31 Facts About Aldo Leopold

Aldo Leopold was an American writer, philosopher, naturalist, scientist, ecologist, forester, conservationist, and environmentalist.

Aldo Leopold was a professor at the University of Wisconsin and is best known for his book A Sand County Almanac, which has been translated into fourteen languages and has sold more than two million copies.

Aldo Leopold emphasized biodiversity and ecology and was a founder of the science of wildlife management.

Rand Aldo Leopold was born in Burlington, Iowa on January 11,1887.

Aldo Leopold's father, Carl Leopold, was a businessman who made walnut desks and was first cousin to his wife, Clara Starker.

The Aldo Leopold family included younger siblings Mary Luize, Carl Starker, and Frederic.

Aldo Leopold showed an aptitude for observation, spending hours counting and cataloging birds near his home.

Aldo Leopold was always out climbing around the bluffs, or going down to the river, or going across the river into the woods.

Aldo Leopold's parents agreed to let him attend The Lawrenceville School, a preparatory college in New Jersey, to improve his chances of admission to Yale.

Aldo Leopold was considered an attentive student, although he was again drawn to the outdoors.

Lawrenceville was suitably rural, and Aldo Leopold spent much time mapping the area and studying its wildlife.

Aldo Leopold studied at the Lawrenceville School for a year, during which time he was accepted to Yale.

In 1909, Aldo Leopold was assigned to the Forest Service's District 3 in the Arizona and New Mexico territories.

Under the Oberlaender Trust of the Carl Schurz Memorial Foundation, Aldo Leopold was part of the 1935 group of six US Forest Service associates who toured the forests of Germany and Austria.

Aldo Leopold was invited specifically to study game management, and this was his first and only time abroad.

Aldo Leopold married Estella Bergere in northern New Mexico in 1912 and they had five children together.

Aldo Leopold purchased 80 acres in the sand country of central Wisconsin.

Aldo Leopold put his theories to work in the field and eventually set to work writing his best-selling A Sand County Almanac which was finished just prior to his death.

Aldo Leopold died of a heart attack while battling a wild fire on a neighbor's property.

Today, Aldo Leopold's home is an official landmark of the city of Madison.

Early on, Aldo Leopold was assigned to hunt and kill bears, wolves, and mountain lions in New Mexico.

Local ranchers hated these predators because of livestock losses, but Aldo Leopold came to respect the animals.

Aldo Leopold developed an ecological ethic that replaced the earlier wilderness ethic that stressed the need for human dominance.

Aldo Leopold's rethinking the importance of predators in the balance of nature has resulted in the return of bears and mountain lions to New Mexico wilderness areas.

Aldo Leopold was prompted to this by the rampant building of roads to accommodate the "proliferation of the automobile" and the related increasingly heavy recreational demands placed on public lands.

Aldo Leopold was the first to employ the term "wilderness" to describe such preservation.

Aldo Leopold believed that it is easier to maintain wilderness than to create it.

Aldo Leopold thus rejected the utilitarianism of conservationists such as Theodore Roosevelt.

Aldo Leopold advocated the scientific management of wildlife habitats by both public and private landholders rather than a reliance on game refuges, hunting laws, and other methods intended to protect specific species of desired game.

In "The Land Ethic", a chapter in A Sand County Almanac, Aldo Leopold delves into conservation in "The Ecological Conscience" section.

In 1950 The Wildlife Society honored Aldo Leopold by creating an annual award in his name.