Payne, Lunney, McCaffery Enter Wisconsin Conservation Hall of Fame

   Whenever folks badmouth public servants who work for schools, agencies or simply “the government,” you’d like to stand them before a crowded auditorium to meet guys like Neil Payne, Keith McCaffery or the late William Lunney.

   Once you whistled everyone to attention, you’d invite the critics to explain how and why these three public employees didn’t do enough for Wisconsin during their long careers at UW-Stevens Point, the Department of Natural Resources, and our state courts, county offices and county parks.

   And once the critics failed to justify their blind griping, you’d hope they have the grace to concede Wisconsin never paid or honored these men enough during their decades of public service.

   Maybe that’s why we should praise Payne, Lunney and McCaffery some more April 21 when inducting them into the Wisconsin Conservation Hall of Fame as the class of 2026. It’s the least we can do to recognize their service to our public lands, waters and other natural resources.

   This year’s WCHF induction ceremonies (https://wchf.org/2026-induction-events/) will be held virtually, beginning with Lunney at 4 p.m., and then McCaffery at 5:30 p.m., and Payne at 7 p.m.

   The Wisconsin Conservation Hall of Fame will induct three more state legends on April 21, boosting its membership to 114 since its creation in 1985. From left, William Lunney, Neil Payne and Keith McCaffery.     — Patrick Durkin photo

   These men will join 111 previous inductees to the WCHF, https://wchf.org/wchf_inductees/, which began with its creation in 1985. Aldo Leopold and John Muir were the Hall’s first members, and were soon joined by Gaylord Nelson and Ernest Swift in 1986, and Gov. Warren Knowles in 1994, to name just five. By the way, if you wonder who the embattled Knowles-Nelson Stewardship program is named after, look no further than the previous sentence.

   Time and space don’t allow a full accounting of this year’s inductees, but Payne, Lunney and McCaffery earned their place beside other WCHF legends like Owen Gromme, Bud Jordahl, George Becker, Robert McCabe, Gordon MacQuarrie, Sigurd Olson, E.M. Dahlberg and George Meyer.

   Let’s start with Lunney, who died Feb. 28 at age 84. He was a New York native, but moved to Madison in 1966 to be a budget analyst in the Wisconsin Department of Administration. His work and insights were so impressive that within two years he was an assistant director for the Wisconsin State Courts, where he worked 11 years. Meanwhile, he also served two stints on the Dane County Board of Supervisors in the 1970s and ’80s, and spoke at the first Earth Day celebration in 1970 on the UW-Madison campus.

   Lunney was appointed to the Dane County Parks Commission in 1987, and served over 30 years as its chair. During that time, he helped increase the county’s parkland and natural resource areas five-fold from 3,500 acres to 18,000 acres. His many initiatives included constructing kayak launches and coordinating funding for youth education programs to help everyone enjoy the parks.

   Lunney also co-founded the Wisconsin Wetlands Association; served on the Gathering Waters board for three years; served as a trustee for the Nature Conservancy for nine years and its chair for two; helped grow the Natural Resources Foundation of Wisconsin as a board member; and served on the Friends of Wisconsin State Parks board for 14 years, and was its president for five.

   Payne, 87, a Sheboygan native who now lives in Plover, served in the Marine Corps from 1964 to 1967, including a stint in Vietnam. Upon his honorable discharge, Payne became the first bear and furbearer ecologist for the provinces of Labrador and Newfoundland. In that role, he researched beavers, lynx, martens, mink, otter, black bears and red squirrels; and coordinated the world’s largest aerial beaver census.

   While spending 1973-75 as a research assistant professor of wildlife, Payne directed a study on the Columbia River with U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to assess the impacts of hydroelectric energy demands on the river’s ecology.

   Payne then became a professor of wildlife ecology at UW-SP’s College of Natural Resources, and taught thousands of students introductory wildlife courses from 1975 to 1998. He also directed graduate research on mink, fishers, deer, muskrats, beaver, pigeons, gray fox, raccoons, ptarmigan, aspen birds, urban wildlife, rattlesnakes, black bears and grassland birds.

   Payne wrote three books during his tenure at UW-SP and five more after retiring to assist students, wildlife professors, wildlife managers, and private landowners. His works included a two-volume set on wildlife habitat improvements, and a wildlife habitat book for landowners. His more recent book, “Wildlifer: Wisconsin Origin to Climate Change,” is an extensive overview of the wildlife profession’s beginnings in the Badger state.

   McCaffery, 87, joined the Wisconsin Conservation Department in 1963 to study forest habitats. By the 1970s, after the Conservation Department became the Department of Natural Resources, McCaffery helped develop and improve the agency’s methods for monitoring deer herds through trail surveys, road-kill indexes, pellet counts, winter-loss surveys, and the “sex-age-kill” population model. He also coordinated statewide surveys on deer aging, winter severity, deer densities, browsing impacts on trees, and summer fawn sightings.

   McCaffery retired as the state deer biologist in 2000 after 37 years of public service. By then he had written nearly 90 scientific reports and publications to help guide wildlife policies. After that, by his definition, he failed miserably at retirement. Each weekday the next 20 years, McCaffery walked the half-mile from home to his DNR desk in Rhinelander.

“I had sympathetic supervisors who knew I didn’t have many hobbies,” McCaffery said. “But I had institutional memory, so they gave me other things to work on.”

   He spent those two decades as an unpaid deer expert, still answering his DNR landline. When he wasn’t at his desk, callers heard his voice-mail greeting: “This is McCaffery. If you want to talk deer, leave a message.”

   Not until COVID-19 shuttered DNR offices in 2020 did McCaffery stay home, but he still talked deer if you called. Along the way, he wrote nearly 60 deer-management articles for newspapers, magazines and online publications. He also helped prepare six deer-focused books and peer-reviewed manuscripts. In between, he helped study forest habitats, flying squirrels, spruce grouse and ruffed grouse.

   McCaffery — much like Payne and Lunney — views public service as a privilege few enjoy, even when those he served didn't appreciate it.