This is Louisa Willcox with Grizzly Times and the last of four episodes of my interview with Estella Leopold, the last remaining offspring of the legendary conservationist, writer and philosopher Aldo Leopold. Our conversation here ranges from grizzly bears to climate change and the legacy of her father and the Leopold family, including younger relatives who are emerging leaders in the environment and scientific research.
INTERVIEW EXCERPTS
"Oh that’s such a horrible development [hunting grizzlies in the Yellowstone ecosystem]. I can’t imagine -- Starker [Estella’s brother and a famous wildlife biologist] would turn over in his grave. And Dad."
"Well it’s astonishing that people are so easily swayed by the deniers of climate change because…it’s perfectly obvious what’s happening in the droughts in Africa, with fire sequences here in the West, and unusual hurricanes. Why should people be reluctant to listen to the climatologists who say: “Hey, as the warming temperatures of water increases, the hurricane frequency will become more frequent or more devastating or both?” That’s science…so all we have to do is realize it and admit it. It’s a shame if we put our heads in the sand."
"The rate the scale of extinction going on now, and the threats of more, is certainly comparable to some of the worst natural disasters in the geologic record. And what we’re facing with climate change is going to be much worse in the future. So these are facts."
"[Each of us kids], we wanted to have our own Shacks in the areas where we were. I bought an old cabin near Blackhawk Mountain in Colorado. When I bought that land there were signs up saying “Peligro,” poisoning. They were throwing strychnine pellets out of an airplane [to kill predators]. And I went to the government and said: “No this land is ‘verboten,’ we’re going to protect it.'”
READ MORE
Saved in Time: The Fight to Establish Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument, Colorado by Estella B. Leopold and Herbert Meyer
Stories From the Leopold Shack: Sand County Revisited by Estella B. Leopold
A Sand County Almanac: With Essays on Conservation from Round River by Aldo Leopold
The River of the Mother of God: and Other Essays by Aldo Leopold, edited by Susan L. Flader and J. Baird Callicott
For the Health of the Land: Previously Unpublished Essays and Other Writings By Aldo Leopold, edited by J. Baird Callicott and Eric T. Freyfogle
Aldo Leopold: His Life and Work by Curt Meine
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