David Lee

David Stephen Lee
March 22, 1943 - July 19, 2014
David Stephen Lee grew up in Baltimore and Towson, Maryland. He spent his formative summers in Florida and received undergraduate and graduate degrees from schools in Delaware and Florida. His entire life was spent learning about the natural world, investigating various aspects of the biology of plants, invertebrates and vertebrates, and teaching what he knew to others. He applied his skills and knowledge to conserving and protecting natural resources. Dave excelled at many things-but first and foremost-he was a loving son, husband and friend.

Dave taught high school biology and electives in Maryland and Florida in his early years and noted that teaching had been his favorite job. His teaching style and methods, and especially his class field trips, are legendary. Many of his students from those few years stayed in touch; he was in fact, still waiting for a photo essay from one student to change his grade from an incomplete. Some have noted that they went on to careers in biology due to his influence. Dave spent most of his life working in the curatorial and research sections of the state natural history museums in Florida and in Raleigh. While at the natural history museum in Raleigh, where he worked for 30 years, he served with distinction on many graduate committees. A man of action, he organized and implemented countless programs and field projects to answer questions that were critical to the preservation of a species or group and to protect ecosystems and habitat.

His work as a professional biologist spanned the globe and was varied in scope. It included work on North American fish, salamanders, snakes, lizards, turtles, warblers and other songbirds, and seabirds. His concern for the decline of turtles around the world, and especially in Asia, led him to develop a nonprofit organization, The Tortoise Reserve (tortoisereserve.org). As Executive Director of The Tortoise Reserve he worked with others in North America, South America and Asia to develop programs, such as the Asian Turtle Consortium, that bring awareness and promote action to help turtles survive against many societal pressures, such as over-collecting for the pet trade and their exploitation as a food item in Asia.

He had lots of stories to tell from his adventures, and for the most part, the most outlandish parts of those stories were true. Dave held court around many campfires and living rooms regaling friends with accounts of his more unusual encounters with people, animals and plants and his unique take on current events. He enjoyed public speaking and was a sought-after speaker, always entertaining and enlightening while teaching. He gave countless talks to conservation groups as well as to his peers at professional meetings. These talks were illustrated by his own photographs; photography being one of his many passions.

Dave was well-known for his great sense of humor - his clever, quick, wry, irreverent humor permeated his talks, writing and everyday life. Throughout his life he drew cartoons and created characters and complex ruses that appeared in college papers and satirical journals. He loved planning elaborate April Fools pranks that would sometimes require weeks of set-up. Dave was also adept at using humor to topple a grand ego or diffuse a tense moment.

Writing was one of his greatest passions and he was prolific, always having several projects, big and small, in progress. He published over 400 professional papers and popular articles and had several papers in progress and in press at the time of his death. Dave had a great talent for describing complex concepts in a way that they could be understood by nonprofessionals. He was a regular contributor to the state magazine, Wildlife in North Carolina. He also wrote countless short opinion and education articles for trade and hobby publications and opinion pieces for newspapers. Some of his best writing appeared in emails, memos and notes for family and friends. His most beloved project, a book about his work in the Gulf Stream is due out later this year or early in 2015 (UNC press). And he had drafted one on turtles that he was looking forward to completing.

Dave was recognized as a leader in conservation issues in the Caribbean and Bahamas. He was a founding member of several conservation groups, including the Society of Caribbean Ornithologists (now BirdsCaribbean). In the Caribbean and Bahamas he pushed for work to document and protect seabird colonies and to create a database to track populations (wicbirds.net), though he also contributed to projects to protect Kirtland's Warbler and other Bahamian and Caribbean animals including turtles and bats.

During his career at the natural history museum in Raleigh he spent thousands of hours in offshore waters of North Carolina, and in other Gulf Stream waters, documenting the fantastic diversity of seabirds that can be found there. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, many of the observations by Dave were doubted by skeptical scientists. It is now well-known that rare tropical and South Atlantic birds including Black-capped Petrels, Trinidad Petrels, Band-rumped Storm Petrels, Audubon's Shearwaters, Bridled Terns, Masked Boobies, and White-tailed and Red-billed Tropicbirds are dependent on that area and are regularly observed. Others now regularly make pilgrimages to these waters in the Gulf Stream off the Outer Banks for study and recreational birding due to his pioneering work. Dave's work in the Gulf Stream led to a decades-long effort to prevent the exploitation of the state's inshore and offshore waters for oil exploration. Protecting the biologically rich waters of the area known as The Point was of the utmost importance to him and he worked tirelessly to educate and advocate about these resources.

Dave had a great number of friends and they were widespread geographically. The late Elmer Worthley and his wife Jean were especially important to him from the time he met them in early adulthood to his death. Dave was a founding member of an ongoing botany class that they held at their home in Maryland and a contributor to Miss Jean's public television program, Hodge Podge Lodge. Dave's hero was his friend David Wingate of Bermuda who singlehandedly saved the Bermuda petrel from extinction. Dick Franz, Chris Haney, Herb Hendrickson, Wayne Irvin, Will Mackin and Mike McCrea were special partners in work and fun. His college professor, John Funderburg (deceased), helped to shape his career and Dave was loyal to him throughout hard times. He was like that, he wouldn't let you down in a time of need, even when others were turning their backs.

His mother, June Bash of Pinehurst NC, encouraged his love of nature and writing. Dave was a born naturalist and she indulged his interest, including allowing him to keep snakes in the basement and presenting him with a skunk for a birthday present. In 1982 Dave married a North Carolina girl with a "dumb, two-part Southern name", Mary Kay Clark. With this action he unwittingly became a member of two southern clans with big extended family ties and the classic large gatherings that they enjoy. He coped well, usually by avoiding the family gatherings, or by making a short appearance at the event where he commiserated in the corner with other in-laws. He leaves behind a large extended family of Mitchells from Kelly NC and Clarks from Elizabethtown NC. His sly smile and presence will be dearly missed by all of his family and friends.

A private celebration of his life will take place in the early fall. Condolences to the family may be sent to Mary Kay Clark at P.O. Box 7082, White Lake, NC 28337 or through Bladen-Gaskins Funeral Home in Elizabethtown, NC. The family is especially grateful for support from Lower Cape Fear Hospice.
Memorial contributions can be made to The Tortoise Reserve, P. O. Box 7082, White Lake NC 28337. The charitable conservation fund supports small, onetime grants for projects that make an immediate difference for populations of native fauna and flora. You can also honor Dave by actively conserving and protecting natural resources. Dave was all about the power of the individual to make a difference. Remember that you, alone, can make a difference, and give it all you've got. He did.

​"They (turtles) have no worries, have no cares, ...yet has not the great world existed for them as much as for you.";
Henry David Thoreau 1856