Click for printable version
Click to send to a friend

Jim Deacon, who is retiring from teaching after 41 years at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, talks in the atrium of the Juanita Greer White Life Sciences building about his research of and advocacy for desert fish. Photo by John Gurzinski. Jim Deacon points out a feature of Devil's Hole, a protected underwater cave about 100 miles west of Las Vegas that is home to a unique species of pupfish, to one-time UNLV employee Francis Peck in this photo from 1984. Review-Journal file photo Jim Deacon Biology professor, as shown in UNLV's 1961 yearbook

Monday, May 06, 2002
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

UNLV 'fossil' ready to retire

Deacon has taught biology at school for more than 40 years

In the late 1950s, when Jim Deacon was completing his zoology graduate work in Lawrence, Kan., he came to admire faraway desert fish as "wonderful creatures in improbable locations."

His desire to study closely the fish about which he had only a textbook knowledge drew him into an interview at a Kansas City hotel with UNLV's first dean, William Carlson, who was touring the country recruiting faculty for a campus that had two buildings, few students and the stepchild status of being an extension of Reno's University of Nevada.

City and school unseen, Deacon agreed to become the campus' second biology professor. He moved to Las Vegas on Labor Day in 1960.

"I had two other opportunities elsewhere," remembered Deacon, who is retiring from teaching after 41 years at UNLV.

"This was the most attractive to me because I had gotten really interested in desert fishes. I was really fascinated that there were so many isolated, endemic fishes in this region. There was really no biologist nearby studying them. This was a great opportunity to come into an area where there was relatively little known and, therefore, just limitless opportunities for setting up a research program. It was one of those fascinating stories in North America."

Deacon, who had fished with his father throughout his childhood in South Dakota, made the best of his opportunities.

Over the decades, his expertise and conservation efforts have helped protect endangered or threatened fish living in Devil's Hole, a Nevada underwater cave that is part of Death Valley National Park; in the Virgin River, which runs through Zion National Park; and in Southern Nevada's Corn Creek Spring, the only known home of the Pahrump pool fish, which was transplanted from Pahrump to escape extinction.

Among the desert fish whose existence has been aided by Deacon: Devil's Hole pupfish; Virgin River spine dace; Virgin River chub; and the woundfin, a minnow that now lives only in the Virgin River. Deacon's advocacy for rare fish and plants in Ash Meadows, near Nevada's border with California, helped to protect the area from development and turn it into a national wildlife sanctuary.

Rhinichthys deaconi was the scientific name given to the extinct Las Vegas dace, which 50 or 60 years ago swam in the now dried-up Las Vegas Springs along U.S. Highway 95 near The Meadows mall. Pyrgulopsis deaconi was the scientific name given to the Spring Mountain snail. Both species were named in Deacon's honor because of his work in identifying and describing them.

When one of his students in 1969 wrote about potential habitat loss as part of her thesis on the ecology of the Devil's Hole pupfish, Deacon and others responded by drawing national attention to the threat of a lowering water table. The pupfish and its only habitat, Devil's Hole, were protected by a U.S. Supreme Court water rights decision in 1976.

"That really established the responsibility of the National Park Service to protect the water rights that were necessary to maintain the character of a national park," said Deacon, 67.

"Once the park service in effect was told by the Supreme Court they had that responsibility, in that specific a way, they became more aggressive about protecting their water rights, which led then to other water rights cases with respect to national parks, including Zion."

Deacon's fascination with desert fish evolved into conservation efforts. And Deacon, whose parents were both educators, turned into an expert on environmental issues such as water quality in the Southwest and an international expert on desert fish.

"Jim's a remarkable person," said Vicki Tripoli, a former student who helped Deacon launch an environmental studies program 11 years ago at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

"He broadens the picture for everyone, helping people see the big picture on how everything is related. He teaches about more than science and about more than the environment."

Deacon, who often invites developers or businesspeople into his classes to share what he calls their valid but differing perspectives, said he tries to teach "interconnectedness."

Why should anyone care about the 1-inch Devil's Hole pupfish? Or any other threatened desert fish that is genetically unique because of its isolation from other species, brought on by the island effect of Nevada's basin and range geography?

"The Devil's Hole pupfish is one part of that general phenomenon happening around the world that signals the death of birth for literally thousands of species over a period of a few decades," Deacon said.

"The extinction of biodiversity in aquatic habitats in Nevada is simply telling us that we're using our water more rapidly than it's being replenished. The long-term threat is not just to the Devil's Hole pupfish, but it's to our water supply. If we think it's important for our children to have the same opportunities we enjoy, it's really critical for us to learn how to use environmental resources sustainably."

Tripoli, an environmental scientist at Nevada Power Co., said Deacon's legacy will endure well after his retirement.

"He'll be remembered for the many things he's done, but also for what his students are doing out in the community," Tripoli said.

"If you've done a great job as a professor, and he has, you can go on infinitely through your students."

Future students might be lured to environmental studies by a scholarship the UNLV Foundation recently set up in Deacon's name.

Deacon, who said he has been supported continually by his school and his colleagues, was honored in 1988 as a distinguished professor by the university.

"He is a founding member of this campus and of the whole local community with interests in science and the environment," UNLV biology professor Peter Starkweather said.

"He has a reputation based on impeccable research and a strong commitment to students, from freshmen to graduate students."

In his last semester, Deacon is teaching two freshman-level "Humans and the Environment" classes and one graduate-level class on endangered species management.

Deacon is the longest continuously serving professor at UNLV, which got its wobbly start in 1957. As the professor puts it, "I'm the oldest fossil on campus."

He said he will miss teaching, but looks forward to a schedule that will give him more flexibility and personal time with his wife of 18 years, Mary Dale Deacon. He has plans that will keep him busy writing for the next three years. Much of the writing will focus on the Devil's Hole pupfish. Some of the writing will be in partnership with his daughter, who works in Oregon on environmental issues.

Deacon, who relies on a motorized wheelchair to move about campus, will continue visiting UNLV regularly for therapy in the university's Olympic-sized pool.

About 14 years ago, the Food and Drug Administration issued a "compassionate use" permit that allowed physicians to proceed with an experimental surgery to remove a spinal tumor from Deacon's neck. The experimental part of the surgery was the use of gadolinium dye, which enhanced the contrast of magnetic resonance imaging and allowed doctors to do the least amount of damage to his nervous system.

"The operation was a success, and I ended up in a wheelchair," Deacon said.

The scientist said he was happy to be "an experimental animal" because that sacrifice saved his live.

"He's just amazing with respect to the fortitude of his spirit," Starkweather said.

"He conveys that enthusiasm and love of life to those around him."