Fannye A. Cook (1889-1964)

Fannye Cook was the driving force behind the creation of the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks, and the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science. Cook dedicated her life to conservation, and advocated to make wildlife conservation a moral responsibility for everyone.

Cook traveled tirelessly throughout Mississippi in a grassroots effort to advocate for  conservation causes. In 1927, she founded the Mississippi Association for the Conservation of WildLife to raise awareness of critical habitat loss and the need for species protection. Following seven determined years of advocacy and effort, the Mississippi legislature passed a bill to establish the Mississippi State Game & Fish Commission. 

Cook conducted the first extensive wildlife and plant surveys in Mississippi, collecting over 28,000 specimens. The specimens were housed at the State Wildlife Museum that Cook founded and operated largely on her own. Today, the Fannye A. Cook Memorial at the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science is named in her honor. 

In her later years, Cook published several books on Mississippi’s diverse wildlife, species distribution, habitat, and population abundance. She is best known for Fishes of Mississippi (1959), a textbook used by college biology students for many years. Cook continued to share her love of nature until the end of her life. 

Cook was a pioneering conservationist, scientist, and teacher at a time when women were often not highly regarded or treated well within the scientific community. In November 2016, the Fannye Cook Natural Area, a 3000-acre tract of land adjacent to the Pearl River in the Jackson, Mississippi metropolitan area was dedicated to her and her life’s work.

“All citizens are responsible for the conservation of our natural resources.”

—Fannye Cook.

This plaque was created by SUTL Cohort 38.

Photo Credit: Mississippi Museum of Natural Science.