Third, there is value in any experience that exercises those ethical restraints collectively called 'sportsmanship'. Our tools for the pursuit of wildlife improve faster than we do, and sportsmanship is the voluntary limitation in the use of these armaments. It is aimed to augment the role of skill and shrink the role of Gadgets in the pursuit of wild things.
Aldo LeopoldYour woodlot is, in fact, an historical document which faithfully records your personal philosophy.
Aldo LeopoldConservationists have, I fear, adopted the pedagogical method of the prophets: we mutter darkly about impending doom if people don't mend their ways. The doom is impending, all right; no one can be an ecologist, even an amateur one, without seeing it. But do people mend their ways for fear of calamity? I doubt it. They are more likely to do it out of pure curiosity and interest.
Aldo LeopoldTo those who know the speech of hills and rivers straightening a stream is like shipping vagrantsโa very successful method of passing trouble from one place to the next. It solves nothing in any collective sense.
Aldo Leopold