Over the decades, David Wingate gained near universal respect in his quest to save the cahow.

He spent thousands of hours culling non-native plants and replanting native and endemic plants, recreating a natural pond and maintaining Nonsuch island.

Along the way, he won dozens awards and recognitions for his work, including the Queen’s Medal of Honour, becoming a Member of the Order of the British Empire and an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1975 and 2000, respectively.

Mr Wingate’s parents, George, an accountant from Scotland, and Aileen Pattisson, who was born in Ireland, arrived in Bermuda in the 1920s, where they each already had a sibling living. Mrs Wingate was a legal secretary, with David being the third of four children from the marriage.

In 1981, Bernhard, the Prince Consort of the Netherlands, named him to the Dutch Honours List and made him a Ridder (knight) of the Order of the Golden Ark (Orde van de Gouden Ark), a chivalric order.

A noted environmentalist, Prince Bernhard created the order as a private initiative that honoured about 300 conservationists, scientists and public figures from around the world.

In 2011, Mr Wingate was named to the United Nations’ Global 500 Award, created in 1987 by the UN Environment Programme to recognise and honour environmental and humanitarian achievement despite “immense social, political and logistical obstacles”.

Prominent Global 500 Award winners include former US president Jimmy Carter, Keyan environmentalist and women’s rights advocate Wangari Maathai, scientist Jane Goodall and the World Wildlife Fund.

Mr Wingate received an honorary Doctorate of Science in 1981 for advanced expertise and significant contributions to science from Clark University, in central Massachusetts.

In November 1993, Mr Wingate was honoured at a meeting of the Colonial Waterbird Society in France, he was given the Kai Curry-Lindahl award for “a lifetime of outstanding achievement in conservation of an endangered species”.

The Kai Curry-Lindahl Award calls attention to either a lifetime of singular efforts on behalf of the conservation or management of breeding waterbirds and their habitat, or to one outstanding example of such activity that has served as a model for future workers.

In 1991 he was awarded the Eisenmann Medal of the Linnæan Society of New York — named for Carl Linnæus, the creator of the modern system of biological classification of organisms or taxonomy.

In 2007 he was nominated for the 2008 Indianapolis prize, dubbed the Nobel Prize for Environmentalists.

He is also one of 100 Bermudians in The Royal Gazette’s Millenium List who were recognised for making significant contributions to the island’s history.

He was the subject of a television programme in the Panatel series, Treasures.

As a teenager, Mr Wingate was a cofounder of the Bermuda Audubon Society and a lifelong member of the Bermuda National Trust.

In 2005 he was the feature of documentarian film-maker Lucinda Spurling’s Rare Bird/Rara Avis, detailing his personal story as well as that of Jeremy Madeiros, Mr Wingate’s successor as the Government’s conservation officer, and others.

The Audubon Society released Bermuda’s Treasure Island — A Film of Nonsuch, produced by Deirdre Brennan for Green Planet Films.

Mr Wingate was the subject of a 240-page biography, Rare Birds: The Extraordinary Tale of the Bermuda Petrel and the Man Who Brought It Back From Extinction, written by Massachusetts journalist Elizabeth Gehrman.

Ms Gehrman’s work is the foundation of the Gazette’s obituary.

Mr Wingate, with philanthropist and environmentalist Dennis Sherwin, was key to the rehabilitation of Paget Marsh, including the restoration of a pond and construction of a walkway.

The Audubon Society and the BNT each own half of the 25-acre marsh — the second largest nature reserve on the island.

He also served on the board of what is now the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences (formerly the Bermuda Biological Station), and was a research associate of the Bermuda Zoological Society.

In 1959, aged 24, Mr Wingate published The Checklist and Guide to the Birds, Mammals, Reptiles and Amphibians of Bermuda for the Audubon Society.

He wrote the preface to Birds in Bermuda, by Richard A. Slaughter.

Mr Wingate contributed a biography of John Tavenier Bartram (1811-1889) — Naturalist of the 19th Century Bermuda in the Bermuda Historical Quarterly in 1964, and Encouraging the Bluebird — A History of Bermuda’s Bluebirdand How We Can Help It, in 1970.

He wrote a polemic, Heritage Under Siege, published in Heritage Magazine in 1984.

The naturalist also published Making Safe Artificial Nesting Sites for Longtails, published in Heritage 1988.

Mr Wingate was the subject of numerous television interviews on the island and abroad, including To Tell The Truth, during its 1974-75 season and Nightline on Primetime: Brave New World in 1999.

Nonsuch Island is now the envy of the world — an experimental return to pre-settlement Bermuda, devoid of all non-native plants and animals, serving as an open air laboratory and classroom.

Along the way, Mr Wingate had to pursue the project with unwavering vigour and the diplomatic skills of an Italianate prince — and bullying dictator.

Over the years, he spent countless winter nights on the barren Castle Islands; on occasion, owing to conditions, taking up to a day to row between them.

He married an Englishwoman, Monica Ann “Anita” Morrison in 1959.

The couple would transform an 80-plus year-old quarantine station turned juvenile facility on Nonsuch into a home.

Mr Wingate soon recognised that many of the introduced flora and fauna of Bermuda had not colonised Nonsuch and it was still small and isolated enough to keep reptilian and mammalian predators at bay — or at least easy to find.

The project of culling invasive species is still under way.

Tragedy struck in 1973 when Anita Wingate was severely burnt while tending to a barrel used as an incinerator.

She is believed to have accidentally put methylated spirits into it, not knowing that trash in the ashes was smouldering.

Mrs Wingate was in hospital for five days before she succumbed to her injuries.

She left behind her devastated widower and their daughters, Janet and Karen. Her death was the subject of a court case in which the hospital was found negligent.

Mr Wingate later married second wife Elizabeth (née Roche), but divorced in 1995. She bore him one daughter, Rosalind.

His third wife was Helge (née Trapnell) from 1996 until her death in 2024.

He leaves behind three daughters, nine grandchildren, two step-grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.

Mr Wingate was instantly recognisable in Bermuda, making countless school visits, lecturing at the Bermuda Aquarium, Museum and Zoo, as well as for the Audubon Society and other organisations, and was the go-to interview for local and international media on environmental issues.

His role often meant taking unpopular positions, including, in this decade, warning against development near weakened shorelines, such as near the cliff-face at Southside, Warwick.

In 1996, after the departure of the US military from St David’s, Mr Wingate called the protection of the Castle Islands as “critical” to Bermuda’s interests.

He was consulted, in his role as conservation officer, on the planned opening up of what is now Southside, St David’s.

He publicly said he was satisfied that the environmental issues had been made clear to the Land Development Transition Office and the parks division.

“There are quite a number of things that will have to be considered given the tremendous environmental significance of the area, of which Government is aware,” he told the Gazette.

“They have asked for environmental input from all sources, and I have stressed heavily that this is a unique part of our heritage. But it also has the space and potential for multiple use.”

Eleven years into his retirement, he challenged a special development order for Tucker’s Point, Smith’s, which gave Castle Harbour Limited the power to develop a large-scale resort residential subdivision and commercial development on sensitive and protected land, in St George’s and Hamilton parishes.

In a letter to the Gazette, he noted that the caves underlying Paynter’s Hill and Quarry Hill, overlooking Castle Harbour, support more than 60 species of native and endemic marine invertebrates in their drowned sections, and was critical in response to plans to develop the area further.

“The dry caves are, likewise, a largely unexplored library of Bermuda’s pre-colonial avian and land snail heritage, in the form of fossils, which are slowly being discovered and described by myself and others,” he wrote.

By now warmed up, he became caustic: “One might well ask how such a supposedly upscale hotel operation can be in the business of obliterating this unique Bermudian heritage, and replacing it instead, with an expensive copy of Miami Beach, when so many other hotels worldwide are learning to capitalise on the eco and cultural tourism of their home areas.”

Mr Wingate was a pioneer in warning about the dangers to the environment and human life from plastics.

He told the Gazette in 1993: “After 30 years of watching what is happening on Nonsuch Island’s south beach, which I have systematically kept clear [and have] compared to old photographs and my observations, is that there was hardly any litter in the Sixties, and it was bad with oil in the Seventies. Today, plastic has gone up expeditiously.”