Kottke posts an anecdote from a talk Michael Crichton gave in 2005 about how mismanagement by the park service has robbed future generations of the heritage Theodore Roosevelt wrote about in 1903:
Roosevelt saw a thousand antelope, plentiful cougar, mountain sheep, deer, coyote and many thousands of elk. He wrote at that time, “Our people should see to it that this rich heritage is preserved for their children and their children’s children forever, with its majestic beauty all unmarred.”
The full transcript is worth a read.
I really hope we get better at conservation.