After resource exploitation fueled the expansion of people
across the continent, the Industrial Revolution brought so-
cial changes that indelibly marked the land and
its wildlife. In 1820, 5 percent of Ameri-
cans lived in cities, but by 1860,
20 percent were urban dwellers,
marking the greatest demographic
shift ever to occur in America (Riess
1995). Markets for wildlife arose to feed these
urban masses and to festoon a new class of wealthy
elites with feathers and furs. Market hunters plied their
trade first along coastal waters and interior forests. With the ad-
vent of railways, hunters exploited the West, shipping products
from bison, elk, and other big game back to eastern cities. The
march of the market hunter left once abundant species teeter-
ing on the brink of extinction.
John F. Organ,
Ph.D., CWB, is
Chief of Wildlife
and Sport Fish Res-
toration for the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife
Service Northeast
Region and Adjunct
Associate Professor
of Wildlife
Conservation at
the University of
Massachusetts,
Amherst.
Credit: René Monsalve
By August 1886—when Captain Moses Harris led cavalry troops
into Yellowstone National Park to take over its administration
and stop rampant poaching—bison, moose, and elk had ceased
to exist in the U.S. as a viable natural resource (U.S. Dept.
Interior 1987). The Army takeover of Yellowstone is symbolic of
the desperate actions taken to protect the remnants of American
wildlife from total extinction. Ironically, the sheer scale of the
slaughter was to have some influence in engendering a remarkable new phenomenon: the conservation ethic (Mahoney 2007).
Northern shovelers (Anas
clypeata) take to the air
over Laguna Atascosa
National Wildlife Refuge
in Texas.
Credit: Steve Hillebrand/USF WS
Coauthors
Shane P. Mahoney
is Executive Director
for Sustainable
Development and
Strategic Science
in the Department
of Environment
and Conservation,
Government of
Newfoundland
and Labrador
and Founder and
Executive Director
of the Institute
for Biodiversity,
Ecosystem Science,
and Sustainability
at the Memorial
University of
Newfoundland and
Labrador.
Valerius Geist, Ph.D.,
is Professor Emeritus
of Environmental
Science at the
University of Calgary
in Alberta, Canada.
© The Wildlife Society
