Nature's Keepers: On the Front Line of the Fight to Save America's Wildlife - Tapa dura

This text expresses concern about an epidemic of wildlife destruction both in America and abroad, including endangered species such as the grizzly bear. The author reports on an outbreak of poaching in the National Parks, on excessive and illegal killing by "trophy hunters" and on international animal poaching and smuggling rings that are decimating the populations of many exotic species. He also tells the stories of National Parks Service rangers, workers for the National Fish and Wildlife service and the environmental activists who are fighting to stop the killing.

"What is at issue in the fight to save wildlife is the nature of human commitment, the directions toward which consensus about right and wrong can be mounted. There is an ecology of conscience at work in the human spiritan instinct, at times blind and groping, to leave as gentle and light a footprint as possible on this earth." from Natures Keepers In this eloquent and moving work, acclaimed nature writer Michael Tobias examines the endangered status of many wild plants and animals, exposes illegal killing by "trophy hunters" in national parks, and shines a spotlight on a worldwide epidemic of poaching and illegal trade in animals and animal parts that threatens many species with extinction. Natures Keepers highlights some of the thorniest problems involved in the fight to preserve and protect whats left of the wild animals in the United States and, by implication, throughout the world. Although the battle has already been lost for untold numbers of animals, Tobias focuses on those whose futures might still be preserved. Most Americans, be they urban or rural, are dangerously cut off from an awareness of wild animals and plants and of their threat of extinction. Natures Keepers offers hope that through education and awareness, legal and judicial diligence, and compassion,some species can be saved and the most dangerous trends reversed. With its Special Operations unit, agents of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are among the foot soldiers in the battle to save endangered wildlifethe Green Berets of anti-poaching. Tobias takes us inside their command structure and into the only wildlife crime lab in the world: the Clark Bavin National Fish and Wildlife Forensics Laboratory, in Ashland, Oregon, where unique pathology studies and significant DNA blood and tissue matching of wildlife is carried on in an effort to identify illegal kills and their perpetrators. Pulling in more key evidence than is gathered for most murder trials, agents are nonetheless frustrated by laws in many states where parking tickets are more expensive than fines for illegally slaughtering animals. Although the trade in illegal wildlife is second only to the drug trade in the United States, the wildlife authorities are seriously understaffed, with 7,000 officers in the entire country (across all branches of wildlife law enforcement) versus tens of millions of hunters, dealers, and recreational usersa nearly uncontrollable population of potential abusers spread out over 7.5 million square miles of wildlife habitat. Despite these daunting odds of engagement, Tobias shows how the dedicated members of the USFW Sp. Ops unit mounted such dramatic and successful sting operations as "Whiteout" and "Renegade" in recent years. What is the future for endangered plants and animals, squeezed not only by a vanishing habitat, but also by an expanding global black market estimated at between $10 and $30 billion a year? Tobias demonstrates how energetic citizens may use democratic processes and free enterprise to stem, if not halt, the destruction of wild animals and awaken the "ecology of conscience" in all people, everywhere.