1934 - Environment

Environment

An earthquake on the Bihar-Nepal border January 15 kills at least 10,700.

A Field Guide to the Birds Including All Species Found in North America: A Bird Book on a New Plan by Jamestown, N.Y.-born Boston painter-ornithologist Roger Tory Peterson, 26, takes up where John James Audubon left off (see 1843). Grouping birds not by species but rather by their resemblance to one another, Peterson provides rich descriptions in clear, succinct prose and uses simplified drawings that make it easier to identify birds quickly. The first edition of his book is sold out within 2 weeks (at least four publishers rejected the project; Houghton Mifflin has printed only 2,000 copies; but it then publishes Peterson's The Junior Book of Birds). Peterson gives up his teaching job at Brookline, Mass., and joins the staff of the Audubon Society at New York (see 1941).

Great Smoky Mountains National Park is created by act of Congress for full development. Established for protection and administration in 1930, the park along the North Carolina-Tennessee border embraces 515,226 acres in the highest mountain range east of the Mississippi.

Western ranchers begin 2 decades of wholesale slaughter of wild horses to clear the disintegrating ranges. The horse meat fetches 5¢ to 6¢ per pound (it is sold for human food, dog food, and chicken feed); the government pays a bounty to encourage the horse hunters; and by 1952 the wild horse population will be 33,000 down from 2 million in 1900.