It is with great sadness that the staff of the USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center marks the passing of our former Director, Dr. Lucille F. Stickel, on February 22, 2007.

A tribute from our present Director, Judd A. Howell:

I learned today of Lucille Stickel's passing. I did not know her, but knew of her, as former scientist and Director of Patuxent. Although petite, she cast a long shadow of influence and impact that transcended decades at the Center, from her dedication to the research of contaminants effects on wildlife to the mentoring and shaping of young scientists. A soul has moved from individual to icon. We can mourn her passing but not her legacy.

Judd A. Howell, PhD.
February 23, 2007

Dr. Stickel was one of the early pioneers in the fledgling field of wildlife toxicology. Her imprint on the field, and especially on contaminants research at the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, continues today. She published her first contaminant paper, a study with the new pesticide DDT, in 1946. At this early date, virtually nothing was known about the harmful effects of pesticides on wildlife. This early work by Lucille and some of her colleagues helped form much of the basis of Rachel Carson's famous book, Silent Spring.

She published 44 scientific papers on the effects of contaminants on wildlife. Her research, in collaboration with her husband, Bill Stickel, on the use of diagnostic tissue residues of contaminants represents one of the major accomplishments in the history of wildlife toxicology. They demonstrated that it was the concentrations of many organochlorine pesticides in the brain of dead birds that could be used to determine whether those chemicals were responsible for the deaths. Under her leadership, Patuxent scientists provided the laboratory proof that DDE, the metabolite of DDT, was the chemical that caused eggshell thinning in birds.

Lucille's interest in the plants and animals of the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, and her research interests extended far beyond contaminants. Her research on box turtle populations on the Center spanned several decades, as did her work with Bill on black rat snakes. She also wrote many papers on the population biology of small mammals.

In 1968, Dr. Stickel was awarded the Federal Woman's Award. She also received the Interior Department's Distinguished Service Award (1973) and the Wildlife Society's Aldo Leopold Award (1974). She was the first woman to direct a major Federal laboratory, serving as Patuxent’s Director from 1973 until her retirement in March 1982. In 1998, more than 50 years after her first publication on contaminants, the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, presented its prestigious Rachel Carson Award to her.

Stickel Laboratory at USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center
--dedicated to Lucille F. and William H. Stickel