The Wilderness Warrior - Douglas Brinkley [620]
* In this book Benjamin Kidd’s name was dropped from the chapter title.
* Roosevelt was right to worry about the future of Florida wildlife. As Elizabeth Kolbert noted in The New Yorker (May 25, 2009), of the fifty billion species to have ever inhabited Earth, over ninety-nine percent have vanished. At least eighty percent of all marine species have become extinct.
* The Osprey, an illustrated magazine of birds and nature, thought the Rough Riders, in their letters home, were unfairly maligning vultures. “Had the men only known, the birds, instead of being their enemies, were in reality, invaluable allies,” the editorial argued. “In the thick growth of vegetation that clothes many of the hillsides and valleys of Cuba, the work of the burial parties is slow and difficult, and bodies are often overlooked in the search. The keen senses of the buzzard lead them unerringly to the spot. In many cases his work, nauseating and disgusting as it must be to contemplate, is the means of preserving the health and strength of many of our soldiers.” Walter Adams Johnson and Dr. Elliot Coues, “Editorial Notes,” Osprey, Vol. 3, No. 1 (September 1898), p. 12.
* In 1908 Roosevelt’s beloved Bronx Zoo displayed two of the largest American bald or golden eagles ever captured; they shared a cage. Their names were Uncle Sam and Teddy Roosevelt. Both birds were popular attractions. Unfortunately, on one hot June afternoon, a field mouse scampered into their cage, pecking for corn kernels on the floor. Simultaneously, both eagles went for the kill, their bodies, according to the New York Times “hurtling down like projectiles driven from a twelve-inch gun.” A death grapple ensued over the mouse (which escaped unharmed) and supposedly over who was king of the eagle house. “Uncle Sam is a trifle heavier than Teddy Roosevelt,” the Times noted, as if reporting a boxing match. “And Uncle Sam got in the first blow. It was a vicious wing blow, and the second joint of his massive wing struck Teddy Roosevelt full in the chest. The smaller eagle recoiled, as he did so he lunged with his hooklike beak at Uncle Sam. The beak tore a gash in Uncle Sam’s right shoulder.” “Uncle Sam and Teddy in a Death Grapple,” New York Times (June 22, 1908), p. 16.
* The superintendent would have the authority to appoint three deputies: a forester, a fish culturist, and a supervisor of marine fisheries. See “The Fisheries, Game, and Forest Commission,” New York Times (March 3, 1900), p. 6.
* New Mexico and Arizona didn’t achieve statehood until 1912. They were the forty-seventh and forty-eighth states, respectively.
* Slabsides was at West Park, Esopus, New York, in the Hudson Valley (Ulster County), a mile and a half inland from the river. Burroughs’s main farmhouse, Riverby, as of 2009 was still owned by his descendants.
* Published to capitalize on Roosevelt’s fame as a Rough Rider, this volume comprised Hunting Trips of a Ranchman and The Wilderness Hunter, with factual natural history corrections. They were packaged together.
* Roosevelt found that in Texas cougars were often called panthers. In California they were mistakenly called catamounts, a term that properly refers to the wildcat or lynx. By 2009 the best place to find cougars in the United States was along the Middle Prong of the Gila River in New Mexico.
* The total acreage of the three reserves effective June 30, 1915, was 4,147,682. From the Reports of the Forest Service, Department of Agriculture.
* Anybody reading an old copy of the Biographical Record of the Graduates and Former Students of the Yale Forestry School (published in 1913) can see dozens of Yale Forestry School graduates being sent all over the country to assist seasoned rangers, eventually becoming rangers or forestry scientists themselves.
* On March 4, 1907, President Roosevelt created the Chalmette Monument and Grounds (site of the Battle of New Orleans), including a cemetery for veterans of the War of 1812. Today the Chalmette National Historic Park