The Making of a Conservationist: Audubon’s Ecological Memory

Abstract

In the centuries since Audubon lived, the extent of disruption to natural ecosystems has relentlessly increased throughout North America. Yet during the first half of the 19th century Audobon already recognized threats to environmental integrity and biodiversity long before such concepts were articulated by 20th-century ecologists. Based on his own extensive observations of nature’s abundance and destruction throughout North America, Audubon anticipated the broad outlines of conservation in many ways consistent with principles of environmental protection in our time. Fundamental to these understandings, as prescient as they seem today, was his extraordinary sense of ecological memory. Based on his own observations of the changing range of wildlife populations during his lifetime, he could extrapolate to consequences for the continent of North America as a whole and recognized what was at stake for future generations.