Jordan Fisher Smith talks about the National Park Service's bear and environmental policies. He also describes the story behind 'Engineering Eden' and reads a passage from the book.
The fascinating story of a trial that opened a window onto the century-long battle to control nature in the national parks.
When twenty-five-year-old Harry Walker was killed by a bear in Yellowstone Park in 1972, the civil trial prompted by his death became a proxy for bigger questions about American wilderness management that had been boiling for a century. At immediate issue was whether the Park Service should have done more to keep bears away from humans, but what was revealed as the trial unfolded was just how fruitless our efforts to regulate nature in the parks had always been.
