]91 conservation is not enough 



a creature not of his kind or a man not of his race liis first 

 impulse is "kill it." 



Hence it is that even in the desert, where space is 

 cheaper than in most places, the wild life grows scarcer 

 and more secretive as the human population grows. The 

 coyote howls further and further off. The deer seek closer 

 and closer cover. To almost everything except man the 

 smell of humanity is the most repulsive of all odors, the 

 sight of man the most terrifying of all sights. Biologists 

 call some animals "cryptozoic," that is to say "leading 

 hidden lives." But as the human population increases most 

 animals develop, as the deer has been developing, crypto- 

 zoic habits. Even now there are more of them around than 

 we realize. They see us when we do not see them — be- 

 cause they have seen us first. Albert Schweitzer remarks 

 somewhere that we owe kindness even to an insect when 

 we can afford to show it, just because we ought to do 

 something to make up for all the cruelties, necessary as 

 well as unnecessary, which we have inflicted upon almost 

 the whole of animate creation. 



Probably not one man in ten is capable of understand- 

 ing such moral and aesthetic considerations, much less of 

 permitting his conduct to be guided by them. But perhaps 

 twice as many, though still far from a majority, are begin- 

 ning to realize that the reckless laying waste of the earth 

 has practical consequences. They are at least beginning to 

 hear about "conservation," though they are not even dimly 

 aware of any connection between it and a large morality 

 and are very unlikely to suppose that "conservation" does 

 or could mean anything more than looking after their 

 own welfare. 



Hardly more than two generations ago Americans first 



