Reflection on Aldo Leopold & Thinking Like a Mountain

I found A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold to be interesting in how it differed from the writing of Thoreau and Abbey. Though he has some similar experiences to the two men mentioned, he takes a starkly different approach to his writing. Oftentimes, he presents his experiences not just from his own eyes, but also from the eyes of the land and wildlife that surround him. My favorite section from our reading was “Thinking Like A Mountain”. In this section he talks about his experience shooting a wolf and looking into her eyes she died. Leopold recounts how at the time, “I was young then, and full of trigger-itch; I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer, that no wolves would mean hunters’ paradise”, but he goes on to reflect on how the wolves kept the deer in check, and how without them the deer would scrub the mountain clean of much of the shrubs and edible plants. 

This connected with me because I often am blind to how certain plants and animals are vital to their ecosystems, even if they seem like dangerous threats or pests to us. For example, I hate bees and wasps. When I was younger I would make a habit of killing (or at least trying to kill) any bee or wasp that came to bother me. I still wince whenever they buzz past, though I now know how vital they are as pollinators of our crops and ecosystems. 

I think this story of the wolf, the deer, and the mountain was Leopold's way of illustrating how delicate our ecosystems can be and how we must work to preserve not just the cute animals and pretty flowers, but all living things that make these places flourish.