VIABILITY

Aldo Leopold in A Sand County Almanac wrote, "Like winds and sunsets, wild things were taken for granted until progress began to do away with them. Now we face the question whether a small higher 'standard of living' is worth its cost in things natural, wild and free."

If we are to persevere wild life populations for our good and that of coming generations, we must discover effective, lengthy answers to these dilemmas caused by a swelling human population. Private individuals must address these puzzles of the strain on the environment, destruction from land development, over use of resources and producing waste.

Despite a number of preservation accomplishments, like the come back of the wild turkey, as a whole the status of the wild life society is neither robust nor safe. The federal Endangered Species Act listed various birds as being in danger of extinction or conceivably will be extinguished soon.

Clearly business as usual will lead to the annihilation of most of these animals and imperil the life of many more. America's wild life faces various hazards including disease, competition and predation from non native species of animals and extravagant, wrongful harvests. The greatest damage comes from territory loss because of commercial and residential development or debasing parts of or accelerating habitat loss. The importance of protecting the quality and quantity of environment on our nation's shared public lands cannot be over emphasized.

Wild life managers must manage Federal public lands by law for many uses including birding. We must change from commodity manufacturing and taking from the land to a balanced steward ship. Wood gathering on public lands can be certain only by protecting the ecological completeness of these areas.

Economic purposes are for the good of wild life like birds. Recreation and wildlife agendas like birds watching add more money to the economy than from logging, mining and grazing combined.

In conclusion, basic changes must happen at the individual level. We must inspect our life styles as they connect to the normal world. How much value is there in the building of another shopping mall? How much does the destruction of another wet land or wood lot take away? Every outdoor person including birders have the capacity to show it through private responses and actions and to encourage and teach others to do the same. Let Aldo Leopold's land ethic become a reality.

Outdoor people including bird watchers must rise to defeat the threat of today and tomorrow if coming birders are to take pleasure from the rich gift of the American out-of-doors.

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