Summary and Reviews of Return to Wild America by Scott Weidensaul

Return to Wild America by Scott Weidensaul

Return to Wild America

A Yearlong Search for the Continent's Natural Soul

by Scott Weidensaul
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  • Critics' Consensus (5):
  • First Published:
  • Nov 1, 2005, 416 pages
  • Paperback:
  • Nov 2006, 416 pages
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About This Book

Book Summary

Retracing the journey that birding guru Roger Tory Peterson and naturalist James Fisher took in 1953 (recorded in Wild America), Return to Wild America is likely to become a classic in its own right - a sweeping survey of the natural soul of North America today.

In 1953, birding guru Roger Tory Peterson and noted British naturalist James Fisher set out on what became a legendary journey - a one hundred day trek over 30,000 miles around North America. They traveled from Newfoundland to Florida, deep into the heart of Mexico, through the Southwest, the Pacific Northwest, and into Alaska's Pribilof Islands. Two years later, Wild America, their classic account of the trip, was published.

On the eve of that book's fiftieth anniversary, naturalist Scott Weidensaul retraces Peterson and Fisher's steps to tell the story of wild America today. How has the continent's natural landscape changed over the past fifty years? How have the wildlife, the rivers, and the rugged, untouched terrain fared? The journey takes Weidensaul to the coastal communities of Newfoundland, where he examines the devastating impact of the Atlantic cod fishery's collapse on the ecosystem; to Florida, where he charts the virtual extinction of the great wading bird colonies that Peterson and Fisher once documented; to the Mexican tropics of Xilitla, which have become a growing center of ecotourism since Fisher and Peterson's exposition. And perhaps most surprising of all, Weidensaul finds that much of what Peterson and Fisher discovered remains untouched by the industrial developments of the last fifty years.

Poised to become a classic in its own right, Return to Wild America is a sweeping survey of the natural soul of North America today.

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Reviews

BookBrowse Review

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Pulitzer Prize finalist Weidensaul retraces Peterson and Fisher's journey and chronicles the changes, both good and bad, in this in depth account. Amongst the bad news is the spread of invasive species, chemical pollution, global warming, species decline, over-logging and urban sprawl (for example in 15 years Pennsylvania has increased its "urban footprint" by 47% while its population has increased by only 2.5%)...continued

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Beyond the Book



About the author: Born in 1959, Scott Weidensaul has lived almost all of his life among the long ridges and endless valleys of eastern Pennsylvania, in the heart of the central Appalachians, a landscape that has defined much of his work.

He has written more than two dozen books on natural history, including Living on the Wind: Across the Hemisphere with Migratory Birds (1999), which was one of three finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction. He lives in the Pennsylvania Appalachians.

Some key events in the USA environmental movement:

  • 1864: Legislation passed making Yosemite Valley into a state park.
  • 1866: The word 'ecology' is coined by a German biologist, Ernst Haeckel.
  • 1877: Appalachian Mountain Club founded.
  • ...

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