Conservation history USA

5 primary periods of conservation

• exploitation <1890

• transition 1890-1910

• maturation 19100-1940

• industrialization 1940-1960

• environmentalism 1960 -

exploitation

<1890

• european settlement and agriculture

  • attitudes toward wildlife

    • dominionistic // utilitarion

    • attitudes towards large predators

  • Commercial logging

  • Market hunting

    • Killing animals to sell

  • Species declines and extinctions

  • Ex: passenger pigeons / most numerous bird to extinction in early 1900s (50 years) from billions to none

    • timber 

    • Social structure

  • Bison (market hunting and native americans) 60mil to couple hundred

    • Developing railroad

  • American beaver almost eradicated continent-wide (Fur to Europe) - extensive unregulated trapping

  Extirpation / extirpated : local disappearance (western maryland but not all maryland)

“Transition” - 1890-1910

• Audubon clubs

• Hunting clubs

• Development of agencies

  • Game species

  • Law enforcement

  • Legislation

• Theodore Roosevelt

  • Expansion of public lands - Pelican Island first National Wildlife Refuge

• Gifford Pinchot = “Conservation”

• John Muir = “Preservation”

“Industrialization” - 1940-1960

• Post world war 2

• Expanded agricultural productivity = increased expansion

• New more insidious threats > water and air pollution (overharvest = regulate the user (ex: require hunting license))

• Construction of dams

“Maturation” - 1910-1940

• International agreements

• Land procurement

• funding

“Environmentalism” - 1960-?

• Important environmental legislation:

  • Wilderness Act

  • National environmental policy act

  • Endangered species act

  • Lean water act (water quality and wetland protection)

  • Forsythe-chaffe nongame act

Public Lands

• Placing lands into the public domain represents perhaps the most substantial, long-tern contribution that can be made to conservation

• The majority of public lands in the US are owned and managed at state and federal levels

• 320 million acres 35% of total land area

• Most in federal ownership (~235 million ha; ~73%)

• General tax revenues (taxpayer dinero)

Federal agencies - public land focus

• Department of interior (Who is the Secretary?) - about 67% of federal lands

  • Bureau of land management (1946); about 60% of public lands)

    • National park service (1916: about 3% of public lands)

    • US fish and wildlife service (1885 - origins; about 4% of public lands)

USFWS

• Lead federal wildlife agency

  • Responsible for:

    • Federally endangered species

    • law enforcement (national and international levels)

    • Distribute federal funds - mainly tax money from guns to irs back to

      • Pittman-Robertson Funds (11% excise tax)

    • Migratory birds

    • National wildlife refuges