Living with Wildlife identifies and describes more than 100 species, explains how wildlife-human interactions can lead to conflicts, and offers proven advice for how to resolve them
Covers animals protected by the Endangered Species Act, including the North American deer, the wild turkey, the pronghorn, waterfowl, the gray wolf, the grizzly bear, the California condor, the bowhead whale, the western diamondback rattlesnake, the river otter, bats, migratory birds.
The rapid growth of the American environmental movement in recent decades obscures the fact that long before the first Earth Day and the passage of the Endangered Species Act, naturalists and concerned citizens recognized—and worried about—the problem of human-caused extinction. As Mark V. Barrow reveals in Nature’s Ghosts, the threat of species loss has haunted Americans since the early days of the republic. From Thomas Jefferson’s day—when the fossil remains of such fantastic lost animals as the mastodon and the woolly mammoth were first reconstructed—through the pioneering conservation efforts of early naturalists like John James Audubon and John Muir, Barrow shows how Americans came to understand that it was not only possible for entire species to die out, but that humans themselves could be responsible for their extinction. With the destruction of the passenger pigeon and the precipitous decline of the bison, professional scientists and wildlife enthusiasts alike began to understand that even very common species were not safe from the juggernaut of modern, industrial society. That realization spawned public education and legislative campaigns that laid the foundation for the modern environmental movement and the preservation of such iconic creatures as the bald eagle, the California condor, and the whooping crane. A sweeping, beautifully illustrated historical narrative that unites the fascinating stories of endangered animals and the dedicated individuals who have studied and struggled to protect them, Nature’s Ghosts offers an unprecedented view of what we’ve lost—and a stark reminder of the hard work of preservation still ahead.
A leading law review offers a quality eBook edition. This second issue of 2012 features articles and essays from internationally recognized legal scholars. Authors include Eric Biber, writing on variations in scientific disciplines, experts, and environmental law; Frederic Bloom and Christopher Serkin, on suing courts and takings of property; Myriam Gilles and Gary Friedman, on aggregating consumer litigation after the AT&T Mobility decision on class actions; and David Skeel, Jr., on the possibility of bankruptcy for several U.S. states. In addition, the issue includes book review essays by Aziz Huq, concerning the power and limits of the executive branch; and by Laura Nirider, Joshua Tepfer, and Steven Drizin, on convicting the innocent and false confessions. Finally, an extensive student contribution explores antitrust law, state immunity from suit, and state licensing boards. In the eBook edition, Tables of Contents are active, including those for individual articles; footnotes are fully linked and properly numbered; graphs and figures are reproduced legibly; URLs in footnotes are active; and proper eBook formatting is used.
This book traces the history of threats to species and habitat in California, from the time of the Gold Rush to the present. The author shows how, over the course of more than a century, scientists and conservationists came to view the fates of endangered species as dependent on the ecological conditions and human activities in the places where those species lived. The story begins with the tale of the the state's extinct mascot, the California grizzly, and the conservation movements and laws that followed its disappearance. The second half of the book focuses on four high-profile endangered species: the California condor, the desert tortoise, the San Joaquin kit fox, and the Delta smelt. The author offers an account of how Americans developed a civil system in which imperiled species serve as proxies for broader conflicts about the politics of place. The book concludes that the challenge for conservationists in the twenty-first century will be to expand habitat conservation beyond protected wildlands to build more diverse and sustainable landscapes.