Curtis Boland (Buff)

Back in those days, both sides of the aisle worked together. Although I was appointed by a Republican, I've always been nonpolitical entirely. I could work with the Democrats across the aisle. And it was a whole different way of life then.

Thank you.

Everywhere you look, there's pressure on wildlife. that will be detrimental.

But despite that urgency, Buff says, You'd never get this act through the Congress. Period. Period. No way. There'd be a greater awareness, perhaps, of what such an act would do. And it's bound to hurt constituents in every state.

Yeah. Yes, yes.

Formally, I'm Curtis Boland, but I'm known as Buff. If you don't mind me asking, how old are you? Well, let's see. Right now, I'm only 95.

And then drove the ambulance all the way back here to New England and used it skiing and camping. Duck shooting.

I had a student approach me. To try to convince me we had to do something about saving the great whales.

Whales were really in trouble, and something needed to be done about it.

I got a call. You better get your butt down very quickly here because— One of the White House people has moved into the secretary's office and is firing him and all his staff.

Thing is, it was a weekend and... I didn't get around to doing that, and on Monday it was printed and became law. So that's the basis of how the eight species of great whales got on the endangered list.

Precisely. You could say I procrastinated, I suppose.

Several of us got together and decided we needed to... amend that act and the more we got into trying to amend it the more we realized what was really needed was a brand new act as buff got to thinking about what the law needed to save wildlife the political and social moment was ripe for this kind of legislation the time has come

These problems will not stand still for politics or for partisanship.

I had to testify a number of times for the act. And I organized, for instance, some of the top scientists in the country to come and testify in favor of the act. What was the sentiment in Congress towards the act?

Maybe some people may have never read it, which is not uncommon on the Hill. And I guess they didn't really understand the strength of it.

Well, that's why I wrote Section 7.

Probably only five or six of us understood the impact of that one section of the act.