This webpage was created by Joe Schmutz on 3 May 2023 and last updated on 30 March 2024.

Aldo Leopold was a towering figure in conservation, in what we call sustainability today and in nature-based pursuits. Far be it from me to think I deserve to stand on the shoulder of this recent Great. Yet, I trust that he wouldn’t mind my using what I know about his life as inspiration for my own.

Wild Things In his foreword to Sand County Almanac, Aldo Leopold writes "There are some who can live without wild things, and some who cannot." Based on what Leopold said and what others knew about him, wild things are:

• those things we have contact with such as a falconer’s hawk or the plants we might study
• those things that are around us, as in the many hours he sat and pondered the life around him on his central Wisconsin farm
• those things that may be near or distant in countries he had visited from Argentina to Canada, or countries not visited but imagined, informed by his geological, ecological and human-history knowledge.

One of his students and later colleague, Frances Hamerstrom, elaborated on the wild thing concept. Frances and Frederick sponsored my student-stay at the University of Wisconsin at Steven Point. They influenced my life to an extent that even I can hardly fully imagine.

How did we come to be the people we are, to care so deeply about wild things, to have wild things influence us throughout life?

I have two overlapping passions in my life:

CONSERVATION BIOLOGY Joe studied raptors on his study area near Hanna, Alberta for many years. It began with his Master's research there, but continued long after.

CONSUMPTION BIOLOGY Joe is an avid bird hunter who uses Large Munsterlanders to aid in this pursuit. Joe and Sheila eat everything he hunts, with the dogs finishing off the bones.

Related Webpages

• Career Information
• Sunnynook Large Munsterlanders Joe and his wife, Sheila have been breeding these versatile hunting dogs since 1977.

For further information, e-mail Joe Schmutz.