[1][2][3] Griffin was widely honored, including by the National Park Service in an article, for his decades of environmental work in helping to preserve numerous sensitive wildlife habitats in Sonoma and Marin County.

He studied medicine and graduated from Stanford University, subsequently setting up medical practice as an internist in Marin County.

[6] After being contacted by activist Elizabeth Terwilliger, Griffin played a substantial part in establishing wildlife sanctuaries along Richardson Bay, working with and learning from environmentalist Caroline Livermore.

Griffin took note of Livermore's strategy of raising money to purchase sensitive areas threatened by construction.

Noting the need for secrecy in preventing development, Griffin observed in 2010 that "We had to keep all the operations very secretive because once someone else found out what you were up to it was trouble.

"[8] Griffin also helped stop a planned freeway from the Golden Gate Bridge through West Marin to Sonoma County, which would have enabled construction along its route.

[10] Griffin stated: "I went to a meeting [in the late 1950s] on the proposed large freeway going from the Golden Gate Bridge to West Marin and up the Sonoma Coast.

He criticized efforts by Senator Dianne Feinstein to allow the continued operation of a shellfish farm and tasting bar in the Phillip Burton Wilderness, a sensitive coastal area of Point Reyes National Seashore.

Writing in an op-ed in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, Griffin was direct in his opposition to the continued operations of the Drakes Bay Oyster Company: "Sen. Dianne Feinstein has continued political obstruction on behalf of the company in this nationally significant policy decision, and it must stop."

Let's not drive a stake through its ecological heart, but rather honor the legacy of John Muir, Clem Miller, Peter Behr and others, and let the estero go wild.