Return to wild America

the long version

In 1953, birding guru Roger Tory Peterson and British naturalist James Fisher set out on what became a legendary journey--a 100-day trek over 30,000 miles around North America. Two years later, Wild America, their classic account of the trip, was published. On the eve of that book's 50th anniversary, naturalist Scott Weidensaul retraces their steps to tell the story of wild America today. The journey takes him to the coastal communities of Newfoundland, where he examines the devastating impact of the Atlantic cod fishery's collapse on the ecosystem; to Florida, where he charts the virtual extinction of the great wading bird colonies that Peterson and Fisher once documented; to the Mexican tropics of Xilitla, which have become a growing center of ecotourism since Fisher and Peterson's exposition. And perhaps most surprising of all, Weidensaul finds that much of what Peterson and Fisher discovered remains untouched by the industrial developments of the last fifty years.--From publisher description.