Our Wildlife Legacy (association copy)
NY: Funk & Wangalls, 1954. Revised Edition. Hardcover.
The revised edition, 1962 (12th overall printing of the title). An association copy, inscribed on the front free end paper: "27 May 92 , with warm regards to Jack Reneau---Recognizing your long devotion to the things we mutually consider to be worth our efforts, Durward." Reneau was the executive secretary and big game records keeper for the famed Boone & Crockett Club, and in that capacity was a devoted wildlife advocate.
Durward L. Allen was a luminary wildlife biologist who worked for government agencies for twenty years and became the director of research for the US Fish and Wildlife Service. Subsequently e became a professor of ecology at Purdue University, a post he held for 22 years. In addition to his four books, he is famous in particular for his study of the wolves of Island Royale (a National Park) in Lake Superior, now the longest continuous study of a predator-prey system in the world. Wolves are thought to have come to the island on an ice bridge in 1948, and Allen started his study in 1958. He found over time that their numbers oscillate with moose much as in the famous example of lynx and hare, with wolf numbers catching up to and then overshooting moose numbers in an oscillating pattern (scroll down for graph). These findings stood in contrast to the then-prevailing ecological thinking and established that "rich, dynamic variation, not ‘balance of nature’ seems to be the force that guides nature." As Allen put, "in [this study] we have the key to why both moose and wolf are what they are, and indeed to the character of wilderness." See his article "The Worth of Wilderness: With Interpretations from a Study of Wolves and Moose on Isle Royale" for more. He was on the board of the Audubon Society and president of the Wilderness Society, and was awarded the Audubon Medal and Aldo Leopold Memorial Award by those organizations respectively. His papers are held at the Denver Public Library.
As the jacket describes Our Wildlife Legacy, "The reader will find in these pages a clear and dramatic presentation of the basic principles of wildlife conservation. Not since Aldo Leopold has anyone written with Mr. Allen's persuasiveness and insight about man's relation to the world in which he finds himself. Here is a volume certain to become a classic of its kind." This prediction has been borne out. As Lonnie Williamson wrote from the Outdoor Writers Association of America, "To find someone in wildlife conservation today that has not studied this classic would be rare indeed, virtually a sin ... the work remains, in my opinion, the most eloquently written book ever on wildlife management." A chapter called "Boom and Bust" presages his wolf work on Isle Royale which commenced four years later. A book that also predates Peter Matthiessen's similar Wildlife in America by four years but is certainly in conversation.
Gray cloth with red lettering on spine and two inserts of black and white photos. A near fine book with one bump to front upper corner. In a very good jacket with some rubbing and wear to corners and spine ends as well as fading to spine.
Price: $175.00 save 5% $166.25