Bruce Parsil ’61

Bruce Parsil passed away peacefully at home with Christy and friend attending under hospice care on the evening of Wednesday, May 25. He had turned 85 on May 5. Bruce and Christy’s 40th wedding anniversary would have been in December of this year. He will be deeply missed by Christy, his family, and his many friends, and their cat, CC.

He will be fondly remembered on the island of Kauai for his naturalist volunteer work with many different environmental and wildlife organizations, including Kilauea Point National Wildlife Refuge, National Tropical Botanical Garden, and especially NOAA’s Hawaiian Island Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary for which he was Volunteer of the Year in 2007, and on-beach naturalist educator for annual Ocean Count and often whale strandings and monk seal “baby-sitting” events since 2001.

Always the teacher, he loved his teaching and reference work in Arizona, and discovered his second career as naturalist when they moved to Kauai in 2001. He truly loved the island and lived much longer than he thought he would. He was diagnosed with Stage 5 Chronic Kidney Disease in January 2021 and opted to not do dialysis. So they undertook the nutritional and medicinal management until a series of falls accelerated his condition resulting in Hospice care starting on May 1, 2022. Hospice was preceded by an incredible non-profit, Stay At Home, that truly helped his quality of life until then.

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