ENWC201 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Carolina Parakeet, Aldo Leopold, Theodore Roosevelt
Lecture 9: History of Wildlife in North America
• Before Man
o Slow reproducing animals
o Large jaguars
o Very large species megafauna
o Connected land mass
• Pre-European
o The clovis
o Animals had a hard time adjusting to humans coming over and being attacked by
spears etc
o The Pleistocene overkill
o Agriculture
o Europeans show up, Columbus
▪ Bring new things, steal
▪ Also brought disease
• Epidemics
• Era of Abundance
o Extreme amount of animals per species (pigeons and bison)
o Parrot species in US (Carolina parakeet)
o king James Geneisis 1:28
• Era of Over exploration
o Railroads
o Telegraphs
o Bison highly harvested, 23 left in 1900s (yellow stone)
▪ Sent in the army
o Bounties on predators (cougars and wolves)
o Lost a lot of species
o People start to notice what is happening
o Charles Darwin: The origin of species
o Things start to happen, game commissions are formed, wardens are hire
• Era of Protection (1900-1930)
o Lacey Act: 1900
▪ Limit trade of illegal wildlife across state boundaries
▪ Stops interstate commerce in feathers
o Teddy Roosevelt
o The golden age in conservation
▪ Tripled the size of national forests (+51,000,000 ha)
▪ Created the forest service
o Gifford Pinchot
▪ Trained abroad
▪ Appointed head of the forest service
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