Nov 29, 2011 11:27 AM
Fall marks the beginning of hunting and trapping seasons here on Long Island. And as is the case in many industries and fields—residential and commercial development, transportation, banking and finance, to name a few—the unregulated harvest of wildlife just did not work.
In his book “Wildlife in America,” author and Sagaponack resident Peter Matthiessen documents the destruction of our local fauna, often prompted by economics and driven by fashion and style, and at times, simply the result of sport, in astonishing detail. Our largest rodent, for example, the relatively prolific and adaptable beaver, was extirpated from most of North American east of the Mississippi by the mid-1800s.
Populations of most furbearers and many bird species in eastern North America followed suit. The latters’ demise, as with the beaver, was precipitated by the... more
In his book “Wildlife in America,” author and Sagaponack resident Peter Matthiessen documents the destruction of our local fauna, often prompted by economics and driven by fashion and style, and at times, simply the result of sport, in astonishing detail. Our largest rodent, for example, the relatively prolific and adaptable beaver, was extirpated from most of North American east of the Mississippi by the mid-1800s.
Populations of most furbearers and many bird species in eastern North America followed suit. The latters’ demise, as with the beaver, was precipitated by the... more
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