Wild Ones: A Sometimes Dismaying, Weirdly Reassuring Story About Looking at People Lookingat Animals in America (32 page)

It was largely by reading D. Graham Burnett’s leviathan-sized history,
The Sounding of the Whale: Science and Cetaceans in the Twentieth Century
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012) that I got up to speed on John Lilly’s work, Margaret Howe’s experiment with Peter, and the origin and significance of
Songs of the Humpback Whales
. Another good book,
Thousand Mile Song: Whale Music in a Sea of Sound
by David Rothernberg (New York: Basic Books, 2010), covers some of the same ground. I also read Lilly’s two books from this era:
Mind of the Dolphin: A Nonhuman Intelligence
(Garden City: Doubleday & Company, 1967) and
Man and Dolphin
(New York: Pyramid Books, 1969).
Donal Henahan encouraged
New York Times
readers to connect with their “mammalian past” in “Is the Art Song Really Out of Date?” December 13, 1970.

For details about the parade in Stockholm, see “What Happened at Stockholm” by R. Stephen Berry in the September 1972 edition of
Bulletin of the
Atomic Scientists.
Joan McIntyre’s most notable press clips include “Whale Love,” by Nicholas von Hoffman,
Washington Post
, February 16, 1973; “Children Protest Whaling,” by Donald P. Baker,
Washington Post
, June 3, 1973; “Watch Out, Hawaiian Whales, The Crusader Is on the Way,” by Jean M. White,
Washington Post
, October 29, 1974; and “Stumping World to Save the Whale,” by Harriet Stix,
Los Angeles Times
, November 20, 1974.

The story of Monique the Space Elk is covered by Etienne Benson in
Wired Wilderness
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press
,
2010). Thanks to Etienne for sharing some of his leftover research as well.

To understand Greenpeace’s standoff with the Russian whaling vessel, I relied, again, on Burnett’s
The Sounding of the Whale
; on the 2012 documentary film
A Fierce Green Fire
by Mark Kitchell; and on coverage in the
New York Times
. I also interviewed the historian Frank Zelko, author of a forthcoming history of Greenpeace. (It was during that interview that Zelko compared
Mind in
the Waters
to
Silent Spring.
) The herbicide problem at Antioch Dunes is described in an April 2, 2012, article in the
San Francisco Chronicle
by Peter Fimrite, “Weed Killers Threaten Lange’s Metalmark Butterfly.”

I learned about WCEP’s tracking operation from Eva Szyszkoski and Joan Garland at the International Crane Foundation. John Christian explained why tracking the cranes was initially, legally, necessary. To think through the philosophical and legal complexities of wildlife tracking in general, I read yet another exceptional paper by Holly Doremus: “Restoring Endangered Species: The Importance of Being Wild,”
Harvard Environmental Law Review
23 (1999).

The situation surrounding bighorn sheep in Texas was first described to me by a pro-donkey activist there named Marjorie Farabee and later confirmed by Tom Harvey at the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. Coyote-control tactics of the USDA’s Wildlife Services division are described in “Wildlife Services’ Deadly Force Opens Pandora’s Box of Environmental Problems,” part of a stunning, three-part exposé about the agency by Tom Knudson in the
Sacramento Bee
that ran in 2012. Information about Cornell’s Right Whale Listening Network comes from the project’s Web site.

I first read about the Otter-Free Zone in Doremus’s “Restoring Endangered Species: The Importance of Being Wild.” I learned more by speaking with Steve Shimek, chief executive of the Otter Project, and even more from talking with Greg Sanders, whose final word on the subject is drawn from “Agency Seeks to Lift Otter Ban,” by Sara Lin
in the
Los Angeles Times
, October 6, 2005.

My description of early attempts to promote wildness in whooping cranes quotes David H. Ellis et al., “Lessons from the Motorized Migrations,”
Proceedings of the North American Crane Workshop
8 (2001): 143.

Joe Duff first explained to me that, once upon a time, Canada geese were cherished and rare. “They’re beautiful creatures,” he said. “They used to be harbingers of the changing seasons and legends of the fall. But show me one person who likes Canada geese now. And it’s our fault!” I subsequently read about the history of the species in many archival newspaper stories, including “Road to Oblivion Runs Both Ways,” an April 10, 1966,
Washington Post
column by then chairman of the Audubon Naturalist Society, Irston R. Barnes. For an overview, I consulted “Large Canada Geese in the Central Flyway: Management of Depredation, Nuisance and Human Health and Safety Issues,” prepared for the Central Flyway Council by P. Joseph Gabig in 2000.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimates that there are now 3.5 million resident Canada geese in the country. The Department of Agriculture is the federal agency responsible for controlling them. The total number of geese the government kills every year is hard to come by, but I got at least a rough idea from documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act by Barbara Stagno of the animal rights organization In Defense of Animals. Discussing pigeons, I quote from “The Chattering Sparrow,”
New York Times
, September 2, 1878, and “To Get President to Join in Pastime Is Big Hope of Many,”
Washington Post
, July 26, 1933.

The growth of urban raccoon populations is documented in the PBS Nature film
Raccoon Nation
. “Our Most American Animal” was written by Polly Redford and published in the December 1963 issue of
Harper’s
. It includes a photo of her young son, shirtless, cuddling with a raccoon.

14. S
POILER

My attempt to reconstruct what happened at Tooke Lake is based on conversations with Brooke Pennypacker, George Archibald, and two former trackers with the International Crane Foundation, Anna Fasoli and Sara Zimorski. I also e-mailed with Bev Hansen of the Hernando Audubon Society. Most of all, I’m grateful to Clarice Gibbs for her invitation to visit and for sharing her story.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s
2011 National Survey of Fishing, Hunting, and Wildlife-Associated Recreation: National Overview,
published in August 2012, states that fifty-three million Americans feed birds outside their homes.

15. B
ACKPACKS
F
ULL OF
R
OCKS

Information about Jefferson County comes from the county’s Web site.

In relaying Brooke’s speech on the beach at St. Marks, I’ve also interwoven several statements he made to me months later when—still unable to shake what he’d said that afternoon at St. Marks, but also still incapable of understanding why exactly I was so moved—I told Brooke so and asked him to elaborate. This is the only place in the book where I’ve knowingly combined two conversations this way, or altered a person’s quotes except for making minor adjustments for the sake of clarity or accuracy.

EPILOGUE: THE MAN WHO CARRIED FISH

I’m grateful to Phil Pister for meeting with me at his home in Bishop. To get the story right, I also relied on Pister’s essay, “Species in a Bucket,” in the January 1993 issue of
Natural History
and “Edwin Philip Pister, Preserving Native Fishes and Their Ecosystems: A Pilgrim’s Progress, 1950–Present,” an oral history done in 2009 by the Regional Oral History Office of the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley. (The interviewer was Ann Lage.) Thanks also to Terry Russi for showing me around Fish Slough. John Muir wrote about the redemptive effects of trout fishing in the essay “The Animals of the Yosemite,” in
Our National Parks
(New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1917), 231.

For more gruesome details about the farmer who snapped in anger at the pelican colony, see “Farmer Snapped in Anger at Pelican Colony,” in the
Kansas City Star
, October 6, 2011.

Finally, a note about Rudi Mattoni. Not long ago, one of the journalists I hired to fact-check this manuscript e-mailed Mattoni and asked him, among other things, to confirm a few details about his insect-cataloging project on the Rio de la Plata. Mattoni responded: “I have left the area. I am abandoning the idea.” He explained that he’d been discouraged to find the local community and the academic community to be unsupportive and completely uninterested in his objectives. “Another of life’s small tragedies,” Mattoni wrote. In other words, he had given up.

Except, he hadn’t given up. Instead, he recently moved to New York City, he wrote, “where I plan to spend the rest of my days working on the art/science interface.” He’s now working with an artist to develop mass-rearing methods for butterflies, just as he’d once done for the government’s moths, with the aim of building “living sculptures.” That is, Mattoni has thrown himself into communicating the importance of biodiversity via the same, more imaginative channels that he’d tried to open with his art exhibit in Buenos Aires. We should all wish him luck.

The page numbers in this index refer to the printed version of this book. To find the corresponding locations in the text of this digital version, please use the “search” function on your e-reader. Note that not all terms may be searchable.

Achille Lauro
, 152

Adams, John, 49

Airlie Center, 264, 265

Alani plant, 58–59

Allen, Robert Porter, 198–200, 206

American Bison Society, 142, 144

American Incognitum,
see
mammoths

America’s Teaching Zoo, 158

Amstrup, Steven, 23–24, 98–99

Animal Planet, 31, 79
n,
243

antelope, 143

Anthropocene epoch, 3

Antioch Dunes evening primrose, 107

Antioch Dunes National Wildlife Refuge, 105–8, 111–12, 125–26, 132, 147, 149, 150, 163

biodiversity of, 127

buckwheat in, 112–14, 133–34, 147, 150, 154, 156, 173–74

dune cycles at, 111–13, 149, 154–55

entomologists at, 124–28, 166

Fish and Wildlife Service’s purchase of, 148–50

gypsum plant in, 105–6, 125

hairy vetch in, 113–14, 134

herbicides in, 243–44

Humphrey the Humpback and, 153–56, 243

Johnson and, 156, 157–62, 166, 173–74

Lange’s metalmark butterflies at,
see
Lange’s metalmark butterflies

Powell and, 125–28, 132–34, 155, 166, 182, 293

power plants and, 190–91

aoudad sheep, 252, 253

Aransas National Wildlife Refuge, 200

Archibald, George, 217–20, 222, 224, 233, 237, 266–67

Arctic, 53, 115, 181

armadillos, 231

Army Corps of Engineers, 167

Arnold, Richard, 147, 148, 155–56

Assiniboine Park Zoo, 21

Atala butterflies, 112

Aucilla River, 272

Audubon Society, 64, 122, 287

Audubon Zoo, 197

Babcock, Squire, 230, 233

babies, 61, 170

bald eagles, 57, 59, 129, 146, 240

bats, 60
n,
160

bears, 60
n,
63–69, 71

grizzly, 31, 57, 64–66, 68, 143, 175, 181–82

Kodiak, 98

polar,
see
polar bears

Roosevelt and, 61–63, 68, 69, 71–72, 142

teddy, 62–64, 69–71, 142, 176

beavers, 130, 141

Behr, Hans Hermann, 121–23, 125, 129

Benchley, Peter, 30

Benga, Ota, 141

Bergen, Candice, 241

Berryman, Clifford, 62

Beston, Henry, 5

bighorn sheep, 60
n,
252, 253

Billy Possums, 70–71

biodiversity, 160–62, 188

in Antioch Dunes, 127

military bases and, 162–63

Biography of a Grizzly, The
(Seton), 64–65

biological species concept, 179

biophilia, 170

birds, 64, 122, 130, 142, 163, 289

accelerating evolutionary change and, 181–82

DDT and, 59, 240

eagles, 57, 59, 64, 129, 146, 240

geese,
see
geese

Gibbs and, 268–70

Kittlitz’s murrelets, 56, 72

Lishman’s view of, 221

pheasants, 143

pigeons, 60
n,
136–37, 231, 258

robins, 39

sandhill cranes, 143, 214, 222–25, 258, 267

seabirds, 2, 56, 72

taxidermy of, 137
n

whooping cranes,
see
whooping cranes

bison,
see
buffalo, bison

Blue Water, White Death,
30–31

Bootlegger,
152–53

Böttcher, Ursula, 28

Bronx Zoo, 140

Brown, Bob, 283–84, 286

Buchanan, Robert, 17–18, 37–38, 42, 43, 66, 85–90, 96, 98, 101, 144, 245

buckwheat, naked stem, 112–14, 133–34, 147, 150, 154, 156, 173–74

buffalo, bison, 137–38, 231, 251–53

American Bison Society and, 142, 144

Hornaday and, 138–39, 141–42, 144, 157, 188, 199

Buffon, Georges-Louis Leclerc, 45–50, 143

Bureau of Biological Survey, 63–64

Burnett, D. Graham, 242

Bush administration, 55, 56, 59, 72–73

Busy Spring for Grandella the Gray Fox, A
(Carroll), 83

butterflies, 107–8, 117–18, 119–24, 146, 161, 163, 166, 169

Atala, 112

captive rearing of, 164–65, 187

changing habitats and, 122–23

collecting, 121–24

Gulf fritillary, 184–85

host plants of, 112

Human Folly blue, 168–69

Johnson and, 156, 157–62, 163–66, 173–74

Lange’s metalmark,
see
Lange’s metalmark butterflies

Mattoni and, 162–69, 182, 184–88

Mormon metalmark, 182–85

O’Brien and, 116–18, 119–20, 123, 129, 132–33

Palos Verdes blue, 162–66, 168, 182

in San Francisco Bay Area, 120–24

Sonoran blue, 167

taxonomy and, 179–85

Xerces blue, 122–24

Butterfly Project, 157–61, 166, 173–74

California Academy of Sciences, 20

camels, 131–32

Canadian Eskimo dogs, 75

Canadian Geographic,
77

carbon emissions, 55, 87

Carnegie, Andrew, 139

Carroll, Margie, 82–84

Carson, Rachel,
Silent Spring,
239, 240

cats, 60
n

cellular biology, 140

Center for Biological Diversity, 53–55, 58, 59, 72–74, 170

charismatic animals, 57, 59–60, 154, 160, 187, 212

Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge, 265, 267–68, 272–73

cheetahs, 131

children, 169–73, 175–76, 230
n

author’s daughter,
see
Mooallem, Isla

books for, 65–66, 82–83, 169–70, 235–36

Churchill, Manitoba, 26–27, 75, 84

Fort Churchill, 13–14, 26–27

polar bear attacks in, 31–32

polar bear population decline in, 35–36

polar bears in, 13–24, 25–45, 76–92, 93–101

Churchill Motel, 31

Clean Air Act, 55

climate change, 15–16, 18–20, 39, 56, 74, 129, 188, 259, 292

Arctic and, 53, 115, 181

emissions and, 55

polar bears and, 6, 15, 19, 20, 22, 34–42, 53–56, 74, 85, 93–94, 96–97, 114–15, 181–82

public attention to, 53

United Nations panel and, 53–54

whooping cranes and, 281

C’mon Geese,
221, 224

Coca-Cola, 98

cod, 128

Collier, Holt, 62

Collins, Judy, 241

Columbus, Christopher, 135

communication, interspecies, 233–34

Communications Research Institute, 236–38

Compayre, Dennis, 42–44, 77

Condie, Liz, 229

conservation, conservationists, 131, 146, 187, 192, 202, 203, 238, 240, 253, 257–58, 287, 289, 293

ecosystem repair and, 160

Hornaday and, 141, 144

human-animal boundaries and, 251–54

conservation reliance, 114–15

Continental Congress, 47, 50

Contra Costa wallflower, 107

Coolidge, Calvin, 260

Cooper, John, 278

cormorants, 258

Cornell University, 252

Cottle, James, 121–26, 129

cougars, pumas, mountain lions, 48, 60, 60
n,
63, 67–68

Cox, Daniel J., 93–96, 114

coyotes, 63–64, 252, 253

cranes:

sandhill, 143, 214, 222–25, 258, 267

whooping,
see
whooping cranes

Craniacs, 228–30, 233, 250, 273, 282, 291, 294, 295

crocodiles, 3

Cronkite, Walter, 242

cultural carrying capacity, 21–22

Cummings, Brendan, 55, 56, 59

Current Issues in Tourism,
34

Curwood, James Oliver, 68–69

DDT, 59, 240

Dean, James, 137

Declaration of Independence, 47

deer, 130, 143, 258, 285

Defense, Department of, 162

Defense Fuel Support Point, San Pedro, 162

degeneracy theory, 45–50, 143

Dehler, Gregory, 140

Delhi Sands flower-loving flies, 167–68

Derocher, Andrew, 34–37, 94

diamondback terrapins, 135

DiCaprio, Leonardo, 54

Disney, 79
n,
230
n

disturbance ecosystems, 111, 154–55

dogs:

Canadian Eskimo, 75

polar bears and, 77, 79–81

dolphins, 60
n,
235, 236

Howe and, 237–38

Lilly and, 236–38

Donlan, Josh, 130–32

Doremus, Holly, 148–49, 181, 253, 259

Douglass, George, 197–200, 206

ducks, 221

Duff, Joe, 202–3, 205, 207–9, 211, 224–26, 230
n,
231, 250, 262, 264, 273, 275, 278–82, 295

Dugard, Jaycee, 108

Dugatkin, Lee Alan, 47, 49

eagles, 57, 59, 64, 129, 146, 240

ecosystems, 187, 192, 277

disturbance, 111, 154–55

ecosystem services, 160

elephants, 131

Eliasson, Kelsey, 42

elk, 240, 253, 285

Endangered Species Act, 7, 22, 52, 55–57, 59, 68, 73–74, 145–46, 168, 169, 181, 202, 288

ecosystems and, 187

species definitions and, 181, 183

endangered species list, 55–59, 72

bald eagles and, 129

Delhi Sands flower-loving flies and, 168

polar bears and, 52–53, 55–56, 59, 72–74

endangered species protection, volunteers in, 110–11

environmental campaigning, radical, 242–43

environmental generational amnesia, 129, 136

Euing, Susan, 132–34

evolution:

human acceleration of, 181–82

taxonomy and, 179

extermination, 63–64, 138

extinction, 44–45, 144

managing, 131

extinction of experience, 161, 178

falcons, peregrine, 3

Father Goose
(Lishman), 230
n

Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), 291, 294, 296

filmmakers, 79
n

Findleton, Jack, 152
n

fish, 61

collapsing populations of, 128

Owens pupfish, 283–90

salmon, 2–3, 285

snail darters, 57

stocking of, 285

Fish and Wildlife Service, 57, 73, 106, 107, 113, 114, 129, 132–34, 147, 154–56, 160, 166, 181, 182, 190, 212
n,
293

Antioch Dunes purchased by, 148–50

herbicides used by, 243–44

whooping cranes and, 209, 211

fishing, 128, 285

Fish Slough, 283–90

Fly Away Home,
230
n

Fort Churchill, 13–14, 26–27

Franklin, Benjamin, 47–49

Free Willy,
230
n

French, John, 250, 256–57, 259

Freud, Sigmund, 171

Friends of the Earth, 235

frogs, 111

Frontiers North Adventures, 32–33, 41–43, 85

Furbish’s louseworts, 60

Garfield, James A., 138

Garrido, Phillip, 108

geese, 205, 257, 258

Fly Away Home
and, 230
n

Lishman and, 221, 223–26, 234

Gee Whiz (whooping crane), 219, 200

Georgia Billy Possum Co., 70

Georgia-Pacific Antioch Wallboard Plant, 105–6, 125

Gibbs, Clarice, 265–71

Gimbel, Peter, 30

Glacier Bay wolf spider, 56, 61

global warming,
see
climate change

Golden Compass, The,
54

goats, 60
n

Gore, Al, 53

gorillas, 234

green energy projects, 289

greenhouse gases, 55, 73, 85–86

Greenpeace, 241–44

grizzly bears, 31, 57, 64–66, 68, 143, 175, 181–82

Grizzly King, The: A Romance of the Wild
(Curwood), 68–69

ground sloths, 130

Gulf fritillary butterflies, 184–85

Gunter, John, 32–33

Guravich, Dan, 27–28

hairy vetch, 113–14, 134

Harper’s Magazine,
260

hawks, 64

Hickel, Walter, 238

Hornaday, William Temple, 8, 138–46, 169, 175, 188, 240, 244, 287, 289

buffalo and, 138–39, 141–42, 144, 157, 188, 199

Our Vanishing Wildlife: Its Extermination and Preservation,
142–45, 258

Thirty Years War for Wild Life: Gains and Losses in the Thankless Task,
287–88

horses, 131

Horwich, Robert, 222–24

Howe, Margaret, 237–38

Hudson Bay, 46, 87

polar bears and, 31, 34–37, 93

seaport of, 39

Human-Animal Studies, 60
n

Human Folly blue butterflies, 168–69

Humphrey the Humpback, 150–56, 174, 175, 232–34, 243

hunting, 143–44

Hutcheson Memorial Forest, 148–49

IBM, 235, 241

imprinting, 218, 221

whooping cranes and, 205, 218, 222

Incognitum,
see
mammoths

Inconvenient Truth, An,
53

Ingebrigtson, Mark, 39

insects, 146, 163, 177–78, 188

butterflies,
see
butterflies

Interior, Department of, 162

International Crane Foundation, 218, 222, 223, 250, 251, 267

International Whaling Commission, 236, 246

International Whooping Crane Recovery Team, 249

interspecies communication, 233–34

“Invertebrate Conservation at the Gates of Hell” (Longcore and Rich), 163

Jaws,
30

jellyfish, 128

Jefferson, Thomas, 8, 22, 44–45, 47–51, 64, 244

Buffon and, 45–50, 143

Notes on the State of Virginia,
45, 50, 142–43

Jefferson County, Fla., 271–73, 278

jellyfish, 60
n

Johnson, Jana, 156, 157–66, 173–74

Josephine and Pete (whooping cranes), 197–98, 200–202, 217

Kahn, Peter H., Jr., 128–29

Kellert, Stephen, 61, 67, 172

Kempthorne, Dirk, 73

Kittlitz’s murrelets, 56, 72

Kodiak bears, 98

Krause, Bernie, 152
n

Ladies’ Home Journal,
63, 69

Ladoon, Brian, 75–82

ladybugs, 60
n

Lange, William Harry, 124–26, 182

Lange’s metalmark butterflies, 5–6, 106–17, 122, 124–25, 127, 133, 146–50, 154–56, 169, 173–74, 188–93, 201