In Memoriam: Diane Soucy

by David Wheeler, Executive Director

The New Jersey conservation community lost a great champion with the passing of Diane Soucy of The Raptor Trust this month. Diane was a tireless advocate for New Jersey’s wildlife, and a co-founder and driving force behind the Trust’s amazing success in caring for over 150,000 songbirds, wading birds, waterfowl, hummingbirds, and – of course – raptors.

Diane will be sorely missed by all of us who work to protect wildlife in New Jersey. She was equally talented at caring for injured birds, growing an organization, and inspiring thousands of people to share her dedication to the well-being of New Jersey’s wildlife. She was an expert rehabilitator before the phrase “wildlife rehabilitation” was even coined. Alongside her husband Len, Diane developed techniques which became the best practices in the field. Their legacy lives on in the many wildlife rehabilitators across the country that were influenced by learning about or visiting the Raptor Trust. 

Here at CWF, we are grateful that we had the chance to express our admiration of Diane in 2018 with the Women & Wildlife Lifetime Legacy Award. We were honored to work beside her and humbled by the sacrifices she made for New Jersey’s wildlife. It was a privilege to know Diane and to witness first-hand the legacy she built, one feeding, one thank you note, one educational program at a time. New Jersey is a much better place thanks to her tireless efforts, for its human and avian residents alike.

Diane’s family requests that in lieu of flowers, donations be made to The Raptor Trust with a note designating “The Leonard and Diane Soucy Memorial Fund.”

All donations made in Diane’s name will go to the newly-renamed Leonard and Diane Soucy Memorial Fund. The fund was originally established in 2014 in memory of Len Soucy to support the educational programming at The Raptor Trust.