The first biography of a visionary biologist whose groundbreaking ideas regarding wildlife and science revolutionized national parks. -When twenty-three-year-old George Meléndez Wright arrived in Yosemite National Park in 1927 to work as a ranger naturalist-the first Hispanic person to occupy any professional position in the National Park Service (NPS)-he had already visited every national park in the western United States, including McKinley (now Denali) in Alaska. Two years later, he would organize the first science-based wildlife survey of the western parks, forever changing how the NPS would manage wildlife and natural resources. At a time when national parks routinely fed bears garbage as part of -shows- and killed -bad- predators like wolves, mountain lions, and coyotes, Wright-s new ideas for conservation set the stage for the modern scientific management of parks and other public lands. Tragically, Wright died in a 1936 car accident while working to establish parks and wildlife
