Media

Arizona Wildlife History Series

The Arizona Wildlife History Series examines the history of wildlife in Arizona from 1824 to 1962 in three publications.

•  Bringing Back the Game: Arizona Wildlife Management, 1912–1962 ($19.95)
•  Arizona Wildlife: The Territorial Years, 1863–1912 ($14.95)
•  Man and Wildlife in Arizona: The American Exploration Period, 1824–1865  ($14.95)

Primary series editor and author David E. Brown is a retired biologist and adjunct professor at Arizona State University and the University of Arizona. The author or editor of numerous books and articles on wildlife and history, Brown worked for the Arizona Game and Fish Department from 1961 to 1988.

When Arizona became a state in 1912, many wildlife species were in dire straits. Fifty years later, most wildlife species, especially game animals, were abundant beyond the hopes of even the most enthusiastic conservationist. Bringing Back the Game examines wildlife management during those formative years as sportsmen, and later professional game wardens and biologists, worked to return game populations to abundance and to provide more fishing opportunities.

“Dave Brown is a great storyteller. He brings alive the personalities, struggles, and triumphs leading up to Arizona’s modern-day management of wildlife. It is a story worth telling—and Brown does it well. Bringing Back the Game is the place to start if you want to know the history of managing game and fish in Arizona.”-James P. Collins, Virginia M. Ullman Professor of Natural History and the Environment, School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University

Sample chapter about Arizona’s elk restoration
View the Table of Contents
Laws supplement (laws related to wildlife in Arizona, from statehood in 1912 through 1962)

Do you ever wonder what hunting and fishing were like in Arizona Territory? Did our pioneering forefathers find wildlife more plentiful then? Arizona Wildlife: The Territorial Years, 1863–1912 shows readers what it was like when most meals were obtained out-of-doors, and there were no paved roads, no large reservoirs and few restaurants. You may be surprised to learn that some wildlife species were always scarce and that others, now common, were non-existent then. Which ones were which? The answers make interesting reading. View the Table of Contents

In 1973, Goode P. Davis Jr. submitted a master of science thesis to the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Arizona. This thesis was soon recognized as an important source of information about habitat conditions and the abundance and distribution of certain species of wildlife in Arizona before Euro-American settlers had arrived in significant numbers. It was the basis for Man and Wildlife in Arizona: The American Exploration Period, 1824–1865, first published in 1982.

View the Table of Contents