“A fierce green fire dying in her eyes”

June 8, 2005

I’ve been meaning to read some Aldo Leopold for a while, and yesterday I was fortunate to stumble across what I think is one of his most famous essays, “Thinking Like a Mountain.” It’s a brief piece, but one in which Leopold goes from a killer of wolves to understanding the complexity of the wild. He takes the reader along for the ride.

Since then I have lived to see state after state extirpate its wolves. I have watched the face of many a newly wolfless mountain, and seen the south-facing slopes wrinkle with a maze of new deer trails. I have seen every edible bush and seedling browsed, first to anaemic desuetude, and then to death. I have seen every edible tree defoliated to the height of a saddlehorn. Such a mountain looks as if someone had given God a new pruning shears, and forbidden Him all other exercise. In the end the starved bones of the hoped-for deer herd, dead of its own too-much, bleach with the bones of the dead sage, or molder under the high-lined junipers.

I now suspect that just as a deer herd lives in mortal fear of its wolves, so does a mountain live in mortal fear of its deer. And perhaps with better cause, for while a buck pulled down by wolves can be replaced in two or three years, a range pulled down by too many deer may fail of replacement in as many decades. So also with cows. The cowman who cleans his range of wolves does not realize that he is taking over the wolf’s job of trimming the herd to fit the range. He has not learned to think like a mountain. Hence we have dustbowls, and rivers washing the future into the sea.

I think you can substitute any predator/prey relationship for the wolf/deer aspect of the story, and mountain could really be replaced by “watershed.”

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2 Comments

  1. bigflybigfish says:
    Wednesday, June 08, 2005 at 6:23 pm

    Leopold really has an interesting perspective, and he writes beautifully.

    I read “A Sand County Almanac” on the beach on our honeymoon. It’s possibly my favorite nonfiction book.

  2. Deb says:
    Wednesday, June 08, 2005 at 7:23 pm

    I wish more lakeshore residents would start thinking like a watershed, or even thinking like a lake. Then they would realize that their dysfunctioning septic system, or the manicured lawn they maintain right to the shore, or the herbicide they spew into the water so they can keep their Jet Skis free of weeds, are causing little wounds that eat away at the integrity of the system like a cancer.

    My goal is a universal Land Ethic in my lifetime.

    By the way, I am honored that you now have a link to my blog. And I am grateful for the community of bloggers that I have found, who share the same vision.

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