Where the scientists roam: Ecology, management and bison in northern Canada

Journal of Canadian Studies

Volumn 37, Issue 2, 2003, Pages 93-129

  Sandlos, John ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 31844451788     PISSN: 00219495     EISSN: 19110251     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.3138/jcs.37.2.93     Document Type: Article

References (72)

1. L.W. Herchmer to Comptroller, Royal Northwest Mounted Police, 3 October 1893, RG 18, vol. 489, file 381-15, National Archives of Canada.
2. Caspar Whitney, On Snow-Shoes to the Barren Grounds: Twenty-eight Hundred Miles After Musk-Oxen and Wood-Bison (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1896) 116-17.
3. Edward A. Preble, A Biological Investigation of the Athabasca-Mackenzie Region. North American Fauna No. 27 (Washington: G.P.O., 1908);
4. Ernest Thompson Seton, The Arctic Prairies (New York: Harper and Row, 1911);
5. For an assessment the inaccuracies associated with Seton's and Jarvis's condemnation of Native hunters, see Theresa A. Ferguson, "The 'Jarvis Proof': Management of Bison, Management of Bison Hunters and the Development of a Literary Tradition," a paper presented at the Fort Chipewyan/Fort Vermilion Bicentennial Conference, 23-24 September 1988.
6. For a more expansive treatment by the author of the ideas in this article, see The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology and the Scientific Revolution (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1987)
7. For other critiques of the mastery of nature by science, see Donna Haraway, Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature (New York: Routledge, 1991);
8. Morris Berman, The Reenchantment of the World (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1981);
9. Val Plumwood, Feminism and the Mastery of Nature (London: Routledge, 1993).
10. John Livingston, The Fallacy of Wildlife Conservation (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1981) 33;
11. Neil Evernden, "Beyond Ecology: Self, Place and the Pathetic Fallacy," The Ecocriticisin Reader: Landmarks in Literary Ecology, eds. Cheryl Glotfelty and Harold Fromm (London: University of Georgia Press, 1996) 92-93.
12. See also Neil Evernden, The Natural Alien: Humankind and Environment, 2nd ed. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993) 10-22.
13. Suzanne Zeller, Inventing Canada: Early Victorian Science and the Idea of a Transcontinental Nation (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1987).
14. According to Grove, this movement was not simply trying to protect the natural capital of the empire, but was distinctly aware that European modes of production were destructive to nature. See Richard Grove, Green Imperialism: Colonial Expansion, Tropical Island Edens and the Origins of Environmentalism, 1600-1860 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995)
15. For a further appraisal of the achievements of colonial scientists, see Satpal Sangwan, "From Gentlemen Amateurs to Professionals: Reassessing the Natural Science Tradition in Colonial India, 1780-1840," Nature and the Orient: The Environmental History of South and Southeast Asia, eds. Richard H. Grove, Vinita Damodaran and Satpal Sangwan (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995) 209-36,
16. and K. Siviramakrishnan, "The Politics of Fire and Forest Regeneration in Colonial Bengal," Environment and History 2 (1996): 145-94.
17. and Judith Shapiro, Mao's War on Nature: Politics and the Environment in Revolutionary China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
18. See Stephen Bocking, Ecologists and Environmental Politics: A History of Contemporary Ecology (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997).
19. For an analysis, see Barry Potyandi, "Wood Buffalo National Park: An Historical Overview and Source Study," Unpublished manuscript, Wood Buffalo National Park Library, Fort Smith, NWT, 1979: 86.
20. M.J. Rutherford to Charles Stewart, Minister of the Interior, 23 May 1925, RG 85, vol. 1391, file 406-13, NAC;
21. Maxwell Graham, "Statement Concerning the Transfer of Buffalo from the Park at Wainwright, Alberta, to the Southern Range of the Wood-Buffalo in Northern Alberta, Prepared from Memoranda Supplied by the Parks and Northwest Territories Branches," 25 June 1925, RG 85, vol. 1391, file 406-13, NAC.
22. For a summary of Clements's work, see Donald Worster, Nature's Economy: A History of Ecological Ideas, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994) 208-20.
23. For the influence of Clements on wildlife ecology, see Thomas Dunlap, Saving America's Wildlife: Ecology and the American Mind, 1850-1990 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988) 44-45.
24. For a summary, see Dunlap, Saving America's Wildlife, 48-61.
25. See Maxwell Graham, "Finding Range for Canada's Buffalo," The Canadian Field-Naturalist 38 (December 1924): 189.
26. Francis Harper, "Letter to the Editor," The Canadian Field-Naturalist 39 (February 1925): 45;
27. W.E. Saunders, "Letter to the Editor," The Canadian Field-Naturalist 39 (May 1925) .
28. C. Gordon Hewitt, The Conservation of Wild Life in Canada (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1921) 136-42.
29. Graham, "Finding Range for Canada's Buffalo" 189.
30. For a discussion of the utilitarian orientation of wildlife conservation in Canada, see Thomas Dunlap, Nature and the English Diaspora: Environment and History in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999) 168-74.
31. See Graham, "Statement Concerning the Transfer of Buffalo." See also Graham's memo to Finnie, 9 April 1925, RG 85, vol. 1391, file 406-13, NAC. The debate surrounding the taxonomic status of the wood bison surfaces again in the final section of the paper in the context of the proposal to eradicate disease in the park bison by slaughtering and replacing all the hybrid bison in the park.
32. For a report of the transplanted bison migrating to Wainwright, see "One Thousand Buffalo Roam at Will Over Great North-West," Montreal Standard, 22 August 1925.
33. Earl Gaye, "Plains Buffalo Take Kindly to New Home Around Fort Smith," Edmonton Journal, 28 July 1928;
34. John F. Ariza, "A Vanishing American Comes Back," Baltimore Sun, 17 August 1930.
35. James Ritchie, "The American Bison: a Questionable Experiment," Supplement to Nature (20 February 1926);
36. For a critique of the balance of nature idea, see Daniel Botkin, Discordant Harmonies: A New Ecology for the Twenty-First Century (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990).
37. J. Dewey Soper, "Report on Wildlife Investigations in Wood Buffalo Park and Vicinity, Alberta and Northwest Territories, Canada," unpublished report (Winnipeg: National Parks Bureau, 1945) 16-17.
38. The published study of the bison appeared as J. Dewey Soper, "History, Range and Home Life of the Northern Bison," Ecological Monographs 2.4 (October 1941): 396.
39. See B.I. Love, "Survey of Animals and Surroundings, Wood Buffalo Park, NWT, August 4-27, 1944," RG 85, vol. 1392, file 406-13, NAC.
40. For an overview of the minimal exploitation era in Wood Buffalo National Park, see McCormack, "The Political Economy of Bison MAnagement" 370-71.
41. Worster, Nature's Economy 291-314.
42. For an account of the broader northern resource development program, see Morris Zaslow, The Northward Expansion of Canada, 1914-1967 (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1988) 234-70.
43. See also F.E. Graesser, "Report - Investigations of Buffalo, Wood Buffalo Park," 29 December 1950, RG 85, vol. 157, file 472-3, NAC.
44. W.E. Stevens, "Bison Report - September 1954," unpublished report available at the Wood Buffalo National Park Library, NWT.
45. N.S. Novakowski, "Estimates of the Bison Population in Wood Buffalo Park and the Northwest Territories Based on Transect and Total Counts," February 1961, RG 84, vol. 2237, file WB232, NAC.
46. For a report on the slaughter, see B.E. Olson, "Wood Buffalo National Park: Buffalo Round-up, Testing and Slaughter Program, 1961," RG 84, vol. 2239, file WB299, NAC.
47. See also N.S. Novakowski, "Slaughter Report - Grand Detour 1964, 1965," RG 84, vol. 2239, file WB299, NAC.
48. See also L.P.E. Choquette and Eric Broughton, "Anthrax in Bison, Wood Buffalo Park and The Northwest Territories - Report for the Year 1967," RG 84, vol. 2237, file WB210-1, NAC.
49. N.S. Novakowski and L.P.E. Choquette, "Proposed Five-Year Management Plan for Bison in Wood Buffalo National Park," RG 84, vol. 2237, file 210-1, NAC
50. See McCormack, "The Political Economy of Bison Management" 373.
51. See Ministry of the Environment, Wood Buffalo National Park: Management Plan Summary (Ottawa: Minister of Supply and Services, 1984).
52. The movement toward non-interventionism in the national parks began in the late 1950s, but was slow to take hold in the development-minded Northern Affairs Branch. For a discussion of the wider movement towards non-interventionism in the Parks Branch, see MacEachern, Natural Selections 220-28.
53. Environmental Assessment Panel, Northern Diseased Bison (Ottawa, Minister of Supply and Services, 1990).
54. Andrew Nikiforuk, "If Armageddon Arrives, the Bison Are Dead Meat," The Globe and Mail (4 October 1990): A21.
55. For a survey of aboriginal perspectives on the slaughter proposal, see Theresa A. Ferguson and Clayton Burke, "Aboriginal Communities and the Northern Buffalo Controversy," Buffalo, ed. John Foster, Dick Harrison and I.S. MacLaren (Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 1992).
56. Stacy Tessaro, "The Existing and Potential Importance of Brucellosis and Tuberculosis in Canadian Wildlife: A Review," Canadian Veterinary Journal 27 (1986): 119-24;
57. Stacy Tessaro, "Bovine Tuberculosis and Brucellosis in Animals, Including Man," ed. John Foster, Dick Harrison and I.S. MacLaren, 207-24;
58. Gary Wobeser, "Disease in Northern Bison: What to Do?" ed. John Foster, Dick Harrison and I.S. MacLaren, 179-88. Wobeser was a member of the EAP.
59. Brucellosis causes spontaneous abortions in females, and tuberculosis weakens older animals. See Tessaro, "The Existing and Potential Importance";
60. S. Tessaro, L.B. Forbes and C. Turcotte, "A Survey of Brucellosis and Tuberculosis in Bison in and Around Wood Buffalo National Park, Canada," Canadian Veterinary Journal 31 (1990): 174-80;
61. Eric Broughton, "Diseases Affecting Bison," Bison Ecology in Relation to Agricultural Development in the Slave River Lowland, ed. H.W. Reynolds and A.W.L. Hawley, Canadian Wildlife Service Occasional Paper Series Number 63 (Ottawa: Minister of Supply and Services, 1987) 34-38;
62. Jack Van Camp and George W. Calef, "Population Dynamics of Bison," eds. Reynolds and Hawley, 21-24.
63. C. Gates, T. Chowns and H. Reynolds, "Wood Buffalo at the Crossroads," ed. John Foster, Dick Harrison and I.S. MacLaren, 139-65;
64. See A.W.F. Banfield and N. Novakowski, "The Survival of the Wood Bison (Bison bison athabascae Rhoads) in the Northwest Territories," National Museum of Canada Historical Paper 8 (1960): 1-6.
65. Geist, "Phantom Subspecies" 297. The questions surrounding the taxonomic status of the wood bison have not yet been resolved within the scientific community.
66. L. Carbyn, S. Oosenbrug and D. Anions, Wolves, Bison and the Dynamics Related to the Peace-Athabasca Delta in Canada's Wood Buffalo National Park (Edmonton: Circumpolar Institute, 1993).
67. Gates, Chowns and Reynolds, "Wood Buffalo at the Crossroads" 157.
68. Robert M. May, "Biological Populations with Nonoverlapping Generations: Stable Points, Stable Cycles, and Chaos," Science 186 (15 November 1974): 645-47;
69. Botkin, Discordant Harmonies 4-6.
70. For an analysis, see Worster, Natures's Economy 406-20.
71. For a discussion of the agricultural model as it was applied to bison conservation, see Isenberg, The Destruction of the Bison 164-92.
72. Peterson, "Wildlife Parasitism" 787.