Scars 



What Worth Wilderness? 



197 



Paul B. Sears 



What Worth Wilderness? 



Reprinted by author's and publishers' permis- 

 sion from Bulletin to the Schools of the Uni- 

 versity of the State of New York, March 1953. 



The state of Ohio, containing about 

 40,000 square miles, was once a mag- 

 nificent hardwood forest. The forest 

 types, thanks to the record of early sur- 

 veyors, have been largely mapped. Yet 

 it is almost impossible to form an ade- 

 quate picture, from any surviving rec- 

 ords, of the appearance of that forest. 

 The state has its full share of memo- 

 rials—statues, libraries, institutions; 

 some useful, some not; some beautiful, 

 many ugly. But somehow it never oc- 

 curred to anyone to set aside a square 

 mile, much less a township six miles 

 square, of primeval vegetation for fu- 

 ture generations to see and enjoy. Yet 

 this could have been done for less than 

 the cost of a single pile of stone of 

 dubious artistic and cultural merit. 



Farther west the "boundless" prai- 

 rie, that living carpet of wonderful 

 changing colors, is all but gone. Strenu- 

 ous effort will be required to set aside 

 proposed grassland national monu- 

 ments. Unless this is done, the prairies 

 will survive only on the pages of trav- 

 elers' journals and in the descriptions 

 of those who, like Willa Gather, knew 

 and loved them. 



We need not, said Darwin, marvel 



at extinction. But we have reached a 

 point of civilization where we are no 

 longer proud to be the agents of ex- 

 termination. Once we are reminded 

 that a species— key-deer, trumpeter 

 swan, moccasin-flower or arbutus— is in 

 danger, it is possible although never 

 easy to rally help in preserving it 

 Often, as with the heath hen and pas- 

 senger pigeon, help comes too late. 



The business of preserving game 

 species moves somewhat more briskly, 

 being substantially financed by license 

 fees and insistent sportsmen. But for 

 a long time the conserver of species, 

 whether sportsman or not, missed the 

 point. It seemed enough to slow down 

 or stop the actual killing of individuals. 

 We ignored an ancient rule of warfare, 

 put into effect by Rome against Car- 

 thage: if vou wish to eliminate, de- 

 stroy the center of activity, the home. 



Now the home of any species is the 

 community of which it is a part. True, 

 bv juggling diet we can now get cer- 

 tain wild animals to breed in a zoo, but 

 that is a sorn,' expedient. As Ding 

 Darling once pointed out, you can al- 

 wavs tell a tame mallard from a wild 

 one by its potbelly. If we are really seri- 



