Route 1 in Massachusetts. As a charter member of the Amherst Conservation Commission from 1962 to 1974, she help lead efforts to preserve the lands in the Holyoke Range. In 1970, Dakin founded and served as Executive Director of the Kestrel Trust, a private land trust that acquired land in neighboring communities for conservation purposes as a part of the Conservation Commission. In 1979 she raised $250,000 from private funds for the Equine Center Project at the University of Massachusetts, and she later donated her Amherst home and the surrounding land to the same university. It is now known as the Renaissance Center. Dakin was a longtime animal advocate. She become the founding member and first president of The Friends of Amherst’s Stray Animals (FASA), later renamed the Dakin Animal Shelter, and which went on to become the Dakin Humane Society, the largest animal shelter and resource center in western Massachusetts. She also led state-wide efforts to protect animals from laboratory cruelty. As a result of her work, hundreds of thousands of pets were rescued and adopted, and more than 85,000 were spayed or neutered at the Dakin Community Clinic. Her papers and photographs are preserved at Mount Holyoke College. Last years During her lifetime, Dakin became known as “The First Lady of Amherst.” She died of lung cancer on October 7, 1994 in Amherst, at 84 years of age. Selected awards Volunteer Achievement Award from the Mount Holyoke Alumnae Association in 1975 Conservation Award from The Trustees of Reservations in 1978 References External links Janet Wilder Dakin Papers at Mount Holyoke College (Identifier: MS 0674) 1910 births 1994 deaths Mount Holyoke College alumni Mount Holyoke College faculty University of Chicago alumni Berkeley High School (Berkeley, California) alumni 20th-century American zoologists 20th-century American women scientists