After the grizzly : endangered species and the politics of place in California / Peter S. Alagona.

ISBN:

9780520954410

Title:

Author:

Alagona, Peter S.

Personal Author:

Alagona, Peter S.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (viii, 323 pages) : illustrations

Contents:

The land of the bears -- A new movement -- The official landscape -- The laws of nature -- The California condor : from controversy to consensus -- The Mojave Desert tortoise : ambassador for the outback -- The San Joaquin kit fox : the flagship fox -- The Delta smelt : water politics by another name.

Local Note:

eBooks on EBSCOhost

Subject Term:

Wildlife conservation -- California.

Wildlife conservation -- United States.

Endangered species -- California.

Endangered species -- United States.

Grizzly bear -- California.

Format:

Electronic Resources

Electronic Access:

Click here to view

Publication Date:

2013

Publication Information:

Berkeley :

University of California Press,

[2013]

Available:*

Shelf Number	Material Type	Copy	Shelf Location	Status
591.68 23	1:E-BOOK	1	1:ONLINE	Searching... Unknown

Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

Thoroughly researched and finely crafted, After the Grizzly traces the history of endangered species and habitat in California, from the time of the Gold Rush to the present. Peter S. Alagona shows how scientists and conservationists came to view the fates of endangered species as inextricable from ecological conditions and human activities in the places where those species lived.

Focusing on the stories of four high-profile endangered species--the California condor, desert tortoise, Delta smelt, and San Joaquin kit fox--Alagona offers an absorbing account of how Americans developed a political system capable of producing and sustaining debates in which imperiled species serve as proxies for broader conflicts about the politics of place. The challenge for conservationists in the twenty-first century, this book claims, will be to redefine habitat conservation beyond protected wildlands to build more diverse and sustainable landscapes.

Author Notes

Alagona Peter S. :

Peter S. Alagona is Assistant Professor of History and Environmental Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He was Visiting Assistant Professor at Stanford and Beagle Environmental Fellow at Harvard and previously worked as a national park ranger and as a consulting ecologist. Since 2009, he has been an Associate Editor for the MIT Press series Histories for a Sustainable Future.

Reviews (1)

Choice Review

This well-researched book focuses on the evolution of a politically charged habitat approach to endangered species protection, intertwined with a history of the roles of ecological science, natural resource management, ethics, environmental law, and politics in its development. Alagona (history, geography, and environmental studies, Univ. of California, Santa Barbara) begins by chronicling the extinction of the California grizzly bear. The grizzly became the state's icon and catalyst for intensive efforts by California naturalists to protect its rapidly disappearing wildlife, starting with laws to protect species and culminating with an emphasis on habitat preservation that eventually led to the creation of the Endangered Species Act (ESA). ESA, thoroughly reviewed in chapter 4, evolved from single-species protection to habitat conservation with unexpected consequences, as described here. The author provides detailed case studies of four endangered California species: the California condor, Mohave Desert tortoise, San Joaquin kit fox, and the Delta smelt. The latter was the focus of a battle over complex allocations of water rights in the California Bay-Delta. After the Grizzly emphasizes the need to redefine habitat conservation beyond protecting wildlands, since nature reserves alone will not protect endangered species. A critical resource for current/future conservation and wildlife biologists and environmentalists. Summing Up: Essential. Lower-division undergraduates through professionals/practitioners; general readers. R. L. Smith emeritus, West Virginia University