Can we, even in National Parks and wilderness areas, restore a pre-(white man) settlement Eden in the New World? I don't think so.
I recently finished reading The Return of Wolves: An Iconic Predator’s Struggle to Survive in the American West by Eli Francovich. This book focuses on unique conditions (maybe not so unique) in eastern Washington state. Closer to where I live, we have an apparent beginning of a return of wolves to upstate New York, see Wolves Return to New York Adirondacks? (probably).
This subject has always been a favorite of mine. Unlike many "nature" books, this author recognizes that that wolves are not an unmixed blessing to the wild.
Eastern Washington State, and to a lesser extent Montana, Oregon and northern California are an interesting amalgam of a conservative, anti-wolf minority ensconced in deeply liberal, urban-dominated states. This author makes the point, interestingly, that wolves may never have been as abundant as mythologized. After American Indian populations were severely reduced by epidemics of smallpox and other diseases, buffalo and wolf populations apparently had a temporary explosion, terminated by the spread of white man through the Plains and mountains to the West. Reproducing pre-settlement conditions may be impossible, since the Native Americans are missing as the ultimate keystone predator. The American Indians kept prey and thus wolf populations in check. This is more thoroughly discussed in the book 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann. Pre-Columbian America was far from an Edenic ideal, see the excellent book War Before Civilization: The Myth of the Peaceful Savage by Lawrence H. Keeley.
I recently finished reading The Return of Wolves: An Iconic Predator’s Struggle to Survive in the American West by Eli Francovich. This book focuses on unique conditions (maybe not so unique) in eastern Washington state. Closer to where I live, we have an apparent beginning of a return of wolves to upstate New York, see Wolves Return to New York Adirondacks? (probably).
This subject has always been a favorite of mine. Unlike many "nature" books, this author recognizes that that wolves are not an unmixed blessing to the wild.
Eastern Washington State, and to a lesser extent Montana, Oregon and northern California are an interesting amalgam of a conservative, anti-wolf minority ensconced in deeply liberal, urban-dominated states. This author makes the point, interestingly, that wolves may never have been as abundant as mythologized. After American Indian populations were severely reduced by epidemics of smallpox and other diseases, buffalo and wolf populations apparently had a temporary explosion, terminated by the spread of white man through the Plains and mountains to the West. Reproducing pre-settlement conditions may be impossible, since the Native Americans are missing as the ultimate keystone predator. The American Indians kept prey and thus wolf populations in check. This is more thoroughly discussed in the book 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann. Pre-Columbian America was far from an Edenic ideal, see the excellent book War Before Civilization: The Myth of the Peaceful Savage by Lawrence H. Keeley.
