A Changing View of Wildlife
Just south of Alpine on U.S. Highway 89 at Wildlife Watching Area pullout

Many early beaver trappers left their moccasin tracks where you now stand. In the early part of the 19th century, from this location, the view of wildlife and wildlands was very different from what we see today. Nature’s sights and sounds are still here, but not without the evidence of humans. Humans and wildlife occupy the same earth. Native Americans remind modern man that all life on earth is interconnected. Air, water, space and natural resources important to humans are also important to wildlife. We have an enormaous responsibility to protect and conserve our air, water, soil and natural resources and thereby “save a place for wildlife.” An earth with diverse and abundant wildlife is also an earth healthy for the well-being of human life. The view of wildlife and wildlands has changed dramatically since the trapping era, and so has our un derstanding of the relationship of all life to planet earth…, 200th century wildlife if it is to endure, will need an understanding hand and wise use of earth’s resources.