In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Threatened Species [1936] This essay, published in American Forests, documents Leopold's one-hundredeighty -degree reversal on the question of predators. It also demonstrates that Leopold was keenly aware of another, less heralded, shift of perspective paralleling the reevaluation of predators: the shift from "game" management to "wildlife" management. Here Leopold pleads strongly and eloquently for a broad public commitment not only to the preservation of predators but also to the preservation of other rare and endangered wild species-flora as well as fauna. Here too he outlines the structural means for a coordinated assault on the problem, describing everything from forming an independent joint committee which would oversee the inventory and management of threatened species to redefining the mission of the National Parks and eliciting the cooperation of far-flung chapters of private conservation organizations and their individual members. The volume of effort expended on wildlife conservation shows a large and sudden increase. This effort originates from diverse courses, and flows through diverse channels toward diverse ends. There is a widespread realization that it lacks coordination and focus. Government is attempting to secure coordination and focus through reorganization ofdepartments, laws, and appropriations. Citizen groups are attempting the same thing through reorganization of associations and private funds. But the easiest and most obvious means to coordination has been overlooked : explicit definition of the immediate needs of particular species in particular places. For example: Scores of millions are being spent for land purchase, c.C.C. labor, fences, roads, trails, planting, predator-control, erosion control, poisoning, investigations, water developments, silviculture, irrigation, nurseries, wilderness areas, power dams, and refuges, within the natural range of the grizzly bear. Few would question the assertion that to perpetuate the grizzly as a part of our national fauna is a prime duty of the conservation movement. Few 230 Threatened Species 231 would question the assertion that anyone of these undertakings, at any time and place, may vitally affect the restoration of the grizzly, and make it either easy or impossible of accomplishment. Yet no one has made a list of the specific needs of the grizzly, in each and every spot where he survives, and in each and every spot where he might be reintroduced, so that conservation projects in or near that spot may be judged in the light of whether they help or hinder the perpetuation of the noblest of American mammals. On the contrary, our plans, departments, bureaus, associations, and movements are all focused on abstract categories such as recreation, forestry, parks, nature education, wildlife research, more game, fire control, marsh restoration. Nobody cares anything for these except as means toward ends. What ends? There are of course many ends which cannot and many others which need not be precisely defined at this time. But it admits of no doubt that the immediate needs ofthreatened members ofour fauna and flora must be defined now or not at all. Until they are defined and made public, we cannot blame public agencies , or even private ones, for misdirected effort, crossed wires, or lost opportunities . It must not be forgotten that the abstract categories we have set up as conservation objectives may serve as alibis for blunders, as well as ends for worthy work. I cite in evidence the C.C.C. crew which chopped down one of the few remaining eagle's nests in northern Wisconsin, in the name of "timber stand improvement." To be sure, the tree was dead, and according to the rules, constituted a fire risk. Most species of shootable non-migratory game have at least a fighting chance of being saved through the process of purposeful manipulation of laws and environment called management. However great the blunders, delays, and confusion in getting management of game species under way, it remains true that powerful motives of local self-interest are at work in their behalf. European countries, through the operation of these motives, have saved their resident game. It is an ecological probability that we will evolve ways to do so. The same cannot be said, however, of those species of wilderness game which do not adapt themselves to economic land-use, or of migratory birds which are owned in common, or of non-game forms classed as predators, or of rare plant associations which must compete with economic plants and livestock, or in general ofall wild native forms which fly at large or have only an esthetic and scientific value to man. These, then, are the special and immediate concern ofthis...

Share