Thomas Allan Edsall

Research fisheries biologist, conservationist, outdoorsman, trout fishing enthusiast, artist, and avid gardener and reader, died at home in a room overlooking his garden in Ann Arbor, Michigan on September 17, 2018, from complications of longstanding heart disease. He was 86.

Born December 12, 1931 in Glastonbury, Connecticut, the first of two children born to Herbert Stanley Edsall and Mary Agnes Stoltz, Tom and his younger sister Fay grew up around Hartford. Tom loved the outdoors, and especially loved to fish: the family spent summers and weekends at their lakeside cabin in Coventry, where Tom would head out to fish at first light. He also loved to play tennis, and as a teenager earned spending money by working at a local tobacco farm, where he helped “hang up” broadleaf wrapper tobacco.

Tom graduated from East Hartford High School in 1950 and enrolled at the University of Connecticut. His studies were interrupted by the Korean War draft. Tom served in the Army’s 10th Special Forces Group (Green Berets) from 1952 to 1954, completing a tour of duty in Europe and rising to the rank of staff sergeant. During his time there he studied German, took up alpine skiing, trained as a paratrooper, and developed an interest in photography. In Germany, he did things at the intersection of all these newly-acquired skills that he took pride in not being able to tell anyone about even years later. He also developed a lasting fondness for German food that he tried (largely unsuccessfully) to cultivate in his children, and a taste for German beer, which happily took root with the next generation.

After his time in the Army, Tom returned to the University of Connecticut, where he received a bachelor’s degree in 1956, and met Patricia Sweeney. They were married in 1957, moved to Ann Arbor (where Tom enrolled in graduate school at the University of Michigan), and together had four children (Michael, Kathleen, Sheila, and Patrick). They divorced in 1974. Tom married Carol Cotant in 1979. Tom and Carol had one child (Paul), who, to Tom’s unending delight, was bitten hard by the fishing bug that had so far failed to bite any of Tom’s other kids.

Tom received a master’s degree from Michigan’s School of Natural Resources in 1960. While a student at Michigan, Tom began working for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, first in a small clapboard building on Michigan’s campus with lengthy stints aboard research vessels combing the Great Lakes, and eventually moving to the new laboratory on Green Road, where he remained, holding several research and leadership posts, before retiring after more than 40 years. Tom studied fish-habitat interactions in the Great Lakes, including habitat requirements of fish and benthic organisms; the effects of pollutants on aquatic biota; vulnerability of larval fish to entrainment; effects of thermal pollution from power plants; aquatic macrophyte distribution; and aquatic nuisance species (like sea lampreys) on the Great Lakes. He published over fifty peer-reviewed articles and a number of technical reports, and served, at various times, as associate editor of the Journal of Aquatic Ecosystem Health, associate editor of Journal of Great Lakes Research and co-editor of Transactions of the American Fisheries Society. Tom twice received the Great Lakes Science Center’s publication award, and also received the American Fisheries Society’s Meritorious Service Award. He was a fellow of the American Institute of Fisheries Research Biologists, and an active member (and for several years, a board member) of the Ann Arbor chapter of Trout Unlimited. Tom was actively involved in many neighborhood conservation projects: he helped plan and plant an oak savanna and worked to dredge the neighborhood pond to improve water depth and wildlife habitat. He also worked with friends Carl Fetterolf and Bill Philips to complete the scientific research and build community support for establishing a self-sustaining brown trout population in Mill Creek.

Tom’s interest in fishing was personal: his grandfather taught him to fish at an early age, and he fished with his uncles when he was young. It became a lifelong passion. He fished many of the inland and coastal waters of North America, but especially loved trout fishing in Michigan’s upper Lower Peninsula. Fly-fishing was his favorite, and he spent many evenings in the offseason tying his own flies in preparation for his next outing.

Family vacations reflected Tom’s love for the outdoors: In the early years, with the pop-up Apache camper in tow, the family spent summers on the road exploring Cape Cod (where Tom would wade offshore during low tide and return with a basket of quahogs for dinner), Bar Harbor (blueberry picking for his favorite pie) and other New England sites, and of course, all the rivers of Michigan. In later years, weekend getaways to the family cabin at Crystal Mountain were often planned around the trout, salmon or steelhead calendar, and the family travelled west to Colorado, Wyoming, Montana and Idaho to explore parklands and waterways (and to get after the fish whenever possible). In retirement, Tom travelled with Paul to Alaska and Labrador to fish for salmon and giant brook trout in what would be their very best and last fishing trips together.

Tom enjoyed cooking, especially if it involved a grill, campfire or cast iron skillet. During summers out east, he made steaming bowls of New England chowder with the day’s catch; on camping trips, he made big breakfasts over the campfire. He loved to barbeque and build fires in his backyard, enjoyed nursing a martini on the patio, and had an ever-expanding lifelong appreciation for ice cream. He liked to draw and paint, he was a competent birder and a keen gardener, and over time, he managed to transform his level, sodded suburban backyard into a nature haven for all manner of wildlife.

Tom is survived by his wife Carol, his sister Fay, his five children, their spouses (Lorri, Alice, Lisa, and Vivi), and eleven grandchildren (Bailey, Emery, Kate, Jackson, Ruby, Riley, Maxine, Martin, Gigi, Marcus, and Malijah). A memorial celebration will be planned for a later date. It was Tom’s wish that his ashes be buried at a site overlooking one or more of the “better” trout streams in Michigan; given the dubious legality of fulfilling his request, none of his next of kin (honoring Tom’s tradition of keeping things close to the vest) will be able to confirm the intended location of his final interment, but can recommend the fishing on the Manistee and Au Sable Rivers. Contributions in Tom’s memory may be made to Trout Unlimited or The Nature Conservancy.