The End Of The Wild Analysis

Join the Green Team The article “The End of the Wild” by Wade Davis is an article any environmentally conscious person, a person who wishes to spread awareness of the damaging effects of society’s overconsumption on the environment, should read. The Canadian born Davis holds a degree from Harvard University in Ethnobotony, a degree that examines the relationship between humans and plants. The last sentence of his third paragraph quite clearly explains his thesis; transgressions toward the environment because of human ignorance and/or greed can only be accepted and excused by society for so long, the destruction of our ecosystem is inevitable unless drastic changes are made. After reading Davis’s article I fully agree with the argument he
Musgrave. Dr. Musgrave speaks of the horror of seeing the earth from space and of the irony that he was looking at the beautiful and majestic earth, but this experience was only achieved through the destruction of that same magnificent planet. (112, Davis) The use of this testimony is a great introduction to the idea of how the earth is precious and that without even being aware of the extent of our actions society has in the past and continues to in the present destroy our planet. Davis then follows this introduction with an emotional retelling of the extinction of the passenger pigeon caused by cruel methods of hunters. He begins with the statistic that 40% of the bird population in North America was made of carrier pigeons before the extinction. This example fully encompasses Davis’s thesis of how human actions irrefutably and unalterably afflict the environment. He retells how hunters would sew the eyes of a living bird shut and bind its feet to a pole, waiting for other birds to heed its call. The carrier pigeons would come in such numbers that hunters would simply bat them out of the air with a club. (113-14, Davis) This cruel system can only be described as unnecessary disrespect of the animal