Annotated Bibliography Daniel Call, Professor of Environmental Science Wendt Semester, Spring, 2007

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1 1 Annotated Bibliography Daniel Call, Professor of Environmental Science Wendt Semester, Spring, 2007 My focus for the semester was on the development of an environmental ethic, or land ethic, as originally proposed by Aldo Leopold, and incorporation of this concept in greater detail into EVS 105 (Introduction to Environmental Science). The following annotated bibliography is for a number of listings that are currently available in the Meyer s Library at the University of Dubuque. Two of the annotated sources below are books are by Aldo Leopold himself, while the remainder are by others about Leopold s legacy in conservation, game management, and the advances of modern society. These sources are by no means exhaustive of the works by or about Aldo Leopold, but they do provide considerable insight into this great American visionary in the conservation field. Brown, D. E and N. B. Carmony (Eds.). Aldo Leopold s Southwest. Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press. 250 pp. This is a collection of 26 little-known essays by Aldo Leopold that stem from his work and life in New Mexico and Arizona between 1909 and Leopold was hired by the U.S. Forest Service to work as a forester in the National Forests of this region, taking inventory of the resource for timber harvest and livestock grazing. Working in this capacity, he also came to focus on the wildlife of the national forests, particularly the game species that were sought after by sportsmen. The welfare of the wildlife actually became his passion, to a much greater extent than the routine aspects of forestry. In 1915 at age 28, Leopold was assigned a task within the U.S. Forest Service to formulate a game conservation plan for District 3 in the Southwest. The first eight essays in this book were written between 1915 and 1919, and deal with efforts to restore game by creating refuges, establishing more rigorous game protection laws and programs, and developing good hunting ethics. The next section of this book consists of seven articles written by Leopold between 1918 and 1930, dealing with game management as a new science. This is followed by eight essays that reflect his understanding of ecology and land health, and four final articles called afterthoughts and reflections from afar. The editors provide interesting and objective comments on Leopold s essays, which retrospectively serve to point out his errors and flawed thinking at the time, as well as his foresight and enormous contributions to conservation. Callicot, J. B. (Ed.) Companion to A Sand County Almanac. Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press. 308 pp. Ten authors have contributed chapters in this book, including two by Callicot, the editor. The book contains four sections, entitled The Author, The Book, The Upshot, and The Impact. Callicot notes in the introduction that this book is about a book, A Sand County Almanac, not about the author. However, it appears to me that this collection also provides a good deal of information about the author and the formative years that led to Leopold s writing of his famous book. Callicot notes that Leopold had intended to call his book Great Possessions when he first submitted it in 1947 to Alfred A. Knopf for

2 2 publication, who rejected it. The original 1947 Foreword by Leopold has been included in this book by Callicot, and is very interesting to read. It is much longer than the Foreword that was included in A Sand County Almanac, published by Oxford University Press in 1949, and includes autobiographical sketches by Leopold that serve to illuminate his rationale for the development of certain chapters in his book. This information is not available in the shorter Foreword to A Sand County Almanac. Flader, S. L. and J. B. Callicot (Eds.) The River of the Mother of God and Other Essays by Aldo Leopold. Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press. 384 pp. In this book, Flader and Callicot have selected and included fifty-plus published and unpublished writings of Aldo Leopold. The editors Callicot and Flader are a philosopher and historian, respectively, so the writings that were selected for inclusion in this volume (from a collection of approximately one thousand possibilities) represent works that emphasize Leopold s philosophy regarding man and nature (i.e., Callicot s selections), as well as the developmental progression of his philosophy (i.e., Flader s selections). The editors state in the Preface that they hope that this book is a volume that combines the virtues (and avoids the vices) of both approaches: a volume that illuminates Aldo Leopold his eventful life, his multifaceted career, and his diverse writings and one that documents the development of his most original and influential ideas. Callicot was interested in selecting essays by Leopold that illuminated the major themes for which Leopold is best known today, such as wilderness preservation, ecology, natural esthetics, and the land ethic. Flader was interested in selecting essays that represented the periods in Leopold s productive life and career, and exemplified the various genres in which he wrote. A brief chronology of Leopold s life, and a 28-page Introduction lead directly into the chronological series of 59 essays by Leopold. They start with an essay, A Tramp in November, written when he was 17 years old and attending Lawrenceville prep school in New Jersey. The River of the Mother of God, a five-page essay about wilderness, written in 1924 at age 37, was turned down by the Yale Review, but is the namesake essay in the title of this collection. The final essay in this collection, The Ecological Conscience, was delivered to the Conservation Committee of the Garden Club of America on June 7, 1947, a year before Leopold s death. Portions of this last essay were incorporated into Leopold s most famous work, A Sand County Almanac. Leopold, A Game Management. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press. 481 pp. The brief poem of dedication of this book to his father, Carl Leopold, undoubtedly provides considerable insight into why Aldo Leopold pursued the path in life that he followed. It reads How oft against the sunset sky or moon, we watched the moving zigzag of spread wings, in unforgotten autumns too soon, in unforgotten springs. In the late 1800s and early 1900s in Burlington, IA, overlooking the Mississippi River, they undoubtedly saw many magnificent migrations of ducks, geese, cranes, and other species

3 3 of birds. This pioneering text introduced a whole new way of thinking about game in the U.S.; i.e., to manage the land in a way that benefited wildlife. Leopold was a pioneer in the field of wildlife management, and this book was developed as a result of his work as a forester in the Southwest with the U.S. Forest Service and as a biologist for the Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers Institute. It was published before he was invited to become the nation s first professor of wildlife management at the University of Wisconsin, but undoubtedly had a large impact upon the fact that such an invitation was extended to him. With this book and his faculty appointment, Leopold created the discipline of wildlife management; and later became known as the father of this discipline. In the Foreword by Lawrence Jahn, it is stated that this book provides the ideas, principles, techniques, and administrative alignments to encourage land to produce wildlife. The book consists of 18 chapters in three parts. Part I, Management Theory, deals with a history of ideas in the general area, using science as a tool, and some basic ecological properties of game populations. Ecology itself, as a separate discipline, was developing at the same time. Part II, Management Techniques, covers specific techniques that a game manager or land owner could follow to try to maximize habitat for wildlife species. Part III, Game Administration, consists of three chapters dealing with esthetics, policy/administration, and game management as a profession. In this book, Leopold provided many of the basic foundational concepts and principles to move the field of game management forward, in providing a holistic ecological approach to increasing productivity of game populations. This has provided a framework for wildlife management in general, including populations of non-game species as well as game species. All species benefit by having their natural habitats restored, which was a major underlying theme in Leopold s approach, and in the land ethic philosophy that he espoused. Leopold, A A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There. New York: Oxford University Press. 228 pp. Part I, A Sand County Almanac, chronicles in a most delightful way some of Leopold s experiences at his property along the Wisconsin River near Baraboo, WI. He and his family would regularly retreat from his work at the University of Wisconsin to this old abandoned farm. There he had an opportunity to develop some of his thoughts and essays about conservation, wildlife and society that he incorporated into his famous concept of a land ethic. Each chapter in this part of the book is named according to a month of the year, and Leopold cleverly builds on some activity in a given month at the farm to force the reader to reflect upon nature itself or man s interactions with nature. Part II, Sketches Here and There, draws more from his travels and experiences in other parts of the U.S. His famous essay, Thinking Like a Mountain, is included in this part of the book, stemming from his experiences in Arizona and New Mexico. Part III, The Upshot, deals with the way that society had come to view nature in his lifetime and at the time of writing (post World War II), and includes his essay, The Land Ethic, for which Leopold became most famous posthumously.

4 4 Meine, C. and R. L. Knight (Eds.) The Essential Aldo Leopold Quotations and Commentaries. Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press. 362 pp. This book is a collection of quotations from Aldo Leopold s works, both published and unpublished. The 21 chapters, each with an introduction to the particular topic of the chapter by an expert in the field, are divided into three parts: conservation science and practice, conservation policy, and conservation and culture. The editors have provided brief, but insightful, views of Leopold s philosophy and involvement in each of the above three areas. For example, Leopold practiced conservation both professionally and in his personal life. He advocated sound ecological policy in conservation, and was not afraid to criticize federal agencies for their lack of ecological consideration in implementing programs of grand scale. And he was keenly aware of the need for holistic education in our culture that included a connection to nature and the land. He was concerned about the increasing disconnect that he was observing between man and nature (i.e., land). The editors of this book have attempted to present the essence of Leopold in each of the 21 areas by selecting quotes that reflect his development of thinking in each particular area, as well as his seminal quotes for which he is famous. By reading even just portions of this collection, one readily obtains a good feel for the philosophical views held by Leopold, as well as his talent in putting his thoughts on paper in an imaginative, inspirational and entertaining way. Newton, J. N Aldo Leopold s Odyssey. Washington, D.C.: Island Press. 483 pp. In this book, Newton provides an objective portrait of Leopold s intellectual journey to arrive at his famous land ethic. Ms. Newton chronicles certain events in Leopold s adult life, particularly the experiences that appear to have influenced his writings. It starts with his professional career in 1909 as a forester in Arizona. I will briefly summarize a few aspects of his life that Newton covers. Leopold relished the Southwest and his outdoor work, but took ill with a serious case of nephritis in 1913, and was ordered by his doctor to return to his parents home in Burlington, IA, to recuperate. There, in his large childhood home overlooking the Mississippi River, he gradually recovered, but was on medical leave for more than sixteen months. Leopold returned to the Southwest in 1914, where he worked until 1924, at which time he assumed a position as Assistant Director of the Forest Products Laboratory in Madison, WI. However, his main passion was on wildlife and wildlife conservation; and in 1928 he assumed a new position with the Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers Institute (SAAMI). Working in this capacity, he became highly respected on a national level in the field of game conservation, and worked on his book, Game Management. In the Great Depression year of 1932, his job with SAAMI ended in March. Without permanent work, he hung out his shingle as consulting forester. In June, 1933, he was offered a five-year position on a trial basis with the University of Wisconsin as the nation s first professor of wildlife management. Having experienced the Depression and Dust Bowl years, and having witnessed major habitat changes and the loss of species like the passenger pigeon, Leopold became convinced that a whole new ethic toward the land needed to be cultured in the public as a whole. He bought a run-down farm in the sand country along the

5 Wisconsin River near Baraboo, WI, in 1935, to which he and his family would frequently retreat from Madison. There, he had time to ponder nature and man s impacts upon nature, to make notes on his observations, to reflect upon the developments in the new field called ecology, and to develop his thoughts on land health. He seized upon the term integrity to describe the need for maintaining diversity of native plant and animal species. Leopold died in 1948, a year before his widely read work, A Sand County Almanac, was published. This book by Newton, Aldo Leopold s Odyssey, is an interesting account of events in Leopold s life that undoubtedly influenced his philosophical views of man and nature. 5