Searching for Yellowstone Ecology And Wonder In The Last Wilderness

by Schullery, Paul

• ISBN13: 9780972152211
• ISBN10: 0972152210
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-04-01
• Publisher: Montana Historical Society Press

Summary

Yellowstone National Park is beloved passionately and, as with all objects of passion, it generates heated feelings and has for over 125 years. Created in 1872, Yellowstone has been at the center of efforts to conserve the nation's once vast western wilderness. In turn Yellowstone's history has demonstrated how complex those efforts to conserve it have been. As Schullery writes, "We inherited this great humming thing . . . Ever since then we have imagined ourselves wise enough to control it and have rushed to judge what is wrong with it. And every time we looked hard enough, we discovered that there was more wrong with our judgment than with Yellowstone."

This marvelously detailed book skillfully and objectively traces the park's social and ecological history from Pleistocene times to the present. Searching for Yellowstone is an absolute "must read" for anyone wanting to understand why the park is engraved in the American consciousness.

Author Biography

Paul Schullery, former director of the American Museum of Fly Fishing, is the author, co-author, or editor of more than thirty books, including American Fly-Fishing: A History (1987), Royal Coachman (1999), Lewis and Clark among the Grizzlies (2002) and, with Lee Whittlesey, Yellowstone's Creation Myth (2003). He lives in Yellowstone Park, Wyoming.

Table of Contents

Illustrations	viii
Preface	xiii
Introduction	1	(173)
1. Ancient Yellowstone	6	(11)
2. Things a Little Incredible	17	(14)
3. Wild Romantic Splendor	31	(20)
4. A Public Park	51	(17)
5. Ecological Holocaust	68	(21)
6. Privations and Inconveniences	89	(19)
7. A Single Rock	108	(20)
8. Big Men with Fine Personalities	128	(20)
9. Reasonable Illusions	148	(26)
10. The High Price of Success	174	(19)
11. Greater Yellowstone	193	(24)
12. Holocene Park	217	(31)
13. Imagining Yellowstone	248	(15)
Epilogue	263	(6)
Notes	269	(52)
Acknowledgements	321	(2)
Index	323