In “Goose Music” Aldo Leopold writes about the non-economic values of wildlife (somewhat ironic now I suppose, considering the population explosion of Canada geese in the last two decades).
Consider the monarch, what good is it to humankind? A whole lot, this tree-hugger would argue. So this is welcome news:
Sand County Almanac
“Not all sports have degenerated to the same extent as duck-hunting” (216).
Now I have never seen an episode of Duck Dynasty, but when I read this line in Sand County Almanac, this was the first image that flew into my mind. The passage discusses how gadgets used to enhance the hunting experience have actually degraded the American tradition of hunting. As I read this, I thought of the little that I know about Duck Dynasty and how it is a family that monopolized the duck call and now owns a million (if not billion) dollar enterprise on the manufacturing of this gadget. I think Leopold would probably be appalled by this show and by what has become of duck hunting in particular.
“High horns, low horns, silence, and finally a pandemonium of trumpets, rattles, croaks, and cries that almost shake the bog with its nearness, but without yet disclosing whence it comes. At last a glint of sun reveals the approach of a great echelon of birds. On motionless wing they emerge from the lifting mists, sweep a final arc of the sky, and settle in clangorous descending spirals to their feeding grounds. A new day has begun on the crane marsh.” – Aldo Leopold, Marshland Elegy
Some photos from Cosumnes Preserve, CA:
