Perspectives on Sustainable Resources in America

CHAPTER 6

Wildlife

Sustainability and Management

Dean Lueck

AT THE TIME EUROPEANS began to explore and settle North America, the native populations were primarily hunters and gatherers who had relatively little impact on wildlife populations.¹ In many ways, the wildlife populations in North America were pristine around 1600, or had at least settled into an equilibrium in which most populations were relatively stable and large. In Europe, however, long-established and widespread human civilizations had dramatically reduced many wild populations (e.g., bears, elk, deer, wildfowl, bison, and wolves).

This chapter examines the pattern of use and conservation of wildlife—and their implications for the sustainability of wildlife—from the time of European ...