Theodore Roosevelt

While he is revered as the President that developed national parks as a federal initiative and perhaps the first enviromentally conscious US political leader, it was his love for trophy hunting that began this move. Trophy hunting removed local communities from lands set aside as hunting reserves.

John James Aubodon

Known for his beautiful illustrations in "Birds of America," that made for a complete pictorial record of all the bird species of North America. However, along with other scholars of his time, he was also a slaveholder who never properly credited indigenous and black environmentalists whose scientific work he built off of as he never accepted them as socially or racially equal. He took pains to distinguish himself from them with notes that often detailed enslaved Black men as "hands," and never as "men".

Aldo Leopold

An ecologist who explored the U.S. wilderness and who is recognized as the "Father of wildlife management" and in times even as the "father of modern enviromentalism." While his efforts towards enviromental philosophy such as Land Ethic are still revered till today, much of his intent were rooted in tragedy of the commons and often excluding various demographics.

John Muir

Founder of the Sierra Club, the first nature consrvation organization in the United States. Muir openly expressed racist distates and was a huge supporter of National Parks. Often forgotten however, is the reality that many indigenous peoples already lived on lands that were seized as National Parks and Muir was one of the many people who utilized Manifest Destiny for wildlife conservation.