Anyone who has been associated with WFO for any length of time will be familiar with the decades of service to our organization by Cat Waters. I had heard of the exploits of this dynamo long before I moved to California more than 20 years ago, and it all turned out to be true. Multiple terms on the Board of Directors, Vice President, President, Chair of the Publications Committee, fund-raiser, recruiter of talent, and general cheerleader, she was the spark plug that kept WFO humming along for many years. For all of this and more, she was awarded WFO’s fifth Alan M. Craig Award for outstanding, long-term service at the Pueblo, Colorado conference in 2017. But she wasn’t finished.
If there is a major thread that runs through all of her work with WFO, it is her deep interest in publications. Cat is an inveterate reader and lover of books, and beginning with Rare Birds of California (2007), she mastered the arcane world of book publication that carried over into the birth of our monograph series, Studies of Western Birds, where she was immensely helpful to this neophyte when he became editor of those volumes. With this background, it is not surprising that when a book review editor was needed for Western Birds in 2019, it was Cat who stepped into the breach.
Between then (Volume 50) and 2025 (Volume 56), she guided 24 reviews through the process from soliciting books, recruiting reviewers (not always the easiest task if you want good ones), editing the manuscript, to publication in the journal. Scientific publication has undergone massive changes in recent decades, with many journals and even books now being produced only in on-line digital form – hard-copy books are rapidly becoming a thing of the past, to the dismay of old-timers such as I. Cat recognized this and tried to expand the scope of reviews to include what were once considered non-traditional methods of publication (e.g., the National Geographic Guide to Birding in North America in the Great Courses series).
I am certain that our membership joins me in thanking you, Cat, for yet another important job well done in the service of WFO.
March 2026 | Kenneth P. Able