Metropolitan residents’ demand to watch wildlife reframed conservation as esthetic appreciation

Evidence

The new thinking dominated the inaugural session on urban resources at the 1967 wildlife conference. In the first paper, Stuart Davey, a federal Bureau of Outdoor Recreation official, spoke forcefully about the narrowness of the fish and game model of wildlife management. Millions of people had begun to appreciate wildlife “as a recreational and esthetic resource and as an integral element of man’s total environment,” he argued. “More people are interested in just observing, preserving, and protecting wildlife.” The evidence was considerable. The membership of the National Wildlife Federation quadrupled in the mid-1960s. Sales of bird feed to homeowners were up. A 1965 survey conducted by the Bureau of Outdoor Recreation found over eight million bird watchers and three million wildlife photographers. The survey also found a 19-percent increase in nature walking since 1960. In 1966, Congress passed the first Endangered Species Act. — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside, 842

Categorization

• XREF: The shift from game-species management to nongame esthetic appreciation parallels the shift from production-oriented to amenity-oriented land values seen in earlier open-space chapters. — connects to: Wildlife preservation came to depend politically on metropolitan voters’ esthetic interest — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside:…, 841; Aesthetic preference often quietly drives ecological choices — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom,…, 722; Aesthetic criticisms of sprawl demanded open space to restore community definition and orientation — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside:…, 511

Broader Connections

• Aesthetic preference often quietly drives ecological choices #corroborates (0.80) — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, 722
• Aesthetic criticisms of sprawl demanded open space to restore community definition and orientation #qualifies (0.72) — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside, 511