Hi everybody this is Joe Lample the Joe behind Joe Gardner and welcome to the

Joe Gardner show today's conversation is about a man who lived just 61 years

but in that short life his diverse and tireless work centered around wildlife ecology

led him to be considered the most influential conservationist of the 20th century.

If you don't know about Aldo Leopold, you have likely at least heard his name

a time or two. So allow me to offer a brief introduction here before we hear from one who has been studying Aldo Leopold's life for nearly four decades.

Aldo Leopold was born in 1887 and he died in 1948, less than a year before his book, The Sand County Almanac, which he is best known for, was

published.

Since then, it's been translated into 14 languages and has sold more than 2 million copies. Beyond his notoriety as a gifted writer, he was a

philosopher, naturalist, scientist, scholar, ecologist, forester, Conservationist, and Environmentalist, and he was also a professor at the

University of Wisconsin.

He was considered the father of wildlife ecology and a founder of the science of wildlife management.

He was influential in the development of modern environmental ethics and wilderness conservation

and his ethics of nature and wildlife preservation had a profound impact on the environmental

movement in which he emphasized biodiversity and ecology.

What a perfect combination.

There are so many things to love about Aldo Leopold, which is why he's known and loved by millions of people around the world and count me as one of them.

Perhaps all of these endeavors during Leopold's short life help explain why one may need nearly 40 years to study his life, as our guest today has dedicated much of his life to doing.

Today I'm honored to speak with Dr. Kurt Meiney, a conservation biologist, writer, historian,

senior fellow with the Aldo Leopold Foundation, and author of the biography, Aldo Leopold,

his life and work.

And as we begin my discussion with Dr. Money,

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