aldo leopold
Field Notes
~ by Jim Eagleman
“ January observations can be as simple and peaceful as snow and almost as continuous as cold. There is time to not only see who has done what, but to speculate why.”
— Aldo Leopold
A
professor of mine wrote these words on the board one snowy winter day years ago. I stumbled in with classmates stomping feet, taking off hats. We were to hear words again from Leopold, a scientist and author assigned to us earlier that week. At first some of us called him an advocate for the environment, others, a forester with a wide vision.
Pointing to the board, she began,“ Who is the‘ who’ in this quote?” She waited, then scanned the room. Still chilled, I took time to sit and listen. A few students volunteered their ideas. More thinking, and mumbles. This is going to be good, I thought.
We learned Aldo Leopold taught at the University of Wisconsin, the first department of its kind in the country for wildlife and game management. Like his students in the 1930s, we also conducted field studies assigned throughout the year. Weekly topics ranged from food and nutrition available to deer and other mammals, to habitats, predators, and to local songbirds seeking protection from storms.
Strictly adhered procedures by Leopold for data collecting and methods were discussed before each assignment. We learned what it took to be a good researcher. And Leopold, with a scientific approach and an almost poetic account of the event, helped us observe and learn. And to speculate why.
The class discussion continued. The“ who” in the quote could be any bird, animal, any critter caught out in the winter cold. Any activity, or lack of tracks in the snow, can tell us things, the professor explained. With winter survival the most difficult time for any wild animal, we listed Leopold’ s other“ limiting factors” that can affect any animal, at any time: sickness, poor food quality and availability, predation, accidents, floods, marginal habitat, even hunting. I began to see how things worked.
Aldo Leopold began his career as a forester, hired within a year of graduating in 1909 from the Yale University School of Forestry, his first job as forest supervisor working in the Gila National Forest in New Mexico. There he oversaw some forest practices. Due to terrain and annual temperatures, the timber resource was limited. His attention was soon drawn to the landscape’ s conditions from the flocks of grazing animals. Ranchers paid a fee to allow their livestock to graze on U. S. Forest Service property.
58 Our Brown County • Jan./ Feb. 2026