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Sustaining Wild Things - Species
Endangered Species Glossary
http://www.fws.gov/endangered/glossary.html
 Extinct species A species that no longer
exists. For ESA, a species currently
believed to be extinct.
 Endangered species An animal or plant
species in danger of extinction throughout
all or a significant portion of its range.
 Threatened species An animal or plant
species likely to become endangered within
the foreseeable future throughout all or a
significant portion of its range.
Credit: © Ken Lucas/Visuals Unlimited
Museum specimen of the Passenger pigeon that became extinct in 1914.
178223
Peter (Pehr) Kalm (1716 - 1779)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalm
Kalm's journal of his travels
was published as En Resa til
Norra America (Stockholm,
1753–1761). It was translated
into German, Dutch, French,
and into English in 1770 as
Travels into North America.
Another American edition was
translated by Adolph B.
Benson and published in
1937; it is an important
standard reference regarding
life in colonial North America.
Peter Kalm
March the 3rd (1749) “Wild pigeons (Columba
macrour or migratioia) flew in the woods in
numbers beyond conception, and I was assured
that they were more plentiful than they had been
for several years past. They came this week and
continued here for about a fortnight, after which
they all disappeared, whence they came. I shall
speak of them more particularly in another place.”
Peter Kalm
June the 29th (1749) “Wild pigeons. We saw
immense numbers of the wild pigeons which I
have previously described flying in the woods,
and which sometimes come in incredible flocks to
the southern English colonies, without the
inhabitants there knowing where they come from.
They have their nests in the trees here, and almost
all night make a rustling, whirring noise and
cooing in the trees where they roost.”
Peter Kalm
“The French shot a great number of them, and
gave us some, in which we found a great quantity
of the seeds of the elm, which evidently
demonstrated the care of Providence in supplying
them with food; for in May the seeds of the red
maple, which abounds here, are ripe, and drop
from the trees and are eaten by the pigeons during
that time: afterwards, the seeds of the elm ripen,
which then become their food, till other seeds
mature for them. Their flesh is the most palatable
of any bird’s flesh I have ever tasted.”
John Burroughs
(1837-1931)
Burroughs, J. 1871.
Wake Robin (Richard F
Fleck (ed.)) GibbsSmith Publishers.
John Burroughs
“Wild pigeons, in immense numbers, used to breed
regularly in the valley of the Big Ingin and about the
head of the Neversink. The treetops for miles were full
of their nests, while the going and coming of the old
birds kept up a constant din. But the gunners soon got
wind of it, and from far and near were wont to pour in
during the spring, and to slaughter both old and young.
This practice soon had the effect of driving the pigeons
all away, and now only a few pairs breed in these
woods.”
Edwin Way Teale (1899 – 1980)
Teale, E. W. 1960. Journey into
Summer: A Naturalist’s Record of
a 19,000-Mile Journey through
the North American Summer.
Dodd, Mead & Co, N.Y., N.Y.
Edwin Way Teale
“We were north of Petosky, following the shore
road, when we climbed through woodland onto an
immense promontory that overlooked the upper
end of Lake Michigan. Gazing out over the
white-flecked expanse of blue, I felt an old
excitement stirring within me. This was the first
large body of water I had ever known, the lake of
my childhood. Our first river, our first lake, our
first mountain, our first forest – none encountered
later ever leaves an impression so indelible.”
Edwin Way Teale
“At last we turned and let our eyes wander over
the wooded land that stretched away as far as we
could see into the interior. The sky above all this
forest land, above our promontory, above the
waves of the lake shallows had been cut and
crisscrossed, hardly a century ago, but the million
passing wings of the now vanished passenger
pigeon. Except for being larger, having a bluegray head, and lacking the black spot behind the
eye, this bird closely resembled a mourning
dove.”
Edwin Way Teale
“The place-names of the region – Pigeon Lake,
Pigeon Hill, Pigeon River – are echoes of the days
when the uncounted hosts of these wild birds
nested here. In pioneer times a single continuous
nesting area near Petoskey covered more than 260
square miles. Across Lake Michigan, another
nesting area extended for 100 miles through
central Wisconsin. Literally obscuring the sun,
the migrating flocks streamed north and south in
flowing rivers of birds.”
Edwin Way Teale
“Alexander Wilson tells of one such living torrent
that passed above him hour after hour near the
Kentucky River. He calculated that it was at least
a mile wide and 240 miles long and contained
more than 2,000,000,000 birds. No one can even
estimate how many billions of passenger pigeons
once lived in this land where not one single bird
of its kind breathes today.”
Edwin Way Teale
“So densely packed were the roosting birds that
small oaks bent to the ground with their weight.
They often rested one upon another. Sometimes
the masses were a dozen pigeons deep. Cotton
Mather describes vividly such a roosting place:
“Yea, they sat upon one another like Bees, till a
Limb of a Tree would seem almost as big as a
House. As many as a dozen birds were reported
killed by a single rifle ball fired into such a mass.
And the firing continued incessantly.”
Edwin Way Teale
“Meat hunters in one small area in upper Michigan
slaughtered 700,000 passenger pigeons in a single year.
Salted and packed in barrels, their bodies went to market.
Live squabs, tens of thousands of them pulled from the
nests and placed in wooden crates, traveled by express to
the larger cities. Ruts in the forest roads were sometimes
filled in with tons of the pigeon wings. Netters attracted
the passing flocks by using as decoys birds with their
eyes sewed shut. In the whole revolting story of man’s
inhumanity to fellow creatures of the earth, the record of
the passenger pigeon forms one of the darkest pages.”
Edwin Way Teale
“While the State Senate of Ohio was receiving a
report that concluded that the passenger pigeon
would never become extinct, and Massachusetts
was enacting a law to protect the netters of wild
pigeons, the slaughter continued. The railroad
and the telegraph hastened the end. Station
agents, with their dot-and-dash messages,
reported the arrival of the migrants all along the
line. The railroads ran special trains for the
gunners and the express companies shipped back
the birds they killed.”
Edwin Way Teale
“The slaughter of the pigeons became big business. Yet
so great were their numbers that little decrease was
noticed until about 1880. Less than four decades later,
however, only a single passenger pigeon remained alive.
This was Martha, a caged female at the Cincinnati, Ohio,
Zoo, now one of the mounted specimens at the National
Museum, in Washington. When she died, on September
1, 1914, a whole species had been destroyed; the
teeming, vibrant life that was the passenger pigeon’s had
disappeared forever from the earth. No remnant remained
in all the woods that spread away below us where once
the multitudes had fed and nested.”
Passenger
pigeon
Great auk
A few globally extinct species
Dodo
Dusky seaside
sparrow
Aepyornis
(Madagascar)
Florida
manatee
Northern spotted
owl (threatened)
Gray wolf
Florida panther
Devil's hole
pupfish
Snow leopard
(Central Asia)
Symphonia
(Madagascar)
Black-footed
ferret
Ghost bat
(Australia)
California
condor
Black lace
cactus
Black rhinoceros
(Africa)
Bannerman's
turaco (Africa)
Utah prairie dog
(threatened)
Oahu tree
snail
A few
endangered
species
Grizzly bear
(threatened)
Kirtland's
warbler
White top
pitcher plant
Arabian oryx
(Middle East)
African elephant
(Africa)
Mojave desert
tortoise
(threatened)
Swallowtail
butterfly
Humpback
chub
Golden lion
tamarin
(Brazil)
Siberian tiger
(Siberia)
A few threatened species
West Virginia
Giant panda
spring salamander (China)
Mountain gorilla
(Africa)
Pine barrens
tree frog
(male)
A few threatened species
Whooping
crane
Knowlton
cactus
Swamp
pink
Hawksbill sea
turtle
Blue whale
El Segundo blue
butterfly
An extremely
rare, but nonendangered
species –
the Horned,
Mudsucker.
This rare bird was
found at Warren
Dunes along Lake
Michigan on 8/4/06.
Extinct, Endangered, Threatened, and
Rare…
 INDNR - animals and plants in Allen County, IN
 INDNR - Plants in Indiana
 PLANTS - Federal and State Protected Plants in
Indiana
 USFWS - Animals in the Midwest
 ICUN - Summary Statistics for Globally Threatened
Species
A 2000 joint study by World Conservation Union
and Conservation International and a 1999
study by the World Wildlife Fund found that
the following numbers of animals are in
danger of extinction:
 14% of the world’s plants
 34% of the world’s fish
 25% of the world’s amphibians
 20% of the world’s reptiles
 12% of the world’s birds
 24% of the world’s mammals
Reasons to Preserve Biodiversity:
 Economic Reasons
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Food
Fuel
Fiber
Lumber
Paper
Medicine
Future products
Foxglove
Digitalis purpurea,
Europe
Digitalis for heart failure
Pacific yew
Taxus brevifolia,
Pacific Northwest
Ovarian cancer
Cinchona
Cinchona ledogeriana,
South America
Quinine for malaria treatment
Reasons to Preserve Biodiversity:
 Economic Reasons
 Ecological
Reasons – They:

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
Produce oxygen
Pollinate crops
Develop soil
Recycle nutrients
Control pests
Regulate climate
Control flooding
Produce clean
water
 Moderate weather
extremes
 Decompose wastes
 Absorb and detoxify
pollutants
 Produce lumber,
fodder, and biomass
 Etc.
Reasons to Preserve Biodiversity:
 Economic Reasons
 Ecological Reasons
 Information/Scientific importance
Reasons to Preserve Biodiversity:
 Economic Reasons
 Ecological Reasons
 Information/Scientific importance
 Recreation
 Aesthetics
“We need the tonic of wildness…”
Henry David Thoreau
 Ecotourism
E.g., Natural Habitat Adventures
E.g., Audubon Nature Odysseys
E.g., GSMNP Wildflower Pilgrimage
Reasons to Preserve Biodiversity:
 Economic Reasons
 Ecological Reasons
 Information/Scientific importance
 Recreation
 Philosophical basis?
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For whom?
Genesis 1:11-13, 20-25
Ps 104:10-30
Job 12:7-12
"What value has wildlife from the standpoint of morals and
religion? I heard of a boy once who was brought up an atheist. He
changed his mind when he saw that there were a hundred-odd
species of warblers, each bedecked like to the rainbow, and each
performing yearly sundry thousands of miles of migration about
which scientists wrote wisely but did not understand. No
'fortuitous concourse of elements' working blindly through any
number of millions of years could quite account for why warblers
are so beautiful. No mechanistic theory, even bolstered by
mutations, has ever quite accounted for the colors of the cerulean
warbler, or the vespers of the wood thrush, or the swansong, or -goose music. I dare say this boy's convictions would be harder to
shake than those of many inductive theologians. There are yet
many boys to be born who, like Isaiah, 'may see, and know, and
consider, and understand together, that the hand of the Lord hath
done this.' But where shall they see, and know, and consider? In
museums?“ -- Aldo Leopold, "Goose Music" in Round River
(Oxford University Press, 1953)
How do species
become
endangered?
Some have
characteristics
that make them
prone to
extinction.
Characteristic
Examples
Low reproductive rate
(K-strategist)
Blue whale, giant panda,
rhinoceros
Specialized niche
Blue whale, giant panda,
Everglades kite
Narrow distribution
Many island species,
elephant seal, desert pupfish
Feeds at high trophic
level
Bengal tiger, bald eagle,
grizzly bear
Fixed migratory patterns
Blue whale, whooping crane,
sea turtles
Rare
Many island species,
African violet, some orchids
Commercially valuable
Snow leopard, tiger,
elephant, rhinoceros,
rare plants and birds
Large territories
California condor, grizzly
bear, Florida panther
Habitat Loss, Degradation, And
Fragmentation
 Conservation biologists summarize the most
important causes of premature extinction as
“HIPPO”:
 Habitat destruction, degradation, and
fragmentation
 Invasive species
 Population growth
 Pollution
 Overharvest
Direct Causes of Species Degradation:
***Habitat
loss
Overfishing
Pollution
***Habitat degradation
and fragmentation
Climate change
Commercial
hunting and poaching
***Introducing
nonnative species
Predator and pest control
Secondary Causes
*** = Big causes
***Population growth
• Rising resource use
• No environmental
accounting
• Poverty
Basic Causes
Sale of exotic pets
and decorative plants
Direct Causes of Species Degradation:
***Habitat Loss, Degradation, and
Fragmentation
 Ivory-billed Woodpecker
 Ivory-billed Woodpecker FWS
brochure
 Black Footed Ferret
 Black-Footed Ferret FWS site
***Habitat Loss and Hunting
Indian Tiger
Range 100 years ago
Range today
(about 2,300 left)
***Habitat Loss and Hunting
Black Rhino
Range in 1700
Range today
(about 3,600 left)
***Habitat Loss and Hunting
African Elephant
Probable range 1600
Range today
***Habitat Loss and Hunting
Asian or Indian Elephant
Former range
Range today
(34,000–54,000 left)
Video: Penguin Rescue
PLAY
VIDEO

From ABC News, Biology in the Headlines, 2005 DVD.
Direct Causes of Species Degradation:
***Deliberately Introduced Species
Purple loosestrife European starling
LINK
LINK
Marine toad
Water hyacinth
African honeybee
(“Killer bee”)
Japanese beetle
Nutria
Salt cedar
(Tamarisk)
Hydrilla
European wild boar
(Feral pig)
Direct Causes of Species Degradation:
***Accidentally Introduced Species
Sea lamprey
(attached to lake trout)
Argentina fire ant
Brown tree snake
Eurasian muffle
Common pigeon
(Rock dove)
Formosan termite
Zebra mussel
LINK
Asian long-horned
beetle
Asian tiger mosquito
Gypsy moth larvae
Direct Causes of Species Degradation:
***Accidentally Introduced Species
 Dutch Elm Disease
 American Chestnut Blight
Peter Kalm
June the 2nd (1749) “This morning we left Trenton, and
proceeded towards New York. We rode in an ordinary
open wagon which in stony places came near shaking
liver and lungs out of you, otherwise the better class
people travel with their own horses whether they ride in a
wagon or chaise, or on horseback; the latter is the more
common method of travelling. The country I have
described before. The fields were sown with wheat, rye,
corn, oats, hemp, and flax. In several places, we saw
very large pieces of ground planted with hemp. We saw
an abundance of chestnut trees in the woods.”
Invasive Species in Indiana
 INPAWS
 Indiana DNR
 PLANTS – Indiana State Invasive and
Noxious Weeds
 A “New” Invasive Exotic – The Emerald
Ash Borer
A very few species that are so common that
we don’t even know that they don’t belong
here…

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
European Starling
House Sparrow
Dandelion
White Clover
Broadleaf Plantain
Peter Kalm
September the 26th (1748) “Plants. The broad plantian,
or Plantago major, grows on the highroads, foot paths,
meadows, and in gardens in great quantity. Mr Bartram
had found this plant in many places on his travels, but he
did not know whether it was an original American plant
or whether the Europeans had brought it over. This doubt
had its rise from the savages (who always have an
extensive knowledge of the plants of a country)
pretending that this plant never grew here before the
arrival of the White Men. They therefore gave it a name
which signified the (Englishman’s) foot, for they say that
wherever a European had walked, this plant grew in his
footsteps.”
Characteristics of
Successful
Invader Species
Characteristics of
Ecosystems Vulnerable
to Invader Species
• High reproductive rate,
short generation time
(r-selected species)
• Similar climate to habitat of
invader
• Pioneer species
• Absence of predators on
invading species
• Long lived
• High dispersal rate
• Release growthinhibiting chemicals into
soil
• Generalists
• High genetic variability
• Early successional species
• Low diversity of native
species
• Absence of fire
• Disturbed by human
activities
Invasive Species
Prevention is the best
way to reduce threats
from invasive species,
because once they
arrive it is almost
impossible to slow
their spread.
Direct Causes of Species Degradation:
Predator and Pest Control
 Carolina Paroquet
 Mexican Prairie Dog – “The Mexican Prairie
Dog was first reported in 1956. By the 1980s its habitat
was less than 800 km² (310 sq mi). Viewed as a pest and an
obstacle to agriculture and cattle raising, it was frequently
poisoned, and became endangered in 1994. Mexican Prairie
Dogs currently inhabit less than 2% of their former
territory.”
 Dog Be Gone
Direct Causes of Species Degradation:
Pollution (Biological Amplification)
DDT in fish-eating
birds (ospreys)
25 ppm
DDT in large
fish (needle fish)
2 ppm
DDT in small
fish (minnows)
0.5 ppm
DDT in
zooplankton
0.04 ppm
DDT in water
0.000003 ppm,
Or 3 ppt
Direct Causes of Species Degradation:
Commercial Hunting and Poaching
 Passenger Pigeon
Direct Causes of
Species
Degradation:
Commercial
Hunting and
Poaching
Credit: © Robert Fournier/Visuals Unlimited
Illegal Cambodian market with baby Macaques, adult Porcupine, and Crocodile skulls.
Direct Causes of Species Degradation:
Commercial Hunting and Poaching
Because of
scarcity of
inspectors,
probably no
more than
1/10th of the
illegal wildlife
trade in the
U.S. is
discovered.
Direct Causes of Species Degradation:
Commercial Hunting and Poaching
Rhinoceros are often
killed for their horns
and sold illegally on
the black market for
decorative and
medicinal purposes.
Credit: © Robert Fournier/Visuals Unlimited
Tiger bones in sesame oil for illegal sale in Myanmar market, folk medicine.
302744
Solutions
 Treaties and Laws
 Lacey Act of 1900
 Endangered Species Act of 1973
 CITES – 1975 Convention on International Trade in
Endangered Species
 Habitat Conservation Plan
 National Wildlife Refuges
 Gene Banks (Wheeler Orchid Collection,)
Botanical Gardens, and Farms
 Zoos and Aquariums
 Wildlife Management
 Fishery Management
Reconciliation Ecology
 Reconciliation ecology involves finding ways
to share places we dominate with other species.
Examples include:
 Replacing monoculture grasses with native
species.
 Maintaining habitats for insect eating bats can
keep down unwanted insects.
 Reduction and elimination of pesticides to protect
non-target organisms (such as vital insect
pollinators).
Solutions – Native Plant Gardening




Clay Busters & Plants for Medium Soils
Grow Native!
National Wildflower Research Center
Sustainable Urban Landscape Information
Series
 United States Environmental Protection
Agency, Green Acres_ Green Landscaping
with Native Plants
Using Reconciliation Ecology to Protect
Bluebirds
 Putting up bluebird
boxes with holes too
small for (nonnative)
competitors in areas
where trees have
been cut down have
helped reestablish
populations.
What Can You Do?
Protecting Species
• Do not buy furs, ivory products, and other
materials made from endangered or threatened
animal species.
• Do not buy wood and paper products
produced by cutting remaining oldgrowth forests in the tropics.
• Do not buy birds, snakes, turtles, tropical fish,
and other animals that are taken from the wild.
• Do not buy orchids, cacti, and other plants that
are taken from the wild.
• Spread the word. Talk to your friends and
relatives about this problem and what they can
do about it.
Sustaining Wild Things - Ecosystems
Biodiversity
 Genetic diversity – Variety within a species.
 *Species diversity – Variety among the species
in a habitat. (The number of species in an area)
 Ecological diversity – Variety of communities
(forests, deserts, etc.)
 Functional diversity – biological and chemical
functions such as energy flow and matter
cycling
The Species Approach
Two Ways to
Save
Biodiversity
Goal
The Ecosystem Approach
Goal
Protect species from
premature extinction
Protect populations of
species in their natural
habitats
Strategies
Strategy
• Identify
endangered
species
• Protect their critical
habitats
Tactics
• Legally protect
endangered species
• Manage habitat
• Propagate
endangered species
in captivity
• Reintroduce species
into suitable habitats
Preserve sufficient areas
of habitats in different
biomes and aquatic
systems
Tactics
• Protect habitat areas
through private purchase
or government action
• Eliminate or reduce
populations of alien
species from protected
areas
• Manage protected areas
to sustain native species
• Restore degraded
ecosystems
U.S. Public Lands – Habitat Protected
through Government Action
 Multiple Land Use


National Forest System – allow logging, mining, livestock grazing,
farming, oil and gas extraction, recreation, sport hunting, sport and
commercial fishing.
Bureau of Land Management (BLM) – emphasizes the production of
energy and strategic minerals and rangeland for livestock
 Moderately Restricted-use Lands

National Wildlife Refuges – Protects land for waterfowl and big game.
A few protect endangered species. Some allow for sport hunting,
trapping, sport and commercial fishing, oil and gas development, mining,
logging, grazing, some military activities, and farming.
 Restricted-use lands


National Parks
National Wilderness Preservation System - Four federal agencies of the
United States government administer the National Wilderness
Preservation System: the Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service, the U.S. Forest Service, and the National Park Service
National parks and preserves
National forests
(and Xs) National wildlife refuges
Natural Capital
Benefits of
Forests
Forests
Ecological
Services
Support energy flow
and chemical cycling
Reduce soil erosion
Absorb and release
water
Economic
Services
Fuelwood
Lumber
Pulp to make paper
Mining
Purify water and air
Livestock grazing
Influence local and
regional climate
Recreation
Store atmospheric
carbon
Provide numerous
wildlife habitats
Jobs
Forest Types and Man’s Effects
 Forest types: tropical (rain, deciduous, dry),
temperate, and boreal (polar.)
Biome
distribution
Forest Types
Tropic of
Cancer
Equator
Tropic of
Capricorn
Arctic tundra (polar grasslands)
Desert
Boreal forest (taiga), evergreen coniferous
forest (e.g., montane coniferous forest)
Tropical rain forest,
tropical evergreen forest
Semidesert,
arid grassland
Mountains
(complex zonation)
Temperate deciduous forest
Tropical deciduous forest
Ice
Temperate grassland
Tropical scrub forest
Dry woodlands and
shrublands (chaparral)
Tropical savanna,
thorn forest
Forest Types and Man’s Effects
 Old growth (Virgin, frontier) forest- never been
cut. It may take hundreds or thousands of years
to form.
 Second-growth forest- forms by succession after
cutting or clearing by natural activities.
Characteristic
Mature, Second Growth
Old Growth
Location
Pioneer Mothers Memorial
Forest
Hoosier National Forest
Davis Purdue Research
Forest
Pioneer Mothers Memorial
Forest
Donaldson’s Woods
Age (years)
80-110
More than 100
Density (stems/hectare)
319
271
Basal Area (m2/hectare)
23.2
29.4
Standing Snags
(trees/hectare)
37.6
22.6
Snag Basal Area
(m2/hectare)
1.7
3.1
Downwood Volume
(m3/hectare)
20.8
68.1
Live Tree Cavities
(per hectare)
46.7
49.3, 59.0, 55.7
Dead Tree Cavities
33.3
12.0, 10.0, 13.7
Old Growth Forests in Indiana
INDNR - Old Growth Forests
IN Division of Forestry – Indiana’s Old
Growth Forests
Forest Types and Man’s Effects
 Forest types: tropical (rain, deciduous, dry),
temperate, and boreal (polar.)
 Old growth (Virgin, frontier) forest- never been
cut. It may take hundreds or thousands of years
to form.
 Second-growth forest- forms by succession after
cutting or clearing by natural activities.
 Tree Plantation - Managed tracts of uniformly
aged trees of one species that are harvested by
clearcutting as soon as they become
commercially valuable.
Weak trees
removed
Clear
cut
25
30
Seedlings
planted
15
10
Years of growth
5
Harvesting Trees
Effects of clear-cutting in the
state of Washington, U.S.
Global Outlook: Extent of Deforestation
 Human activities
have reduced the
earth’s forest cover
by as much as half.
 Losses are
concentrated in
developing
countries.
Forest Resources and Management in
the U.S.
 U.S. forests cover more area than in 1920.
 Since the 1960’s, an increasing area of old growth and
diverse second-growth forests have been clear-cut.
 Often replace with tree farms.
 Decreases biodiversity.
 Disrupts ecosystem processes.
Paper Industry Laying Waste to North American
Forests
Solutions
Sustainable Forestry
• Identify and protect forest areas high in biodiversity
• Grow more timber on long rotations
• Rely more on selective cutting and strip cutting
• Stop clear-cutting on steep slopes
• Cease logging of old-growth forests
• Prohibit fragmentation of remaining large blocks of
forest
• Sharply reduce road building into uncut forest areas
• Leave most standing dead trees and fallen timber for
wildlife habitat and nutrient recycling
• Certify timber grown by sustainable methods
• Include ecological services of forests in estimating
their economic value
• Plant tree plantations on deforested and degraded land
• Shift government subsidies from harvesting trees to
planting trees
Examples of Ecosystem Loss in the World
 We have taken over, disturbed, or degraded 40-50
% of the earth’s natural land surface.
 We use, waste, or destroy 40% of the earth’s
terrestrial primary productivity.
 We have reduced forest cover by 20-50%
 We have increased the extinction rate by 100 to
10,000 times the natural rate.
Examples of Ecosystem Loss in the U.S. 1999 U.S.G.S. survey:
 Cut 95-98% of the virgin/old-growth forests
in the lower 48 since 1620
 98% of the tallgrass prairie
 99% of California’s grasslands, 91% of its
wetlands, and 85% of its redwood forests.
 90% of Hawaii’s dry forests
 81% of the nations fish communities
 more than 50% of our wetlands.
What was it like in the U.S.?
Readings from explorers…
…we have lost 99% of California’s grasslands…
John Muir
Muir, J. 1894. The Mountains of
California. The Century Company,
N.Y.
John Muir (April 21, 1838 – December
24, 1914) was one of the first modern
preservationists. His letters, essays, and
books telling of his adventures in nature,
and wildlife, especially in the Sierra
Nevada Mountains of California, were
read by millions and are still popular
today. His direct activism helped to save
the Yosemite Valley and other
wilderness areas. The Sierra Club,
which he founded, is now one of the
most important conservation
organizations in the United States. His
writings and philosophy strongly
influenced the formation of the modern
environmental movement.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Muir
John Muir
CHAPTER XVI THE BEE-PASTURES
“When California was wild, it was one sweet beegarden throughout its entire length, north and south, and
all the way across from the snowy Sierra to the ocean.”
John Muir
“Wherever a bee might fly within the bounds of this virgin
wilderness--through the redwood forests, along the banks of
the rivers, along the bluffs and headlands fronting the sea,
over valley and plain, park and grove, and deep, leafy glen,
or far up the piny slopes of the mountains--throughout every
belt and section of climate up to the timber line, bee-flowers
bloomed in lavish, abundance. Here they grew more or less
apart in special sheets and patches of no great size, there in
broad, flowing folds hundreds of miles in length--zones of
polleny forests, zones of flowery chaparral, stream-tangles of
rubus and wild rose, sheets of golden composite, beds of
violets, beds of mint, beds of bryanthus and clover, and so
on, certain species blooming somewhere all the year round.”
John Muir
“But of late years plows and sheep have made sad
havoc in these glorious pastures, destroying tens of
thousands of the flowery acres like a fire, and banishing
many species of the best honey-plants to rocky cliffs and
fence-corners, while, on the other hand, cultivation thus
far has given no adequate compensation, at least in kind;
only acres of alfalfa for miles of the richest wild pasture,
ornamental roses and honeysuckles around cottage doors
for cascades of wild roses in the dells, and small, square
orchards and orange-groves for broad mountain-belts of
chaparral.”
What was it like in the U.S.?
Readings from explorers…
…Cut 95-98% of the virgin/old-growth forests in the lower 48
since 1620
…more than 50% of our wetlands.
Peter Kalm
April the 4th (1749) “About sixty years ago, the
greatest part of this country was covered with tall
and large trees, and the swamps were full of
water. But it has undergone so great a change, as
few other places have undergone in so short a
time. At present the forests are cut down in most
places, the swamps drained by ditches, the
country cultivated, and changed into grain fields,
meadows, and pastures. …”
What was it like in the U.S.?
Readings from explorers…
…98% of the tallgrass prairie
Aldo Leopold
Leopold, A. 1949. A Sand County Almanac.
Oxford University Press, London.
Aldo Leopold (January 11, 1887 - April 21, 1948)
was a United States ecologist, forester, and
environmentalist. He was influential in the
development of modern environmental ethics and
in the movement for wilderness preservation. Aldo
Leopold is considered to be the father of wildlife
management in the United States and was a lifelong fisherman and hunter. Leopold died in 1948
from a heart attack, while fighting a brush fire on a
neighbor's farm.
Leopold wrote A Sand County Almanac, which has
been read by millions and has informed and
changed the environmental movement and a
widespread interest in ecology as a science. By the
same token, the Wilderness Society and Leopold’s
work in it were important precursors to the
environmental movement that coalesced around
the time of the first Earth Day.
Published in 1949, shortly after Leopold's death, A
Sand County Almanac is a combination of natural
history, scene painting with words, and
philosophy. It is perhaps best known for the
following quote, which defines his land ethic: “A
thing is right when it tends to preserve the
integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic
community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldo_Leopold
Aldo Leopold
“Every July I watch eagerly a certain country
graveyard that I pass in driving to and from my
farm. It is time for a prairie birthday, and in one
corner of this graveyard lives a surviving
celebrant of that once important event.”
Aldo Leopold
“It is an ordinary graveyard, bordered by the
usual spruces, and studded with the usual pink
granite or white marble headstones, each with the
usual Sunday bouquet of red or pink geraniums. It
is extraordinary only in being triangular instead of
square, and in harboring, within the sharp angle of
its fence, a pin-point remnant of the native prairie
on which the graveyard was established in the
1840's.”
Aldo Leopold
“Heretofore unreachable by sythe or mower, this
yard-square relic of original Wisconsin gives
birth, each July, to a man-high stalk of compass
plant or cutleaf Silphium, spangled with saucersized yellow blooms resembling sunflowers. It is
the sole remnant of this plant along this highway,
and perhaps the sole remnant in the western half
of our county. What a thousand acres of
Silphiums looked like when they tickled the
bellies of the buffalo is a question never again to
be answered, and perhaps not even asked.”
Aldo Leopold
“This year I found the Silphium in first bloom
on 24 July, a week later than usual; during the last
six years the average date was 15 July.”
“When I passed the graveyard again on 3
August, the fence had been removed by a road
crew, and the Silphium cut. It is easy now to
predict the future; for a few years my Silphium
will try in vain to rise above the mowing machine,
and then it will die. With it will die the prairie
epoch.”
Aldo Leopold
“The Highway Department says that 100,000 cars
pass yearly over this route during the three summer
months when the Silphium is in bloom. In them must
ride at least 100,000 people who have 'taken' what is
called history, and perhaps 25,000 who have 'taken'
what is called botany. Yet I doubt whether a dozen
have seen the Silphium, and of these hardly one will
notice its demise. If I were to tell a preacher of the
adjoining church that the road crew has been burning
history books in his cemetery, under the guise of
mowing weeds, he would be amazed and
uncomprehending. How could a weed be a book?”
Aldo Leopold
“This is one little episode in the funeral of the
native flora, which in turn is one episode in the
funeral of the floras of the world. Mechanized
man, oblivious of floras, is proud of his progress
in cleaning up the landscape on which, willynilly, he must live out his days. It might be wise
to prohibit at once all teaching of real botany and
real history, lest some future citizen suffer qualms
about the floristic price of his good life.”
What was it like in Indiana?
Indiana State Seal
State Quarters
California
Indiana
Marion T. Jackson
Jackson, M. T. 2000. The Natural Heritage of
Indiana. Indiana University Press, Bloomington.
Photo taken 11/3/06
Marion T. Jackson
Perspective: The Indiana That Was
“During the late eighteenth century, Indiana was part of
the great wilderness of deciduous hardwoods that
stretched unbroken ‘beyond the Ohio’ to the evergreen
forests of the ‘north country,’ and to the vast prairies
westward, beyond the limit of trees.”
Marion T. Jackson
“According to the best information available on presettlement Indiana, the 36,291-square mile area
contained about 20 million acres of forestland, 2 million
acres of prairie, 1.5 million acres of water and wetlands,
plus glades, barrens, and savanna totaling perhaps
another 1 million acres.”
Marion T. Jackson
The Wildlife – “For millennia, thousands of these huge,
shaggy beasts {bison} had periodically moved
southeastward from the Illinois and western Indiana
prairies, crossed the Wabash River near Vincennes, and
stolidly sauntered along the famed Buffalo Trace … to
the Falls of the Ohio at Louisville, on their journey to
Big Bone Lick and the barrens of Kentucky to obtain
minerals and salt.”
Marion T. Jackson
“In densely wooded regions the bison were primarily
transients, but in meadows and prairies they abounded.
From the summit of a hill near Ouiatenon, a report of
1718 stated, ‘Noting is visible to the eye but prairies full
of buffaloes.’”
Marion T. Jackson
“But as prevalent as they once were, the bison were
essentially wiped out in a score of years and were gone
from the state by 1830. Elk, panther, black bear, fischer,
and beaver disappeared with almost equal rapidity; all
nearly gone from Indiana by 1850. Even the tenacious
timber wolf, the white-tailed deer, and the bald eagle had
been extirpated by the beginning of the twentieth
century.”
Marion T. Jackson
The Forests - “Indiana’s original forests were among
the finest broadleaved hardwood forests anywhere in the
world. Stanley Coulter, in his 1891 publication The
Forest Trees of Indiana, stated that ‘forty-two kinds of
trees in the Wabash Valley attain a height above 100
feet.’”
Marion T. Jackson
“Groves of the finest black walnut trees the world has
ever known grew on Indiana’s most fertile soils, some
individuals of which were 4 to 6 feet in diameter and 100
to 150 feet high. The General Land Office surveyors
recognized the close correlation between soil fertility and
the presence of black walnut trees when they entered
such land descriptions into their field notes as ‘sugar tree
and walnut land, excellent for growing corn.’ Most were
cut and burned to clear the land for crops.”
Marion T. Jackson
“Robert Ridgway, and eminent naturalist who studied
and photographed the forests of the Lower Wabash River
during the 1870s and 1880s, described the stands of
timber of that region as ‘an exceedingly heavy virgin
forest, some of the heaviest hardwood forest I have ever
seen – as I have twice visited the Tropics (Central
America) – covering almost the entire floodplain on the
Indiana side.’”
Marion T. Jackson
“Ridgeway measured several sycamores at 25 to 30 feet
in circumference with overall heights of 160 to almost
200 feet. Several cypress stumps were measured in
Knox County at 8 and 9 feet in diameter above their
buttressed bases. He also measured a tuliptree, now
rarely encountered on floodplains, that taped 25 feet in
girth, 91 feet to the first limb, and 190 feet total height.
The maximum diameter he recorded for a tuliptree was
11 feet; the average diameter of 18 measured specimens
was 6.2 feet. Heights ranged from 110 to 168 feet,
averaging 143.5. Ridgeway’s measurements were of
felled trees, so we can be confident of his data.”
Marion T. Jackson
“… But the most impressive feature of the primeval
forests of Indiana was not their size or height of the trees.
Rather, it was the dense shade that all but excluded
sunlight. In the words of Amos W. Butler in his
presidential address to the Indiana Academy of Science
in 1895: ‘Over the greater part of this state were spread
dense forests of tall trees -heavy timber- whose limbs
met, and branches were so interwoven that but
occasionally, could the sunlight find entrance. There was
little or no undergrowth in the heaviest woods and the
gloom of these dense shades and its accompanying
silence was terribly oppressive. Mile upon mile, days'
journey upon days' journey, stretched those gloomy
shades amid giant columns and green arches reared by
nature through centuries of time.’”
Marion T. Jackson
“If the 20 million acres of forestland believed extant in
Indiana in 1790 contained 110 trees above four inches in
diameter on a average acre … then prior to settlement,
Indiana must have contained approximately 2.2 billion
trees, or about 400 trees for each Hoosier resident today.”
“An original forest of 2.2 billion trees, harboring a deer
heard of perhaps 400,000, but only 10,000 to 12,000
wolves – this must be an object lesson in food chain
structure and dynamics of wilderness ecosystems!”
Marion T. Jackson
“How do you consume a wilderness resource of 2.2
billion trees, two-thirds of which were cut down before
1870? Assuming that relatively few trees were removed
prior to 1800, either by Native Americans or pioneers, it
would require the cutting of an average of 20 million
trees annually for 70 years – a rate almost equal to that of
an average-sized county per year, or more than 7000
acres per day, on average. Our ancestors did to the
Indiana wilderness what is presently occurring in the
tropical forests of Brazil, Borneo, Sumatra, New Guinea,
Zaire, and elsewhere. But did we as a human species gain
much ecological wisdom from what our forebears did to
Indiana?”
Marion T. Jackson
The Prairies - “{Northeast Indiana} Here grasses – tall
enough to hide a rider on horseback – on the best prairie
soils were intermixed with a multitude of forbs, or
broadleaf prairie wildflowers.”
“Today, less than 1000 acres of the original 2 million
acres of virgin prairie remain, most of it occurring only
as small, often degraded, remnants in pioneer cemeteries
or transportation right-of-way. With the loss of the
prairie habitat, the prairie chicken followed suit,
extirpated from Indiana during the early 1970s.”
Marion T. Jackson
The Remnants - “Today, much less than 1 percent of the
state remains in high-quality natural area. It is indeed
sobering to realize that of the 20 million acres of original
primeval forest that once occurred in Indiana – nearly
enough to encircle the world one and a quarter times as a
mile-wide band – today scarcely enough remains of highquality old-growth forest in private ownership to
encompass the Indianapolis Motor Speedway at the same
one-mile width.”
Aldo Leopold
Leopold, A. 1949. A Sand
County Almanac. Oxford
University Press, London.
Aldo Leopold introduced his
Sand County Almanac by
stating, “There are some who
can live without wild things,
and some who can not. These
essays are the delights and
dilemmas of one who cannot.”
Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau, H. D. 1854.
(1817 – 1862)
Walden.
Published in 1854, it details Thoreau's
life for two years, two months, and two
days in second-growth forest around
the shores of Walden Pond, not far
from his friends and family in Concord,
Massachusetts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walden
“I went to the woods because I wished
to live deliberately, to front only the
essential facts of life, and see if I could
not learn what it had to teach, and not,
when I came to die, discover that I had
not lived.”
Edwin Way Teale (1899 – 1980)
Teale, E. W. 1956. Autumn
Across America: A
Naturalist's Record of a
20,000-Mile Journey through
the North American Autumn.
Dodd, Mead & Co, N.Y., N.Y.
Edwin Way Teale
“Decades ago, John Muir declared that the Olympic
Park would be attacked again and again. His predictions
has been amply vindicated. Men who see no more in a
tree than board feet, elected officials who refer to the
nation’s public lands as being ‘locked-up resources’ – as
they might refer to songbirds as being ‘locked-up light
meat and dark’ – these men we will have with us always
and always they will pose a threat to our national parks.
Only the vigilance of conservationists over the long haul,
only an alertness to attack in a thousand guises, can
prevent raids and invasions and destructions within these
areas that the people believe have been permanently
saved.”
Edwin Way Teale
“On June 17, 1853, Henry Thoreau noted in his journal;
‘If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each
day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer. But if he
spends his days as a speculator, shearing off those woods
and making the earth bald before her time, he is deemed an
industrious and enterprising citizen – making earth bald
before its time.’ That attitude is not one that disappeared
when the Walden Woods were felled. It is current in every
generation. It is ranged against every effort to save wild
places. Those to whom the trees, the birds, the wildflowers
represent only ‘locked-up dollars’ have never known or
really seen these things. They have never experienced an
interest in nature for itself.”
Ecological Restoration
 Restoration: trying to return to a condition as
similar as possible to original state.
 Rehabilitation: attempting to turn a degraded
ecosystem back to being functional.
 Replacement: replacing a degraded ecosystem
with another type of ecosystem.
 Creating artificial ecosystems: such as
artificial wetlands for flood reduction and
sewage treatment.
Ecological Restoration
 Five basic science-based principles for
ecological restoration:
 Identify cause.
 Stop abuse by eliminating or sharply reducing
factors.
 Reintroduce species if necessary.
 Protect area form further degradation.
 Use adaptive management to monitor efforts,
assess successes, and modify strategies.
What Can We Do?
 Eight priorities for protecting biodiversity:
 Take immediate action to preserve world’s
biological hot spots.
 Keep intact remaining old growth.
 Complete mapping of world’s biodiversity for
inventory and decision making.
 Determine world’s marine hot spots.
 Concentrate on protecting and restoring lake and
river systems (most threatened ecosystems).
What Can We Do?
 Ensure that the full range of the earths ecosystems
are included in global conservation strategy.
 Make conservation profitable.
 Initiate ecological restoration products to heal
some of the damage done and increase share of
earth’s land and water allotted to the rest of
nature.
What Can You Do?
Sustaining Terrestrial Biodiversity
• Adopt a forest.
• Plant trees and take care of them.
• Recycle paper and buy recycled paper products.
• Buy sustainable wood and wood products.
• Choose wood substitutes such as bamboo furniture
and recycled plastic outdoor furniture, decking, and
fencing.
• Restore a nearby degraded forest or grassland.
• Landscape your yard with a diversity of plants
natural to the area.
• Live in town because suburban sprawl reduces
biodiversity.
The creation reveals God to us.
Indescribable by Chris Tomlin
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuihT9wRc34
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlKhw_o6kzE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuihT9wRc34
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlKhw_o6kzE
From the highest of heights to the depths of the sea
Creation's revealing Your majesty
From the colors of fall to the fragrance of spring
Every creature unique in the song that it sings
All exclaiming
Indescribable, uncontainable,
You placed the stars in the sky and You know them by name.
You are amazing God
All powerful, untameable,
Awestruck we fall to our knees as we humbly proclaim
You are amazing God
Who has told every lightning bolt where it should go
Or seen heavenly storehouses laden with snow
Who imagined the sun and gives source to its light
Yet conceals it to bring us the coolness of night
None can fathom
Indescribable, uncontainable,
You placed the stars in the sky and You know them by name
You are amazing God
All powerful, untameable,
Awestruck we fall to our knees as we humbly proclaim
You are amazing God
You are amazing God
Indescribable, uncontainable,
You placed the stars in the sky and You know them by name.
You are amazing God
All powerful, untameable,
Awestruck we fall to our knees as we humbly proclaim
You are amazing God
Indescribable, uncontainable,
You placed the stars in the sky and You know them by name.
You are amazing God
Incomparable, unchangeable
You see the depths of my heart and You love me the same
You are amazing God
You are amazing God