Return To Wild America: A Yearlong Search For The Continent’s Natural Soul
By Scott Weidensaul (North Point Press / $26)
In 1953 renowned ornithologist Roger Tory Peterson and naturalist James Fisher traveled more than 30,000 miles across North America, documenting for their historic book, Wild America, a cross section of the continent few had ever seen. Fifty years later, Scott Weidensaul, author of more than a dozen nature books, retraces that journey, using it as a benchmark to deliver an extensive assessment of what remains of the “continent’s natural soul.” Rappelling down cliffs into bird colonies at Newfoundland’s Cape St. Mary, kayaking with alligators in the Everglades, hiking in the Cascades of the Pacific Northwest—at each stop along the way, Weidensaul considers conservation success stories and blunders, and the destructive nature of human influence alongside the rise of the modern environmental movement. In Return to Wild America, he offers a cautionary, yet optimistic, vision of what the future holds: “The key is hope, because hope, when paired with the ferocious love Americans feel for their land, becomes action.”
In 1953 renowned ornithologist Roger Tory Peterson and naturalist James Fisher traveled more than 30,000 miles across North America, documenting for their historic book, Wild America, a cross section of the continent few had ever seen. Fifty years later, Scott Weidensaul, author of more than a dozen nature books, retraces that journey, using it as a benchmark to deliver an extensive assessment of what remains of the “continent’s natural soul.” Rappelling down cliffs into bird colonies at Newfoundland’s Cape St. Mary, kayaking with alligators in the Everglades, hiking in the Cascades of the Pacific Northwest—at each stop along the way, Weidensaul considers conservation success stories and blunders, and the destructive nature of human influence alongside the rise of the modern environmental movement. In Return to Wild America, he offers a cautionary, yet optimistic, vision of what the future holds: “The key is hope, because hope, when paired with the ferocious love Americans feel for their land, becomes action.”
