Shepard Krech III offers an in-depth analysis of historical Aboriginal peoples’ behaviour in his book “The Ecological Indian.” Accounts of Aboriginal peoples’ origins and traditions are dissected and investigated in an effort to determine their level of concern for the environment. Krech delves into the state of the world during the Pleistocene era and eventually considers the state of the New World during the time of the fur trade. Krech is very critical of Aboriginal peoples’ reputation as natural conservationists. I believe that Krech manipulates evidence in ways that favor his argument. This might be a given for a controversial topic, but the author goes too far in deprioritizing information that supports Aboriginal peoples as historical conservationists. Krech’s rhetoric flows over and under major points that support the idea of the Ecological Indian, moving swiftly past them and on to evidence that portrays Aboriginal peoples as wasteful and abusive to nature. Krech introduces the concept of the Ecological Indian by discussing the 1960’s advertising campaign of the “Crying Indian”, who seemed to mourn for the polluted environment. Krech correctly considers the Crying Indian to contain several subtle points – Aboriginal peoples are the victim of White pollution; Aboriginal groups treat land and resources with respect. By using an upset Aboriginal man, this advertising company set Aboriginal peoples against white people, as defenders against attackers. Krech considers the Crying Indian to exemplify the idea of the historical Aboriginal conservationists. However, I believe that Krech overstates the significance of this one advertisement. Undoubtedly it is important and has several implications, but its connections to the debate of the Ecological Indian are tentative. For example, advertising campaigns have goals, and they achieve those goals through manipulation of the public through media. Is it appropriate to consider the continent’s perspective on peoples by analysing one advertisement? I don’t think so. I do agree that the idea of the Noble Indian – the romantically natural Aboriginal person – exists in popular culture. Although this portrayal of Aboriginal peoples is simple and uniform, I do not doubt the validity of its roots. Unlike Krech, I believe that Aboriginal peoples’ traditional lifestyle was one that appreciated nature and conserved its resources. A major source for Krech’s debate is the decline of animal populations at the supposed hands of Aboriginal peoples. He implies that Aboriginal peoples were obviously not conservationists, since they nearly caused the extinction of both beavers and buffalo. Krech includes brief and quipped quotations from white settlers expressing their “horror” at observing buffalo hunts. The point that Krech attempts to take home is that Aboriginal peoples wasted a sizeable proportion of buffalo meat. He provides a handful of citations that describe abandoned carcasses with only the best parts of the meat taken, and concludes that “[Indians] lef behind what they did not need or want.” (Krech, 135). I find this argument entirely flawed. How could a population that has survived on an animal for tens of thousands of years cause its extinction in just a couple centuries? Despite Krech’s claims of wastefulness, it seems obvious (by the lengthy duration of time they survived on buffalo) that Aboriginal peoples had a system that worked. I believe the real culprit of the decline in buffalo population is the European settlers. The population decrease was almost parallel with European exploration and settlement. The most notable connection is between the decline of buffalo and the development of the fur trade. Krech discusses the high demand for buffalo robes in the European fur trade. However, he maintains that Aboriginal people’s hunting practices and ultimately their selfish greed caused the decline in buffalo populations. It is ridiculous to analyze the legitimate reasons for a people’s behaviour and then render them responsible anyways.