American Sportsmen and the Origins of Conservation
Third Edition
6 × 9 inches. Illustrated with ninety historic photographs. Biblio. Index. 352 pages.
2000. ISBN 978-0-87071-487-0. Paperback, $24.95.
Environmentalists who believe that hunters and anglers are interested
only in the kill and the catch may be surprised to learn that sportsmen
were originally in the vanguard of the conservation movement. John
Reiger's work has been hailed as an authoritative look at these early
conservationists; now his landmark book is available in an expanded
edition that broadens its historic sweep.
Beginning in the 1870s, sportsmen across America formed
hundreds of organizations that not only fostered responsibility for
game habitats but also spearheaded the creation of national parks,
forests, and wildlife refuges. Reiger tells how these "gentlemen"
hunters and anglers, outdoor journals like Forest and Stream,
and organizations such as the Boone and Crockett Club—founded by
Theodore Roosevelt, George Bird Grinnell, and other prominent
sportsmen—lobbied for laws regulating the taking of wildlife, and
helped to arouse public interest in wilderness preservation.
In this new edition, Reiger traces the antecedents of the
sportsmen's conservation movement to the years before the Civil War. He
extends his coverage into the present by demonstrating how the
nineteenth-century sportsman's code—with its demand for taking
responsibility for the total environment—continues to be the
cornerstone of the sporting ethic. A new Epilogue depicts leading
environmental thinker Aldo Leopold as the best-known exponent of this
hunter-conservationist ideal.
Praised as "one of the seminal works in conservation history"
by historian Hal Rothman, Reiger's book continues to be essential
reading for all concerned with how earlier Americans regarded the land,
demonstrating even to those who oppose hunting that they share with
sportsmen and sportswomen an awareness and appreciation of our fragile
environment.