The Leopold Report is a 1963 paper composed of a series of ecosystem
management recommendations that were presented by the Special Advisory
Board on Wildlife Management to United States Secretary of the Interior
Stewart Udall. Named for its chairman and principal author, zoologist
and conservationist A. Starker Leopold, the report proved influential
for future preservation mandates and reports. After several years of
public controversy regarding the forced reduction of the elk population
in Yellowstone National Park, Udall appointed an advisory board to
collect scientific data to inform future wildlife management of the
national parks. The committee observed that culling programs at other
national parks had been ineffective, and recommended management of
Yellowstone's elk population. In addressing the goals, policies, and
methods of managing wildlife in the parks, the report suggested that in
addition to protection, wildlife populations should be managed and
regulated to prevent habitat degradation. Touching upon predator
control, fire ecology, and other issues, the report suggested that the
National Park Service hire scientists to manage the parks using current
scientific research. The Leopold Report became the first concrete plan
to manage park visitors and ecosystems under unified principles. It was
reprinted in several national publications, and many of its
recommendations were incorporated into the official policies of the
NPS. Although the report is notable for proposing that park management
have a fundamental goal of reflecting "the primitive scene... a
reasonable illusion of primitive America", some have criticized it for
its idealism and limited scope.
Read the rest of this article:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopold_Report>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1651:
Khmelnytsky Uprising: The Zaporozhian Cossacks began clashing with
forces of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth at the Battle of
Berestechko in the Volhynia Region of present-day Ukraine.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Berestechko>
1880:
Police captured Australian bank robber and bushranger Ned Kelly after
a gun battle in Glenrowan, Victoria.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ned_Kelly>
1914:
Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife, Sophie, Duchess of
Hohenberg, were assassinated by Yugoslav nationalist Gavrilo Princip
during a motorcade in Sarajevo, sparking the outbreak of World War I.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archduke_Franz_Ferdinand_of_Austria>
1922:
The week-long Battle of Dublin began with an assault by the Irish Free
State's National Army on the Four Courts building, which had been
occupied by the Anti-Treaty Irish Republican Army, marking the start of
the Irish Civil War.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Dublin>
1956:
Workers demanding better conditions held massive protests in Poznań,
Poland, but were violently repressed by the following day by 400 tanks
and 10,000 soldiers of Ludowe Wojsko Polskie and Korpus Bezpieczeństwa
Wewnętrznego.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pozna%C5%84_1956_protests>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
equipage (n):
1. Equipment or supplies, especially military ones.
2. A type of horse-drawn carriage
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/equipage>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
Never dream of forcing men into the ways of God. Think yourself, and
let think. Use no constraint in matters of religion. Even those who are
farthest out of the way never compel to come in by any other means than
reason, truth, and love.
--John Wesley
<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Wesley>