A teacher and scientist, who loved forests, birds and fruits . . .

GUEST COLUMN

By Michele Byers Stiles
   Edmund (Ted) Warner Stiles, Dec. 21, 1945-March 7, 2007
   Black-capped chickadee, Carolina wren, chipping sparrow, flying squirrel, dusky salamander, lilac breasted roller — the list goes on. It’s this natural world that was so well known and loved by Ted Stiles. Ted knew the songs and flight patterns of birds. He collected and studied their favorite fruits. He sent graduate students around the world to retrieve new information about fruit and animal interactions. He was an expert on bumblebees, having collected and identified over 1000 species. He made the best ever owl calls, especially the call of the highly vocal barred owl.
   Most of all, Ted loved forests — tropical forests, deciduous forests, alpine forests, riparian forests, any forests, all forests. He loved to walk quietly and slowly through the woods, watching and listening for wildlife and photographing fruits and flowers.
   As a teacher and scientist, Ted shared this deep knowledge and passion with students, friends and family, and influenced many lives. Dozens of his students went on to conserve wildlife habitat around the world. Ted was a special teacher. He sang and played guitar for his students and brought in cookies and donuts at test time. He mentored countless students in the study of the natural world.
   Ted figured out that learning and teaching about the natural world was not enough, especially in New Jersey whose natural areas were rapidly converting to pavement. Ted began to preserve land. He started with land surrounding the Hutcheson Memorial Forest in Somerset County, the site of the last and largest uncut patch of virgin hardwoods in New Jersey. From there Ted moved to the Hopewell Valley and for 20 years he convinced landowners of the wonderful benefits and joys of preserving their lands (at less than fair market value prices), found countless sources of funding, and preserved tens of thousands of acres. While Ted believed in the ecological value of even very small patches of land, his biggest contribution was a successful 10-year campaign that permanently preserved Baldpate Mountain, the highest point in Mercer County, now a Mercer County park.
   Ted researched the things he loved: birds and fruits. He collected fruit on every trip (he always had Ziplock bags in his pocket), he enlisted family and friends to collect fruit, he analyzed its chemistry, photographed it and, in his free time, made a multitude of delicious fruit jams. A perfect day for Ted would be spent listening to bird calls while picking Pine Barrens blueberries, hiking along old railroad ties in search of snakes, then capping off the day over a hot stove making blueberry jam.
   Ted was efficient and productive and knew he wanted to be a biologist since the fifth grade. He received his bachelor’s degree in biology from Oberlin College in 1968 and his doctorate in zoology from the University of Washington in 1973. He taught biology courses at Rutgers University for 35 years. In his spare time, he kept over 70 land preservation projects going at a time. He served on many nonprofit boards. The list is long, as is his substantial contribution to their missions. The Friends of Hopewell Valley Open Space, the Stony Brook Millstone Watershed Association, the D&R Greenway Land Trust, the Mercer County Open Space Board, the Nature Conservancy, the Hopewell Township Environmental Commission and Open Space Committee, the Crossroads of the American Revolution, the Willowwood Foundation, the Municipal Land Use Resource Center, the Planned Parenthood Association of the Mercer Area, and the Organization for Tropical Studies, are most recent examples.
   Although Ted remained nonpartisan throughout his work and career, he supported Rush Holt’s environmental agenda, worked hard for Rush’s election to Congress and served as his first treasurer.
   Ted loved to travel, he loved his family, and he loved to love. He said he got lucky two times with love, for after having lost his first wife, he fell in love again and remarried. He thought that love was in endless supply, could always be shared and would never run out.
   Benjamin Wheeler Stiles of Durham, N.C., and Kaelyn Elizabeth Stiles of Madison, Wis., are Ted’s two children from his first wife Nancy Brown Stiles, who served as an attorney for the NJ Attorney General’s Office. Nancy died in 1997. Ben is studying engineering at North Carolina State University and Kaelyn is pursuing her doctorate in sociology at University of Wisconsin-Madison. Ted has three siblings: William Stiles of Oxford, Ohio, Judy Cook of Laurel, Ma., and Joan Bell of Glendale Springs, N.C.
   A celebration party in honor of Ted’s life will be held at 2 p.m. on March 24 at the Stony Brook-Millstone Watershed Association. Please come dressed in a plaid wool or flannel shirt and wear your hiking boots for a walk following the ceremony.
   Donations in lieu of flowers can be made to the Ted Stiles Conservation Fund, a fund established to ensure the long-term preservation and stewardship of the lands of the Hopewell Valley. The fund will pay for interns, students and others working in land preservation, stewardship, research and education; extending Ted’s legacy through new generations of conservationists, and memorializing his passion for conservation. Send contributions c/o the Stony Brook-Millstone Watershed Association, 31Titus Mill Road, Pennington, 08534.
   
Michele Byers Stiles is Ted Stiles’ second wife. She lives in Hopewell and is working to save land with the New Jersey Conservation Foundation.