Walter Scott | Wisconsin Conservation Hall of Fame

1911 – 1983
Inducted 1995

“The entire history of the conservation movement has been a story of rear guard battles to preserve something of our natural heritage from destruction by the ‘wheels of progress.’ ” — Walter Scott

Conservation was Walter Scott’s vocation and avocation. He spent nearly 40 years with the Wisconsin Department of Conservation and, later, the Department of Natural Resources. His list of accomplishments in the state agency is impressive. But Scott is remembered as much for his love of conservation and commitment to the cause as for any single accomplishment.

An accomplished conservation writer and speaker, he delivered more than 2,000 talks and wrote speeches for other officials. He authored hundreds of articles on natural resource conservation. In his career, he was a warden, game management supervisor and administrator. He encouraged wildlife research and watershed management, worked on acquisition of the Horicon Marsh and pushed for conservation education.

He attended hundreds of meetings on conservation and took copious notes, which he collected and compiled, along with books, journal reprints and periodicals, into a resource library he made available to anyone. It is considered to be best private history of natural resource programs in Wisconsin from presettlement times. Scott donated the collection to libraries all over the state in 1977. Nearly 1,000 books and publications were donated to the College of Natural Resources at UW-Stevens Point, where they are found in the “Walter Scott Wildlife Collection.”

Scott is also remembered for decades of work in measuring and recording Wisconsin’s biggest trees. He enthusiastically went about that task for 30 years. He also founded the “Passenger Pigeon,” the journal of the Wisconsin Society for Ornithology.

His home on Madison’s west side, Hickory Hill House, was a mecca for conservationists. The guest register recorded the names of the state’s best-known conservationists who visited the historic property. Some are called to do research, others to develop policy, and still others to explain it all to the public. Walter Scott approached the latter task with zeal.