davis completes historic trekwest - wildlands …...2 wildlands connection fall 2013 during the...

W I L D L A N D S N E T W O R K R e c o n n e c t i n g N a t u re i n N o r t h A m e r i c a ™

I N S I D E

Notes from the Director

Spine of the Continent Author Interview

Focus: Rebuilding the Conservation Community

Fifth Annual Heritage Days Celebration

and more…

FA L L 2 0 1 3

When John Davis rode his bike across the Elk River Bridge into picturesque Fernie, British Columbia on the cold and rainy afternoon of September 29, a small band of

hardy local partners and supporters lined the highway, loudly applauding an accomplishment that even the soft-spoken ad-venturer admits was a very big moment in conservation history.

“The number of wild places and wildlands-loving people that this campaign has touched is truly a momentous thing to consider,” reflected Davis as he unshouldered his 50-pound pack for the last time during his 5,000-mile hike/bike/paddle journey. “If the energy and dedication of the partners and collaborators I’ve shared time with over the past eight months are any indication, the Western Wildway will be protected and connected a lot quicker than anyone realizes.”

That evening, Davis gave his final public TrekWest presen-tation—the 23rd such partner-sponsored event since he began his trek in Hermosillo, Sonora last January. His message of the need for wildlife habitat corridors reached not only the crowd at the Fernie Arts Station, but also a much bigger audience of Western Wildway Network members and colleagues who watched online via a live broadcast. ➤ page 12

A mong its efforts to protect wolves, jaguars, bears and other predators, Wildlands Network is expanding its cougar program in the eastern U.S. New program work is now addressing an organizational

vision to create an Eastern Wildway by recolonizing and recover-ing cougar populations throughout the East—from Florida to Maine—and restoring functionality to ecosystems overrun by ungulates. Leading the charge, policy professional and Executive

Director Greg Costello says he’s shar-ing the load. “I am genuinely excited

to chart new waters under the scien-tific leadership of our own Eastern Program Director and Chief Conser-

vation Scientist Dr. Ron Sutherland. Full of energy and ideas, he is

(and at a pretty tender age I might add), ➤ page 14

A New Era for Cougars WN Announces Cougar Focus

Davis Completes Historic TrekWest Adventure Campaign

2 W I L D L A N D S C O N N E CT I O N FA L L 2 0 1 3

DUR ING THE HOLIDAY SEASON, as the evening air turned crisp enough for snowflakes, I did my best to find time to breathe in deeply, absorbing all that I had learned in my first whirlwind summer and fall with Wildlands Network. In these contemplative weeks, I along with our Board, staff and partners, absorbed and as-similated lessons learned, success celebrated and challenges yet to come. We are now fine-tuning our course, and I am certain that an expanded and revitalized Wildlands Network will emerge along with our lengthening days.

Along with growing our programs that support carnivores, corridors and connectivity, we are deeply en-trenched in creating a blueprint for expanding our community that supports continental-scale conservation. This diverse community of many voices is needed to deliver a forceful message to our political leaders for

years to come: that protection and restoration of our wildlands is the necessary antidote to so many of our ecological ills and the many troubles that come along with them.

As we hone strategy, so too are we planning logistics. It is time to take on provisions for the days ahead, and in doing so, we look to you, our stalwart supporters. It is only because of you that we are able to be the voice for wildlands, wild places and wild things. We thank you for your past and continued support

during our Fall Fundraising Campaign and for being part of our Wildlands Network community, a community that we cherish, that must be cultivated and that must grow if we are going to save nature in North America.

Not only during our campaign, but any day of the week, we want to hear what is on your mind, and how you view our work. These conversations are always enlightening and rejuvenating, providing us with new insights into how our work resonates, both with folks who have supported us for more than a decade and with folks who, like me, are relatively new to Wildlands Network. I also must thank our committed volunteers who made the fundraising calls this year; it is never easy to be asking for people’s time and donations. But this effort has proven invaluable: true to form, so many supporters urged us on, donated and shared vital information.

Among the exciting things we have in motion, we are relocating our home base to Seattle, Washington, a city that sits roughly at the confluence of the Western and Pacific Wildways. It has a strong tradition of con-servation, and many of our partners call it home. I am certain it will be a strong base. And fear not, we are not abandoning the East—far from it, in fact, as we are taking steps to strengthen our operations in the Eastern Wildway. I’m happy to report that our eastern nucleus of operations is being firmly established in Durham North Carolina, home of Staff Scientist Ron Sutherland who has studied under the tutelage of our esteemed Board Member John Terborgh.

Growing and strengthening the Wildlands Network Board of Directors has been an organizational priority. We have just welcomed three new board members to Wildlands Network: Tom Stahl, Richard Pritzlaff and Mark Higgins, each of whom came to us as a donor supporting our efforts. Our board members are critical ambassa-dors for our efforts in their own communities and a tremendous resource of expertise.

As we let the quieter days of winter work their magic, and as we share the important things in life during the holidays, I hope your spirit is renewed. Our new plans and strategies to protect our beloved wild places and animals are reasons for hope as you look to the New Year. And as the days of sun lengthen once again, you can be sure our staff and our network will be going the distance to reach ever further for the survival of our natural world.

On behalf of all of us at Wildlands Network, I wish each and every one of you the happiest of holidays and a New Year with plenty of time for nature in it.

For the Wild,

Greg Costello, Executive Director

W I L D L A N D S C O N N E CT I O N FA L L 2 0 1 3 3

F or many of us, there are times when our relationship with nature makes us so alive, so euphoric, we want to share it with the world, just as Mary Ellen Hannibal explains in the

excerpt above. Other times, witnessing the hurt nature must endure—like the felling of an ancient cedar or a vehicle’s death blow to a unsuspecting pronghorn—brings us to our knees, and we want to share our grief and our rage with the same world. The highs and lows of being a nature lover can be extreme, but it is this passion that often leads to remarkable conservation action.

Such was the case for author Mary Ellen Hannibal who met others who had felt the sheer joy and deep sorrow associated with having a relationship with our natural world. She needed to write a book with a message that’s loud and clear: Nature needs wildlife corridors, and it needs them now.

In the following interview with Wildlands Connection editor Lisa Lauf Rooper, Hannibal discusses how her book was written to make nature protection a higher priority among North Americans and more to the Wildlands Network point, to help more people grasp the concepts of connectivity and wildlife corridors.

For whom was The Spine of the Continent intended?

In 2008 I was working on my previous book, Evidence of Evolution, and interviewing curators at the California Academy of Sciences about their work. These scientists are almost all taxonomists, which is an old-fashioned but still-central part of biological research—taxonomists identify species and then put them in their proper place on the tree of life; by this practice the history of Earth is thus articulated.

Well, these old world scientists kind of freaked me out. Three of them actually wept while I was interviewing them.

More Eyes on the Wildways Prize

➤ page 4

Their study subjects are disappearing, fast, and the places where they study them are being bulldozed, developed, you name it. I realized that although I considered myself an environmentalist, I didn’t really have any understanding of the extinction crisis, and that the world at large doesn’t get it either.

A younger scientist at the Academy at the time, Healy Hamilton, told me about the need to connect habitat for species to persist, and she told me about her work in support of something called “the Spine of the Continent,” which as you know, envisions linked landscapes down the Rockies. I thought, “Aha, here is a positive story that will help get the issues behind this crisis out to the public.” Healy also told me about Michael Soulé whom she called “one of my heroes.” So then I had a great character as well as a great story. I was looking to find a way to inform the broadest possible audience, without doing the usual hand wringing.

Why did you write this book, to reawaken the conservation-

oriented community or to open the eyes of a new audience?

God bless the conservation-oriented community—it’s been working hard and tirelessly for a long time. But it’s no secret we need a bigger community of nature-protectors, so yes, I wanted to reach more people and get them into the tent, as it were. At the same time, I wanted to write a book that would be a useful tool for conservationists, to help explain what they do and why they do it to the world at large. I want my book, in fact, to be used as a marketing tool for connectivity.

I read the book through the eyes of my 88-year-old father

who was visiting from Vermont. He couldn’t put it down

and has since purchased his own copy. During one of our

many discussions he asked, “Why don’t more people get

connectivity? It makes perfect sense.” But there’s a lot to

understand, isn’t there?

I love your father—and he’s right. We need people to under-stand connectivity, which means we need them to

One afternoon I walk along the roaring Hyalite Creek through mobs of wildflowers that reach my chin. The scene is bucolic but also intense, all this color, this profusion of form. There are successive rain showers, and gusty winds come and go, one waterfall after another hurtles downstream, and the psychedelic greenery bows around, shaking off water. It feels crazy that I am witnessing this alone. I want to step up on a rock and testify.

—Mary Ellen Hannibal, from Spine of the Continent

An interview with Spine of the Continent author Mary Ellen Hannibal


understand a basic level of ecology, of how nature works. We need to see the landscape in a new way, not just some flat thing we fly and drive over, but a place we share with other creatures, a dense dynamic ground of the processes that give us life as well.

What I think Wildlands Network has really achieved is getting the science of connectivity, as defined and illustrated by maps, disseminated widely into the agencies, land trusts and NGOs and academic communities that are concerned with nature protection. That’s not at all easy, as you know.

New acquaintances defined your approach to the subject

it seems. What strikes you most about the characters to

whom you introduce us?

Aren’t they all so different, and isn’t that fascinating? And let me tell you there are many, many more people I would have liked to profile in the book, but it can get too confusing for the reader to have too many characters to track. I was just so heartened by the individual turning points in people’s hearts, that there are all these people that “see the right thing to do,” and then “do it,” in the immortal words of Paul Newman.

You are a wonderful and humorous storyteller. Is humor

part of your strategy in getting new audiences interested?

Well first of all, life is kind of funny, so there’s that. Also though, there’s a big need for environmental writing to take a fresh tone. I’m always thinking about the reader’s experience of my prose—I want to make it super-accessible but at the same time nuanced and full of information. These are the luxurious considerations of a writer working with a third draft, by the way!

What do media—films, books and articles—do that real life

experiences cannot?

I like this question because movies, books and press articles are wonderful creators of context for personal experiences of nature. How cool to know, from books, that butterflies pupate earlier on one aspect of a mountain because it is south-facing, and then to see a profusion of butterflies on a hillside and think about where you are and what kind of insolation is at work. How great to know from press releases and marketing materials that a piece of land you routinely hike over is actually used by mountain lions to get from one range to another and that it is important to preserve for that reason.

But as you suggest, there’s something totally special and be-yond words about a direct experience of nature. It’s EXISTENCE and LIFE and we all get to feel it, grapple with it, to understand little pieces of it, to get intuitions of its vastness. Moby Dick helps but what a different thing when you see a couple of blue whales breaching gently next to your boat. From what depths have they emerged, where are they going, what is the meaning of it all?

What is the most surprising thing you have discovered

through writing this book?

Well, I was really blown away by the beaver story, and the re-alization that exploiting (and exhausting) this natural resource was a primary means by which the United States was estab-lished. That Indian tribes were powerful players in this 300-year old drama also totally surprised me. I am still very surprised that Mr. Smart Thomas Jefferson never noticed what these crit-ters were doing on the landscape, that they were making habitat and so creating a theater of life. In a sense, this story typifies our vast unconsciousness about nature—and what we have to wake up from.

Kids are often seen as the hope for tomorrow. Could you

imagine writing a book like this that would reach children?

It is on my list of things to do: write The Spine of the Conti-nent for a young adult reader. Kids are awesome. Sometimes kids are in the audience when I’m presenting about the book. Right while the Yosemite conflagration was in the news every day here in California, a kid asked me: “What happens to the animals when there’s a fire?” Adults don’t think that way—how does it feel for the animals? I told him that a lot of the animals flee or burrow into the ground, but yes, they do die in fires. And if there is enough of their kind in the surrounding areas, the population can come back. But if not, then losing a chunk of a population can be devastating. So there was the connectiv-ity lesson.

Where should the future of conservation be headed if we

are to have enough success before time runs out?

As I was researching the book, I kept asking myself, “What is really working in conservation, what is the most effective direction for it?” The body politic is the piece that nobody has really activated thus far. Surprisingly, though, I see a great path forward with citizen science. It’s booming in all kinds of directions right now (and I’m writing my next book about it). There’s a real potential to scale, to mobsource conservation to the level required.

I learned about citizen science through a couple of the journeys I took researching the book. A notable project is the citizen tracker program of the Sky Island Alliance (SIA), a Western Wildway Network member. Citizens of Tucson take a workshop to learn animal tracking and are then assigned a tran-sect around the city which they monitor. Using data indicating where animals are using the landscape, SIA has been influential in getting highway overpasses and underpasses built for wild-life. At the same time, those people have learned about nature first hand, and they will now not let it go—nobody can, once you feel and love nature.


WI L D EARTH F O C U S

BY GREG C OSTELLO

I dare say we, the conservation movement (and I use that phrase loosely), border on political irrelevance. In conservation terms, we are at least “threatened” and perhaps moving towards “endangered” status. The most recent evidence: polls such as a recent one by CBS report that

only 3 percent of voters in America believe the environment is worth Congressional focus. This, of course, is not really surprising—it’s been a very long time since we made any significant environ-mental gains from inside the Beltway.

The same story holds at most local and state levels. And if one were to divide the term “en-vironment” into pollution control (clean water, air etc.), public lands and wildlife conservation, I suspect the percentage of Americans concerned enough to urge their congressperson to act on protecting our wildlands and wildlife is significantly less than 3 percent. The bottom line is our issues are competing with far too many other fear-based priorities.

From Crisis to RebirthRebuilding the Conservation Community

April 26, 2013 marked Executive Director Greg Costello’s first day at Wildlands Network. In the passing months, he has necessarily delved deeply into the organization’s role as visionary guide and strategic implementer of North American conservation. In the following state-of-the-unionesque address, he not only comments on the condition of the conservation community but also speaks to the organization’s agenda and priorities to rebuild it.


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Oddly enough, this struggle for relevance comes at a time when the scientific evidence supporting our vision has never been stronger. Studies documenting the critical role apex pred-ators like wolves play, not only on ecosystem health but also on climate change mitigation strategies, continue to accumulate. Young cougars, wolves and wolverine are dispersing across our continent looking for a mate and a territory to call home. Data recorded by GPS collars and tracked on Internet maps docu-ment the paths of these intrepid four-legged adventurers. Yet our arguments, chocked full of the latest and greatest facts, are failing to move the conservation needle fast enough. Yes, we the movement have accomplished great things, but the clock is tick-ing. Why do not more folks see what we see, feel what we feel?

I submit we are stuck in the “Blah, blah, blah Ginger” Syndrome. (Recall Gary Larson’s famous Farside cartoon of what a dog hears when its master speaks. First panel shows the owner saying “Okay, Ginger! I’ve had it! You stay out of the garbage! Understand, Ginger? Stay out of the garbage, or else!” The second panel shows what Ginger hears: “Blah, Blah, Ginger, Blah, Blah.”)

Clearly too many Americans (Canadians and Mexicans as well) are not sufficiently moved by a love of place and other beings. Neither have they digested fully the very basic biologi-cal fact that everything we love and cherish, everything we feel passionate about—jobs, health care, education, family, family values—depends on a solid foundation of clean air, water, safe foods and diverse, healthy ecosystems. How on Earth can we change this status quo?

If there is any good that could come of climate disruption it might be this: Americans tend to respond to crises. Our extreme weather events and already changing natural phenomena (de-layed migration of waterfowl, for instance) may be opening eyes and minds. In keeping with the Larson analogy, just maybe our mini indicator crises are creating a small window of opportunity to get our message across to Ginger. So how can we mobilize more quickly to get our message through? What more can we do?

The Window of OpportunityFirst, as to whether we can once again create change, there is a relatively recent precedent that lends cautious optimism. In the 1970s, we experienced the greatest strides in environmental legislative and policy protections of our time: the modern ver-sions of our bedrock environmental laws, including the Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act and the Endangered Species Act, were passed and signed into law. Yes, there were crises aplenty going on then, and while I’m not a political science expert, there are some obvious environmental parallels: Rivers were burning; ca-

nals and gullies were filled with drums oozing toxic sludge; and our iconic birds like the bald and golden eagles were dying from DDT poisoning. The environmental harm our industrial ways were causing was patently obvious, perhaps as never before. A tipping point was reached, and we as a nation responded.

I still remember being let out of school early on the first Earth Day in 1970. Teachers, the principal, even bus driv-ers joined us as we picked up garbage all over my small town. Across America, citizens came together, picked up trash or otherwise engaged in community action. A grassroots com-munity of caring, motivated citizens became active and visible. It was personal. Sharing common goals, we took on audacious problems and got tangible results. Our efforts were enhanced by parallel efforts on other social issues such as the Vietnam War, civil rights and women’s rights.

I believe we have our 21st century opportunity to stop talking and start acting, by providing folks in their communi-ties with opportunities to engage in meaningful conservation action. “Think global, connect local” can be our new mantra. If we engage in conversations rather than lecture; if we listen as much as we talk; if we create opportunities like our Heritage Days celebrations where people can join together face to face, we have a chance to rebuild, expand and activate our conserva-tion community. But while rebuilding the broader community, we also need to get our own house in order.

A House DividedIf one has no destination in mind, it is extremely difficult to get anywhere. In other words, only with a clear vision of an appropriate conservation outcome will we be able to marshal the power necessary to overcome those whose world vision is antithetical to any accommodation of nature.

To this point, a common vision held by the broad conser-vation community appears to be lacking. Historically “preserva-tionist’” (think Muir and Leopold) and “conservationist” (think Roosevelt and Pinchot) visions for our wildlands were very different. Today the schism is even greater, and it couldn’t occur at a worse time; it threatens to undermine our science-based efforts to protect and preserve our natural world.

After two decades of hard and tireless work, Wildlands Network’s vision of connected continental-scale landscape conservation has been widely accepted. In fact, it is the federal government’s July 2013 National Fish, Wildlife and Plants Climate Adaptation Strategy’s number one goal. But now, we face not only the continued dismantling efforts of our traditional foes, but also an insidious attack from within our own broad community. The “eco-modernist” movement, which is dismissive of modern eco-


logical knowledge and puts technology and material human needs above all else, is experiencing a mindboggling growth spurt.

The eco-modernists’ arguments are complex, too much so for thorough discussion here, but are exemplified by recent publica-tions from “The Breakthrough Institute” and writers like the Na-ture Conservancy’s Chief Scientist, Peter Kareiva (“Conservation in the Anthropocene”), and Emma Marris (“Rambunctious Gar-den: Saving Nature in a Post Wild World”). Their line of thought begins with a strawman: that the conservation movement’s paramount goal makes no accommodation for humans, desiring to return nature to a “prehuman, pristine state.” It then postulates, more or less, that nature is more resilient than we believe; that there are no wild areas that have not been impacted by humans; thus, there is no need to preserve wild areas, as none exist.

Their rhetoric goes on to say our natural resources should be managed principally to accommodate humans’ needs with only incidental quarter seemingly given to any other creature with which we share this place. And there’s more: Marris (a college English major who proudly declares being neither an ecologist nor environmental activist) blithely asserts that we should embrace invasive species as a natural result of our hu-man impact and the continued evolution of our world. The eco-modernists put full faith and credit in the wonders of technol-ogy to fix it all for us.

Adding icing to the cake, Kareiva and other eco-modern-ists have gone out of their way to publicly disparage folks like Muir, Thoreau and Ed Abbey. It’s hard to see this move as any-thing other than a crass play for attention through outrageous disrespect for those those leaders of environmental thought who have passed and who are unable to respond to these ad hominem attacks.

It appears part of their strategy is to gather economic strength through a dewy-eyed embrace of the Fortune 500 cor-porate world. This is not to say that all corporations are “evil,” though Karieva attributes this mantra to us, the “old guard conservationists.” To the contrary, we have and will continue to welcome responsible businesses into our community. Under-standing the economic implications of our work and becoming allies with a diverse community, including responsible business-es, is essential to achieving our goals. At the same time, we must do so with eyes wide open, with clear understandings of capital-ism, the beguiling attraction of low cost raw materials and the inherent pressure to lower costs by externalizing protection of both the environment and human health and welfare.

As of late, blind faith in the wonders of technology and the social conscience of Wall Street have proven to be rather imprudent. Furthermore, this line of thinking with its apparent shortcomings in intellectual and scientific rigor, is perilously


misleading. It threatens our work to build personal, citizen stewardship of our national natural heritage while also offering a guilt-free pass on caring only for our own human interest. As such, the eco-modern doctrine could be an extremely danger-ous tool to place in the hands of those who have every inclina-tion of continuing to despoil our wildlands. For a concise counter-argument to the eco-modernists, please see Michael Soulé’s editorial in Conservation Biology, October 2013, Volume 27, No. 5, 895-897.

Reconciling these disparate views may be beyond our reach; indeed trying to do so may not even make strategic sense. But what we can and must do is amplify our efforts in mobilizing our many colleagues and supporters around the Wildlands Network vision. Doing so will be essential if we are to stand toe to toe with our detractors.

Unfortunately, philosophical differences are not our only internal challenge. Our community has always been challenged by internecine feuds that often appear to be fundamentally rooted in resource scarcity ($$). This condition has been on a hockey-stick-like projection since 2008 and drastically affects the biodiversity segment of our community. I’ve spoken with many of my colleagues—from our largest national partners to our smaller grassroots regional partners—and clearly the shift in traditional foundation funding away from protection of pub-lic lands, wildlife and biodiversity is affecting all of us.

There are two fundamental responses to a lack of sufficient resources: we can compete over what is available, or we can find ways to work together and maximize our collective impact. Wild-lands Network espouses coming together and finding new ways to get the work done. When we find unity in our own commu-nity, we will project a welcoming vision that others will embrace.

The Wildlands Network Approach: Collective ImpactIn 2008, recognizing that our science was generally accepted and that many other hands were helping to map and identify wildlife corridors, we strategically shifted our focus to enhanc-ing implementation of conservation programs by creating a stronger, broader voice for our vision of connected landscapes across North America.

We created the Western Wildway Network (WWN), an assemblage of 20-plus conservation groups whose programs are based fundamentally on connectivity, core habitat area and carnivores—all critical to long-term health of nature in North America. This year, through John Davis’ 10-month journey from Sonora, Mexico to Fernie, British Columbia, we have worked with our WWN partners to share John’s stories from the trail, highlighting the importance of connectivity and the

impediments on the landscape. Through this historic trek, more than 200 new groups and conservation-focused individuals have indicated a desire to join us in this collective effort.

A similar phenomenon occurred two years ago when John trekked from Key Largo, Florida to Quebec’s Gaspé Peninsula: more than 500 groups and conservation-focused individuals joined our effort to develop an Eastern Wildway. However, while finding new conservation friends is wonderful, these relationships must result in a prolific network that rallies our community onward toward creating Wildways, a common conservation goal of continental connectivity.

TrekWest and TrekEast, along with the interest generated in wildlife corridors, have proven to be good examples of how we can work together to complete our Wildways. As we work together, we build rapport and trust. In fact, discussions are al-ready underway with our partners about how we can repeat our connectivity messages, add resources that will complete their connectivity projects and bolster their efforts with policy work, and perhaps even shared administrative functions.

As non-profits continue to struggle with diminished resources across all sectors, the concept of closely aligned col-laborative efforts is gaining attention. The new scholarly term is “collective impact,” and organizations that support and provide service to the collective have been described as “backbone organizations.” I think of Wildlands Network’s role as a bit more of a spine organization. Along with structural support, we are a conduit for vital information, innovation and communications efforts flowing back and forth between us and our partners.

Our Connectivity Policy Coalition (CPC) is another great example of how Wildlands Network pursues success by advanc-ing common goals. Since 2008, we have successfully inserted connectivity language, rules and incentives into conservation and transportation legislation. We also are poising the CPC to advocate for national corridor policy in anticipation of Obama’s legacy. A primary goal in the coming months is to broaden our Wildways partner participation in the coalition, so that their place-based stories inform our inside-the-Beltway efforts, and to ensure that our achievements are conveyed to our place-based partners and incorporated into their plans.

A Community ExpandingWhile we can gain a lot by organizing and empowering our own community, perhaps the most formidable task remains: to take that increased strength and use it to build a stronger and lasting force for nature. This has been and will continue to be the end game of a winning conservation strategy for North America. We must reach a much broader and deeper swath of Americans

WI L D EARTH F O C U S


(Canadians and Mexicans), particularly in rural regions where anti-conservation attitudes predominate. If we are to make progress on the political front, we must forge alliances that, at a minimum, neu-tralize enough of the current political opposition that reflexively opposes our every move. We are off to a good start here.

Wildlands Network helped create a community of land-owners across western North America that is voluntarily com-mitted to conserving the long-term health of landscapes and wildlife populations as part of the operating models of their land-dependent enterprises. This Western Landowners Alliance (WLA) is comprised of private and corporate landowners and managers of working ranches and timberlands, with scientists and conservation partners as advisors.

Our ultimate goal is to create social change and political leverage in support of conservation on working lands. By es-tablishing a vocal partnership of conservation-committed land stewards in charge of very large properties and high combined acreage, we will greatly strengthen advocacy for connectivity between protected public lands, thereby supporting biodiver-sity and landscape resilience. Imagine the potential within the ranching community yet to be realized.

Outdoor recreation businesses are natural allies. In the Wildways, the economic base of many of our rural communi-ties is shifting away from resource extraction and agricultural production and into more amenity-based businesses. Similarly, protected lands are an important economic engine in places like the Greater Yellowstone region and the Flat Head Valley of Mon-tana. Healthy wildlife populations, intact wild areas and free-running streams are the life blood of recreational businesses and are critical to attracting talented people who earn above-average wages and those who have above-average wealth to invest.

Indeed, we have long enjoyed the support of outdoor recreation companies like Patagonia, and we are working to strengthen relations with both the manufacturers and the retailers in our Wildway communities. One leading company, Black Diamond Equipment, has offered to host our upcoming Western Wildway Network partners meeting and even to help us think through some collective business strategies. This is a great example of building strength through a community of common interests.

And as discussed in greater detail on p. 11, we have created a successful template for community conservation celebrations. Sharing information about community resources, meals, music and nature, we forge relations with citizens on very personal levels. Our Heritage Days events have become self-sustaining, and we will soon be advocating that our partners organize simi-lar events throughout the Wildways.

Of course, we also must welcome into our community those who live in urban venues, particularly those who may have little experience or exposure to the great outdoors. To reach this community, we are focusing our efforts on expanded relationships with zoos. We have the potential to build on our existing base of support with a dozen or more zoos and aquari-ums across the country whereby they introduce their members and visitors to our vision for North America through dynamic speakers and media while also partnering with our WWN part-ners on actual connectivity projects.

In the coming years, we also will increase our focus on habitat restoration and citizen science. In the field, restoring a riparian area or documenting wildlife crossings, citizens have the opportunity to experience first-hand the power and magic of working for the land and all of its creatures.

BHAGing SuccessJim Collins, the business management guru and author coined the phrase “Big Hairy Audacious Goal.” He describes the power of the BHAG as something that gets you out of thinking too small; something that changes the timeframe and simultane-ously creates a sense of urgency; and something that, to be met, requires a great organization. It is safe to say that Wildlands Network’s vision of continental-scale connectivity is a BHAG. And, by overcoming much skepticism both within our own community and outside of it, we have accomplished Phase 1: our science has been widely accepted as the best and appro-priate approach to saving nature. But Phase 2 remains, and it is every bit a BHAG as the first Phase was. To implement the collective vision of nature protection on the ground, we must be relentless in creating the systems and the community that will see it through for generations to come.

Our plan has been and will continue to be that Wildlands Network is the seed that leverages our strength into a force of far greater magnitude. And that plan includes you. As a member of this decade’s conservation community, you might power up your smart phone or computer to be inspired by a recent Ted Talk; support your environmental artist on itunes; read the latest con-servation e-book on your Kindle; find your local connectivity project on Google Maps; give a virtual presentation; step outside for a moment that is uniquely yours in nature; email your con-gressperson or roll up your sleeves and help wildlife cross your road. Whatever your approach, we are banking on your help.

We want to make conservation a daily ritual and a demo-cratic tradition. By becoming personally involved, by finding and owning your spot on the connectivity map, you become part of our community of today’s heroes and the future’s guardians.


A frica calls us all in different ways. As Wildlands Network founder and father of conservation biology Dr. Michael Soulé explains, his call came almost 50 years ago, “I shipped myself to Africa in 1965, as soon as I finished graduate school. I needed to

experience the Pleistocene megafauna—rhinos, hippos, elephants, lions, leopards, ostriches, crocodiles, not to forget the outlandish birds and ancient lineages of Gondwanan plants like baobabs. Africa is our original home and it still tugs at me, in spite of its contradictions.”

A tug has turned into a plan that has generous results for Wildlands Network. Michael Soulé has inspired a trip to Namibia and Botswana in the fall of 2014, and the proceeds will be directly donated to the organization he helped birth almost three decades ago. Southern Africa is the likely choice for Soulé, the man behind large-landscape connectivity. It’s one of the continent’s least developed regions where wildlife remains somewhat plentiful given less development and fewer roads, and top predators like lions, leopards and wild dogs still regulate the ecosystems in many areas.

Wildlands Network’s Outreach Director Tracey Butcher spent 15 years in southern Africa as a research biologist and safari operator and will be leading the trip she’s organized with the help of Ker and Downey Safaris. “The itinerary is tailor-made for both the seasoned Africa visitor and the first time adventurer,” says Butcher.

The safari kicks off with a search for desert black rhino, the desert elephant and rare brown hyaena. Then it’s off to Makgadikgadi and Nxai National Parks, a vast 12,000-square-kilometer system of salt pans. Its stark, featureless terrain stretches beyond the horizon and is home to clans of sociable meerkats. Massive baobab trees believed to be more than 3,000 years old are the only landmarks for hundreds of miles around.

Then it’s on to the Namib, the oldest desert in the world, to discover pronking springbok, gemsbok, ostrich, bat-eared fox and the elusive aardwolf. Also topping the list are a visit to the Sossusvlei dunes, stargazing, enjoying scenic nature drives, taking balloon rides and walks and birding among Namibia’s 340 avian species. Etosha National Park crowns the end of the safari with large herds of plains game, elephants, lions and wildebeest.

Delicious three-course and four-star meals, free-flowing spirits and cocktails, as well as comfortable, and at times luxurious, accommodations make the hospitality second to none. Butcher concludes, “Qualified local zoologists and geologists will join us from time to time. Add to all of this, traveling with Michael Soulé, one of the great conservationists of our time, and this safari will be memorable beyond words.”

Safari with Soulé to the Wildlands of Namibia and Botswana

The Wildlands of Namibia and Botswana Safari will be Fall 2014. Spots are currently being reserved for this exclusive 16-person excursion. Please contact Tracey Butcher for more information at [email protected].


T he 5th Annual Wildlands Network (WN)-sponsored “Chiricahua-Peloncillo Heritage Days” continued the Western Program’s efforts to expand non-traditional sup-

port for protection of a wildlife habitat corridor linking the Sky Islands in Arizona and New Mexico with the Sierra Madre Occidental of Sonora/Chihuahua, Mexico. The event drew 250 people over three days to hear professional presentations on regional culture, history and nature.

Topics included conservation easements, jaguar tracking and wildlife safe passage across highways—intermixed with other non-environmental subjects such as local ranch history, creation of seed libraries and the legacy of local pioneer women. Sponsorships from local conservation organizations, private donors, local eco-tourism businesses and the County Commis-sion of Hidalgo, NM resulted in a first-ever break-even budget and further finalized an event model that WN Western Pro-gram staff believes can be duplicated by other partners in key connectivity regions of the Western Wildway.

Most of the folks living in the small, rural communities nestled in the Chiricahua and Peloncillo Mountain ranges have come to expect compelling presentations on local culture and nature during Heritage Days weekends. This year’s event was no exception, starting with a keynote showing of an eye-opening, fea-ture film documentary of the region’s Chiricahua Apache heritage, “The Two-Year Promise,” that attracted an audience of more than 100 residents who now live on former Chiricahua Apache lands.

The film was produced as part of a tribal campaign to restore recognition and integrity to the Apache culture that was nearly wiped out when the U.S. Government shipped the entire popula-tion to prison camps in the Eastern U.S. It also is the first complete documentary of the Chiricahua People beginning with the arrival of white men in the area. “All we want from this campaign is an official apology from the U.S. government for the illegal and brutal removal of our people from our homeland,” said film producer, Pascal Enjady, who compiled 28 years of interviews with the last surviving members of the Chiricahua tribe to create the film.

The Heritage Days weekend is greatly anticipated by many residents of this sparsely populated area given that it is one of the region’s few traditional, large-scale public gatherings. This year’s Heritage Days speakers continued to showcase the important interdependence that wildlife, open space, cultural heritage, regional community history and private lands man-agement all have in preserving overall community health. Ac-cording to local historian, Bill Cavaliere, “Heritage Days gives newcomers to the area an opportunity to enrich their knowl-edge of this part of the country that they have come to love, and to appreciate those who came here before them.”

Community Celebration Ready for Regional Markets

Expert presentations by scientists, ranchers, artisans, con-servationists and historians, all focused around Aldo Leopold’s famous land ethic: A community is not truly whole until it em-braces all its “members”—including wildlife and healthy land needed for a healthy community. A farmer’s market, crafts fair and workshops for kids, and professionally guided Field Day hikes to important archaeological and biological sites in the Peloncillo and Chiricahua Mountains were other highlights.

“Heritage Days gives us all a chance to both hear about our archaeological heritage during presentations and to then experience it firsthand during Field Day excursions,” says local naturalist and rock art expert, Mel Moe, who led one of the Field Day hikes.

“The best thing about Heritage Days,” summarized one suggestion box contributor, “is that it attracts a cross-section of people with different politics and ideologies.” It’s this concept that allows Heritage Days events to deliver a strong habitat pro-tection message wrapped in a subtle, non-controversial format not normally achieved with other conservation event venues.

Wildlands Director Greg Costello believes Heritage Days is a conservation celebration that could be duplicated in western com-munities along the Western Wildway. He notes, “It involves com-munity, conversations, love of one’s rural surroundings and hope. The blueprint is there, and I have to believe our partners would be the ideal seeds for the growth of this proven conservation model.

Chiricahua Mountains provide a dramatic setting for Heritage Days; the community lunch attracts a wide range of attendees.


Davis admitted that his final 20-minute TrekWest Pow-erpoint could tell only a tiny story about an incredibly huge adventure during which he experienced every possible habitat threat that wildlife could encounter. These included: the U.S.-Mexico border wall, interstate highways, resource extraction zones and, perhaps worst of all, endless stretches of overgrazed public lands. At the same time, Davis was continually visiting and trekking with the people and partners engineering and planning every possible mitigating solution for those threats.

“I witnessed a complete range of strategies and projects that can ensure we don’t lose what’s left of the wildlife habitat and the amazing diversity of species that our ‘wild’ West still has intact,” said the trekker. Toward that end, Davis visited many conservation-managed ranches, explored wildlife-safe-passage-across-highways projects, viewed wetlands restoration projects, camped in privately protected wildlife reserves and toured newly proposed national monuments and wilderness areas.

Many years ago, the Western Wildway Network (WWN) was first established by Wildlands Network to accelerate the implementation of habitat connections among the West’s most iconic protected lands. About six years ago, this group agreed it was essential to find a new way to talk about Wildways, wildlife corridors and the need to protect them. All signs pointed toward a campaign that would not only coalesce on-board partners but also attract a growing network of new supporters from all walks of life. The result of such a campaign would be the building of a collective voice that could continue to grow and ultimately tip the scales in favor of political protections for wildlife corridors.

When John Davis offered to follow up his successful 2011 “TrekEast” campaign with a similar trek in the Western Wild-way, the chance to pursue WWN’s long sought-after connectiv-ity messaging campaign was finally at hand. The melding of the widely popular extreme-outdoor-adventure genre with a pas-sionate “protect wildlife corridors” message gained full support of the 22-member, Wildlands Network-lead WWN. And so it was that the TrekWest concept was born.

Wildlands Network staff identified one basic campaign goal that would address the sobering reality that, unless enforceable mechanisms are quickly adopted to permanently protect and connect vanishing wildlife habitat corridors, the lengthy process of saving the Western Wildway could be futile.

To satisfy that goal, a basic TrekWest strategy was adopted: to build a groundswell of support from the full breadth of the greater conservation community for protecting wildlife corri-dors. On-line petitions were established in the U.S. by Wild-lands Network (trekwest.org) and in Canada by Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative (Y2Y.net) asking supporters

to “Say YES! To Protecting Wildlife Habitat Corridors.” The phrase became the defacto theme for TrekWest. More than 3,000 signatures supporting the petitions calling for adoption of legal mechanisms to identify and permanently protect wildlife corridors have been generated along with public endorsements from local dignitaries promoting pursuit of this strategy.

The petition message, “Say Yes! to Wildlife Corridors” and request for signature were designed to indicate 1) understand-ing of the concept of wildlife corridors and 2) endorsement of corridor protection. Some petition signers have committed to making their own property predator friendly. The TrekWest petitions will continue to be active on-line. Ultimately, they will be delivered to decision-makers in Congress, land management agencies (in the U.S. and Canada) and specifically to the top leaders of major conservation organizations who will be asked to champion a future campaign urging Congress to pass new corridor protection laws.

Storytelling, critical to delivering the TrekWest message,

➤ TrekWest, from page 1

1

2 3


was successful on many levels. No doubt, the inclusion of ex-treme outdoor adventure helped TrekWest gain publicity. Once hooked, followers were then led to understand the need for habitat connectivity. Davis also explored the Western Wildway as if he were a wide-ranging animal, encountering and identify-ing the myriad threats to migration and movement faced by many species. Adding interest for practical conservationists, he visited with partners working to alleviate those threats, high-lighting their new approaches to preserving connectivity.

Threats to connectivity were clearly identified and ex-amples of solutions to those threats (along with unabashed showcasing of WNN partners and their work) were promoted.

These threats, along with partners’ solutions, were colorfully detailed by John in his many blogs, the trekwest.org action map and during his more than 90 media interviews online, and on TV, radio, and in print.

Finally, to expand the broad-based support needed to ultimately achieve connectivity protection Davis was relentless in making public appearances and sharing the trekking with enthusiasts throughout the entire journey. His 23 major pre-sentations to more than 1,700 people throughout the Western Wildway attracted new conservation collaborators: more than 80 new additions to the WWN collaborator list bring the total WNN participant number to well over 100 organizations. In ad-dition, Davis shared the trail with approximately 125 individual co-trekkers representing scientists, conservationists, elected decision-makers, private landowners, agency officials, animal rights supporters and students.

It was the gathering of hundreds of new people, new or-ganizations and new support that seemed to impress Davis the most. “This rush of people wanting to get involved in wildlife corridor protection because of TrekWest is truly impressive,” he notes. “These folks are seemingly everywhere, but have had little opportunity in the past to join or support our work. I can-not be more proud to have played a role in this awakening.”

Where to from Here?Does the end of TrekWest mean the end of the campaign? “Ab-solutely not,” says Wildlands Network Executive Director, Greg Costello, who has spent much of TrekWest surveying WWN partners for input on the future of the network and next steps. “We are viewing this as a continuing campaign that is simply entering its next phase,” he says, noting that TrekWest’s goals remain completely viable.

“Our strategic planning incorporates multiple efforts that will continue to support our WWN partners and their pro-grams to secure habitat connectivity.” Costello also believes that the first round of TrekWest messaging to the Western market is a big step in the right direction but also needs repeating. “It’s clear that we need to continue to improve our outreach to non-traditional audiences and communities in general. We’ve got to empower regular people to stand up for nature in these tough times. These are the folks that are going to make the difference.”

John’s Journey by the Numbers

8 months on trail 5,000 total miles traveled 2,750 miles hiking 1,200 miles biking 200 miles rafting/paddling 200 miles horseback 650 miles vehicle transport 200 tent nights 23 major presentations (to 1,700 people) 80 print/online stories 12 radio/TV stories 125 co-trekkers 30 8,000 ft.+ peaks bagged 3 fourteeners bagged 3 pairs shoes worn out 60 pounds peanut butter consumed 10 pounds weight lost 0 injuries

1) Davis enjoyed the opportunity to talk to many outdoors groups along the trail. 2) Davis might have set a record for most creative portaging of equipment and gear. 3) Davis, filmmaker Ed George, and Y2Y’s Karsten Heuer battled heavy snow on the last day of TrekWest journey.

Thank you to our TrekWest sponsors


➤ Cougars, from page 1

already adeptly continuing the Wildlands Network scientific legacy shaped by many of our founders, advisors and board members.”

A Bit of Eastern Cougar BackgroundCougars once roamed all the East’s forests. Called “panthers” in Florida, they are now listed as an endangered species under the Endangered Species Act. Also known as, “puma,” “mountain lion,” “painter,” and “catamount,” a population segment clas-sified as the “eastern cougar” has been declared extinct by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. There have been occasional sight-ings of cougar in the Adirondacks of north-central New York and other eastern forests; however, these animals are typically young males, dispersing from occupied territories and are not genetically distinct from other cougar populations, including ones that are recolonizing the Midwest.

The East’s long history of human settlement has driven most of its top predators to local extinction, and the loss of these keystone species poses a challenge to restoring biodiversity in the Southeast. Sadly, the Florida panther represents all that is left of the eastern cougar population that once stretched from Florida to Maine. Although the panthers are now hemmed in by development in South Florida, the population is ripe for expansion northward into the wilds of the Southeast if given the opportunity. Return of these keystone predators will be neces-sary to restore ecological balance to eastern forests up and down the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, and in the mountains as well.

Charting the Cougar Conservation CourseThe cougar program objectives are to: (1) Research: determine the suitable habitats and migration corridors; (2) Advocate: change policies regarding predator recovery and management at the federal and state levels; and (3) Educate and Inspire: edu-cate the public and increase social tolerance for cougars so that recovery is sustainable on a long-term basis. While seemingly straightforward, the proof of success will be in executing strate-gies that will deliver. Here’s what’s planned.

Map the Corridors. Wildlands Network is using the best available scientific methods to map out high priority corridors in the Southeast, in cooperation with NC State University, Clemson University, US Geological Survey, and US Fish and Wildlife Service. Key habitat connectivity areas for cougars have already been mapped out in the Northeast during the creation of an innovative WND for Northern Appalachia and Arcadia.

As cougars naturally recolonize the Midwest, potential key pathways for cougar dispersing on their own into the Southeast and Northeast have been identified along the Tennessee River,

in southern Illinois, Louisiana and Missouri. These potential paths need to be evaluated for suitability, including monitoring for potential incoming cougar dispersal along such pathways using a system of camera trapping stations.

Create Wildife Crossings. Roads are both a major source of habitat fragmentation and a potentially deadly barrier to con-nectivity for many species. Thus advocating for safe passages for wildlife is a conservation measure that is easily grasped by citizens and government agencies like state departments of transportation and wildlife agencies.

Wildlands Network hopes to receive federal and state grants to begin designing a system of wildlife road crossings for the Southeast and Northeast. This entire network of underpasses and overpasses would provide cougar and other species with the freedom to traverse the existing system of conservation lands.

Make the Trophic Cascade Case. Essentially no studies have been conducted on the impact of Florida panther on eco-systems in South Florida. Thus, Wildlands Network science staff and collaborators will be comparing areas with and without the big cats in terms of prey populations, wildflowers, songbirds and general biodiversity. Also, conducting critical baseline stud-ies in several likely sites where cougars might be reintroduced will enhance future analysis of the role of these top predators.

Share the Maps and Data. In the Southeast, the data from completed WND’s will be shared with the region’s conserva-tion groups and government agencies, advocating the need to protect the identified key corridors. In the Northeast, Wildlands Network has been working on the ground in the Northern Appalachians via its Staying Connected Initiative, helping local land trusts and small municipalities to implement its conserva-tion vision and protect their own wild places.

As a result of sharing this sort of data in the past, the num-ber one goal of the federal government’s recently announced National Fish, Wildlife & Plants Climate Change Adaptation Strategy is “to conserve and connect habitat.”

Activate an Eastern Wildway Network. Having laid the groundwork for a much larger effort throughout the Eastern Wildway with John Davis’s TrekEast, Wildlands Network identified and met with hundreds of conservationists. Efforts to bring them together as an Eastern Wildway Network are now in the planning stages. This network will focus on large-scale conservation planning and predator recovery that ultimately supports cougar conservation.


Reintroduce the Cougar. Our eastern ecosystems need the return of an apex predator sooner than later. Accordingly, while relying on natural recolonization may be the path of least resis-tance, it is prudent to pursue reintroduction efforts.

Wildlands Network will begin by identify existing barriers, starting with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s determination that the eastern cougar is extinct. While there is still a some-what friendly administration, it’s necessary to pursue discus-sions with key agency and Administration leaders (in the field and in Washington DC) and also wildlife/panther specialists within Florida, to determine what needs to change to allow reintroductions to proceed.

Simultaneously, working with key federal legislators and state officials—particularly those who are sympathetic to wild-life conservation, and those whose districts are high priority targets for cougar recovery—is paramount.

Cougar advocates are few. Those that are active are small in

number, spread across the country (California, Wyoming, Colorado, New York and Florida) and often highly reliant on volunteer efforts. Advocacy requires a sustained coordinated effort between these organizations. Accordingly, Wildlands Network initiated discussions with eastern groups—the Cougar Rewilding Foundation in New York and Center for Biological Diversity in Florida to begin long-term reintroduction planning.

Promote Policy Change. Once suitable habitat is identified, state and federal policies must support (or at a minimum not hamper) recovery and reintroduction efforts. The Wildlands Network team has already started this process by creating a da-tabase of state policies related to wild cougars in the Southeast.

According to Costello, “Our experience with wolves has taught us two fundamental lessons regarding predator recovery: First, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Wildlife Services need to adopt and follow conservation science designed policies and goals. This includes recovery goals based on genetic variability, which then drive population size and ecosystems’ function. Secondly, the thinking and policies guiding state agencies are critical since they are charged with game management (except for federally listed threatened and endangered species).

Based on research information buttressed by informa-tion concerning cougar management from western states like California (a state which tolerates 5,000 cougars), Wildlands Network will be able to craft ideal state agency response plans for dealing with cougar as they arrive to new states.

Educate, Relate, CommunicateCougars will recover in the East only if people let them. This requires an education, outreach and awareness strategy that builds support and social tolerance for these apex predators. While not as controversial as wolves, cougars are capable of killing humans and will be a threat to wildlife and even domestic pets. Learning to live with cougars in the populated East will be a formidable challenge.

Outreach and education efforts began two years ago with the TrekEast campaign. It reached millions of people via a range of media platforms with the message that large-scale habitat recovery is critical for the survival of animals like the cougar. Providing another conduit for this message, Island Press just launched a three-part, e-book series, Big Wild and Con-nected in which the cougar figures prominently.

At Wildlands Network, we live for a day when cougars once again roam the hills and valleys, mountains and forests, left with privacy and habitat and surrounded by human toler-ance. In return, they masterfully do the lion’s share of the work in bringing our natural world in the East back into balance.

Draft map indicating potential habitat connectivity zones (red and yellow = more important) for eastern cougar/Florida panther. Prepared by Conservation Scientist Ron Sutherland for the South Atlantic Landscape Conservation Cooperative.

WILDLANDS NETWORKP.O. Box 5284, Titusville, FL 32783-5284

ADDR ESS SE RVICE R EQU ESTE D

Nonprofit Org.US PostagePAIDPermit No. 222Barre, VT

“Inspired by John Muir’s A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf, John Davis walks, bikes, and kayaks on a ‘voyage of recovery’ from the Florida Keys to southeastern Canada. He bears witness not only to wilderness that still sustains bears, panthers, and bobcats but also to the possibilities for connecting further wildways in the eastern United States. His inspiring journey reminds us all that we must rediscover the wildness we still have before we lose it forever.”

—Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club

Experience John Davis’ epic 7,600-mile journey to raise awareness of the challenges and opportunities for creating an Eastern Wildway. Order the three-part E-ssentials series at www.islandpress.org/essentials.

Receive a discount on any Island Press print title with code “25SOURCE”

A H O L I D AY G I F T F O R N AT U R E LO V E R S

Big, Wild,andConnected

www.wildlandsnetwork.org

[email protected] • 877/554-5234 P.O. Box 5284, Titusville, FL 32783-5284

Wildlands Connection is published by Wildlands Network, a nonprofit educational, scientific, and charitable corporation. ©2013 by Wildlands Network. All rights reserved. No part of this periodical may be reproduced without permission. All images are the property of individual artists and photographers and are used by permission. Editor Lisa Lauf Rooper • Designer Kevin Cross Contributors Tracey Butcher, Greg Costello, Ron Sutherland, Kim Vacariu

OFFICERS AND DIRECTORSPresident Susannah Smith, Florida • Vice President Steve Olson, Maryland • Vice President of Conservation Science Michael Soulé, Colorado • Secretary David Johns, Oregon Treasurer Rob Ament, Montana • Directors Keith Bowers, Maryland • Barbara Dean, California • Jim Estes, California • Mark Higgins, California • Nik Lopoukhine, Ontario • Richard Pritzlaff, Colorado • Tom Stahl, California • John Terborgh, North Carolina Paul Vahldiek, Colorado • Directors Emeritus Harvey Locke, Ontario • Brian Miller, New Mexico

STAFFExecutive Director Greg Costello • Western Director Kim Vacariu • Finance Director Alicia Healy • Outreach Director Tracey Butcher • Communications Director Lisa Lauf Rooper Conservation Scientist Ron Sutherland • Conservation Science Assistant Rachael Carnes

Eastern Field Office East Thetford, VT • 802/785-2838Western Field Office Portal, AZ • 520/558-0165

CREDITSp. 1 ©Kristen M. Caldon (top); Karsten Heuer (center);

iStockphoto.com/rixonline (bottom)p. 3 Mary O’Brienp. 5, 7, 15 Ron Sutherlandp. 10 Rita Hines Clagett (M. Soulé); Ker and Downey Safaris

(clockwise nos. 2, 5, 6); Tracey Butcher (all others)p. 11 Kim Vacariup. 12 courtesy Grand Canyon Wildlands Council (1);

courtesy New Mexico Wildways (2); Dave Hadden (3)

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