Waterfowl were an early and enduring interest for S. Dillon Ripley, who spent weekends and summers in Litchfield, Connecticut, during childhood. He started his first duck pond at the age of 17 with the gift of a pair of blue-winged teal and a pair of redheads from his mother. Alain White, the naturalist who gave the 4,000 acre White Memorial Foundation to Litchfield, provided additional waterfowl for Dillon’s early collection. Dillon Ripley's interest in birds grew over the years, and along with his collection of rare waterfowl. He named his network of ponds, pens and barns "Paddling Ponds," and he expanded his interest into a lifetime devotion to the conservation of rare, threatened and endangered species of birds.
Dillon Ripley became an ornithologist, a teacher, a historian, a researcher, and a world traveler. He was a professor at Yale University and the director of Yale’s Peabody Museum of Natural History. He was also the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution for two decades and the author of numerous books and articles. His wife, Mary Livingston Ripley, who became a self-taught entomologist, shared his interests and together they traveled the world, finding and collecting rare and exotic species of birds and insects.
Dillon Ripley developed an impressive list of lifelong accomplishments; however, it was his passion for waterfowl that laid the groundwork for the LRWC. An avid aviculturist, Dillon Ripley is credited with being the first person to propagate successfully many threatened and endangered species in captivity, such as the red-breasted goose, nene goose, emperor goose and Laysan teal.
Dr. Ripley also raised various endangered species in Litchfield for re-introduction to the wild. One important example was during the late 1950s and early 1960s when the Ripleys were the only people in North America raising nene (Hawaiian) geese, which were threatened with extinction in the Hawaii. They sent a small flock of birds to Hawaii where, along with birds raised by Peter Scott's Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust in England, they were released on the island of Maui. The reintroduction program was successful, and by the late1960s, the total population of nene geese increased to 500, up from only 50 birds fifteen years earlier.
S. Dillon Ripley and Mary Livingston Ripley.
Inherent in the legacy of the LRWC, is Dillon Ripley’s recognition of the potential for his collection of waterfowl and captive breeding efforts to provide an educational background for increasing conservation awareness. In 1984, Dillon and Mary Ripley created a foundation to ensure that their life work, and message of conservation awareness, would be preserved for future generations. The foundation was granted tax-exempt status in 1985, and the Livingston Ripley Waterfowl Conservancy (LRWC) was official.
After the death of Mary Ripley in 1996 and Dillon Ripley in 2001, the Ripley's three daughters, Julie, Rosemary, and Sylvia, continued the LRWC's work along with the LRWC's Board of Directors. Today the LRWC is one of the preeminent facilities for breeding rare and endangered waterfowl, with an integrated program promoting research, education, and conservation action for waterfowl and wetland habitats.
