States of nature : conserving Canada's wildlife in the twentieth century /

Loo (history, Univ. of British Columbia) aims to examine and document the origins and evolution of Canadian wildlife conservation from its early days as a local phenomenon to its more formal scientific basis in the late 20th century. Chapter 1 examines wildlife management and conservation in light of English traditions of common/property law and laws changed up to 1945. Chapter 2 examines issues related to Canada's colonization, and game laws focused on local rural peoples, including indigenous peoples and settlers, with a primary focus on how wildlife conservation contributed to class/race divisions. Chapter 3 looks at the impact that local peoples' knowledge eventually had on shaping provincial and federal wildlife conservation policies. The fourth chapter documents the evolution and influence of Hudson's Bay Company on the growth of a scientific approach to Canadian wildlife conservation through the 1930s-40s. Chapter 5 focuses primarily on wildlife conservation in post-WW II Canada. The remaining chapters discuss such major issues as the role of predators and the change in focus from conserving wildlife to conserving the entire ecosystem. This tome is illustrated with many excellent black-and-white photographs, but the writing is extremely dense and very academic. ^BSumming Up: Recommended. Only those academic/government libraries where there is interest; graduate students and above. W. E. Drew Jr. Morrisville State College