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Ep. 033

Published: 2016-04-14 19:44:00
Description Show ▼

Seattle, Washington: Steven Rinella and Janis Putelis talk with environmental historians Dan Flores and Randall Williams. Subjects discussed: what's up with Flores' two upcoming books, American Serengeti and Coyote America; biodiversity during the pleistocene; the Blitzkrieg Hypothesis; George Wolforth's 1884 view of the Llano Estacado; historic elk distribution; how the grey wolf changed the coyote; fission-fusion societies; the nightly vocal census of the coyote; New York City's coyote bar scene; why coyotes kill pets; Flores' influential take on bison population decline; and the myth of General Sheridan and the post-Civil War buffalo slaughter.

 

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Referenced Books

Twilight of the Mammoths
by Paul Martin
Dan Flores discusses Paul Martin's book while explaining the 'Blitzkrieg hypothesis' about Pleistocene extinctions in North America. Martin was a paleobiologist at the University of Arizona who argued that human hunters caused rapid extinctions of megafauna.
Referenced at 00:00:00
The Birds of America
by John James Audubon
Discussed in the context of Audubon's 1843 trip up the Missouri River. Flores mentions this book made Audubon 'a worldwide literary and artistic figure' after its completion in 1838, featuring 435 American birds painted life-size.
Referenced at 00:00:00
The Border and Buffalo
by John Cook
A memoir published in 1905 by buffalo hunter John Cook. Flores discusses this book as the source of the famous (but likely fabricated) story about General Philip Sheridan's speech to the Texas legislature about buffalo hunting. The book was written during the conservation period when buffalo hunters were being criticized.
Referenced at 00:00:00
Buffalo Bone Days
by J. Wright Moore
Mentioned as a book by Texas buffalo hunter J. Wright Moore, who defended buffalo hunting throughout his life. Moore used to lead parades in his buffalo hunter outfit and argued in his book that the buffalo didn't amount to the value of a single homesteader family.
Referenced at 00:00:00