Tony and the Cows: A True Story from the Range Wars

by Will Baker

In 1995 Will Baker traveled to California�s Trinity River to write a magazine piece on the annual Earth First! Rendezvous. There he met activists, students, mystics, freaks, witches, troubadours, guerrilla poets, and visionaries�among them a passionate defender of the Southwest desert named Tony Merten, a former officer in the Rio Grande chapter of the Sierra Club. The two struck up a friendship and debated vigorously their views on matters environmental. One issue in particular roused the increasingly hot controversy over the century-old practice of allowing ranchers to graze livestock on public lands for a nominal fee. Seven months later Tony Merten, who made his New Mexico ranch a habitat for wildlife, shot himself to death while under suspicion in the criminal investigation of the wanton shooting of thirty-four cows and calves. The tale of Tony and the cows leads us�inevitably, in Baker�s account�to a reassessment of the roots of contemporary eco-philosophy in all its the Animal Rights movement, Deep Ecology, technophobia, and the fashionable tributaries of Native American and Eastern thought. Baker�s implication is obvious and we cannot preserve �Nature� until we understand, accept, and deal with human nature. This book delivers a jolt of that truth, and it invites readers to begin a tough reassessment of our environmental crisis.

128 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

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Reviews

[Jan Hotubbee · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read it and finished it because it was only 121 pages.