A life in nature: Ian McTaggart-Cowan.

This column was published in the Cranbrook Daily Townsman Wednesday September 1, 2010.

There was a quiet passing earlier this year that marked the end of a era in Canadian and British Columbia ecology. Dr. Ian McTaggart-Cowan died April 18, 2010, just a few months shy of his 100th birthday. There has been no greater contribution to our knowledge of nature in British Columbia than Dr. McTaggart-Cowan.

His parents emigrated to North Vancouver from Scotland with him as three-year old. Rod Silver, former head of the provincial Habitat Conservation Trust Fund, has written a thorough biography of Ian McTaggart-Cowan recounting his youth spent in the Lower Mainland of the teens and twenties, exploring the forests and haunts of what was a much wilder place. 
 
There is a link to Dr. McTaggart-Cowan in almost everything we know today about birds and mammals in British Columbia. His list of accomplishments could well be unmatched in Canada: some 300 publications, definitive books on BC mammals and birds, approximately 100 graduate students (and influence on countless others who studied at UBC and elsewhere), including scientists who themselves went on to become internationally recognized experts in their field: Val Geist, Maurice Hornocker and C.S. (Buzz) Holling. Through his own work and those on whom he had direct influence, there are few areas in wildlife science today that cannot be traced directly back to Ian McTaggart-Cowan.

His awards are equally impressive: Officer of the Order of Canada, Officer of the Order of British Columbia, Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, Leopold Medal of The Wildlife Society (the highest honour bestowed by the major international society for wildlife biologists) and others. For years, he was the honourary president of the Federation of BC Naturalists in recognition of his passion for and commitment to natural environment of this province.

The University of British Columbia was to become his second home. An undergraduate degree in 1932, followed by a brief sojourn abroad to complete his PhD at Berkley before returning home to Vancouver. His tenure took him from Professor to Department Head to Dean of Graduate Studies for the entire University.

As television emerged as a new medium in the 1950’s Ian McTaggart-Cowan was one of the first to embrace it as a means of public education. His CBC series, Fur and Feathers sought to introduce children to the wonders of nature and was followed by other television series, The Living Sea and The Web of Life.

I never had the honour of meeting Dr. McTaggart-Cowan. But I certainly knew of him. You can’t be a wildlife biologist in Canada without knowing. I recall the first time I came across one of his scientific papers as a young undergrad, deep in the depths of the University of Guelph library, far removed from the rainy west coast. I can’t remember what the paper was on, but the hyphenated name (as well as our common first name) struck me. I then soon found that for almost any topic I researched, be it bears, birds or mice, papers by the same McTaggart-Cowan would be discovered. He was the only Canadian to be so widely encountered.

There are few among us who can not only lead by example, but also inspire and raise others to levels not attainable on our own. The legacy of Ian McTaggart-Cowan, the museum collections named for him, the scholarships in his honour and numerous other awards speak of the unmatched contribution and selfless commitment of one man’s life to help us better understand the natural world, and British Columbia in particular.