cover image The Endangered Kingdom: The Struggle to Save America's Wildlife

The Endangered Kingdom: The Struggle to Save America's Wildlife

Roger L. Di Silvestro. John Wiley & Sons, $19.95 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-471-60600-0

DiSilvestro, an editor of Audubon magazine, considers the fate of American wildlife from the advent of the European settlers to the present. In the fates of the species he selects for discussion here, including the Grizzly Bear and the Pronghorn Antelope, he finds recurring patterns: abundance followed by decimation almost to the point of extinction; recovery through conservation movements; and now, in a world faced with the possibility of total ecological disaster, uncertain future. Occasional optimism appears in his lucid analysis of the numerous political and social forces that affect the destiny of American wildlife; ours is the first era in which humans have attempted to organize efforts to save endangered species from extinction. Overall, however, DeSilvestro's outlook is bleak. The devastating forces humans have unleashed against nature, he notes, are so overwhelming that everything that has been saved may be wiped out in an instant of historical time. Illustrations not seen by PW. (June)