 OWAA Legends
'Astonishing Intellect'
Joe Linduska
By Lonnie L. Williamson
Dr. Joseph Paul Linduska. When he died some years past, a sweet bit of life left
me, too. Why we had been special friends, I cannot say for sure. Perhaps it was
because we enjoyed each other’s somewhat sarcastic and irreverent sense of
humor. Anyway, things somehow have not been the same.
Joe Linduska was born literally in a chicken coop in Butte, MT. That little
structure sat about in the middle of what today must be the world’s largest
man-made hole, a result of copper mining. Linduska’s grandfather had immigrated
from the Czech Republic to Baltimore, MD, during the late 19th century. Reacting
to a yellow fever outbreak, he loaded his family in a horse-drawn wagon and went
to Montana where he found work in the copper mines. Linduska’s father was 7
years old at the time. He later married a beautiful young Czech lass who had
immigrated alone to the United States when she was 16. She came here, she said,
in order to learn English. She might have made a better choice than the Irish,
Polish, German, Ukrainian, etc. bouillabaisse that was early Butte. But she did
just fine, anyway.
Linduska’s mother and father took their vows apparently without much thought of
where they would live in the copper boomtown of Butte. Consequently, they
cleaned out a chicken coop in the backyard of Linduska’s grandfather and moved
in. There Joe was born and lived for the first two years of his life.
Perhaps it was the raucous, multi-cultural atmosphere that he survived in rowdy
Butte that gave Linduska his great sense of humor. Regardless, he always said
that he had no friends in Butte because they all were either dead or in prison.
But Linduska was fortunate in that, along with his humor, he also possessed an
astonishing intellect that he managed to conceal most often by a rather gruff
and intimidating exterior.
Linduska earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in zoology and entomology from
the University of Montana and a doctorate in vertebrate zoology from Michigan
State University. His professional career began in 1940 as a research ecologist
for the Michigan Department of Conservation, where he entered a life-long
association with another OWAA legend, Durward Allen. In 1943, he went to the
U.S. Department of Agriculture and conducted award-winning research on
disease-carrying insects of importance to the military. He returned to Michigan
in 1946 and conducted statewide ring-necked pheasant surveys and completed
related research.
After moving to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) in 1947, Linduska
organized and directed the first program to evaluate the effects of DDT and
other pesticides on fish and wildlife. This pioneering work demonstrated the
high toxicity, persistence and accumulative characteristics of chlorinated
hydrocarbons. Years ago at an OWAA annual conference, one of our well-known, but
less informed members was holding forth at an assembly that the fuss about DDT
was “hogwash.” What made that event so memorable is my having to hold Linduska
by his belt to keep him from mounting the stage and throttling the poor old
fellow – a more endearing term than Linduska used. As I recall, Linduska said,
“Turn loose my damn belt,” and “How did that stupid SOB get into this outfit?”
Linduska was named assistant chief of the USFWS’ Wildlife Research Branch in
1949 and chief of the Game Management Branch in 1951. Always wanting to see what
lay over the next ridge, he left federal service in 1956 to become director of
public relations and wildlife management for Remington Arms Company. He also was
responsible for developing wildlife management and agricultural demonstration
programs at Remington Farms, a 3,500-acre waterfowl and upland wildlife area on
Maryland’s Eastern Shore.
Linduska returned to the USFWS in 1966 as associate director and headed that
agency’s international affairs. That move was made to assure that his best
friend and wife, Lilian, would have survivor benefits, which Remington did not
supply at the time. Dear Mama Lilian deserves sainthood for enduring Linduska
some six decades. She also has earned a front row seat in Beulahland for
embracing me as a surrogate son during the bumps and bruises of my life. I love
her to no end.
In the world arena, Linduska worked with heads of government in Europe, Asia and
Africa. He became a particularly good friend with India’s Indira Ghandi while
encouraging her to support tiger conservation. There are many great stories he
lived during that time. The Russians were big buddies with Linduska because they
admired his ability to consume quantities of vodka of which they had but dreamt.
That questionable quality served him well once in a huge Moscow hotel. He became
spiritually confused late one evening after leaving a cocktail party and
stumbled into the large, unoccupied kitchen from which he could not find a way
out. This was during the Cold War, and Linduska wound up as a guest of the KGB.
He was retrieved by his buddy, the Soviet minister of natural resources, who had
admired Linduska’s jovial participation in the preceding vodka fest.
After retiring from the USFWS in 1974, Linduska became vice president for
science for the National Audubon Society and later consultant and advisor to
that organization’s president and staff. He wrote two books, more than 50
technical papers and more than 100 popular articles. For three years, he wrote a
monthly feature on wildlife management for Sports Afield magazine. He also
produced a half-dozen movie and TV scripts on a wide variety of natural resource
subjects. For all this, he received the Aldo Leopold Memorial Award, the highest
honor presented by The Wildlife Society. And, he was given the Interior
Department’s Conservation Service Award, The Wildlife Society’s Conservation
Education Award and OWAA’s Jade of Chiefs Award.
It would be unfair not to provide an example of Linduska’s humor, which defined
his wonderful life. The problem is that most incidences are not printable. But
there is one that he published once in a column that may adequately show the
quick and spearing wit he possessed.
While Linduska was associate director of the USFWS, he and a colleague visited a
national wildlife refuge in North Carolina to hunt geese. He, his pal and the
refuge manager were settled in a blind and the geese cooperated. A nice gaggle
sailed overhead, and the refuge manager jumped up and shouted, “Take’m! Take’m!
Take’m!” Linduska and his pal blasted away and geese fell all around, with the
refuge manager still yelling, “Take’m!” Suddenly the refuge manager quit
squawking and fell to the blind floor coughing and gagging. Linduska thought the
poor fellow had experienced a heart attack. He dropped his shotgun and dove down
to lend aid. However, the manager spit out some awful looking stuff and croaked
that one of the shot geese had deposited a load of fecal matter directly into
his mouth. Feeling relieved from the heart attack scare, Linduska immediately
quipped, “What the hell are you complaining about? If you hadn’t had your big
mouth open that goose would have only crapped in your face.”
Freelancer Lonnie Williamson, of Athens, GA, was the 2000 recipient of
OWAA’s J. Hammond Brown Memorial Award, which recognizes “devoted past service
to the organization over a period of continuous years.” Williamson has been a
member of OWAA since 1970.
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