Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
initiated the country's first natural resources degree program. The reserve's visitors center
is open 8am-5pm daily.
George W. Meade Wildlife Area
Fourteen miles west of town via WI 10, in Milladore, is the
George W. Meade Wildlife
Area
(free), with 28,000 acres of wildlife, marsh, and farmland. There are nesting eagles in
parts of the preserve, a plethora of mammals, and a few prairie chickens. Rough and not-
so-rough trails constantly are being expanded.
SAND COUNTY SAGE
There are some who can live without wild things, and some who cannot....
Like winds and sunsets, wild things were taken for granted until progress
began to do away with them.
Aldo Leopold, from the foreword to
A Sand County Almanac
and Sketches Here and There
Leading experts on environmentalism were once asked to name the most influential
work in raising ecological consciousness. The hands-down winner was Aldo Leo-
pold's
A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There.
Aldo Leopold was a seminal naturalist, a pioneering figure in ecology and espe-
cially conservation. He introduced the idea of setting aside protected forest land and
laterdevisedtheconceptofwildlifemanagement.NotanativeBadger,Leopoldnon-
ethelesslivedthebetterpartofhislifenotfarfromwhereJohnMuirgrewup.Above
all, he was a polished writer, with a lucid, engaging, eloquent style celebrating life
and its connection to the land.
EARLY YEARS
After attending Yale—its graduate forestry program was ultra-progressive, contro-
versial, and the first of its kind—in 1909 Leopold went to work for the United States
ForestService(USFS).InArizona,whenhelookedintothedyingeyesofawolfthat
had been shot—eradication was the norm—his passion for educating people on the
need to coexist may have germinated right there.
