LI environmentalist Dan Morris, 63, dies

Environmentalist Dan Morris traveled the world as a sailor, studied farming upstate and worked in Connecticut's maritime industry. But it was in Suffolk that the quiet man with a passion for birding found his center, embarking on two decades of activism to defend Long Island's natural places.

Morris, 63, died Saturday of lymphoma at Singing Bird Farm, the wooded four-acre property in Center Moriches where he lived with his wife, conservation advocate Marilyn England. They planted sprawling vegetable plots, raising everything from cauliflower to peas.

"We call it a farmlet," said England. "It was like doing what he had always wanted to do on a smaller scale."

An inspector for the Suffolk Health Department for nearly 25 years, Morris spent his time trying to protect woods and wetlands through the Open Space Council, which England heads.

Morris helped preserve Warbler Woods and defeat developer Wilbur Breslin's proposal for a large mall in Yaphank. More recently, he closely followed efforts to devise a plan for the Carmans River Watershed area.

Morris grew up in Jamaica, Queens, the youngest of four children, said his sister, Nancy Gray of Northville. Each summer, as soon as school let out, they headed for the family bungalow in Riverhead.

After graduating from John Adams High School in Queens, Morris entered the Navy. He later became a merchant seaman, traveling widely. He earned a bachelor's degree in agricultural sciences from Cornell University.

Morris moved to Suffolk in the 1980s and was working for the health department when he met England, 69. She had organized a cleanup to remove debris from woods where she was studying northern harriers.

They married in 1992, honeymooning on Block Island, where they watched the fall hawk migration on the Atlantic Flyway.

Morris was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma in 2007 and thought he had beat it, but the cancer returned two years later. Shortly before his death the couple went to the Galápagos Islands.

Morris is also survived by his brother, Richard Morris of Venice, Fla., and another sister, Harriet Morris of Bakersfield, Calif. A wake will be held Wednesday and Thursday at Sinnickson's Moriches Funeral Home in Center Moriches.