Engineering Eden: A Violent Death, a Federal Trial, and the Struggle to Restore Nature in Our National Parks

by Jordan Fisher Smith, Jack E. Davis (Foreword by)

Overview

The award-winning story of the century-and-half-long attempt to control nature in the American wilderness, told through the prism of a tragic death at Yellowstone—now in paperback

In the summer of 1972, 25-year-old Harry Eugene Walker hitchhiked away from his family’s northern Alabama dairy farm to see America. Nineteen days later he was killed by an endangered grizzly bear in Yellowstone National Park. The ensuing civil trial, brought against the US Department of the Interior for alleged mismanagement of the park’s grizzly population, emerged as a referendum on how America’s most beloved wild places should be conserved. Two of the twentieth century’s greatest wildlife biologists testified—on opposite sides.

Moving across decades and among Yellowstone, Yosemite, Glacier, and Sequoia National Parks, author and former park ranger Jordan Fisher Smith has crafted an epic, emotionally wrenching account of America’s fraught, century-and-a-half-long attempt to remake Eden—in the name of saving it.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781615195459
Publisher:	The Experiment
Publication date:	03/19/2019
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	424
Sales rank:	546,824
Product dimensions:	5.56(w) x 8.25(h) x 1.12(d)

About the Author

Jordan Fisher Smith worked for twenty-one years as a park ranger in California, Wyoming, Idaho, and Alaska. The author of Nature Noir and narrator of the documentary Under Our Skin, he has written for Discover magazine, The New Yorker, Men’s Journal, TIME.com, and many other outlets. Visit him at jordanfishersmith.com.

Jack E. Davis won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for History for The Gulf: The Making of an American Sea.

Table of Contents

Foreword Jack E. Davis xiii

Prologue xix

Part I American Eden

1 Los Angeles 3

2 American Eden 9

3 Yosemite and Yellowstone 17

4 Appalachian Spring 25

5 Frank 39

6 The Balance of Nature 50

7 Berkeley 56

8 Claypool 63

9 Smitty 74

10 Trout Creek 83

Part II Natural Regulation

11 The Big Kill 91

12 Starker 101

13 Prometheus 118

14 Observable Artificiality in Any Form 126

15 Reconstruction 131

16 Cole 142

17 The Night of the Grizzlies 151

18 Natural Control 161

19 Bad Blood 164

20 Bear Management Committee 177

21 Firehole 183

22 The Temptation of Starker Leopold 195

23 Natural Regulation 201

Part III Take It Easy

24 Last Straws 211

25 Take It Easy 218

26 Old Faithful 224

27 The Search for Harry Walker 229

Part IV Human Nature

28 Martha Shell 239

29 B-1 252

30 The Disciple 262

31 The Verdict 273

32 The Appeal 288

Epilogue 306

Afterword 324

Key Figures 332

Acknowledgments 340

Notes 344

Index 368

Interview with Jordan Fisher Smith 383

About the Author 392

Editorial Reviews

Winner of the California Book Award, Silver Medal for Nonfiction
Longlisted for the PEN / E.O. Wilson Award for Literary Science Writing
One of Outside magazine’s 10 Outdoor Books that Shaped the Last Decade

“An intensely reported, rousingly readable and ambitiously envisioned book . . . weaves together a dramatic court case in Los Angeles, a grizzly-bear attack, and a surprisingly fascinating debate over what constitutes the word ’natural’ when it comes to national parks. . . a thrilling read. Like the best visions for parks, it combines the human and the animal, the managed and the natural, the controlled and the wild.”—The Wall Street Journal

“Storytelling and historical narrative of the highest caliber . . . Jordan Fisher Smith digs deeply into the evolving tension at the heart of the national park idea: Should parks be left untouched or managed for people’s enjoyment? Clear and compelling, this is a courtroom drama alive with unforgettable characters and a contemplation of our relationship with wild nature.”—Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan, authors of The National Parks: America’s Best Idea

“Former ranger Jordan Fisher Smith . . . seduces readers with a public lands parable masquerading as a wildly entertaining thriller.”—Outside

“Timely and thoughtful . . . A vivid account of conflicts within the National Park Service over managing bears and other wild animals—conflicts that contributed to tragic results . . . Smith’s book will draw you in with his passion, thoughtfulness, and first-rate storytelling.”—Seattle Times

“Engineering Eden is a fascinating book about the relationship between humankind and nature. Jordan Fisher Smith illuminates the often embittered arguments what our role in wilderness should be, and has written a vivid historical account that sheds light on our place in nature’s complex web of life.”—Andrea Wulf, author of The Invention of Nature

“[Engineering Eden] is a dramatic, eye-opening chronicle of the struggle to preserve wilderness while making it accessible to the public . . . A galvanizing storyteller fluent in the conflict between environmental science and politics, Smith brings every player into sharp and indelible focus as he illuminates the urgent issues national parks grapple with as they struggle to wisely manage predators, invasive species, wildfires, and people.”—Booklist, starred review

“A searching study of a tragedy and the legal contest that followed it, one that shaped the course of national park policy in the modern age. Is a natural environment modified by humans still natural? It’s not just a question for philosophers . . . Smith, who understands that nature is ’a web of complex relations,’ tells this complicated story clearly and well. Excellent reading for students of park policy, wildlife management, and other resource issues.”—Kirkus Reviews

“Smith has pulled off an amazing feat: He’s made wildlife management urgent and engrossing, writing about it with clarity, depth and a storyteller’s pacing . . . an outstanding introduction to ecological decision-making”—Shelf Awareness

“This meticulously investigated history of Yellowstone and its wildlife management problems should appeal to fans of Jack Olsen’s classic Night of the Grizzlies, as well as to readers interested in the broader issue of how much humans should intervene in nature in order to preserve it.”—Library Journal

“This is a big, ambitious book about a seemingly small, if horrific event—a grizzly devouring a young man. And Jordan Fisher Smith has succeeded in his ambition. He produced a wonderful book, ’wonderful’ not only because of the quality of the writing, but because the book is filled with wondering; Smith uses that horror as a narrative focal point to explore science, policy making, bureaucracy, ego, even the law, and when he explores something he goes deep.”—John M. Barry, author of Rising Tide and The Great Influenza

“What is ’nature’? In a narrative delivered with elegance and vigor, Jordan Fisher Smith shows that our answers to this question have life-and-death consequences, for humans and for the ecosystems in which we live.”—David George Haskell, author of The Forest Unseen

“A probing look at efforts to manage the ’wild’ in our fading wilderness—and at the trouble resulting when our guesses are wrong. Engineering Eden is especially timely as we consider our responsibilities to nature on this fast-warming planet.”—Tom Kizzia, author of Pilgrim’s Wilderness
 

From the Publisher