Former Herald garden writer Georgia Tasker, 78, died after contracting a virus on vacation
Former Miami Herald garden writer Georgia Tasker’s prose was as rich in color as the South Florida ecosystem that she documented for readers for more than 40 years. That prose was also prescient.
Consider the opening sentences from her 1986 Herald series, “The Vanishing Rainforest: Their Destruction Threatens Our Future,” in which Tasker detailed the rapid destruction of one of the earth’s oldest and most fragile ecosystems. She was a 1987 Pulitzer Prize finalist in the category of explanatory journalism for that series.
Tasker, who died Saturday morning at age 78, was aware of such reach and result because Tasker, a world traveler, author, photographer, wife, plant and animal lover, cared and was ever observant.
An excerpt from the series:
In the moment it takes your heart to beat 72 times, more than 50 acres of rain forest are cut down somewhere in the tropics.
All day every day, the chain saws rip and roar, from sunup to sundown, Saturdays and holidays. No Sabbath is holy.
In a month’s time, a piece of the tropics the size of Yellowstone National Park disappears.
In a year’s time, a piece of the tropics the size of Pennsylvania disappears.
What’s at risk is more than just vanishing jungle. The consequences stretch into South Florida’s back yard.
Early awareness of climate change
“What strikes me is that when Georgia was raising awareness about rainforest conservation and all this kind of stuff that is important regarding global warming, she was way ahead of the time,” said Suzanne Koptur, a Florida International University emeritus professor for biological sciences at the International Center for Tropical Botany. “Now people are waking up to the fact that it is really hot and that we’re having really crazy weather.”
In 2018, Koptur presented Tasker with an honorary Doctor of Science degree from FIU.
“She was such an important contributor to the community with all her articles about not only gardening and plants but conservation, rainforest conservation, and native plants and disappearing habitats. I just thought she was a very positive force ecologically for our community,” Koptur said in a phone interview with the Miami Herald on Saturday afternoon.
Hours earlier on July 22, Tasker died at Doctor’s Hospital in Coral Gables.
A fatal vacation
Tasker’s wife Sandra Schultz said the cause of death may be attributed to yellow fever, a potentially fatal virus found in tropical and subtropical areas of Africa and South America, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The couple had completed a two-week World Wildlife Fund trip to Brazil and the Pantanal region, the world’s largest wetland, Schultz said. The trip originated on June 12.
While in a lodge after a trek through the Pantanal forest, Tasker noticed a tick on her stomach, Schultz said. The pair tried to remove the tick but could not remove the head, Schultz said.
Soon after, Tasker did not feel well at a farewell dinner near the end of the trip. She felt better for a couple days, but once home in Coconut Grove in late June Tasker began to feel sick again and was in and out of the hospital.
Schultz said Tasker began treatment for melanoma in January 2022. Her immune system simply couldn’t combat whatever virus that tick may have inflicted.
Tasker’s liver and kidney started shutting down. She died Saturday morning. “She squeezed my hand and then she basically shut down,” Schultz said shortly after.
Life and career
Born Georgia Brucken in Louisville, Kentucky, on Sept. 11, 1944, Tasker was an English major graduate of Hanover College in Indiana. Shortly after college she wrote for the Dayton Daily News and joined the Herald as a writer in 1969, and became its garden writer in 1979.
During that time she had been married to, and divorced from, fellow Herald features writer and wine columnist Fred Tasker, who died in 2021.
In addition to her Pulitzer-considered work for the Herald, Tasker wrote several books, including “Wild Things, The Return of Native Plants” and “Enchanted Ground, Gardening with Nature in the Subtropics.” She co-authored “Florida Gardening Guide,” “Florida, Getting Started Garden Guide,” and “Growing Orchids in South Florida.”
She left the Herald in 2009.
After leaving, Tasker joined the staff at Fairchild Tropical Botanical Garden as a photographer and journalist for the garden’s quarterly magazine. She retired in 2018.
World traveler
“We’ve traveled all over the world. Papua New Guinea. Borneo. All seven continents. Antarctica was her favorite,” Schultz said. “She loved animals, all kinds of plants. She was a wonderful writer. She was so much fun and kind-hearted. She gave a lot of support to a lot of different animal projects — the Humane Society, the World Wildlife Fund. That’s one of the things that I really loved about her.”
Schultz recalls Tasker’s enduring bond with readers, even years after she left her Herald home.
“It was really interesting when we’d go into Publix people recognized her and they’d go, ‘You’re Georgia Tasker! We haven’t seen you in a long time,’” Schultz said.
Trip to Antarctica
“Georgia was an intrepid journalist who loved to explore, whether it was the lychee farmers in the Redland or Scott’s Hut in Antarctica, a hut from the early 1900s where Ernest Shackleton and some of his crew took refuge,” said Joan Chrissos, a Herald senior editor who worked closely with Tasker.
Georgia painted a picture of the hut’s perfect preservation: “Heinz ketchup, vinegar and lime juice bottles, hay bales, horse collars and piles of seal blubber for fueling the stoves remain as they were left,” she wrote in her Sunday article, published Oct. 8, 2000.
“And Georgia loved to share her knowledge. On that Antarctic trip, Georgia answered questions from Marge Rosen’s students at Beth Am Day School in Pinecrest, who wanted to know why penguins don’t fly and how they communicate with each other, among other queries,” Chrissos said.
“She answered all their questions, and took them and Herald readers on a voyage of a lifetime.”
Survivors, services
Tasker is survived by Schultz, her partner of nearly 25 years. The couple wed last year. A celebration of life will be held in the fall, Schultz said.
