ROSALIE EDGE
- ENVIRONMENTAL PIONEER -
G'day folks,
Here is some background on an environmental pioneer. Socialite, suffragette and
fearless environmental activist Rosalie Edge was born in 1877 and made it her mission
to protect the animals and our environment.
Rosalie Edge,
who was born into New York City's mannered upper echelons in 1877, knew how to
make waves to get the results she wanted. After first joining the fight for
women's suffrage (which was achieved in the U.S. in 1920), she turned her
attentions to the environment while in her 50s. Her two best-known feats are:
1) creating a protected environment for hawks and other raptors at Hawk Mountain Sanctuary,
and 2) forcing the National Association of Audubon Societies to stop putting
hunting interests ahead of animal protection. However, Edge didn't stop there —
she gave her all in many environmental battles, including the following:
Stolen documents? No problem!
In 1931,
Edge's Emergency Conservation Committee produced a four-page pamphlet,
"Last of the White Pelican," to draw attention to the fact that
pelican numbers were dropping at refuges nationwide. After this pamphlet came
out, an anonymous source sent Edge documentation — which had been appropriated
without permission — about a policy of destruction for pelicans in Yellowstone
National Park.
Starting
in 1923, employees of the U.S. Fish Commission and National Park Service had
been clubbing pelicans and destroying their eggs on the park's Molly Island. An
internal report also revealed the hope that getting rid of pelican eggs would
force the birds to switch breeding grounds. (Why the attack on pelicans?
Basically, to help fishermen who didn't like competition for the trout they
wanted to catch themselves.)
In September 1932,
"Slaughter of Yellowstone Pelicans" revealed this pelican destruction
policy. Some protection measures had already been underway before this pamphlet
was released, but after it came out Washington ordered the park to fully
protect its pelicans. Given this result, Edge had zero qualms about using
pilfered material. As she told The New Yorker in 1948, "Yes, the
letters were purloined, but the end justified the means. Needs must when the
devil drives!"
Unimpressed by government policy
The U.S. Biological Survey had an ongoing
animal control program that was dubbed the Division of Predatory Animal and
Rodent Control in 1924. As the name suggests, the goal was to control (i.e.
reduce) populations of animals that included wolves, mountain lions, coyotes,
grizzly bears and prairie dogs. Most farmers and ranchers were happy to have
these the animals gone from their lands, but Edge felt differently — after all,
she'd once noted, "Creatures of the wild belong to themselves alone. .
.Man should disturb them as little as possible."
Given
her sentiments, it's little surprise Edge spoke out against the Survey's practices;
one pamphlet she issued had the expressive title of: "The United States
Bureau of Destruction and Extermination: The Misnamed and Perverted Biological
Survey" (1934). When the Survey was dismantled in 1939, it must have been
a good moment for Edge.
Unfortunately,
this dismantling didn't mean that wild animals were protected — many official
eradication policies continued. It wasn't until the 1960s and '70s that animal
control measures would finally be changed.
Farsighted about environmental toxins
Just as
her worries about wild animals were ahead of their time, Edge was also
prescient when it came to seeing the problems that poisons and pesticides could
pose to the environment.
One
technique the U.S. Biological Survey turned to in its animal control campaigns
was mass poisoning (with poisons like thallium and strychnine), which worried
Edge. She expressed additional concerns about using insecticides to rid
livestock of ticks, fearing the practice could place deer and other animals at
risk.
In the
biography Rosalie Edge: Hawk of Mercy (2009), author Dyana Z. Furmansky
also notes that Edge tried to alert officials about the deadly effects of the
insecticide DDT. Edge spoke out more than a decade before Rachel Carson's
Silent Spring (1962) — a book that woke the nation to DDT's dangers and
changed the environmental movement — was published.
Unfortunately, though
history would prove her right, Edge's warnings about environmental toxins were
usually dismissed. In the 1930s, the Wildlife Division's Washington office even
created a parody Edge pamphlet to show how unreasonable they felt she was
being. Their (entirely capitalized) mockery contained the line: "WE ARE
OPPOSED TO THE USE OF POISONS FOR ANY PURPOSE. LET THE COCKROACH LIVE."
Fought for trees too
In addition to
protecting animals, Edge was happy to take on government and commercial
interests to preserve forests and trees. For example, when she learned that a
grove of sugar pines on Forest Service land near Yosemite National Park was
going to be logged, ECC pamphlets and lobbying by Edge got the Senate to
introduce a bill to protect the trees.
Edge
also took part in a five-year battle against lumber companies, politicians and
the Forest Service in order to preserve old-growth forests around Olympic
National Monument. Local support for the project grew, and a bill for the new
and expanded Olympic National Park was passed in 1938. Edge was delighted by
the achievement, boasting in her 1948 New
Yorker profile, "Oh, what a glorious old battle that was! And
didn't we show up the lumber interests? Oh no!"
Yet Edge knew to stay vigilant after victory.
In 1947, when the Interior Department okayed bills that would cut forested
areas out of Olympic Park, an Edge pamphlet quickly came out: "The Raid on
the Nation's Olympic Forests." Numerous letters subsequently poured into
the department, and the idea was dropped.
Changed public perception
In Edge's day, wild
animals were often viewed as either useless pests or dangerous threats. Some
farmers thought snakes could steal milk from their cows. Shooting as many hawks
as possible was seen as a nice way to spend an afternoon. And stories about
eagles flying away with children regularly appeared in newspapers.
Fortunately,
Edge was savvy enough to realize that changing public opinion was just as
important as new environmental regulations and laws. She wrote a pamphlet to
debunk the tales of eagles abducting children, and Hawk Mountain Sanctuary
introduced people to the wonder and enjoyment that could come from viewing
birds instead of shooting them.
Edge also embraced opportunities for good
publicity. In 1946, she rescued and relocated three peregrine hawk chicks that
were nesting outside Olivia de Havilland's
New York City penthouse. (Sadly, according to biographer Dyana Z. Furmansky,
these hawks were all dead in just a few years: two were shot and one got
electrocuted by a power line.)
Part of a growing movement
Edge
remained committed to environmental causes as she grew older. In the 1950s, she
joined other groups — such as the Sierra Club
and the Wilderness Society
— in a fight against a proposed dam for Dinosaur National Monument's Echo Park.
The project was eventually defeated.
For Edge,
the participation of so many environmentalists was another triumph. At one
point, she declared: "I am amazed at the aroused spirit of
conservationists and their greatly increased numbers. Something should be done
to unify the thousands who constitute a seething mass opposed to the Echo Park
dam."
Edge
passed away in 1962. Today, activists who continue to agitate and fight for
animals and the environment likely continue to have her full approval.
Clancy's comment: A passionate woman. Nothing wrong with that.
I'm ...
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