Margaret Wentworth Owings was born in 1913 in Berkeley, California. She graduated in 1934 from Mills College and the following year completed graduate studies in art at the Fogg Museum at Harvard University. In the 1940s she led successful campaigns to block development on beaches along California's central coast. She married Nathaniel Owings, a founding partner in one of the nation's leading architectural firms, and together they campaigned to limit development in Big Sur. Owings was most closely identified with her work to save sea otters, a cause she championed as president of Friends of the Sea Otter from its 1968 founding until the early 1990s. She also led a campaign to end hunting mountain lions in California. Owings was a State Parks commissioner from 1963 to 1969 and was a leader in many environmental groups, including Defenders of Wildlife, the National Parks Foundation, African Wildlife Leadership Foundation and the Environmental Defense Fund. She was a founder of the Rachel Carson Council, created to combat toxic substances in the environment, and a member of the Big Sur Land Trust. She received awards from the Children's Health Environmental Coalition, the U.S. Department of the Interior, Sierra Club and United Nations Environment Program, among many others. Owings spent the last months of her life preparing a compilation of her writings and artwork, "Voice from the Sea: Reflections on Wildlife and Wilderness." Published only weeks before her death, the book covers five decades of her crusade. Owings died on January 21, 1999 at Wild Bird, her clifftop home in Big Sur, California.

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