Thinking Like a Mountain

The Green Fire Wolf  (YouTube video)



A month ago, my NTUMC1968 classmate SFH introduced a book entitled "A Sand County Almanac" to the classmates and stated "We can place this book on the shelf that holds the writings of Henry Thoreau and John Muir." The book was written by Aldo Leopold (1887–1948),  an American author, ecologist and environmentalist.

As a matter of fact, I am having this book placed on the shelf next to "Walden, or Life in the Woods" by Henry Thoreau, "Gentle Wilderness", text from my first summer in the Sierra by John Muir, "The Singing Wilderness" by Sigurd Olson, "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson, and ……… .

In the book, "A Sand County Almanac", Leopold takes the readers with him on the road and through the seasons on a tour of the mountains, the prairies, the deserts and the coastlines. It is a classic collection.



"Thinking Like a Mountain" is one of Leopold's essay writings in this book.

He began the first paragraph:

"A deep chesty bawl echoes from rimrock to rimrock, rolls down the mountain, and fades into the far blackness of the night. It is an outburst of wild defiant sorrow, and of contempt for all the adversities of the world."

He continued to say:

"Every living thing (and perhaps many a dead one as well) pays heed to that call. To the deer it is a reminder of the way of all flesh, to the pine a forecast of midnight scuffles and of blood upon the snow, to the coyote a promise of gleanings to come, to the cowman a threat of red ink at the bank, to the hunter a challenge of fang against bullet."

"Yet behind these obvious and immediate hopes and fears there lies a deeper meaning, known only to the mountain itself. Only the mountain has lived long enough to listen objectively to the howl of a wolf."

He recalled his hunting experience in his youth:

"In those days we had never heard of passing up a chance to kill a wolf. In a second we were pumping lead into the pack, but with more excitement than accuracy: how to aim a steep downhill shot is always confusing. When our rifles were empty, the old wolf was down, and a pup was dragging a leg into impassable slide-rocks."


(from Google Images)

"We reached the old wolf in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes. I realized then, and have known ever since, that there was something new to me in those eyes - something known only to her and to the mountain. I was young then, and full of trigger-itch; I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer, that no wolves would mean hunters' paradise."

 After seeing the green fire die, Leopold sensed that neither the wolf nor the mountain agreed with such a view. Since that day, he had seen the wolves driven to the brink of extinction and the wolfless mountains defoliated by the exploding deer herds. He contended that wolf predation is critical to ecological integrity.

Perhaps this is the hidden meaning in the howl of the wolf, long known by the mountain, but seldom understood by men.



Return of the Wolves (YouTube video)


Yeh Tze