Aldo Leopold spent
his working life in the United States government service and
academia. But his influence is based mostly on a series of articles he wrote for
magazines such as American Forests, Journal of Forestry, and Journal of Wildlife
Management. These, published after his death as parts of his book A Sand County
Almanac, are Leopold's enduring legacy. With the precision of a scientist and the
sensitivity of a poet, he catalogues the emotional strands that join us to the natural
world. The following short extracts from his published work indicate the scope and
depth of his thinking.
Killing
the Wolf
We saw what we thought was a doe fording the torrent,
her breast awash in white water. When
she climbed the bank toward us and shook out her tail, we realized our error: it was a wolf. A
half-dozen others, evidently grown pups, sprang from the willows and all joined in a welcoming
melee of wagging tails and playful maulings. What was literally a pile of wolves writhed and
tumbled in the center of an open flat at the foot of our rimrock.
In those days we had never heard of passing up a chance to kill a wolf. In a second
we were
pumping lead into the pack, but with more excitement than accuracy; how to aim a steep
downhill shot is always confusing. When our rifles were empty, the old wolf was down, and a
pup was dragging a leg into impassable side-rocks.
We reached the old wolf in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes. I
realized then,
and have known ever since, that there was something known only to her and to the mountain. I
was young then, and full of trigger-itch; I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer,
that no wolves would mean hunters' paradise. But after seeing the green fire die, I sensed that
neither the wolf nor the mountain agreed with such a view.
"Thinking Like a Mountain" in A
Sand County Almanac
The
Land Ethic
"The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include
soils, waters,
plants, and animals, or collectively: the land.
"The Land Ethic" from A Sand County Almanac
Passenger
Pigeon, extinct
We have erected a monument to commemorate the funeral
of a species. It symbolizes our
sorrow. We grieve because no living man will see again the onrushing phalanx of victorious
birds, sweeping a path for spring across the March skies, chasing the defeated winter from the
woods and prairies of Wisconsin.
Men still live who, in their youth, remember pigeons. Trees still live who, in their
youth, were
shaken by a living wind. But a decade hence only the oldest oaks will remember, and at long
last only the hills will know. ...
The pigeon was a biological storm. He was the lightening that played between two opposing
potentials of intolerable intensity: the fat of the land and the oxygen of the air.
"Wisconsin" in A Sand County Almanac
Food
and Fuel
There are two spiritual dangers in not owning a farm.
One is the danger of supposing that
breakfast comes from the grocery, and the other that heat comes from the furnace.
To avoid the first danger, one should plant a garden, preferably where there is no
grocer to
confuse the issue.
To avoid the second, he should lay a split of good oak on the andirons, preferably
where there
is no furnace, and let it warm his shins while a February blizzard tosses the trees outside.
"February" in A Sand County Almanac
Hunting
Ethics
Voluntary adherence to an ethical code elevates the
self-respect of the sportsman, but it
should not be forgotten that voluntary disregard of the code degenerates and depraves him. For
example, a common denominator of all sporting codes is not to waste good meat. Yet it is now
a demonstrable fact that Wisconsin deer-hunters, in their pursuit of a legal buck, kill and
abandon in the woods at least one doe, fawn, or spike buck for every two legal bucks taken
out. In other words, approximately half the hunters shoot any deer until a legal deer is killed.
The illegal carcasses are left where they fall. Such deer-hunting is not only without social value,
but constitutes actual training for ethical depravity elsewhere.
"Wildlife in American Culture" from A Sand County Almanac
