Remembering Aldo Leopold

from national public radio in washington i'm on orders and there's a documentary and i can think of only one word two hundred years it's a word of recommendation could use my jam like some wall pleasure writing really really outstanding the scientific discovery of the twentieth century is not television radio rather the complexity of the land organism rise only those who know the most about it can appreciate how little is no life you know the last word of ignorance is the man who says the army with lamb is like harmony with a friend you cannot cherish his right hand and china we

did yeah do anything you know and he had had a philosophy there and a certain wryness says scientists are just a literary figure everything that he's writing about sand county almanac is really a distillation of a lifetime of experience with the land in our lifetimes we're standing

conjunction she's jewish are these areas are remembering aldo leopold

reassert his family aldo leopold was born in burlington iowa on january eleventh eighteen at seven in a large home high atop a bluff overlook in the mississippi river in burlington leopold could watch migratory waterfowl fly in north and south and a great continental flight away from this experience he early developed an appreciation like that of his father and grandfather for things natural wild and free aldo leopold brother frederick and sister ms marie laure and live in burlington at the family's original home stand they were recorded there and recall the boyhood and young adult days of all those life

and we get to have a very good time as a family at a very busy time nobody ever said what i do now but all the byproduct as special you know that was the custom for the family to go in every sunday i'm depending on the season the ear reminders coral country we might go number country are we michael cross the river to the lakes they include islam with a budget but we did go out every sunday for all day but then oh you know it was with his father are on walking on what we trailed along the rest of us he was very much of an outdoorsman even in is the museum's all was out riding around above are going down to the river going across the river into the woods in season particularly differences in the spring he

enjoyed field trips burning or later you might be on a pilgrim involving wild flowers or making the world blackberrys and he had an early interest in ornithology are birds also in botany and parse but he was especially interested as a young man in hunting he had a little dog and don't give him by your father this greer was an irish terrier and he was among the nations got in and out on a dog's butt were closely related it is early it was under the direction of fatherhood been either all his life and also a band that a sportsman all of his life in the days when sportsmanship was rather a long way away from the ordinary can no doubt the most writers father bought our role a single

barrel shotgun with the theory that if you had only one shelter issue you'd better make it count or you would score at all and as a result our grew up not only good marksman billy he also a rather careful in his selection of targets i think that without any question is natural that came at from living here and at this lovely outdoors surrounding and also from my grandfather who owe was along with being an architect he was also a landscape architect and a lot about yours and the plays and plants and does all that outlawed no doubt was greatly influenced by balls is surrounding his and his forebears and my father was very much of a sportsman we're a very close

knit family can you might say bp are constantly my father was certainly the boss and when he said you know there was no arguing your neighbors because the asset very easily our mother didn't make it but was allowed for sunday guys to sell the receivers well rabbi dividend it was

and out of the inside the city it was a ventures out we sometimes any other areas times in the house and one the snowball fight of the pork roll which my father found out of barrow and albion one night when every job it he was a very good brother use it all rely on wealth was always one of my favorite saying leopold left burlington to attend lawrenceville preparatory

school in new jersey after two years at lawrenceville he went to sheffield scientific school at yale university where he graduated with a masters degree in four straight in nineteen oh nine retired conservationist arthur ringland of somerset maryland was the first district forester for the us forest service of the southwest region and was administrator of that area at the time that leopold join the service he wrote for this program his recollections i first met aldo leopold in albuquerque in nineteen oh nine he just graduated from yale with a master's degree in forestry gifford game show was his mentor as he was of the students' and graduate of the yale university school of forestry which the banjo family had established as a mentor gifford game show imbued all of this with something of the fervor of a sawdust evangelist as graduates leopold and i had something of an old school tie relationship and it was the beginning of a warm friendship your goals first assignment after is important in the forest service as a forest assistant

was to the southwest region to a field already on the apache national forest in arizona here the magnificent white mountains where his environment and his inspiration the night in twelve leopold was promoted to supervisor of the person national forest in northern new mexico he met and married a still under shear and built a home mantras pa greece leopold delivered an address on wilderness conservation before the national conference on outdoor recreation on january twentieth nineteen twenty six is address emphasize that wilderness must be conserved in advance of the onslaught of economic progress or not at all wilderness conservation must be accomplished largely by the federal government on federal lands national forest and national parks but it should not be assumed he said but mountain lions alone or wilderness areas or not the swamps like clams river routes and deserts surely our sons are entitled to see a few samples of primeval america

the performance of a wilderness policy would be a test of whether our nation actually contains within itself the capacity to change its own environment leopold spoke as an activist for two years earlier nineteen twenty four it was through his efforts that the first wilderness area in the national forest system was designated in the human national forest in new mexico it is significant that this historic event was recognized in nineteen seventy four by the celebration of the fiftieth wilderness anniversary in time though he'll example promoted the passage by congress of the wilderness act of nineteen sixty four followed by the designation within a number of national forests of some eleven million acre is in nineteen twenty four leopold was asked to take a new position in the forest service as associate director the forest products laboratory in madison wisconsin f po was the research arm of the four service and leopold look forward to

future possibilities and directing experimental work there however the direction of research that the laboratory took was in developing commercial products from the fallen trees leopold was disenchanted with this type of experimentation and felt that research should be directed towards studying the tree as a living component of the forest this disenchantment grew it decided to resign in nineteen twenty eight his position as associate director and pursue his interest in wildlife after receiving funds from the sporting arms and ammunition manufacturers institute he conducted against survey of the north central states is surveys of various states were published in nineteen thirty one in his report on the game survey of the north central states conservationist says gordon of sacramento california that senate report contains all of the detail information collected from many sources as well as personal

observation in the states of minnesota missouri wisconsin illinois michigan indiana and ohio it was the first time anybody had undertaken a survey of those kind of the result has been far more progress in the field that while i admired than any others who were the only a vote on the american game policy committee the game's services more subtle state's truly sucked a pattern for what fun labeled as a substantial wildlife management program in this country lawrence yun one time student under aldo leopold is vice president of the wildlife management institute in washington dc the volume was titled game and yet today we see that it's not

only game species are concerned that wylie species the songbirds which it had tremendous interest in pulmonary good number of years of early morning work to record your song pattern the north american game policy which he really was the prime author even though another gentleman was the chairman of that particular pioneering group back in nineteen thirty that policy has stood the test of time after forty years we've just taken a rickety another reading on the north american game policy it's now known as a north american while of course include both game species and non game species that nineteen thirty document is trivial amazing at the breath of thinking and about the thinking home the toll the thrust of the speech the matter and it's stood the test of time and

no one can really are you without any of the warning offered mrs after four decades dow he's nice but a penny b teaching ability of the professor was an outstanding robert mccabe is today chairman of the department of wildlife ecology that leopold created in nineteen thirty three at the university of wisconsin

he was one of leopold early students and became the professors teaching assistant at times he seemed to be more interested in this subject and then the students and other times he's hinted more interested in is to listen in this and subject matter and precious lesson in back and forth was an interesting way of continue stimulating their student to anderson part participation his long super actual shooting and killing the questions that the students put to him that it would regard aldo leopold is a is a very good sized he hadn't hid the scientific mind and an inquiry attitude and at it and to treat her subjective information objectively worm casual observations are made in general statements made he had a great interesting in quantifying bigger that were normally are put in subjective challenge other people have said well this man is a

largely a philosopher or indeed he was but he was a philosopher only because he didn't know him as a scientist the accordion that i remember best as his kindness he was kind and in all his dealings with nerve with people at risk time his dealings with friends or with students or family lore we've gotten where you just you're a kind man students were concerned he was always very close to his students that perhaps it was a sign of the times and that we're going to have many students on campus and one could become closely associated with girl with graduate students although as one who also played on your strong points arthur hawkins was one of leopold for students starting tuesday in nineteen thirty five today he is a conservationist with the us fish and wildlife service in minneapolis another thing that really stands on the brink of a life or spoons or was the dedication in order for students although as terrific work or

he was a hard worker conley office at eight o'clock in the morning in the first i thought of course of the justice was done up in have breakfast income bracket in the office in but this wasn't true is one of those studies infectious with birdsong and studied birds on of course it was still dark and no and he had always not terrific my work before you're a family office in the morning we had a lot of his personal writing was done at home or the press netanyahu israel earlier long before the first humans arrived humanoid was writing books and essays about sourcing at that particular time at that time the student arrived use alternative rubber workers doing and sold on what he has as a professor was a boundless enthusiasm

and he can basically bubbled over with ideas professor joseph iggy of the department of wildlife ecology at the university of wisconsin even more aggression was the way he could respond enthusiastically to the ideas of other people he was an excellent listener and is still committed to him and tell him about some fairly common bird that they saw a plant that they found and eight yet he would and turn his full attention to the student in greek the year observation as a focal brain know you felt warm when you got this kind of a reception we were thirteen at which time he was writing so this is which have been working other reporting other later in his own county almanac new workers which is so widely known and i would remind you that in the late thirties when he was first thinking of those

sayings fortune nobody else was wildlife ecologist says frederic and francis hime are struggling through wisconsin got to students that came from new jersey to study and professor leopold because of his reputation in undercover strip is one of only four people to receive his phd from legal you're right we couldn't dream that there would be so i like that that we would call by his first name was an inconceivable thought and artillery have been students for about two years when he asked us to call in those films recovery work when did you have an amazing ability to

inspire not only in public meetings but even the people who came into his office for short term he always remembered deal is the touchstone and it decided to really great person he makes really hated artificial work work he didn't like people who pretended to be what they were not he hated people who could only memorized the hedges too strong when he showed them the name on campus there's a show chorus you know

fires donations yeah people who can really wear cotton field he's still alive one of the great secrets was he always had a curiosity he always puts knew he was always sitting and he had incredible mathematician as far as developing the concept and inspiring and i don't think a subpoena anyone let me in i'll give you a notion of how his students felt

toward him his office was in a little dingy cell or in the old soyuz building the university of wisconsin and it was a tiny little place with a room for a desk chair and two chairs and a place and the graduate students had a little hallway just outside the office which they got no also used to keep his wheelbarrow and it was one table and cops were parted on that table those are the only facilities learned when one of the students discovered the old horticulture building had just been vacated so when he carefully until after dark the leopold students got together when we watch to the night watchman and the rest of us and get pinched everything out of that office and we moved into the automotive culture building from the old soloist building and we simply put all his possessions in that

building and then we went home and we got our own extra tables and chairs on what ever we could get so that we could fill up as many rooms as possible so that we would be in possession i'm out the mason jar put some flowers and put them on his desk and the next morning although we were exhausted and why do we didn't think this was a prank we were waiting for him and we said your office has been moved and he said oh has it and we'll show you where and so we showed in his new office and he telephoned the dean and so the most extraordinary things happened my office has been moved into the horticulture building which was standing empty meetings and we you can't keep that on to somebody else is slated to be even you say well i'm already moved in

manhattan i don't know how many years he kept that office for the rest of his life and it was a beautiful office for the fireplace leung for seminars and rooms for graduate students in a dark room and a kitchen and we painted the walls and we don't we do anything for them but there's just an example of the way we used to operate in those days that many people remember hunting fishing camping and hiking trips that they took with all the leopold medicine physician dr each content at remembers the events of a hiking trip when we went up to this is the area in upon the hr makeshift barrier we're about halfway out again said hello there's the first tree wrote fence that i've seen in a long time well these were stubbs there were caught and clearing

land and a fairly shallow road system those are stirred up on edge and they made an absolutely impenetrable france they got the words out of the way grab those other ways that they could probably plant and made a sense of either well i've seen something like that before but i've never seen one that they buy that may contribute to at the auto show below there's the fence he's planted and you see everything you know on this trip home we thought we were the walker were some of the country not up the roads and trails are sort of cross country and it rises up to series of lage going back in for about ten miles or so we know that there are always a lot of guarantees based nada working very slowly then he said ah there it is there's what although he said there is some ground on top of this great big boulder and there are lots of big boulders on the side of it what we

call a non great detail there are lots of those and he said i've been looking for ground hell are opposed to the dear there's ice cream and they'll eat ground hemlock where they were they can find it there on the top of the great border where they can reach it is ground so it should be here it is is a natural place for a girl but the fact there isn't any show that the deer pressures economy is too great for this area and there must be a lot of deer around here so that was one little thing that he do so is he we were walking through it with more funding going to go into various world war through the woods and that you'd see every going to pay off big you know are sort of impressed you is that as a sign just as a

very friendly person that was interested in anything and interested you he was of course very knowledgeable and maybe want to talk to him about the things he was doing and yet he was sick always always very welcome guest in and anyhow because he was such a very nice guy have everybody like abortion again joseph hickey this is a very interesting family mrs li po is it from this band is part of our culture our own ancestors settled in new mexico where some time in the sixteenth century the duke of albuquerque was one of her ancestors and so on and she was raised bilingual ways he hasn't just didn't know you'd recognize are suspended and then they had a five children which made for one of the delightful expression of students on this

campus because here still could see not only amanda was successful professionally but amanda was being successful as a family man a young healthy boys and two girls have four out of the five men became ph t's and the other girl them married a phd you know it's easy for some of them at professional success and summoned to see family success but how do you combine them and i think in my book me the manna was true a successful life is so one who in a successful in his career or profession but who still about the love and warm affection of age of his family of course who i had known the boys all took some aspects of their fathers that this one became air awhile it

can't just another one became a botanist another one was a hydraulic just how one of the girls also became a botanist so were you see only the interests of the city father percolating down right into his own with the children for them the family car leopold car leopold is professor of horticulture at purdue university and is aldo leopold youngest son ruby's relationship to children those of those sources of companionship between my father images of children as obese the civic a moment to do things with them so there is a great involvement of activity in the sense of companionship my first recollection of any sporting activity with my father was some crowley of work at the time when i was about six or eight years old one in the wintertime dentist enjoy fishing to the ice on lake mendota he loved fishing and this man a

very nice winter assistant coaches the sport the summer he would take many fishing trips of course richard mchugh troops and canadian country that have great skills and recorded it sends has an excellent chance of the bonanno as he was also with a shotgun fitting room and boman of craftsmanship with a sport which i think you'll see permeates all his party activities he loved applying skills as a craftsman to what he was doing in terms of the news that he had might notice an archery tackle all of which he made he made it goes from it grows human you'd plucked feathers for the for the arrows from various birds that he had sharp or sometimes if you find out the country the whole

thing was the sense of craftsmanship i think his enjoyment of doing things really the action part of being here and belated to dallas was really fun i think that's what i enjoyed and his family and that's where we join in him and split and nose and doing things or them to gradually became increasingly aware of all holl sarajevo of all things and how emotionally committed to what he was doing but as neena bradley or the leopold daughter what it took a lot of the heat load of raising children because she realized that but my father was completely involved in his thinking she was the disciplinarian she was the one who manage the household and the announcers and and you know they kept the household three so that he was able to

think and then he listened involved with all the problems of living the political philosophy and he had was just bring back to normal the places that have been ruined had been over grow <unk> we appalled when he found this little place which was a worn out farm and nineteen eighty three he decided by to see what could be done that first year we began to plant mines and to bring it back to where it was originally rejected two thousand times last about them and it was it was a dry year then after that we've added two thousand or more and we had better luck begin the trees began to grow every year we went up to see and every year the trees were getting bigger and planting more trees companies sell for two thousand trees that were planted every year creating innovations in the almond

trees have been planted now it's a normal place it has trees it has water it has some places for the animals and the birds today and one of the things that was interesting was that there was really no place no shelter at all at that time and also on the boy's cleaned out this little chicken house and they've built bunks on the side of it and built this beautiful fireplace which we have now it's a place that is really a lovely little home that we can go to and stay three or four nights oh and there's one thing that my husband always said and retrieving kept to never take anything out there that is in absolutely necessary we don't have any kind of furniture or pots and pans and are not an absolutely necessary which is going to rehab albie and they were always cuffed me and a beautiful fireplace

these bunks which was so comfortable and we have good food you have any idea how much pleasure i have gotten out i'm going to get into the country with my husband and how the children have learned i think it's really more important old laws than anything else to feel that wonderful feeling when you go out of the country is something that people should go and see and get the feeling when my father first purchased our shack he came home all enthusiastic about this piece of land that he had found and we all piled in the car and drove up there on a very very cold wintery day but step carefully and on the little wagon trail road that led him to this day and it was so cold he had to stop and build a fire in

the narrative and push the car i get it going again all all seven of us and a funny job then you can be deep snow and we found this old rickety shack which was just really not very good not very exciting to the rest of us it was an old chicken coop and how to newark in the for an old purchase for the chickens all the way around and it was scary and that the land was worn out nothing but old worn out corn landman and broken down fences and then you it's so it's been so enthusiastic and we couldn't will win along with a very pleasant way that we really couldn't figure out why he was so enthusiastic about until we started with yams and reconstructing an old worn out france and i always will remember our first look at the shack and

how really unattractive it was in our perspective and how my father saw in an interrogator perspective is this his head recreation is a scientific laboratory or isis were where he could live the most fully i think here was something that he could create something that he could build on rather than starting out with something that was already beautiful so it was and the creativity of this land that that we all got our satisfaction it took us a long time to get respected officially king kiki things

like this things were different the question in order to secure higher standard the opportunity to see more importantly the chance to find the person conservation is getting the americans belonging to us and as a community to which we belong there's no other way others are

staying or others are it is and whaling nations clinton said well you know i keep it on my bedside table and i know i can open it anywhere and i thoroughly enjoyed it is always something new it is a beautiful english and he's used

it to have been used in various colleges as the art an english textbook was in his profile was almost like poetry you never used a fancy word simple one could do but he had a very nice choice of words i remember that you could write me a letter our when he was away on one page that i could've containing six pages he says tourists to the blight by must avoid cliche into professor of conservation journalism at the university of wisconsin question is a real one the weather the emergence of environmentalism as we know it could have been possible without the kind of philosophical and programmatic inspiration provided by going home because it is i consider

she really is think of a long quote from we'll call the pre well expresses philosophy the practice of conservation must bring from conviction was perfectly innocent we write as well so as economically expedient the thing is right or military reserve the integrity stability and beauty of the community and the committee includes the soil waters flawed and four as well most people only people only so called hard a practical guide to say because the wearable why can't i recharge professor wolf on cloud nine somewhere between practical foes lonely that mean that the us will take care of things whenever i down to it i think

there is no more practical point of view live alone it was an ape for a going thing it can be done this was a good basis of a quarter last year are carried through but here is the duration here is a world we live in how do we adjust to it we are part of it we are not the drivers are not glued forgers we're not selected few for whom this whole thing was we're having fun we're parted the root of our current difficulties right now is that we refuse to recognize it we don't look upon ourselves as a part of the world but as

above it as in charge of it and so will deliver their employees and his whole class reportedly option that we don't do is we don't please we find ourselves in the scheme of things we simply cannot go on and i find it world using infinite destruction and food consumption that they end result has got to be as a miracle so long ago that we regard ourselves as part of it and adjust ourselves to its workings and not try to bend to two hours dealers always thinking almost an eternal rana he was not only thinking of our children and our grandchildren he was thinking of the way you weigh in here he did not offer it through field that wasn't his motivation and somehow

we have got to get the feeling of oh a tiny place time with just like a little dutch boy sticking his finger in the dike image of a coupon oh hang on a tradition something about the knowledge is weary students are students attempted to slager and his students are students captured it just keeps growing and there's no way of accounting that this type of thing but i'm sure there's a kind of immortality that is the very best type of immortality we don't speak of the uploads a very often that over and over again how aron act what we do how you think the ethics our appreciation

still got it hollywood bowl remembering aldo leopold already a documentary on his life and legacy with reported comments on the cups of those who knew him best his family friends students and colleagues music but done correctly this program was recorded edited and produced by jean brightly public station wbhm at the university of wisconsin madison this is carrie ms bee

it's been it