A Tribute To Jim Dorso By Sandy Ritchie Wildlife Biologist The Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife and the conservation community lost a great ambassador with the death of Jim Dorso, 82, on November 4, 2006. For those who never had the honor of knowing him, Jim was the "father" of Maine's nest box program and worked as a wildlife technician in the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife's Region B office for 25 years. Jimmy's passion for nest boxes actual! y began more than 15 years before his employment with IF& W when he installed 40 nest boxes made of
old wooden nail kegs in wetland areas near his home in Gardiner. He kept records regarding their use as he routinely maintained the boxes and added new ones. Word of his efforts quickly spread throughout the fish and wildlife community, and Jim's "hobby" turned into a career with IF&W beginning in 1969. Jimmy was passionate about Maine's nest box program and worked tirelessly to install and maintain nest boxes in wetland areas throughout central and mid-coast Maine. When he retired from IF& W in 1989, he was maintaining more than 1,600 boxes in Region B. Jimmy has been credited with the resurgence of the wood duck in regions where its population had been absent for decades, and for his efforts he received numerous awards and tributes. Most recently (April 2006), IF&W dedicated and named the Ruffingham Meadow Wildlife Management Area in Searsmont the James Dorso Wildlife Management Area in Jim's honor. In the November 8, 2006 edition of the Kennebec Journal, Dave Sherwood and Naomi Schalit wrote tributes to Jim and the wonderful legacy that he left
behind. Both articles, reprinted with permission, are shared here. Dedicated to the ducks:
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Jim Dorso's Beautiful Legacy By Naomi Schalit Opinion Page Editor, Kennebec Journal That Mainers have the pleasure of seeing wood ducks in the state's streams and swamps is in large part due to the efforts of one man, Jim Dorso. Dorso , a Gardiner resident who died this past weekend at age 82 , was known as the "Duck Box King" because he helped construct and install more than 1,600 waterfowl nesting boxes throughout Central Maine . Dorso single handedly maintained those boxes, a large proportion of which were used by wood ducks . The wood duck is considered one of
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the most beautiful ducks in North America. With a head capped by a helmet of green and purple, red eyes, a red bill edged with a thin yellow line and a brilliant stripe of white around its throat , the magnificent wood duck once populated this region's marshes and small waterways in huge numbers. But populations declined precipitously, almost to the point of extinction, by the early 20th century. Enter Jim Dorso. In the early 1950's, the Gardiner mill worker read and article containing instructions for building wooden duck boxes . By 1965, he'd made 150 of the boxes, traipsing through marsh and bog to set them up . The ducks responded almost immediately, laying eggs in the boxes and rebuilding their numbers. By 1965, the state hired him to put up and maintain even more boxes, because his success with them was far greater that any the state was having. Jim Dorso is
acknowledged - with national and state awards to his credit - to be the man behind the wood duck's repopulation of central Maine. Se we mourn the loss of Jim Dorso, while at the same time celebrating the I 1 glorious legacy that he left behind . When each of us is lucky to happen upon a wood duck in the wild, we need only say one thing: "Thqnks, Jim ' , . ' dl/i 1{\'.
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Winter 2007