ABSTRACT
For hundreds of generations, conditions for wildlife populations in North America were nearly ideal, although, as with any healthy ecosystem, constantly in flux. Indigenous peoples used wildlife at sustainable levels for food, clothing, and shelter, and the animals played a large role in their culture and spiritual life (Decker, Brown, and Siemer 2001). This situation began to change with the arrival of European immigrants approximately 400 years ago. These new Americans carried with them a culture of human domination over nature … at least in theory; most Europeans did not have the legal right to exercise dominance over wildlife. Those privileged few who owned land also owned the wildlife living on that land.
