George Meléndez Wright: Conservation Visionary

George Meléndez Wright was the first professional park service employee to bring focus to wildlife in the parks. He was only 21 when he was hired by Yosemite National Park, and he rose quickly in his career.

As a young college-educated biologist (degrees in forestry and zoology from the University of California, Berkeley), he emerged with a delight in learning about the natural world. This led him to a clear-eyed vision for how vital wildlife was in the parks.

Unfortunately, he and a colleague were killed in a work-related trip to Big Bend National Park in 1936. Because of his untimely death, the deepening of the economic Depression, and the coming of World War II, many of Wright’s ideas could not be implemented for several decades.

Today Park administrators and biologists look back and see that Wright was a visionary who led the way for many of the conservation policies implemented in the 1960s and beyond.

Who Was George Meléndez Wright?

George Wright (1904-1936) was born to a well-to-do couple in San Francisco. His mother, Mercedes Meléndez Wright, was from  San Salvador where her family had strong and powerful roots. His father, John Tennant Wright, was a ship captain who also ran an active and successful import-export trading business along the Pacific Coast.

The couple had three sons. George was the middle child. His mother died when he was only 2. George’s father kept George in San Francisco with him, but he sent the older and younger boys—John and Charles– to San Salvador to be raised by his mother’s family.

Then another disaster occurred. When George was 8 his father died. George moved in with his great aunt, Cordelia Ward Wright, and his brothers remained in El Salvador.

George had great support from Aunt Cordelia, and as a youth, he explored the San Francisco area, hiking and studying the natural world. In high school, Wright established a branch of the Audubon Society. He held regular meetings and loved leading field trips.

Berkeley

At age 16, he was accepted to study at the University of California, Berkeley. Cordelia Wright always wanted what was best for George. He was young for college, so Cordelia moved to Berkeley and bought a home where they could live. Wright and Aunt Cordelia became active participants in the science community.

Influential Professor

One of Berkeley’s best-known professors in the field of biology and zoology was Professor Joseph Grinnell (1877-1939). He was head of Berkeley’s Museum of Vertebrate Zoology but he still taught classes at the university.

Grinnell was well-known for his scientific note-taking method. He specified that students use a certain type of notebook and taught a system of careful note-taking. Students who followed it documented all they observed and their exact findings in the wild.

Because Grinnell taught for many years, several generations of students learned the system. This was a gift to students at the time, and it is a gift to scholars now. Scientists can still go back and read detailed notes about the explorations made by Wright and others.

College Summers

Because George Wright inherited his portion of his father’s estate when he was young, Wright willingly offered to fund adventures for nature study.

One summer he recruited fraternity brothers to travel with him to national parks in the West.

This was the beginning of Americans taking car trips. As more people bought cars, the popularity of auto camping grew. Companies made lean-to tents that attached to cars. That way people didn’t have the added expense of overnight accommodation. This increased people’s interest in spending time in the parks.

Forest and Park Management

George Meléndez Wright entered the field of forestry and park management at an important time. Managing and caring for public lands became increasingly important from the 1890s through the early part of the 20^th century. This was particularly true under President Theodore Roosevelt.

As the logging industry boomed, land stewards saw that if forests were not protected, the industry would run roughshod through wooded areas. Roosevelt and his advisor, Gifford Pinchot, a forester trained in Germany, started the Forest Service, which set aside millions of acres of forests to buffer against destruction.

Up until this time, conservation had not received much public attention. The country seemed so vast and the land so plentiful, but Pinchot and Roosevelt could see what was coming.

National Parks Created

Just as the administration saw that forest lands needed to be protected, it also became evident that parkland needed to be set aside and protected.

The first national park was Yellowstone National Park, established in 1872. As the government identified parks and monuments for preservation, they were managed by a patchwork of agencies. Some were under the Department of the Interior, and others were part of the Forest Service. The War Department watched over preserved battlefields.

In 1916, President Woodrow signed a bill creating the National Park Service. This service was placed under the Department of the Interior. (It took until 1933 before an Executive Order was signed bringing everything together as part of the National Park Service.)

Wright’s Career Begins in Yosemite

By the time George Meléndez Wright graduated from Berkeley, he already had traveled many miles in western parks. He’d accompanied an expedition to Alaska to evaluate lands there, and he made many solo trips around the west. This put him in a good position for a full-time job with the park system.

In 1927, he was hired by Yosemite as an assistant park naturalist. He was the first Hispanic to hold a professional position in the National Park Service. 

This was an exciting time for Yosemite. The National Park Service was only 11 years old, and visits to the parks were beginning to grow. In Yosemite, road were being created and improved. Tourists were eager to come.

Wright’s Aunt Moves Too

George Wright and his aunt were very much a family. She appreciated his presence in her life, and he was grateful for all she had done. When Wright accepted the Yosemite job, Aunt Cordelia took rooms in the newly opened Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite Valley.

This arrangement seemed to work for both of them, and in author Jerry Emory’s book, George Meléndez Wright: The Fight for Wildlife and Wilderness in the National Parks, he notes that Wright frequently dropped off morning coffee for his great aunt. He often met up with her for dinner as well.

Wright Listens and Studies

One of Wright’s most important traits was his willingness to listen. When he arrived at any location, he sought out the “old-timers” and wanted to hear all they observed over the years. This gave him a better understanding for what was the very new field of park management.

While at Yosemite, Wright acquired a core working group. Benjamin Hunter Thompson was a college student waiting tables to earn money for college. Upon graduation, Thompson joined Wright. As the men explored, they also added one of Wright’s mentors, Joseph Scattergood Dixon. Dixon was older than Wright by 20 years, but very much shared the young men’s enthusiasm.

Focus on Wildlife

As the men traveled through the park week after week, one of the issues they noticed was that no thought was being given to the animals that came and went through the park. There was wildlife, of course, but grazing animals were permitted within the park as well. When the park boundaries were demarcated, this arrangement was made to appease farmers and ranchers.

There were also species that needed protection. Elk had long been native to the Yosemite area but were nearly wiped out by hunting. Bison, too, were also being decimated.

The Importance of Birds

Since his youth, George Wright took a special interest in birds. He tracked them as carefully as he did wildlife. Wright took particular interest in the Trumpeter swan, which he referred to as “the greatest of American waterfowl.”  

The magnificent birds used to range throughout North America, but by the 1920s, Wright saw that very few pairs survived. Habitat destruction, predatory animals stealing eggs, and hunters turned this magnificent bird into an almost mythical creature.

Tourists Brought Changes

While the point of preserving the parks was for the American people, the arrival of tourists changed the atmosphere of the parks. As travelers and campers came through to see the natural wonders of each park, they brought with them food and the resulting garbage.

Bears were particularly likely to switch to eating garbage rather than looking for their own food. Because the bears were a particularly popular attraction, the rangers initially encouraged the spectacle.

At several parks, “bear feeding stations” were built next to the garbage dumps. Tourists could watch from fenced off space nearby. That became a sore point in park management. As amusing as the bears were, it was also dangerous. In some parks, the bears became aggressive as the garbage trucks arrived. Sometimes, the men couldn’t even unload their haul as it wasn’t safe to get out of the trucks.

Other Modifications for Tourists

Rangers in some parks also did what they could to encourage what they knew tourists liked. To favor fishermen, rangers sometimes killed off birds that swooped in and ate the fish. They removed other predators in parks as well.

What’s more, just as today, many tourists lacked good sense. Taunting the bears or trying to come close for a photograph often had very poor results. Bears were also smart enough to know that if people were arriving at the park, they were likely bringing food. Many photographs of what the rangers called the “bear hold-up” position, with a bear or two standing in front of a car with front paws on the hood.

Of course, for people who overnighted in the park, bears quickly found out how to break into the cars for whatever smelled tantalizing

Undertaking a Wildlife Study

As Wright and his team studied what was happening, they saw many solutions but knew they needed statistics to convince park administrators of the need for change. Wright’s plan involved a three-year study surveying wildlife in several of the western parks. He put the finishing touches on his plan in early 1929.

Because he wanted to move forward without too much bureaucracy, he offered to fund the first two years of the study (paying the team and covering expenses). He requested that the government then be ready to absorb the third year of the study so that they would have ownership of the project when it was completed.

In the spring of 1929, Wright deposited money for the survey and expedition. This was an opportune step in light of the Depression that was to come.

Wright’s funding offer and the timing of it was particularly fortuitous. With the stock market crash of October 1929, the survey would have screeched to a halt had it been a government project.

Called to the Everglades

While the survey was Wright’s top priority, he still had responsibilities to the park administration. In 1930, Wright was summoned to visit the Everglades in Florida. The government was wrestling with what could be done there. On one of the trips, Wright contracted malaria.

As he and Ben Thompson drove across the South on their way back to Yosemite, Thompson saw that Wright was extraordinarily ill. When the men drove into Phoenix, Thompson insisted they stop at the hospital so Wright could be seen by a doctor.

Wright was hospitalized immediately. When it became clear that Wright would not be released soon, Thompson agreed to Wright’s request to summon family and friends. Wright was returning home to marry a student met at Berkeley, Bernice Ray.

When the group arrived, the decision was quickly made to hold the wedding at Wright’s bedside at the hospital. Bee and George eventually moved to a Phoenix hotel and remained until George was healthy enough to travel.

Balance Between Humans and Park Needs and Wildlife

George Wright understood that the purpose of his study was to advise on ways to balance the needs of wildlife and tourists within the confines of the national parks. His first-of-a-kind survey resulted in two landmark reports.

While there were many recommendations, some of the most notable were urging the Park Service to change ingrained practices such as feeding bears at dumps and killing predators. The parks would fare better if the natural world was respected. If the land and the wildlife were not appreciated, there would eventually be no natural parks at all.

Wright Promoted to Administration Job in D.C.

Wright’s completion of Fauna 1 # (as the first study was called, short for Fauna of the National Parks of the United States: A Preliminary Survey of Faunal Relations in National Parks) continued to elevate Wright’s status within the government. Soon he was promoted and transferred with his family to Washington, D.C. to work in administration. From this position, he had more authority to place wildlife specialists in more of the parks.

International Boundaries Using Parks

The National Park Service was growing during this time. Part of the new focus was a country-wide effort to set aside parks near country boundaries. Wright was appointed by the president to be part of the commission to discuss with Mexico the policies and plans of international parks.

In 1936, a conference was held near what would eventually become Big Bend Park along the Rio Grande in southern Texas.  As the conference concluded, several of the men, including Wright, planned to continue on to visit Santa Elena Canyon and the Hatchet Mountains in western New Mexico.

Wright and his colleague Roger Toll were in one car. The roads in the area were very rough. As they drove along, an oncoming car blew a tire and veered into the car in which Wright and Toll were riding. Roger Toll was killed on impact. George Wright died several hours later at the hospital.

Wright left behind his wife Bee and two young daughters. The family of three left Washington, D.C. and returned to California, settling in San Francisco. Bee arranged for George’s ashes to be scattered over Aunt Cordelia’s grave.

The Importance of Science-based Managment in the Parks

Pamela Wright Lloyd was very young when her father died, but she got to know him through his writing. On the occasion of the 20^th anniversary following his death, she extracted thoughts from her father’s book Fauna. In a presentation, she summed up part of how he felt about the importance of science-based management of the parks:

“Fifty years from now we shall still be wrestling with the problems of joint occupation of national parks by men and mammals, but it is reasonable to predict that we shall have mastered some of the simplest maladjustments. It is far better to pursue such a course though success be but partial than to relax in despair and allow the destructive forces to operate unchecked.”

George Meléndez Wright’s Legacy

Though his career was all too brief, Wright left a legacy of scientific wildlife and resource management for the Park Service. Unfortunately, the timing (the Depression and World War II) prevented others from pursuing Wright’s lead. But Wright set out many jigsaw puzzle pieces that scientists, land managers, and biologists began to assemble during the late 1960s.

By then, they knew the urgency was real.

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I am indebted to author Jerry Emory for his detailed biography of George Wright. It was published by the University of Chicago Press in 2023: George Meléndez Wright: The Fight for Wildlife and Wilderness in the National Parks.

There is also a George Wright Society: https://www.georgewrightsociety.org/

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