Climate Ghosts: Migratory Species in the Anthropocene

217 Pages·2021·9.149 MB·English

by  Nancy Langston

C L I M A T E G H O S T S

The MANDEL LECTURES in the HUMANITIES
at BRANDEIS UNIVERSITY
Sponsored by the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Foundation.
Director and chair, Professor Ramie Targoff.
The Mandel Lectures in the Humanities were launched in the fall
of 2011 to promote the study of the humanities at Brandeis Univer-
sity, following the 2010 opening of the new Mandel Center for the
Humanities. The lectures bring to the Mandel Center each year a
prominent scholar who gives a series of three lectures and conducts
an informal seminar during his or her stay on campus. The Mandel
Lectures are unique in their rotation of disciplines or fields within the
humanities and humanistic social sciences: the speakers have ranged
from historians to literary critics, from classicists to anthropologists.
The published series of books therefore reflects the interdisciplinary
mission of the center and the wide range of extraordinary work being
done in the humanities today.
For a complete list of books that are available in the series,
visit brandeisuniversitypress.com
Nancy Langston, Climate Ghosts: Migratory Species
in the Anthropocene
David Der-wei Wang, Why Fiction Matters in Contemporary China
Wendy Doniger, The Donigers of Great Neck: A Mythologized Memoir
Ingrid D. Rowland, The Divine Spark of Syracuse
James Wood, The Nearest Thing to Life
David Nirenberg, Aesthetic Theology and Its Enemies:
Judaism in Christian Painting, Poetry and Politics
Nancy Langston
Brandeis University Press | Waltham, Massachusetts
Migratory Species in the Anthropocene
Brandeis University Press
© 2021 by Nancy Langston
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
Designed by Mindy Basinger Hill
Typeset in Adobe Caslon Pro and ITC Avant Garde Gothic Pro.
For permission to reproduce any of the material in this
book, contact Brandeis University Press, 415 South Street,
Waltham MA 02453, or visit brandeisuniversitypress.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Langston, Nancy, author.
Title: Climate ghosts: migratory species in the anthropocene /
Nancy Langston.
Description: Waltham, Massachusetts: Brandeis University Press, [2021] |
Series: The Mandel lectures in the humanities at Brandeis University |
Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: “Langston focuses
on three ghost species in the Great Lakes watershed—woodland caribou,
common loons, and lake sturgeon. Their traces are still present in DNA,
small fragmented populations, or in lone individuals. We can still
restore them, if we make the hard choices necessary for them to survive”—
Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021020966 (print) | LCCN 2021020967 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781684580644 (cloth) | ISBN 9781684580651 (paperback) |
ISBN 9781684580668 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Endangered species—Great Lakes Region (North
America) | Endangered species—Great Lakes Region (North America)—
Conservation. | Migratory animals—Climatic factors—Great Lakes
Region (North America)
Classification: LCC QL84.22.G74 L36 2021 (print) | LCC QL84.22.G74 (ebook) |
DDC 333.95/420977—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021020966
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021020967
5 4 3 2 1
C O N T E N T S
List of Illustrations ix
Foreword xi
Preface xix
Acknowledgments xxiii
ONE Ghosts in the Anthropocene 1
TWO Woodland Caribou Histories
in the Upper Great Lakes 12
THREE Caribou Futures in a Warming World 43
FOUR Indigenous Communities
and Lake Sturgeon Restoration 73
FIVE The Gift of the Loon 107
Notes 133
Bibliography 149
Index 171

I L L U S T R A T I O N S
FIGURES
0.1. Students at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore xii
0.2. Author on a Lake Superior Beach xiv
2.1. A Woodland Caribou in 1913 17
4.1. Fishermen Display a Lake Sturgeon 74
4.2. The Great Lakes Problem 91
4.3. Children with a Lake Sturgeon 105
5.1. Logging the Upper Peninsula of Michigan 116
5.2. William Murray’s Loon Hunt 123
5.3. A Hunting and Fishing Expedition 124
MAPS
1.1. The Great Lakes 7
2.1. Caribou Range 15
2.2. The Big Bog Region 28
4.1. Lake Sturgeon Range 77
4.2. Ceded Territories in the Lake Superior Basin 88
5.1. Loon Range 110
5.2. Loon Migration 122