Popular Culture Review Vol. 4, No. 2, June 1993 | Page 76

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Popular Culture Review

Turning to the wilds as a treasure trove of raw material has had
effects evident in all relevant ecosystems. Mark Catesby, for example
writing in 1754, commenting on the time period of the early European
presence in North America, has described the traffic in and incipient
destruction of the ivory-billed woodpecker. "The Northern Indians."
he explains, "having none of these birds in their cold country,
purchase them of the Southern people at the price of two, and
sometimes three buckskins a bill” (quoted in Matthiessen 59). This
was ample economic incentive to slaughter the birds for their beaks
alone. Trading and bartering of natural materials, whether as food,
"magical" elements or intoxicating agents, or decorative supplies is
typical throughout human groups and across temporal ranges.
Political circumstances coincidental to trade also often act to increase
impact on the subject species (Martin).
As wasteful as some traditional local hunting methods might
have been, the technology to destroy entire populations of prey rarely
existed. However, with the developing machine culture and the
industrial-scale harvesting of varied prey by commercial agents in
the 18th and 19th century, there was wildlife destruction truly
appalling in its scale and magnitude. It was a period of near
annihilation for whole communities of animals. By way of example,
George Cartwright describes bird harvesting in the last quarter of the
seventeen-hundreds this way:
. . . it has become customary of late years, for several
crews of men to live all sununer on that island [Funk],
for the sole purpose of killing birds for the sake of
their feathers, the destruction which they have
made is incredible. If a stop is not soon put to that
practice, the whole breed will be diminished almost
to nothing___ (Fisher and Lockley 94)
Luckily, by the mid and late eighteen-hundreds an increasingly
powerful voice was raised contrary to that carnage. Ironically, as
senseless as the terrific waste of bison and pigeon certainly was, the
bloodshed took place too far from most folks for it to register. What
was visible, and what did lead to widespread support for regulatory
app>aratus, was the ever expanding fashion industry.