landowners, bird watchers, conservationists and interested citizens must all cooperate and support practices that protect the wildlife and habitat of our environmental heritage.” — Phil H. Sander

On a hill overlooking the Mississippi River at Wyalusing State Park, a simple but elegant monument pays homage to the passenger pigeon and lessons learned from its extinction at the hands of humans. The words on the monument are Aldo Leopold’s. It was designed by his friend and associate, Phil Sander of Kenosha.

Sander was a man of many interests and talents. Conservation was at the top of the list. Like several other Conservation Hall of Fame inductees, Sander was a “citizen conservationist” who worked in the private sector, including the job of plant engineer at American Motors in Kenosha. Later, he spent 18 years as director of the Kenosha County Historical Museum.

When Carthage College honored him with an Honorary Doctorate of Public Service in 1995, the college said: “For some six decades, Sander has been an ardent proponent of conservation and environmental protection.”

Among his many conservation causes was the effort to preserve the Chiwaukee Prairie in Kenosha County. Now a state natural area, Chiwaukee is one of the largest prairie complexes in the state and the most intact coastal wetland in southeastern Wisconsin. Subdivided for development, homes began to encroach on the central prairie in the 1940s. Two decades later, Sander and another local naturalist, Al Krampert, initiated efforts to protect what remained. The Nature Conservancy stepped into the picture with a purchase of 15 acres. By 1996, more than 500 acres had been preserved. Today, management of the prairie is a cooperative effort of TNC, UW-Parkside and the Department of Natural Resources.

He hunted on leased land along the Des Plaines River for many years with friends who formed the “Grey Dawn Gun Club.” Over the years, development pressures led to excessive sedimentation in the river. Sander and others formed the Des Plaines Wetland Conservancy in 1984 to protect and maintain several hundred acres of mixed habitat and topography, providing a buffer from development.

When plans to develop the Bong Air Force Base in Kenosha County were abandoned, Sander and others pushed for establishment of the Bong State Recreation Area. Their efforts led to preservation of a 4,537-acre multiple-use area comprised of rolling grassland, wetlands and scattered woodlands. One of the strategies the preservationists used was to highlight the economic value of the area, which helped convince local and state officials to commit resources to purchase the area.

Sander served on a committee in the 1940s that studied how to manage Wisconsin’s growing deer herd. He worked with Leopold and others to develop a permitting system for harvesting a prescribed number of does each year. Sander and fellow Conservation Hall of Fame inductee Walter Scott set out as early as the 1950s to identify the location of Wisconsin’s largest trees. Thanks to those early efforts, the DNR today keeps a list of “champion trees” to encourage appreciation of Wisconsin’s forests and trees.

An accomplished wood sculptor, his works endure. They include a passenger pigeon presented to the Leopold family. Later the family donated the sculpture the UW-Stevens Point Natural History Museum.