Today, January 11, is Aldo Leopold's birthday!
So, just who was Aldo Leopold? Here's a brief introduction. Celebrate his birthday with us at our upcoming
Tiki Torch Toboggan on Saturday!
Aldo Leopold (1887-1948) is considered the father of wildlife ecology
and a true Wisconsin hero. He was a renowned scientist and scholar,
exceptional teacher, philosopher, and gifted writer. It is for his book,
A Sand County Almanac
(available in ALNC's gift shop),
that Leopold is best known by millions of people around the globe. The
Almanac, often acclaimed as the century's literary landmark in
conservation, melds exceptional poetic prose with keen observations of
the natural world. The Almanac reflects an evolution of a lifetime of
love, observation, and thought. It led to a philosophy that has guided
many to discovering what it means to live in harmony with the land and
with one another.
The roots of Leopold's concept of a "land ethic" can be traced to his
birthplace on the bluffs of the Mississippi River near Burlington, Iowa.
As a youngster, he developed a zealous appreciation and interest in the
natural world, spending countless hours on adventures in the woods,
prairies, and river backwaters of a then relatively wild Iowa. This
early attachment to the natural world, coupled with an uncommon skill
for both observation and writing, lead him to pursue a degree in
forestry at Yale.
After Yale, Leopold joined the U.S. Forest Service and was assigned to
the Arizona Territories. During his tenure, he began to see the land as a
living organism and develop the concept of community. This concept
became the foundation upon which he became conservation's most
influential advocate. In 1924, he accepted a transfer to the U.S. Forest
Products Laboratory in Madison where he served as associate director,
and began teaching at the University of Wisconsin in 1928.
Often
credited as the founding father of wildlife ecology, Leopold's
cornerstone book Game Management (1933) defined the fundamental skills
and techniques for managing and restoring wildlife populations. This
landmark work created a new science that intertwined forestry,
agriculture, biology, zoology, ecology, education and communication.
Soon after its publication, the University of Wisconsin created a new
department, the Department of Game Management, and appointed Leopold as
its first chair.
Leopold's unique gift for communicating scientific concepts was only
equal to his fervor for putting theories into practice. In 1935, the
Leopold family purchased a worn-out farm near Baraboo, in an area known
as the sand counties. It is here Leopold put into action his beliefs
that the same tools people used to disrupt the landscape could also be
used to rebuild it. An old chicken coop, fondly known as the Shack,
served as a haven and land laboratory for the Leopold family, friends,
and graduate students. And it was here Leopold visualized many of the
essays of what was to become his most influential work, A Sand County
Almanac.
To find out more about Aldo Leopold, click here for a downloadable fact sheet from the Aldo Leopold Foundation. All credits given to the Aldo Leopold Foundation for this publication.
