Air Date: Week of March 29, 1996

Facts about Aldo Leopold and wildlife protection.

Transcript

CURWOOD: This year marks the 110th anniversary of the birth of the man who in many ways defined how we go about protecting wildlife. Aldo Leopold was born in Burlington, Iowa, in 1886. He graduated from the newly-created Yale School of Forestry in 1909, before joining the US Forest Service where he worked on wildlife conservation. In 1933, Mr. Leopold published his classic textbook, Game Management. In it, he argued that when it comes to saving a species, it's necessary to preserve the entire ecological system. In his essay "The Land Ethic," he wrote, "A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community." Aldo Leopold's best known work, A Sand County Almanac, was published in 1949, a year after his death. Among the reflections: "We face the question whether a still higher standard of living is worth its cost in things natural, wild, and free. For us of the minority, the opportunity to see geese is more important than television." And for this week, that's the Living on Earth almanac.