Dr. Wini Kessler delivers a keynote address at The Wildlife Society’s annual conference in Cleveland, Ohio, in October. (Courtesy Photo | David Frey via The Wildlife Society)

Dr. Wini Kessler delivers a keynote address at The Wildlife Society’s annual conference in Cleveland, Ohio, in October. (Courtesy Photo | David Frey via The Wildlife Society)

Former Juneau ecologist becomes second woman to win national award

Dr. Wini Kessler, formerly of Alaska USFS, joins ranks of ‘Silent Spring’ scientist.

When former Juneau resident Dr. Wini Kessler began her 45-year career in wildlife ecology, she was often the only female in the room.

“There really weren’t other women. Every job I had in my career I was the first woman in that job,” Kessler said.

Now, she’s received the field’s top honor. After rising to leadership positions with the U.S. Forest Service Alaska Region and in academia, Kessler has become the second woman ever to receive the highest honor in wildlife sciences: the Aldo Leopold Award.

Kessler was honored for her work in conservation, ecosystem-based management and education. A Juneau resident in the 1980s and again in the 2000s, she delivered the keynote address at The Wildlife Society’s annual conference in Cleveland, Ohio, Oct. 7-11.

Wildlife toxicologist Lucille Stickel was the first woman to receive the honor. Stickel is known for her research into the effects of pesticide DDT, which formed the basis of Rachel Carson’s famous book “Silent Spring.”

In Kessler’s remarks to the conference, she cited a few epiphanies in her trailblazing career. She recounted those moments to the Empire in a Thursday interview from her home in British Columbia.

When Kessler was still an undergraduate student at University of California-Berkeley, for instance, she decided to attend a seminar with a visiting scientist.

Afterward, the male attendees met up at a bar. She decided to join them.

“When I got in, the speaker, he stopped and gave me this most annoyed look. He said ‘Young woman, do you belong here?’ I just froze, like a deer in the headlights. I was just ready to turn tail and run, which would have been the end of my career. But one of the professors said, ‘Oh yeah, she’s one of ours, come on over here, here’s a chair.’ It was a pivotal moment,” Kessler said.

Kessler spent about half of her career at universities and half with the U.S. Forest Service. She earned her bachelor’s in zoology and a master’s after that at Berkeley, then a Ph.D. at Texas A&M.

Many employers held policies of not hiring women for field work in the early 1970s, she said. That didn’t stop her.

“My attitude became, I’ll just keep improving and strengthening my expertise and what I can bring. I can’t get a job with a bachelor’s, OK, I’ll go get a master’s. I couldn’t get a job with a master’s, fine, I’ll go get a Ph.D.,” Kessler said.

Kessler is known for being on the vanguard of a philosophical shift in forest management. Shortly after her first job at the University of Idaho in the early 1980s, she took a newly-created position of Regional Ecologist with the U.S. Forest Service’s Alaska Region.

At the time, the Forest Service handed out 50-year contracts to timber companies, allowing them to log old growth forest under a management philosophy that prioritized forest products, Kessler said.

But a growing body of science favored the idea that public lands are worth more than what they can bring in immediate economic value, Kessler said, an idea now known as ecosystem-based management.

Alaska old growth provided much-needed habitat for Sitka black tail deer, goshawks, brown bear and salmon — animals whose habitat logging practices put at risk.

“There was quite a lot of knowledge being amassed; Forest Service researchers, Fish and Game researchers, university researchers finding out that there’s so much value to the importance of these forests, leaving this ecosystem intact,” Kessler said.

Kessler was soon tapped for a U.S. Forest Service special assignment in Washington, D.C., helping the agency transition to ecosystem-based management. The shift was from managing the habitat after humans had taken what they want, to managing for needs of all wildlife.

“If you have a situation where the foresters are just interested in taking the timber, and the range people are just interested in grazing the cows, what you get is just management by default, because the habitat that results is the leftovers from those activities,” Kessler said.

In 2000, she returned to Juneau to take a position as a USFS regional director, working directly under the top USFS official in the state. She found herself restoring ecosystems harmed from logging, she said.

Now retired, Kessler said she’s as busy as she’s ever been serving on several conservation boards. Forest management has changed a lot since she started, Kessler said. So too have the faces around the room. She credits to the strong networks of female scientists for changing the face of wildlife ecology. She expects a wave of women to hold the Aldo Leopold Award in subsequent years.

In Kessler’s time, the “renegades” often stuck up for her, she said. She counts herself as fortunate that in science, it’s often the renegades who break intellectual ground.

“For all the other ones in the room who feel like they don’t belong, there’s a ton of research that shows the importance of diversity. … It’s an extremely positive thing,” Kessler said.


• Contact Kevin Gullufsen at 523-2228 and kgullufsen@juneauempire.com. Follow him on Twitter at @KevinGullufsen.


More in News

The Norwegian Cruise Line’s Norwegian Encore docks in Juneau in October, 2022. (Clarise Larson / Juneau Empire File)
Ships in Port for the Week of June 4

Here’s what to expect this week.

(Michael Penn / Juneau Empire File)
Police calls for Monday, June 5, 2023

This report contains information from law enforcement and public safety agencies.

Water and wastewater rates in the City and Borough of Juneau will increase 2% starting July 1. (Clarise Larson/ Juneau Empire File)
Water, wastewater rates to increase starting July 1

The 2% increase is to match inflationary costs, city says.

A progress pride flag flies in the wind below an U.S. flag outside of the Hurff Ackerman Saunders Federal Building on Monday evening. Last week the flag was raised for the first time by members of the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration and will remain up through the month of June. (Clarise Larson / Juneau Empire)
LGBTQ+ pride flag raised at federal building sparks backlash, support

Varying reactions to the flag that was raised for the first time outside the building.

Cars and people move past the City and Borough of Juneau current City Hall downtown on Monday. The Assembly Committee of the Whole unanimously OK’d an ordinance Monday night that, if passed by the full Assembly, would again ask Juneau voters during the upcoming municipal election whether to approve $27 million in bond debt to fund the construction of a new City Hall. (Clarise Larson / Juneau Empire)
Voters could see proposal for a new City Hall back on the ballot this fall

City signals support for $27 million initiative, after $35M bond last year fails.

(Michael Penn / Juneau Empire File)
Police calls for Sunday, June 4, 2023

This report contains information from law enforcement and public safety agencies.

(Michael Penn / Juneau Empire File)
Police calls for Saturday, June 3, 2023

This report contains information from law enforcement and public safety agencies.

Courtesy Photo / Chris Blake
The <strong>Hōkūleʻa</strong>, a double-hulled and wind-powered traditional Polynesian voyaging canoe, navigates throughout Southeast Alaska in May. On Saturday the canoe and crew members will be welcomed to Juneau in preparation for the canoes launch days later for its four-year-long global canoe voyage called the <strong>Moananuiākea</strong>.
Celebration of four-year Polynesian canoe voyage to kick off Saturday at Auke Bay

Voyage set to circumnavigate 43,000 nautical miles of the Pacific Ocean beginning in Juneau.

Most Read