No I'm not talking about that collection of essays gathered together after his death and published first by his son and then with some changes by others. I mean a book.
A long thorough timeless thoughtful book that changed the way Americans looked upon wildlife. His book pointed the direction that we as a country took in managing wildlife on our vast public lands from that time onwards. As much as anything it is responsible for the great wildlife conservation efforts of the years that followed. His book not only opened peoples eyes to a new way of looking at the great variety of wildlife that would thrive under careful stewardship but it served as a textbook for the many graduates of the newly formed sciences of wildlife biology and game management.
At 450 pages the book is technical but maintains the direct style of writing Leopold is famous for. I find myself going back and reading chapters on subjects I wish to understand better. Most if the examples and ideas are relevant for any species.
Outside of professionals very few are familiar with the book wich is a shame as it is so well written and informative. Some ideas on why this book gets ignored below the squiggly chicken entrails.
Prescribed Burn National Wildlife Refuge
The name of the book is Game Management and therein lies the rub. Many refuse to recognize that wildlife is a managed renewable resource. Leopold and those who followed did their jobs too well. Most today fail to recognize that the abundant fauna we see around us was extremely rare eighty years ago. Most of us do not understand that the bears in New Jersey and the mountain lions in California did not just grow, they were grown by hunters and ranchers, loggers and farmers, working with wildlife professionals.
Leopold understood that wildlife populations could be restored through, "creative use of the same tools that have heretofore destroyed it - axe, plow, cow, fire, and gun." He calls this idea the "central thesis" of his book. Hunters, ranchers, and loggers, are the favorite bogeyman of the modern radical environmentalists, the Earth Justicers and Biologic Diversifiers.
Leopold is only useful for these Johnny come latelys of the conservation scene in his story of transformation from wolf hunter to conservationist. Leopold of the Greenfire essay. The Defenders of Wildlife would prefer to forget all about Leopolds wildlife management because the age old truths of scientific observation it contains fly in the face of all their laissez faire animal ideas. Western Watersheds hates ranchers and hunters, how in the heck can they ever consider that they are the ones who restored and maintain wildlife.
At the end of his first chapter Leopold in anticipation of these pop environmentalists states,
There are still those who shy at this prospect of a man made game crop as at something artificial and there fore repugnant. This attitude shows good taste but poor insight. Every head of wildlife still alive in this country is already artificialized, in that it's existence is conditioned by economic forces. Game management merely proposes that their impact shall not remain wholly fortuitous.
Or read this bit of heresy,
Game management and forestry grow natural species in an environment not greatly altered for the purpose in hand, relying on partial control of a few factors to enhance the yield above what unguided nature would produce.
This is not just allowing nature to take it's course. It sometimes means logging. Cutting and using the wood produced and in turn allowing the newly opened canopy to provide forage and feed to the animals who eat it. Culling predators to improve populations of prey so there are more animals to hunt and eat. Not cutting all the forests or culling all the predators, but a careful "alteration" to "enhance yield".
I think it was $18 near new softcover. I buy few books, mostly I get them at the library. I bought Game Management.