Living a Land Ethic: A History of Cooperative Conservation on the Leopold Memorial Reserve

155 Pages·2014·2.392 MB·English

by  Stephen A. Laubach, Stanley A. Temple

Living a Land Ethic
Wisconsin Land and Life
Arnold Alanen
Series Editor
Living a Land Ethic
A History of Cooperative
Conservation on the Leopold
Memorial Reserve
Stephen A. Laubach
The University of Wisconsin Press
is book was made possible, in part, through support from the Lawrenceville School.
A portion of the royalties from this book will be donated to the Aldo Leopold and Sand County
Foundations.
e University of Wisconsin Press
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Copyright © 2014
e Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
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or otherwise, or conveyed via the Internet or a website without written permission of the University
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Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Laubach, Stephen A., author.
Living a land ethic : a history of cooperative conservation on the Leopold Memorial Reserve /
Stephen A. Laubach.
pages cm — (Wisconsin land and life)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-299-29874-6 (pbk. : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-299-29873-9 (e-book)
1. Leopold, Aldo, 1886–1948. 2. Aldo Leopold Memorial Reserve (Wis.) 3. Natural resources
conservation areas—Wisconsin. 4. Restoration ecology—Wisconsin. 5. Conservation biology—
Wisconsin. I. Title. II. Series: Wisconsin land and life.
S932.W6L38 2014
333.7209775—dc23
2013037569
To Nina, Noah, and Aurora
Ecology is the science of communities, and the ecological conscience
is therefore the ethics of community life.
—Aldo Leopold, “e Ecological Conscience,” 1947
Contents
List of Illustrations ix
Foreword by Stanley A. Temple xi
Acknowledgments xv
Introduction 3
1 Settlement and Changing Land Health in the Central
Sands Area 12
2 Sowing the Seeds of the Leopold Memorial Reserve Idea 29
3 Implementing a Management Plan 45
4 Growth in Research and Education Programs 64
5 Conservation’s Next Generation 80
Conclusion: The Legacy of the Leopold Memorial Reserve 95
Afterword 106
Notes 109
Bibliography 127
Index 133
vii

Illustrations
Sand-point pump with oak-and-brass buckets, 1940s 4
Aerial photo of Leopold Memorial Reserve 5
Banding a prairie chicken at Faville Grove, 1938 7
Surveying the landscape at the Riley Game Cooperative, 1947 8
Natural Bridge State Park 13
Location of Native American effigy mound clusters 15
Effigy mound at Man Mound Park near Baraboo 16
Postcard of Fort Winnebago, 1834 18
Notes by surveyor J. E. Whitcher about the future Leopold
Memorial Reserve area 20
Hops yard near Wisconsin Dells, ca. 1880 21
Deed of 17 May 1935 for sale of land from Jacob Alexander
to Aldo Leopold 24
Obituary from 10 January 1936 for Jacob Alexander 25
Remains of foundation of the Alexander house 27
Aldo Leopold and omas Coleman cooking over a campfire,
1940s 30
Early experiments in land management 32–33
Shack visits by family and friends during the 1950s and 1960s 38–39
Russell VanHoosen on tractor with daughter Tami, 1959 43
Initial planning meetings 47
Wisconsin State Journalarticle, 11 February 1973 49
ix