Aldo Starker Leopold : wildlife biologist and public policy maker by Carol Henrietta Leigh Rydell A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in History Montana State University © Copyright by Carol Henrietta Leigh Rydell (1993) Abstract: Aldo Starker Leopold (1913-1983), the eldest son of conservationist Aldo Leopold (1887-1948), played during his life, a crucial role in forming wildlife management policy at both state and federal levels; Trained as a zoologist at the University of California in Berkeley, Leopold spent his early years as a wildlife biologist working on such issues as heritable wildness in turkeys and cataloging the wildlife of Mexico. From his position as professor of zoology at the University of California in Berkeley, however, he quickly became embroiled in wildlife controversies with policy implications. In the late 1940s and throughout the 1950s, for example, Leopold worked on deer management issues with California's Fish and Game Department. In 1962 then Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall appointed Leopold to head a special advisory board on wildlife management. As chairman of that board, Leopold authored at least three important reports on wildlife management in the National Parks, predator and rodent control and the national wildlife system. By the end of the 1960s, Leopold had carved a niche in wildlife management circles separate from his father's. This thesis is an intellectual biography of Aldo Starker Leopold. It is based on research into his published and unpublished writings and his personal papers. ALDO STARKER LEOPOLD WILDLIFE BIOLOGIST AND PUBLIC POLICY MAKER . by Carol Henrietta Leigh Rydell A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in History MONTANA STATE UNIVERSITY Bozeman, Montana April 1993 COPYRIGHT by Carol Henrietta Leigh Rydell 1993 All Rights Reserved ii APPROVAL of a thesis submitted by Carol Henrietta Leigh Rydell This thesis has been read by each member of the thesis committee and has been found to be satisfactory regarding content, English usage, format, citations, bibliographic style, and consistency, and is ready for submission to the College of Graduate Studies. Date Chairperson, Graduate Committee Approved for the Major Department Approved for the College of Graduate Studies /7 ^ D Date Graduate Dean iii STATEMENT OF PERMISSION TO USE In presenting this thesis in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a master's degree at Montana State University, I agree that the Library shall make it available to borrowers under rules of the Library. If I have indicated my intention to copyright this thesis by including a copyright notice page, copying is allowable only for scholarly purposes, consistent with "fair use" as prescribed in the U.S. Copyright Law. Requests for permission for extended quotation from or reproduction of this thesis in whole or in parts may be granted only by the copyright holder. Signature (2^ (lh. ^ Date Z f p p r) 9 2 _________ iv To Alexander and Henrietta Leigh, and Bob, Claire and Johanna Rydell V ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This project would not have been possible without the help of numerous individuals and institutions. I am grateful to the Department of History and Philosophy at Montana State University for underwriting many of my research expenses. I also wish to thank the library staff at the Bancroft Library and the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology at the University of California, Berkeley. This project took much longer than expected. During the five years it took to finish the thesis Professors Pierce Mullen, Gordon Brittan and Billy Smith gave me support and encouragement but most of all time and space to do things at my own pace. I am very grateful to them for this. Nina Leopold Bradley spent an afternoon with me talking about her brother, and provided me with a copy of the Sierra Club Oral History of Starker Leopold. I am grateful to.her for trusting me with the story of someone she loved very much. I also wish to thank her husband, Charles Bradley, and his daughter, Dorothy Bradley, for their patience and encouragement. Professor A. Hunter Dupree read my thesis and shared his memories of Starker. Richard Wojtowicz generously and patiently helped with the computer. Claire and Johanna Rydell let their mother go upstairs to work on her thesis. In their own small ways they supported my work. Most of my gratitude, however. vi they supported my. work. Most of my gratitude, however, goes to my husband, Bob Rydell, who encouraged me at every step of the way. He read this thesis and never stopped believing in the project and me. V vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page INTRODUCTION.......... I 1. THE APPRENTICESHIP YEARS...............................7 2. ENTERING THE FRAY: STARKER LEOPOLD AND THE WILDLIFE CONTROVERSIES OF THE 195OS... ....................... 64 3. FROM SCIENTIST TO PUBLIC POLICY MAKER....... .........145 4. THE 1960S AS THE DECADE OF PUBLIC POLICY WORK: THE NATIONAL PARKS............................ 175 5. THE 1960S AS THE DECADE OF PUBLIC POLICY WORK: PREDATOR CONTROL AND NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGES... ..236 6. THE 1970S AND 1980S: LEOPOLD'S FINAL YEARS......... 281 viii A ABSTRACT Aldo Starker Leopold (1913-1983), the eldest son of conservationist Aldo Leopold (1887-1948), played during his life, a crucial role in forming wildlife management policy at both state and federal levels t Trained as a zoologist at the University of California in Berkeley, Leopold spent his early years as a wildlife biologist working on such issues as heritable wildness in turkeys and cataloging the wildlife of Mexico. From his position as professor of zoology at the University of California in Berkeley, however, he quickly became embroiled in wildlife controversies with policy implications. In the late 1940s and throughout the 1950s, for example, Leopold worked on deer management issues with California's Fish and Game Department. In 1962 then Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall appointed Leopold to head a special advisory board on wildlife management. As chairman of that board, Leopold authored at least three important reports on wildlife management in the National Parks, predator and rodent control and the national wildlife system. By the end of the 1960s, Leopold had carved a niche in wildlife management circles separate from his father's. This thesis is an intellectual biography of Aldo Starker Leopold. It is based on research into his published and unpublished writings and his personal papers. I r I INTRODUCTION In conservation circles the name Aldo Leopold calls forth more,than the image of a poetic observer of woodcocks gracefully performing their annual spring dance, of oak trees marking time and keeping track of history in their wood, and of the sandy but intellectually fertile counties of Wisconsin. The name signifies the very essence of conservation, of conserving a balance in nature by living in accordance with a land ethic. Aldo Leopold (1887-1948) was one of America's foremost conservationists; he was a proponent of scientific wildlife management and of wilderness preservation. Leopold's importance in American conservation and environmental history has done nothing but grow since his untimely death in 1948. Born in Burlington, Iowa and trained at the School of Forestry at Yale, Leopold began his career as a forester working in the Southwest. It was in the fragile ecosystems of the southwestern deserts that Leopold first toyed with ideas about the delicate balance in nature between the land and its inhabitants, and there that he first realized the need for sound wildlife management practices and wilderness preservation. These ideas, so crucial to the birth of the environmental and wilderness 2 movements of the second half of the twentieth century, were further developed and refined by Leopold as he moved from the Southwest to the sandy counties surrounding Madison, Wisconsin. There he shifted his intellectual focus from the field of forestry to game— or as it is now known, wildlife— management. Leopold came into the conservation movement on the heels of forester Gifford Pinchot and preservationist John Muir. Their turn-of-the-century ideas regarding the development of America's wild lands and natural resources— Gifford Pinchot's "wise use" doctrine and John Muir's spiritual plea for resource preservation— were competing for influence when Leopold entered the picture. Leopold's scientific ideas about land and wildlife management and his philosophy of living in ecologic balance with nature provided the synthesis of these antithetical beliefs. His scientific and philosophic ideas found their final expression in the collection of essays he is best remembered for, his posthumously published A Sand County Almanac (1949). Historians and philosophers are still trying to define and describe the contours of Aldo Leopold's legacy in the areas of wildlife management, wilderness preservation, and environmental philosophy. One important facet of his legacy which has not been fully appreciated is his family. Leopold and his. wife of Spanish and 3 Italian descent, (Maria Alvira) Estella Bergere, had five children, all of whom have become expert naturalists and prominent figures in their respective scientific fields. Four members of the Leopold family became professional scientists— Aldo Starker became a zoologist, Luna Bergere a hydrologist, Aldo Carl a plant physiologist, and Estella Bergere a paleobotanist— while the fifth, Nina Leopold Bradley, is Co-Director of Research at the Leopold Memorial Reserve and is doing"important research of her own on prairie restoration. Three of these Leopold-family scientists have been elected to the National Academy of Sciences.1 Gifted observers of nature like their father, Aldo1s children have also taken up his torch of environmental and public policy activism. This study is concerned with the intellectual biography of one of Aide's children— Aldo Starker Leopold. When Aldo Leopold, died in 1948, his son, Aldo Starker Leopold, stood poised to take up where his father left off.