First Woman Fish & Wildlife Service Director: Mollie Beattie

From U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Mountain-Prairie Region:

First Woman Fish & Wildlife Service Director: Mollie Beattie

Mollie Beattie’s love of nature as child came from her grandmother who sheltered injured animals in Vermont. Long before she had heard of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Wildlife Refuge System, Beattie created “refuges” in her home and yard for small animals. As USFWS director from 1993 to her death in 1996, she championed endangered species including the reintroduction of the gray wolf into Yellowstone. Congress named a wilderness area in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in her honor.