Audiobook · read by volunteers
Our Vanishing Wild Life
William T. Hornaday (1854–1937)
Read by Laura Caldwell, Carl Manchester, J. M. Smallheer, Sarah Jennings, Roger Melin, Kelly Dougherty, Dawn Larsen, Lucy Burgoyne (1950-2014), Katie Gibboney, Anna Simon · 45 chapters · 18 h 42
About the book
In 1913 William Hornaday sounded an alarm. Our Vanishing Wild Life is a passionate and well-documented protest against the destruction of animals and birds across North America and elsewhere. He describes the former abundance of wild life, the species that have already been lost, and the methods of hunters, plume traders and collectors that are driving many others toward extinction. Hornaday was a zoologist and a conservationist, and he writes with anger, sorrow and a deep desire to persuade. The book calls for laws, parks and a change of public attitudes, and it names those responsible. It is a landmark of early conservation writing, and its message about our duty to the natural world still speaks to us. A century-old warning that has lost none of its urgency, written by a man who fought hard for what he believed.
Introduction
William Temple Hornaday (1854–1937) was an American zoologist and conservationist. He was director of the New York Zoological Park, now the Bronx Zoo, and he played a prominent part in the campaign to save the American bison from extinction. Our Vanishing Wild Life: Its Extermination and Preservation was published in 1913, and it belongs to the early years of the modern conservation movement.
The forty-five recordings begin with a foreword and a preface, and then survey the former abundance of wild life, extinct species of North American birds and many other subjects. The tone is urgent, and the book is full of facts and examples. Some attitudes of the era, including those toward hunting and toward particular groups of people, differ sharply from ours, but the moral force of the argument is clear. For listeners interested in nature and in the history of environmental thought, it is a gripping document.
Some of the species he discusses have since been lost for good, while others, the bison among them, recovered thanks to protection, which gives the book a historical weight. It is long, but the chapters are self-contained and can be enjoyed one by one.
Forty-five recordings, about 18.7 hours in all, are shared among many LibriVox volunteers. The chapter titles, from The Bird Tragedy on Laysan Island to The Economic Value of Birds and How to Make a New Game Law, show the book’s double purpose: to document the loss and to say what could be done about it. C. William Beebe contributes a chapter on the destruction of birds in the Far East, and the closing chapters, which survey the laws of the states one by one, show that Hornaday meant the book as a practical tool for reformers as well as a lament.
Public domain
William T. Hornaday died in 1937: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text