In the story "The Pioneers" by James Fenimore Cooper chapter three "The Slaughter of the Pigeons" shows how Cooper describes the way civilization disrupts the natural abundance of the wilderness. The lesson in this chapter of "The Pioneer" seems to suggest that man should take care of and be one with nature or face the destruction that lies in the future for the environment.
             Chapter three begins with the townspeople equipping themselves with pistols, rifles, bows, arrows and even a cannon in able to shoot the migrating pigeons. Very soon the killing begins and turns into an incredibly wasteful sporting game. In the story Leatherstocking known as Natty Bumppo expresses his animosity towards the townspeople and their selfish destruction of nature "Well!: the Lord won't see the waste of his creatures for nothing, and right will be done to the Pigeons, as well as others, by and by" (1026). This shows that Bumppo believes that humans should live in harmony with nature. When Bumppo sees his fellow creatures being mindlessly murdered he warns the townspeople of the destruction that lies imminent in the future for the wildlife "This comes of setting a country," he said; and "here I have known the Pigeons to fly for forty years, and, till you make your clearings, there was nobody to scare or to hurt them" (1026). Bumppo is explaining what will happen in the future to the wildlife if this useless killing continues. The chapter ends with Judge Marmaduke Temple, the leading land owner and Richard Jones, the sheriff sharing their reaction to the atrocious behavior that had just occurred "Judge Temple retired to his dwelling with that kind of feeling... that he has purchased pleasure at the price of misery of others....Richard, however, boasted for many a year, of his shot with the cricket" (1029). Although one of the townspeople started to realize it was wrong to kill the ...