This HISTORY is an ongoing personal project that has evolved from a number of volunteer presentations. It is a draft and not for attribution. All comments and corrections welcome.

 16. CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

Transition from Royal Property to Public Trust

This history of conservation has moved from the Asian steppes and royal forests of England in 1200 CE to the enactment of a wealth of conservation laws and regulations in the 20th century. At the beginning of this timeline fish and wildlife were the property of the emperor or crown who reserved all rights of access for themselves and their nobles. Any common citizen daring to help themselves to this game, for feeding their families or eking out a living, was subject to harsh penalties including deportation and death.

Falconry Scene, ca. 1500. Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection on loan to the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza

In the late 1700s, a young United States of America had just fought a revolution and wanted nothing that smacked of the royal privilege. Fish and wildlife and other natural resources were viewed as endlessly abundant and a common resource for all. In the name of progress, rivers were dammed for their power and fouled with industrial waste while swaths of forest were stripped bare for their timber and vast prairies converted to agriculture. The welfare of any indigenous peoples that stood in the way of increasing commerce and growing industrialization was cast aside. Needless to say, such unrestrained appetites took their toll.

Voice of the Sportsman

Bearing witness to the decline of fish and wildlife in the 1800s was a small but influential and growing band of self-styled sportsmen who believed that hunting and fishing should be conducted in an appropriate manner. White, male, and well-off economically, they condemned the unregulated excesses of the market gunner and pot hunter. These sportsmen formed hunting and fishing clubs and the first conservation organizations such as the Boone and Crockett Club, Campfire Club, and Audubon societies. They further magnified their voices through increasingly widely-read publications like the American Sportsman, American Angler, and Forest and Stream.

As sportsmen pressed for conservation of fish and game, they faced hostility from the general populace who opposed any kind of game laws or other infringements on their rights to do whatever they wished. Added to this hostility was the near total lack of legal precedents and enforcement capability necessary to make game laws effective. But slowly, inexorably, the forces of conservation begin to take root. As John Reiger (2001) observes, “by the start of the 1860s, sportsmen were easily the largest, most influential, and best-organized segment of the nation to be concerned about nonutilitarian environmental issues. They began to think in more expansive terms… concerns increased for fishes and nongame, as well as for game birds and mammals, and the realization started to take hold that the preservation of habitat was more important than saving individual animals.”[129]

A Public Trust

A legal foundation for regulating and conserving fish and wildlife was established by the U.S. Supreme court in 1842 (Martin v. Waddell) that connected a public trust linage from the English Crown to the individual states. In 1896, the U.S. Supreme Court in Geer v. Connecticut concluded that wildlife is held in trust for the people, and no single person or group can claim any special or prior rights to the use of wildlife—be they hunters, birdwatchers, or friends of animals. States had the right to control and regulate the common property in wildlife, exercised for the benefit of the people. Equally important, however, Geer also found that such state ownership continued to exist only in so far as its exercise was not in conflict with the rights conveyed by the Constitution to the federal government. In 1842 and 1896, such determinations of state primacy did not cause a great deal of conflict, but that would soon change in the 20th century as concerns over migratory birds, pollution control, and other national and international issues lead to increased federal legislation and regulation. For example, some 20 years later, the Supreme Court ruled in Missouri v. Holland that the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 was an appropriate exercise of the federal government's treaty power, with the supremacy clause of the Constitution elevating treaties above state law.[130] In the 1900s, some 120 treaties, international agreements, federal statutes, executive orders, and federal regulations were enacted that created a complex array of interrelated, overlapping, and sometimes conflicting requirements (Bean and Rowland 1997).

A Legacy of Public Lands, Uniform Laws, and Professional Management

Through purchase, treaty or conquest, the United States meted out its sizable federal estate through homesteading laws, railroad grants, and other allocations to individuals and corporations in an effort to drive commerce. It provided sizable land grants to states to support education and other public institutions. Beginning in 1832, and with increasing frequency thereafter, the President and U.S. Congress began to reserve parcels of the federal estate, not to sell for the benefit of individual or corporate interests, but to be used for public benefit. One of the first was an 1864 grant of land to the State of California that later became Yosemite National Park. The trickle would become a torrent under President Theodore Roosevelt with the dedication of 148 million acres of national monuments, forests, and wildlife refuges in the years 1901-1909.

In the first half of the 20th century, natural resource management became more professional as states standardized their code of fish and wildlife regulations, universities established degree programs for fish and wildlife management, and programs like the Federal Duck Stamp, Pittman-Robinson and Dingell-Johnson created user-pays, user-benefits revenue streams to help fund fish and wildlife restoration programs, research, and ongoing professional management. The second half of the 20th century would see a growing interest in the rest of the plant and animal kingdom, not just game animals, as well of the overall health of the planet, as epitomized in passage of the Endangered Species Act of 1973.

Conservation success arose organically with a great deal of energy and vision aided by helpings of serendipity and the intervention of luck. Today fish and wildlife conservation is rooted in a comprehensive set of game laws, habitat conservation initiatives, inter-jurisdictional law enforcement, research, education, and the concept of user-based funding.[131] The North American Model of Wildlife Conservation outlines seven principles of conservation, including that wildlife are a public trust resource to be allocated fairly and thoughtfully. But the model is not seven commandments etched into a stone monolith to genuflect before, but rather a lens through which we can understand, evaluate, and celebrate how conservation has been achieved.[132]

The Commitment of Individuals

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world: indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” – attributed to Margaret Mead, cultural anthropologist (c1928)

This history of conservation is a history of individual citizens advocating for actions which created a system of laws, protected lands, and concepts (like fair chase) that today define conservation in America – the success of which is unmatched in the world.

Individuals like Rachel Carson, Rosalie Edge, George Bird Grinnell, Aldo Leopold, John Muir, Theodore Roosevelt, and many others helped shape the conservation world. Individually they might be labeled “utilitarian,” “preservationist,” “elitist,” "aesthetic," “conservationist,” but collectively they outstrip these simplistic confines. Their lasting contributions did not spring fully formed from their minds, rather they were forged in a crucible of social and professional interactions. George Bird Grinnell (featured in the final chapter), Gifford Pinchot and others promoted an adaptive, largely apolitical, and scientific management of national forests, parks, and national wildlife refuges. This professionalism has grown, been continually pruned, and redirected by passion, activism, and scientific curiosity. The tenacity of Rosalie Edge kept the growing conservation bureaucracy (governmental and non-governmental) honest, accountable, and concerned with more than a handful of favorite species. Rachel Carson raised concerns about society’s blind faith in the wonders of chemistry, such as DDT. She was met by a fierce and derisive opposition of “professionals” and “experts.” Many other men and women were equal champions for fish and wildlife conservation. Thankfully, their collective concerns were ultimately persuasive, and society is better off for their combined efforts.

The history of fish and wildlife conservation is still being written, and its authors will hopefully be mindful of the past while accepting personal responsibility for the future of the lands, waters, and fish and wildlife therei

“In the old days, in blizzardly weather, we used to tie a string from house to barn so as to make it from shelter to responsibility and back again…. I think we had better rig up such a line between past and present.” Wallace Stegner, History, Myth, and the Western Writer

“The wild life of today is not ours to do with as we please. The original stock was given to us in trust for the benefit both of the present and the future. We must render an accounting of this trust to those who come after us.” Theodore Roosevelt, 1900

SIDEBAR: Chronology of Major Developments in the History of Fish and Wildlife Management, 1629-2005

17. Profiles in Conservation, References & Resources

George Bird Grinnell (courtesy of boone & Crockett club)

George Bird Grinnell: A Founding Father of Conservation

George Bird Grinnell (1849-1938). Adventurer, naturalist, and prolific and eloquent author, Grinnell is considered by many “the Father of American Conservation.” George Bird Grinnell was raised in Brooklyn, New York in a well-to-do family. At an early age he displayed an active interest in the outdoors, wildlife, and hunting. Young Grinnell was schooled for a time by Lucy Bakewell, the widow of John James Audubon. After graduating from Yale College in 1870, Grinnell explored the western United States as a member of several expeditions studying the geology and natural history of the region, including Montana and the newly established Yellowstone National Park. His 1875 Yellowstone experience convinced Grinnell of the need to protect bison, elk and other wildlife from the meat and hide hunters. Grinnell’s western expeditions also brought him into contact with Native American tribes and he increasingly became an advocate for the culture and welfare of the Blackfeet, Cheyenne, Pawnee, and other tribes.

In 1873 Charles Hallock launched the publication Forest and Stream whose breadth was captured in the newspaper’s subtitle, "A Weekly Journal Devoted to Field and Aquatic Sports, Practical Natural History, Fish Culture, The Protection of Game, Preservation of Forests, and the Inculcation in Men and Women of a Healthy Interest in Outdoor Recreation and Study." Grinnell joined Hallock as natural history editor and business partner in 1876.

As Reiger (2001) observes, Hallock sought to define and "legitimize" the proper pursuit of field sports and to give a voice to true sportsmen through the pages of Forest and Stream. While Hallock and Grinnell commonly pilloried meat hunters and the like, they also hoped to set such a compelling example as to cause the ignorant and unethical to mend their ways. [133]

Through their efforts and that of other wellborn hunters and anglers, a “sportsman’s code” of ethics and responsibilities developed. The code fused a personal commitment to proper conduct afield with growing concern with declining fish and wildlife populations and loss of habitat. [134] Their concerns took deeper and deeper root as they watched the wildness of America plowed under before the onslaught of industrialism.

When Grinnell took over as editor-in-chief and owner in 1880 he used the pages of the magazine to editorialize for the protection of wildlife. One example:

“Why shall not, we the people, demand of our representatives [and] all other seats of legislation, the due protection of our, the people's, interests, by the conservation of our game and fish? Laws prohibiting the destruction of game in its breeding season and of fish on their spawning grounds are not for the advantage of any narrow class or clique. They are for the good of us, the people. Take this broad, tenable ground: the greatest good to the greatest number.” [135]

In 1885, Grinnell gave a less-than-glowing review of Hunting Trips of a Ranchman, a book by a young politician named Theodore Roosevelt. This promptly brought Roosevelt storming to the publisher’s office. The visit was the beginning of a lasting and productive friendship. Two years later, at a dinner party at Roosevelt’s home, Roosevelt, Grinnell, and other like-minded hunters formed the Boone and Crockett Club.

Yellowstone and its bison were of particular concern to Grinnell. By this time the only wild bison remaining in America resided in Yellowstone, and Grinnell spent years editorializing about the need to control hunting and enforce laws against poaching. An exciting story of a raid on a poacher’s camp in Forest and Stream helped galvanized public and legislative support for the Yellowstone Park Protection Act in 1894. The act provided enforcement and stiff penalties for poaching—an action that came none too soon as Yellowstone’s bison herd numbered a mere 23 individual animals. Without Grinnell’s tireless efforts the American bison might well have become extinct in the wild. [136]

Grinnell was also concerned about the loss of native birdlife. In an 1886 editorial, he proposed “the formation of an association for the protection of wild birds and their eggs, which shall be called the Audubon Society.” That same year he founded the Audubon Society of New York, forerunner of the National Audubon Society. Dedicated to ending the commercial trade in songbird eggs and feathers, the organization boasted 20,000 members one year later as the first issue of Audubon Magazine was published.

Continuing his adventures in the west, Grinnell hiked and explored a region of northwestern Montana he called “the Crown of the Continent.” As he had before with Yellowstone and its bison, birds and Audubon, Grinnell turned his writing, editorializing, and political activism to championing protection of the Glacier region. In 1910, President Taft signed a bill creating Glacier National Park; its boundaries based in part on a map fashioned by Grinnell in 1885.

George Bird Grinnell was editor of Forest and Stream for 35 years. During that time many other notables contributed to the magazine including Theodore Roosevelt and Theodore Gordon, considered the “father of American fly fishing.” In addition, Grinnell was the author/coauthor of nearly 30 books, including sporting literature titles such as American Duck Shooting, ethnographic studies such as The Cheyenne Indians, Their History and Ways of Life, and under the nom de plume “Yo,” the Jack adventure books for boys. He earned a Ph.D. from Yale University in 1880 and Yale conferred an honorary literary degree on Grinnell in 1921. In 1925, he was presented the Theodore Roosevelt Gold Medal by President Calvin Coolidge for his extraordinary contributions to conservation.

Summing up Grinnell’s enormous contribution to American conservation Donnell Thomas (2010) concludes, “Grinnell convincingly demonstrated the power of a responsible outdoor press in the fight to preserve wildlife and habitat. His key role in the founding of the Audubon Society and the Boone and Crockett Club established important models for the numerous wildlife advocacy organizations that would arise in the 20th century. Finally, he demonstrated that sportsmen could and would not just accept but champion appropriate restrictions on hunting when the common good called for it, as it did in the case of Yellowstone’s wildlife.”

George Bird Grinnell was a gifted naturalist who foresaw the "fallacy of the inexhaustible." Starting with a handful of engaged citizens, Grinnell played an enormous role in the conservation movement in America. [9]

For more on George Bird Grinnell:

Punke, Michael. 2007. Last Stand, George Bird Grinnell, the battle to save the buffalo, and the birth of the new west. Harper Perennial. 286 pages.

Reiger, John F. 2001. American Sportsmen and the Origins of Conservation. Oregon State University Press. 338 pages.

Taliaferro, John. 2019. Grinnell: America's Environmental Pioneer and His Restless Drive to Save the West. Liveright, W.W. Norton & Co., New York, NY. 624 pages.

______________________

ENDNOTES

[129] John Reiger, American Sportsmen and the Origins of Conservation, 43.

[130] Missouri v. Holland, 252 U.S. 416 (1920).

[131] J.F. Organ et al., The North American Model of Wildlife Conservation, Wildlife Society Technical Review 12-04 (December 2012), 22.

[132] J.F. Organ et al., The North American Model of Wildlife Conservation, viii.

[133] John Reiger, American Sportsmen and the Origins of Conservation, 51.

[134] John Reiger, American Sportsmen and the Origins of Conservation, 48.

[135] George Bird Grinnell, "We, the People," Forest and Stream, January 26,1882.

[136] Diana Rupp, “George Bird Grinnell,” Sports Afield (https://sportsafield.com/george-bird-grinnell/).

[137] Richard Stroud, National Leaders of American Conservation (Smithsonian, 1985), 180-181.

Other Profiles

John Bird Burnham (1869-1939) was an influential proponent of wildlife conservation in the late nineteenth and early 20th century. He joined the staff of Field and Stream in 1891 and wrote articles supporting game laws and game preserves. An enthusiastic hunter, he was tasked with reforming the game laws of New York State between 1904 and 1915. From 1911 to 1928 he was president of the American Game Protective Association (AGPA), which lobbied for Federal legislation protecting wildlife populations. He also worked with the Audubon Association and government agencies to establish a treaty with Canada to protect migratory birds. Descriptions of Burnham often use the words “outspoken,” “opinionated,” and Burnham sued William Hornaday for libel when Hornaday stated in an interview that American gunmakers were the most effective blocker of bag limit legislation and referred to the AGPA as "Gunmakers American Game Protective Association." See Hornaday obituary.

Rachel Carson (1907-1964). American writer, scientist, and ecologist, Carson is considered by many as one of the finest nature writers of the 20th century. Her sensational book Silent Spring (1962) warned of the dangers to man and the rest of nature from a naïve faith in wonders of manmade chemicals and an overdependence and the misuse of chemical pesticides such as DDT. Her book questioned the scope and direction of modern science and helped spark the contemporary environmental movement. While Carson is remembered primarily as the woman who challenged the notion that humans could obtain mastery over nature by using chemicals and technology, she also wrote eloquently about ocean life in such books as The Sea Around Us and The Edge of the Sea. Seriously ill with breast cancer, Carson died two years after Silent Spring’s publication. In 1980, she was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Jay N. “Ding” Ding Darling (1876-1962). “Ding” Darling began a long award-wining career with the Des Moines Register and Leader as a cartoonist in 1906. In 1924, "Ding" was honored with a Pulitzer Prize for a cartoon that espoused hard work. He would win this prestigious award again in 1942. An avid hunter and angler, Darling became alarmed at the loss of wildlife habitat and the possible extinction of many species. As an early pioneer for wildlife conservation, he worked this theme into his nationally syndicated political cartoons and influenced a nation. In July 1934, despite Darling's lack of experience in wildlife management and his lack of support for President Roosevelt’s New Deal programs, the president appointed Darling as chief of the Bureau of Biological Survey. Despite only serving some 20 months, he implemented the Duck Stamp Program (including creating its first stamp), created the Cooperative Wildlife Research Unit program, organized the first North American Wildlife Conference. The landmark event would address the need for an organization to unite and speak for the diverse individuals and groups seeking to protect wildlife and wild places. From that conference and Darling's vision grew the General Wildlife Federation—forerunner of the National Wildlife Federation. Darling would resign from the Bureau in 1935to serve as its first president. See Sidebar:

Marjory Stoneman Douglas (1890-1998). Journalist, author, women's suffrage advocate, and conservationist, Douglas was known for her staunch defense of the Everglades against efforts to drain it and reclaim land for development. Douglas wrote the iconic book The Everglades: River of Grass in 1947 (the year Everglades National Park was established) which redefined the popular conception of the Everglades as a treasured river instead of a worthless swamp. The book’s impact has been compared to that of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring.

Rosalie Edge (1877-1962). A New York socialite, suffragist, and amateur birdwatcher, Edge established the Emergency Conservation Committee in 1929 to expose the conservation establishment’s ineffectiveness, and strongly advocate for species preservation. During her career, she urged her peers in the conservation world to take measures to protect a wider range of bird species. In 1934, she founded Hawk Mountain Sanctuary in Pennsylvania, the world’s first preserve for birds of prey. Edge also successfully led grassroots campaigns and lobbied congress to protect Olympic and Kings Canyon National Parks.

Harriet Hemenway (1858-1960) was one of the nation’s earliest female conservationists. In response to a fashion demand for fancy plumes to decorate women’s hats, thousands of birds—from songbirds to raptors, herons to woodpeckers—were killed every year. Hemenway, with the assistance of her cousin Minna Hall, began a movement that would end the feather trade and save countless birds from slaughter. The Boston socialites began by hosting tea parties where they asked attendees to stop wearing feathers. Between the gatherings and founding the Massachusetts Audubon Society which roughly 900 women joined, Hemenway’s political might and reach became strong enough to push Massachusetts to pass a law banning the trade in wild bird feathers. Other states followed Massachusetts’ lead and the plume trade was formally outlawed with passage of the Weeks-McLean Act in 1913. Thanks to a fashionable lady, birds were spared the demands of ladies’ fashion.

William T. Hornaday (1854-1937). American zoologist, conservationist, taxidermist, and author. Hornaday served as the Chief Taxidermist of the United States National Museum, as well as superintendent of the Smithsonian's National Zoological Park, director of the New York Zoological Society, and a founder of both the Campfire Club of America and the Permanent Wild Life Protection Fund. An articulate spokesman and influential writer, Hornaday wrote hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles, more than 20 books, and played a pivotal role in the passage of the 1911 Fur Seal Treat, and the Federal Migratory Bird Act. His successful role in the fight to save the nearly extinct American bison stands out perhaps as his greatest accomplishment. He organized and became president of the American Bison Society and convinced the federal government to establish the National Bison Range in Montana. As the introduction for Mr. Hornaday’ War notes, “He was complex, quirky, pugnacious, and difficult. He seemed to create enemies wherever he went, even among his friends.” He was often a center of controversy, including placing a pygmy Congolese on display at the Bronx Zoo and being sued for libel by John B. Burnham.

Minerva Hamilton Hoyt (1866-1945). An American activist who fought to preserve California desert areas, Hoyt was born on a Mississippi plantation, lived in East Coast cities with her physician husband, and settled in California in 1897. There she became deeply interested in desert plants and habitat. The population boom of Los Angeles in the 1920s, the rise in popularity of gardening with cacti, and the increase in access to desert flora meant the destruction of desert plants. Hoyt recognized the need to protect and preserve these desert environments, and her work included floral exhibitions, founding the International Deserts Conservation League, and serving on a California state commission where she recommended proposals for new state parks including Death Valley, the Anza-Borrego Desert, and Joshua Tree. Her tireless campaigning on behalf of desert landscapes led to President Roosevelt’s administration to designate more than 800,000 acres in the area as the Joshua Tree National Monument in 1936.

John F. Lacey (1841-1913). Congressman, Conservationist, Member of Boone & Crockett Club, John Lacey was born in today’s West Virginia, served in the Civil War, practiced law in Iowa, was elected to Iowa House of Representatives, served eight terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, and 12 years as the chairman of the Committee on Public Lands. While in Congress, John Lacey was pivotal in drafting and successfully introducing four important pieces of legislation with profound impacts on wildlife conservation and tribal nations. John Lacey’s interest in wildlife brought him into close and effective partnership with Theodore Roosevelt, George Bird Grinnell, and others. For example, in response to the inability of Yellowstone Park administrators to punish poachers of the park's wildlife, Lacey sponsored legislation in early 1894 to give the Department of Interior authority to arrest and prosecute law violators in the park. In matter of days, that “Lacey Act” passed both houses of Congress and was signed into law by President Cleveland. Lacey is most prominently known as the namesake of the Lacey Act of 1900. The Act prohibits trade in wildlife, fish, and plants that have been illegally taken, possessed, transported, or sold. Congressman Lacey introduced the bill in the spring of 1900, and it was signed into law on May 25, 1900, by President William McKinley.

In 1906, President Roosevelt was meeting heavy resistance from special interest groups and Congress as he attempted to establish timber and wildlife reserves across the country. In response, Lacey and Edgar Lee Hewett authored what would come to be known as the Antiquities Act which gave the president power to conserve lands without congressional approval. Roosevelt relished that authority and set aside iconic landscapes such as the Grand Canyon, which at the time was being eyed by mining and other natural resource extraction interests that hoped to exploit the “Big Ditch.” A third “Lacey Act” made provision for the allotment of tribal funds to certain classes of Indians. These provisions were proposed after the passage of the Burke Act and the Dawes Act, both of which provided for the allotment of reservation lands to individual Indians, but not to communally owned trust funds. After much debate and several opposing arguments, President Theodore Roosevelt signed the bill into law on March 2, 1907.

Aldo Leopold (1887-1948). Considered by many to be the father of wildlife ecology and the United States’ wilderness system, Aldo Leopold was a conservationist, forester, philosopher, educator, writer, and outdoor enthusiast. Among his best-known ideas is the “land ethic,” which called for an ethical, caring relationship between people and nature. Born in 1887 and raised in Burlington, IA, Leopold developed an interest in the natural world at an early age, spending hours observing, journaling, and sketching his surroundings. After graduating from the Yale Forest School in 1909, he eagerly pursued a career with the newly established U.S. Forest Service in Arizona and New Mexico. In 1933, he accepted a new chair position in game management at the University of Wisconsin, a first for the nation. A prolific author of articles for both professional journals and popular magazines, Leopold conceived of a book, geared for general audiences, which would examine humanity’s relationship to the natural world. Unfortunately, just one week after receiving word that his collection of essays, “Great Possessions,” would be published, Leopold died of a heart attack in 1948 while fighting a grass fire on a neighbor’s farm. Daughter Luna Leopold oversaw the final editing of "Great Possessions" which was published in 1949 as A Sand County Almanac. The book has sold more than two million copies and has become one of the most respected books about the environment ever published.

George Perkins Marsh (1801-1882). Diplomat, scholar, Fish Commissioner of Vermont, and “first environmentalist.” A Vermont farmer and congressman, George Perkins Marsh was among the first Americans to perceive people's harmful effect on nature. Marsh spent most of his life in public service, serving on the Vermont Governor's Council, in Congress for three terms beginning in 1842, and in several overseas diplomatic posts, including an appointment as the American Minister to Italy in 1861. While in Italy, Marsh argued for forward-thinking conservation strategies in a landmark book, Man and Nature. Explaining what we now refer to as the "web of life," the book points to extensive areas of once-productive land in China, Europe, and North Africa that had become desert to illustrate the far-reaching negative impacts of mankind's destruction of grass and forest cover. Many historians view Man and Nature as the first popular introduction to the science of ecology.

Robert Marshall (1901-1939). American forester, writer and wilderness activist who is best remembered as the person who spearheaded the 1935 founding of the Wilderness Society in the United States. Born into a wealthy family, Robert Marshall chose to eschew the comfortable lifestyle in favor of throwing himself, both physically and emotionally, into America's wild lands. With degrees in forestry from New York State College and Harvard University, Marshall began work with the U.S. Forest Service in 1925. He took his talents to Washington, D.C. in 1933, serving as first director of forestry for the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs and then as head of the Forest Service's Division of Recreation and Lands. In 1935, Marshall joined with other conservationists to form the Wilderness Society. As a scientist, sociologist, and adventurer, Marshall spent much of his adult life exploring the country's uncharted wilderness areas. As a bureaucrat, he fought to protect those areas. Along the way, he became one of the nation's leading conservationists. Today the Bob Marshall Wilderness Area in the Montana Rockies, one of the last great, unbroken stretches of wildlife habitat in the lower 48, serves as a living monument to its gifted and dedicated namesake.

John Muir (1838-1914). Scottish-American naturalist, author, environmental philosopher, glaciologist, and early advocate for the preservation of wilderness in America. Muir was one of the country’s most famous naturalists and conservationists and is credited with both the creation of the National Park System and the establishment of the Sierra Club. A keen advocate for keeping unmanaged nature alive, his letters, essays, and books describing his adventures in nature, especially in the Sierra Nevada, have been read by millions. Muir’s activism, such as his articles in Century magazine in the late 1880s, drew attention to the destruction of forestland by grazing animals, and helped to preserve the Yosemite Valley, Sequoia National Park. President Theodore Roosevelt and many other leaders were profoundly influenced by Muir.

Margaret “Mardy” Murie (1902-2003). Naturalist, author, adventurer, and conservationist, Mardy Murie is considered the “grandmother of conservation.” A wildlife activist and ecologist, Murie worked hand-in-hand with her husband, Olaus Murie, to accomplish lasting victories like the establishment and expansion of Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. She authored Two in the Far North about her work and adventures in Alaska. Murie would witness first-hand the signing of the Wilderness Act and she continued to fight for wilderness until her death at the age of 101 in 2003. “I hope the United States of America is not so rich that she can afford to let these wildernesses pass by, or so poor she cannot afford to keep them.”

Gifford Pinchot (1865-1946). American forester and politician. Pinchot is considered the “Father of American Forestry” and served as the first Chief of the United States Forest Service, 1905-1910, and Governor of Pennsylvania, 1923-1927 and 1931-1935. Pinchot was born on August 11, 1865 in Simsbury, Connecticut. His family were well-to-do merchants, politicians, and landowners. When he entered Yale College in 1885, his father asked a question, "How would you like to be a forester?" At the time forestry was not considered a profession in the U.S. Pinchot studied forestry in France and returned to the U.S. to work as a resident forester for Vanderbilt’s Biltmore Forest. Later he became involved with the National Forest Commission created by the National Academy of Sciences. He and several other members traveled through the West during the summer of 1896 investigating forest areas for possible forest reserves. When his friend, Theodore Roosevelt became president, Pinchot became chief or the new Forest Service, newly transferred from the Department of Interior to Agriculture. Pinchot would establish the Society of American Foresters, co-found with his brother, James, the Yale Forest School. Although Pinchot served two terms as governor of Pennsylvania and spent over a decade working for the federal government, he always thought of himself as a forester more than anything else.

John Wesley Powell (1834-1902). U.S. solider, explorer, geologist, anthropologist, and conservationist, John Wesley Powell who is best known for the 1869 Powell Geographic Expedition, a three-month river trip down the Green and Colorado rivers, including the first official U.S. government-sponsored passage through the Grand Canyon. After serving as lieutenant in the Civil War, and losing a forearm in battle, Powell accepted the position of professor of natural history at Illinois State Normal University. Conducting field trips along the Colorado River infused him with a passion for exploration, and led to his determination to embark upon a 1500-mile river expedition in 1869. Powell's field work led to the concept of land, water, vegetation, and man as combining to constitute a delicate balance of nature. In the first edition of his Report on the Lands of the Arid Region of the United States, he pleaded for the reform of land-use laws to help maintain that balance (his pleas went unheard). Powell served as director of the Bureau of American Ethnology and director of the U.S. Geological Survey.

Marie Tharp (1920-2006) was an American geologist and oceanographic cartographer who, in partnership with Bruce Heezen, created the first scientific map of the Atlantic Ocean floor. Despite not being allowed on a ship—it was considered bad luck to have a woman aboard—her work revealed the presence of a continuous rift valley along the axis of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, causing a paradigm shift in earth science that led to acceptance of the theories of plate tectonics and continental drift. The first map of the ocean floor was initially dismissed by Jacques Cousteau as others as just “girl talk.” It was video from an expedition Cousteau launched to prove the theory wrong, that proved exactly the opposite. Today you can find the Marie Tharp Historical Map layer in Google Earth.

Marie Tharp is recognized as a pioneer in a field dominated by men. Although more thorough maps of the ocean floor exist today, the impact of Tharp and her mapping remains with us. She spent most of her career working in the background. Today, Tharp is afforded the recognition she deserves for her contribution to oceanic exploration. Tharp, in partnership with Heezen, helped prove the theories of continental drift and helped map and illuminate a once unknown world – the ocean floor.

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862). American essayist, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, and historian. Thoreau was born and lived nearly all his life in Concord, Massachusetts. After graduating from Harvard in 1837, Thoreau worked in his family’s pencil factory and tried his hand starting a new school with his brother John before being invited to work as a live-in handyman in the home of mentor, neighbor, and friend, Ralph Waldo Emerson. Wanting to develop himself as a writer and seeking peace and solitude, Thoreau built a small cabin on a piece of land owned by Emerson on the shore of Walden Pond in 1845. In the years after leaving Walden Pond, Thoreau published A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849), his most famous work, Walden (1854), and essays and writings. Periodically plagued by tuberculosis since his college years, Thoreau succumbed to the disease in 1862, leaving behind a large number of unfinished projects. 

18. REFERENCES AND RESOURCES

Allen, Durward L. 1973. Report of the Committee on North American Wildlife Policy. Wildlife Society Bulletin (Summer 1973): 73-92.

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