The birding community was shocked by the sudden death of Candace Stuart, who died July 28 when her car was struck a few blocks from her home by a vehicle carrying three men fleeing police after a shooting.
News of the death of the woman who owned the Wild Bird Center of Denver for 18 years spread rapidly, and grief flowed from across the country.
“She was such an ambassador for birds, bird education, conservation and all the things that make our world a great place,” said Marsha Pearson, who runs a marketing company for independent retailers specializing in wild birds.
Stuart, who had left a 20-year career as a management consultant, opened her store in 1994 and nurtured it into a community center for backyard bird-lovers.
“She always believed in the things that made nature great,” Pearson said Thursday. “There is just no way of expressing what a loss it is, and in such a sad, sad way.”
Lee Hopwood of Wild Bird Wags & Whiskers in Albuquerque heard the bad news from a birder in Parker.
“She had 18 years as a bird-store owner, bird-walk leader and bird resource in Denver,” Hopwood said. “There’s not another one like that.”
Over the years, Stuart introduced thousands of people to bird-watching.
“For many people, the first thing they ever did was go on a bird walk with Candace,” said Hopwood. “They’d never gone birding outside their backyards, and she’d take them somewhere they didn’t even know was a birding mecca, right in the middle of Denver.”
Debbie Strimple, a co-founder of the rehabilitation center Wild BIRD of Denver, was working in a pet store in 1979 and sold Stuart her first cockatiel.
“She fell in love with birds,” Strimple said.
Stuart walked around with the cockatiel on her shoulder, started feeding the birds in her backyard and then decided to quit her career and start over with the wild-bird store, Strimple said.
When Strimple needed a job after finishing veterinary-technician school, Stuart hired her at the Wild Bird Center.
“She opened my eyes to the whole world of Colorado wildlife,” said Strimple, who had studied avian medicine and worked with companion birds such as canaries and parakeets but knew little about wild birds.
At the store, they got lots of calls from people who had found hurt wild birds but didn’t know where to take them.
A small group of women decided to start a nonprofit that eventually became Wild BIRD, which has sheltered and released more than 12,000 wild birds since its start in 2000.
The fledgling nonprofit operated from the basement of Stuart’s store for the first two years, saving money while Strimple became a federally licensed rehabilitator.
Strimple studied with Catherine Hurlbutt, known as and who drove an old Checker cab as a bird ambulance and filled her home with an overflow of wounded birds.
When Strimple got a separate space for Wild BIRD, Stuart let her store manager have the summer off to work at the rehab center.
“She’d say, ‘I’ve got to do four months of overtime,’ ” Strimple said. “But that’s how much she loved the birds.”
The Wild Bird Center, which closed after Stuart’s death, reopened Tuesday. Local bird-lovers are holding a memorial bird walk for Stuart on Saturday at Bluff Lake Nature Center, one of her favorite places.
High on the bluff, overlooking prairie grass and wetlands, she often communed with familiar friends: orioles, kingbirds, warblers, buntings, hummingbirds, doves, flickers, gold finches, red-winged blackbirds, robins and great blue herons.
“All around the country,” Hopwood said, “people are missing Candace.”
Colleen O’Connor: 303-954-1083, coconnor@denverpost.com or twitter.com/coconnordpt
Memorial walk
The bird walk honoring Candace Stuart starts promptly at 8 a.m. Saturday, so participants should get there a few minutes early. Meet at the main entrance of Bluff Lake Nature Center, 3400 Havana Way, Denver. More info: Call Wild Bird Center of Denver at 303-758-7575.
