What will you do in your retirement? How will you spend your 83rd birthday? Can you imagine spending it advocating for environmental conservation and supporting student research? If you have lived the life of Frank Maurer, you probably couldn’t think of doing anything else. “Frank lives and breathes conservation and helping student-led research. He is tireless in these pursuits,” said Paul Havemann, Stebbins Cold Canyon Reserve director.
Born in Boston on Aug. 25, 1941, Maurer was exposed to experiential learning and connections with the world at Antioch College. He received his Ph.
D. in vertebrate zoology and ecology at Cornell University and left the U.S.
to teach in Istanbul. While overseas, he conducted research in Uppsala, Sweden, and spent four years in the mountain kingdom of Lesotho, Southern Africa. Frank’s arrival at his Central Valley farm outside of Davis in 1978 signified the end of his academic career and pivoted to developing ecological approaches to farming vegetables, flowers, catfish, sheep, emus, turkeys and ducks for the Davis and Sacramento areas.
In 1989, Maurer and his late wife, UC Davis Professor Lenora Timm, founded the Quail Ridge Wilderness Conservancy, which is dedicated to wilderness preservation, the promotion of biological diversity, native habitat research, and education about environmental stewardship. Originally exploring the area as a potential retirement destination, Maurer and Timm refocused their attention and affection to the pr.