This story has been updated to include funeral arrangements.
Avid birder, wildlife enthusiast and conservationist John Oliver Fussell III, 75, of Morehead City, is being remembered for his decades of contributions to raising awareness of often-overlooked environmental issues affecting the North Carolina coast, particularly its plants and animals, of which he had a deep understanding.
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Fussell, who studied zoology at North Carolina State University, died Friday, Dec. 27, 2024, at home. His fellow environmental advocates and scientists have shared their fond remembrances in the days since Fussell’s death.
Paul Branch Jr., who retired last year from his role as park ranger and historian at Fort Macon State Park, shared some details with Coastal Review on Fussell’s early work.
Fussell first held an internship at the park in summer 1974, studying the Theodore Roosevelt Natural Area and its resources and doing preliminary work to lay out a nature trail.
Then, in fall 1975, he was hired under the Comprehensive Employment Training Act, or CETA, Manpower Program both to provide a “State Parks ‘presence’ at the Natural Area during the construction of the Marine Resources Center,” now the North Carolina Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores, and to develop the nature trail, Branch said.
“Based on his previous intern work, he established a half-mile trail through the maritime forest along the northeast corner of the tract to the salt marsh along the sound and back,” Branch explained.
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The trail was named the Hoffman Nature Trail in honor of Alice Green Hoffman, the relative of the Roosevelt family who had owned and managed the large tracts of land on Bogue Banks from which the Theodore Roosevelt Natural Area had been donated.
Fussell worked there through summer 1976, and that fall under the CETA program, he worked at Fort Macon State Park as an interpreter to give nature and history programs at the park year-round.
“In addition to giving the usual history guided tours and slide shows at the fort, Fussell also began giving bird and nature walks to the public, which were well received. He also created a birding checklist for the park. In the fall and winter of 1977, he worked sorting through and cataloguing museum artifacts at the park,” Branch said, adding that Fussell left the park in 1978 for other pursuits but returned periodically over the years to take birding groups around the park.
Coastal Review contributor and former Hammocks Beach State Park superintendent Sam Bland said he first met Fussell in summer 1978, when both were working at Fort Macon State Park.
“John was the historian/naturalist and I was a park attendant,” Bland said. “I was envious of John as he was always out giving tours of the fort or taking people on nature hikes while I spent most of my time mowing the mosquito-infested grasses of the fort. But we did get to spend some time birding together and he introduced me to the painted buntings. He was a birding mentor to many and I think that is when he was happiest, sharing his knowledge with others.”
Bland said he considered Fussell to be a friend, but, he clarified, their relationship was more on a professional level.
“During my years at Hammocks Beach State Park, we would collaborate to conduct bird surveys on Bear Island and the surrounding marshes. He was my go-to person, as he was to many, for any birding identification or related questions. Often, he would give me a call to see if I had seen a species of bird that he had recently seen further up the coast,” Bland explained. “If it was a specific species of interest, such as a rare, unusual or out of season sighting, he would quiz me about details as he wasn’t going to consider it a confirmed sighting unless he was sure. One winter, a fairly large group of red phalaropes, which is an offshore bird, were spotted close to shore. John wanted to know if I had seen them off of Bear Island, which I had. But it took some convincing to reassure John that I had actually seen this specific species.”
Bland also noted that while well known as an ornithologist, Fussell was also a skilled botanist who would arrive at first light on the days of planned maintenance and cleanups at the Hoop Pole Creek nature trail in Atlantic Beach to put flagging tape on the rare plants to make sure they didn’t get trimmed and were protected.
“He was a great advocate for preservation, protection and restoration of our coastal resources. His ornithological and botanical surveys were instrumental in documenting our natural coastal heritage, especially during times of rampant development. His knowledge was an invaluable resource that will be greatly missed,” Bland said.
The day after Fussell’s death, Southern Environmental Law Center Senior Adviser Derb Carter shared on an online birding forum that with Fussell’s death, North Carolina had lost a “giant in the birding community,” of which he had been a fixture for 60 years.
“He knew the birds and every birding corner along his beloved NC coast like no one else,” Carter posted, referencing Fussell’s book published in in 1994 by the University of North Carolina Press, “Birder’s Guide to Coastal North Carolina” which “remains the definitive guide.”
Carter noted that Fussell “cared deeply” about protecting important habitats and as an accomplished naturalist contributed his knowledge and observations to the identification and preservation of lands by state and federal agencies and conservation organizations.
Among Fussell’s many contributions to promoting birding in the state, Carter explained that Fussell regularly volunteered to lead birding field trips for Audubon’s Christmas Bird Count, Wings Over Water Wildlife Festival on the Outer Banks, and other birding events.
“The one thing you could almost be certain of on one of John’s trips is you were going to get your feet soaked within the first hour. If the shortest way was dry, John would take the long way through the marsh or tidal flats on the chance of flushing a rail, sparrow, or wren,” Carter said.
He led Morehead City’s Christmas Bird Count for more than 60 years and participated in the counts in Wilmington and Masonboro Island.
“Sun, wind, rain, or snow he would be dropped off on the north end (of Masonboro Island) by boat first thing in the morning and walk the eight and a half miles to the south end to be picked up late afternoon. The gulls, terns, shorebirds, and pelicans will be looking for him on Saturday and will miss him. We will all miss him,” Carter said.
Peter Vankevich, co-publisher of the Ocracoke Observer on Ocracoke Island, is a bird enthusiast who founded and serves as compiler of the Ocracoke and Portsmouth Island Christmas bird counts. He’s also an active supporter of the North Carolina Coastal Land Trust’s longtime efforts to protect Ocracoke’s 132-acre Springer’s Point Preserve.
“I first met John some years ago when he led a spring walk for the N.C. Coastal Land Trust through Springer’s Point on Ocracoke Island — not for birds, but to point out the native plants of which seemed to have an equal amount of passion,” Vankevich said. “He was a gracious field trip leader.”
In recent years, Fussell frequently visited the massive wetland restoration project at North River Wetlands Preserve in Carteret County, documenting the changing bird communities as the wetlands are restored, Carter said. The preserve is a 6,000-acre restoration project of the Coastal Federation.
When recognized in 2017 by the North Carolina Coastal Federation with a Pelican Award “For Enduring Commitment to Preserving the Spectacular Natural Heritage of Our Coast,” he said that for many years he focused on environmental issues for which his involvement is disproportionately important.
For example, “Issues that I know a lot about but which are mostly ignored by the general environmental community,” he explained. “I have mostly focused on protecting rare plants and habitats in a major reserve of native biodiversity in our backyard, the Croatan National Forest.”
Fussell told Coastal Review at the time that he spent countless hours documenting the amount and numbers of rare plants in the Croatan National Forest, and sometimes their disappearance, and then getting that information on the radar screen by providing it to the North Carolina Natural Heritage Program and the U.S. Forest Service.
He added that he monitored projects, often at several stages, to make sure information did not get ignored or forgotten.
“I find it rewarding to find that if you persevere, sometimes you can make a difference,” Fussell said.
In the mid-1980s, Fussell worked with the Coastal Federation, which publishes Coastal Review, on an effort to protect what is now Hoop Pole Creek Preserve area in Atlantic Beach from a massive development project.
“That effort turned out to be ultimately successful and it was a major milestone in the development of the Coastal Federation as an important factor in addressing environmental issues. I found out that sometimes you can make a difference,” Fussell said in 2017.
There was an outpouring of condolences and memories on the birding forum after Carter’s announcement.
Ross McGregor of Stirling, Scotland, previously of Beaufort, wrote that he joined Fussell on Sunday morning birding trips.
“What really struck me about John were two things. Firstly he wore his vast knowledge so lightly. He was a great communicator. He never bragged and was always wanting to learn,” McGregor wrote. “Secondly, he could ask questions like few I have met. He would quiz me about my research on red-cockaded woodpeckers asking questions that really made me think. I think the questions were coming from his desire to know more and understand better, rather than to demonstrate my lack of knowledge and understanding. I learned so much from these chats. For me, it was these things made spending time birding with JF such a joy. He was a thoroughly decent bloke and the world is a poorer place without him.”
Harry LeGrand, who worked for the North Carolina Natural Heritage Program, said on the forum that he and Fussell were in some of the same classes at N.C. State University in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
“He was the premier naturalist for 50+ years for the central NC coast,” LeGrand explained. “Not just with his knowledge of birds but also of botany and various other biological sciences, such as ecology and natural communities. He provided the N.C. Natural Heritage Program, where I worked for 31 years, with numerous reports of rare plants, especially from his beloved Croatan National Forest.”
LeGrand added that Fussell’s 1994 guide “was a birder’s ‘bible’ and is still useful today” because so many public sites have not substantially changed since.
“I will greatly miss JF, as he called himself, as will so many other folks who knew him, went on his many field trips, and got to learn so much from him,” he said.
Bob Lewis of Durham called Fussell “one of the giants” of North Carolina birding of the last 50 years.
Walker Golder, previously with the National Audubon Society, said on the forum that with the death of Fussell, “North Carolina has lost a great person in the bird world.”
Golder said he came to know Fussell in the mid-1980s as part of North Carolina’s early waterbird surveys.
“I consulted him often in the decades thereafter about various areas of the coast. Rest assured, he had been there. He was always glad to chat and would share the unwritten history of the regular birds and the rarities at the site. Birders visiting the coast from other states would often call my office seeking information about where they could see a particular bird. John’s book- A Birder’s Guide to Coastal North Carolina -was (and remains) the source for finding birds on the coast. I always recommended John’s book and occasionally received a call back from folks impressed with the thorough and detailed information. But that’s who I found John to be.”
His funeral will be at 3 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 8, at Noe-Brooks Funeral Home and Crematory in Morehead City. Visitation will precede the service, beginning at 2 p.m.
Editor Mark Hibbs contributed to this report.
