When I consider that the nobler animals have been exterminated here - the cougar, the panther, the lynx, wolverine, wolf, bear, moose, the deer, the beaver, the turkey, etc., etc., - I cannot but feel as if I lived in a tamed an emasculated country.I take infinite pains to know all the phenomena of spring, for instance, thinking that I have the entire poem, and then to my chagrin, I hear that it is but an imperfect copy that I possess and have read, that my ancestors have torn out many of the first leaves and grandest passages, and mutilated it in many places.
The importance of humanity's relationship with our environment didn't start with the release of Silent Spring, or the industrial revolution. How we have treated our environment has been affecting the rise and fall of civilisations for thousands of years. This wonderful and important book talks in detail about a number of things I've already been aware of but hadn't been put in a way that reached me so deeply before. Our extinction of species which has a long history is illustrated with tales such as the demise of the American Passenger Pidgeon. These examples were profound and will stay with...