Owings, Margaret Wentworth

Margaret Wentworth Owings was born April 29, 1913 in Berkeley, California. An artist and wildlife conservationist, she founded the Friends of the Sea Otter, led successful campaigns to end bounty-hunting of mountain lions in California, and served on various conservation agencies.

Biographical Sketch

Born April 29, 1913 in Berkeley, California, Margaret Wentworth Owings was a 1934 graduate of Mills College, where her father, Frank Wentworth, was a trustee, and completed graduate studies in art at the Fogg Museum at Harvard University in 1935. She set her artistic career aside and earned international recognition as a tireless advocate for sea otters, mountain lions and other wild creatures.

Honored with the National Audubon Society Medal, the Gold Medal Award from United Nations' environmental program, the Department of the Interior's Conservation Service Award, and many other citations and medals, Mrs. Owings inspired new generations in the fight to preserve wilderness and the animals that call it home.

She is most closely identified with the California sea otter, a threatened marine mammal whose cause she championed as founder and president of the Friends of the Sea Otter. She also led successful campaigns to end bounty-hunting of mountain lions in California, and to impose moratoriums on hunting mountain lions-an effort that was crowned passage of a state initiative banning lion hunting in the state.

As a member of the Point Lobos League, she fought successfully in 1947 to save beaches between the Carmel River and Point Lobos State Reserve. With her husband, noted architect Nathaniel Owings, she campaigned to keep the scenic Big Sur coast in its undeveloped state.

In addition to her role with Friends of the Sea Otter, which she led as president from its founding in 1968 until the early 1990s, she was on the council of the Save-the-Redwoods League, a member of the California Parks Commission (1963-69); a trustee of Defenders of Wildlife (1969-74); a board member with the National Parks Foundation (1968-69); a trustee of the African Wildlife Leadership Foundation (1968-76); a trustee of the Environmental Defense Fund (1972-82); founder of the Rachel Carson Council established to carry on the work of combating toxics in the environment; and a member of the Big Sur Land Trust.

In addition to her long commitment to wildlife conservation, Mrs. Owings and her husband were devotees of the art and Indian culture of the Southwest. They were seasonal residents of Santa Fe, N.M. for more than 30 years and assembled a significant collection of Pueblo Kachinas, now in the permanent collection of the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco.

[Excerpted from Friends of the Sea Otter website]