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I N S I D E

Notes from Margo

Wolf wanderings

Ted Stanley’s legacy

A communityconservation pilot program

Wild Earth Focus

and more…

A New Conservation Mapping ToolWildlands Network Announces Wild LifeLines™

A s our nation and continent are rapidly modified in order to benefit the well-being ofhuman interests in commerce, livestock production, farming, resource exploitation, realestate development, and border security, it is imperative that we quickly identify the most

critical lands and the natural pathways between them to help ensure continued resilience ofbiodiversity. In response to this challenge, Wildlands Network, in conjunction with Dr. DavidTheobald, presents a new conservation map called Wild LifeLines.™ This innovative planningtool helps identify key areas where landscape fragmentation must be avoided because of theseareas’ relative importance to national-scale landscape permeability for wildlife movement.

Over the years conservation biologists have refined various methodologies for identifyingwildlife corridors. Typically, this involves picking a species of concern and choosing several“patches” of habitat. A computer model is then asked to figure out the best pathways ➤ page 14

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Natural Flow

C L E A R LY, 2 0 10 I S P R E S E NT I N G U S W I TH STA G G E R I N G C H A L L E N G E S .The Gulf of Mexico oil spill seemed unfathomable atop the continued economic hurdles and the big black cloudof our changing climate. As our hearts continue to go out to those affected—human, plant and animal—new per-spectives float, daily, across our airwaves, computers, televisions and newspapers.

Looking for insight on how this tragedy affects our marine keystone species and habitats, I contacted Jim Estes,our most recent addition to the Wildlands Network Board of Directors. A renowned marine mammal ecologist and

UC Santa Cruz adjunct professor, he also studies the effects of theExxon Valdez oil catastrophe. His reply surprised me, though in ret-rospect, it should not have. It was along these lines (and you can readmore later in the issue): As horrific and persistent as the effects arefrom this deep-water well, its negative effects on the ecosystem pale incomparison to what we are doing by overfishing our large predatoryfish populations such as shark and tuna.

Since the media has been all over BP, no one is lined up at those gas pumps in my neighborhood. If the newswere to be as aggressive about tuna and shark depletion as it has been for the oil spill, I wonder if people wouldbe motivated to stop eating fish at the top of the food chain. Ultimately, we need to dramatically reduce ourdependence on oil and stop over-fishing of critical species. It is not just marine predators that are key to ecologi-cal success. Two recent books, Trophic Cascades, edited by Jim Estes and John Terborgh and The Wolf ’s Tooth byCristina Eisenberg, are amazing reads to help us understand the impact our choices have on entire ecosystems,both aquatic and terrestrial.

Positive developments in 2010, however, continue to strengthen our resolve and accelerate our work. We nowhave working with us Ron Sutherland, a John Terborgh student and post-doc from Duke University. He will befocusing on our Southeast Atlantic Coastal Plains project. Along with Mark Berman and Conrad Reining, theywill be focusing on cores, connectivity and key stone species in this incredibly biologically diverse habitat. It actu-ally stretches from southern Virginia down to Central Florida where red wolves, eastern cougar and black bearwere keystone species, and in some places still are.

Our organization has always enjoyed great Board leadership, and we continue to do so. I am happy toannounce that Keith Bowers, Biohabitats Inc. President and Founder, has accepted the post of WildlandsNetwork’s Board of Directors President. His success and dedication to restoration of wild places throughout theU.S. translate to invaluable business acumen and expansion of our network of partners within the restorationcommunity. Keith will build on the vision and leadership that Michael Soulé has provided through nearly 20years as Wildlands Network founding director, scholar and visionary conservationist.

Given the critical work ahead for Wildlands Network, we are grateful that Michael has accepted the newposition of Vice President of Conservation and Science. He will help shape the next iteration of our leadership in conservation.

It is clear to me, that while the challenges are great, Wildlands Network has the right expertise on our Boardand staff to address them. Our work is urgent, but each project, your generosity and our growing network ofcommitted partners, brings us closer to making a healthy and resilient North America for wildlife, plants andpeople a reality.

For the Wild,

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You can now find Wildlands Network onFacebook. Look forward to seeing you there!

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DNA results from Colorado Whileseveral scat samples found on The HighLonesome Ranch in northwesternColorado have not tested positive forwolf DNA, research efforts continue onthe original ecological assessment of theranch that first lead to discovery of wolfsign on the property.

According to the DNA report issuedby the Robert Wayne Lab at UCLA, “Thefact that we were unable to amplify…DNA product in many of the samples…indicates that the DNA in these sampleswas significantly degraded. Our experi-ence with even fresh canid scat samplesis that 10–40% of samples may not yieldamplifiable DNA from the individual oforigin,” said the report. Some of the sam-ples were found to be of coyote origin.

“These DNA tests are a valuablesnapshot in time, but they representonly a small part of our ongoingresearch,” said Vahldiek, who indicatedthat he was not surprised that some ofthe specimens tested positive for coyote.The ranch owner noted that he planned on continuing a full scientific assessment of his lands, headed by CristinaEisenberg, a conservation biologist at Oregon State Universityspecializing in predator-prey interactions. “We will continue touse the best possible science to be good stewards of this land,and that will involve looking more deeply at scientific issuesrelated to the land and its flora and fauna,” said Vahldiek.

The DNA results do not necessarily mean that wolves arenot present, due to continuing, reliable wolf sign collected byexpert trackers on the ranch, including tracks and howling.Future research will include further DNA testing of scat sam-ples and measurement of baseline aspen health for comparisonwith future conditions that might occur as a result of changesin carnivore populations.

Illegal killings continue in New Mexico, Arizona A thirdMexican gray wolf was found dead in the Apache NationalForest in July, the third endangered wolf apparently shot illegal-ly this summer in the Southwest. The latest victim of criminalaction was a two-year-old male from the Hawks Nest Pack inArizona. His father, the alpha male, was killed last month, alongwith the alpha male of the San Mateo Pack in New Mexico.

The possibility exists that wolf opponents are usingtelemetry receivers supplied to them by the USFWS to locate

and kill wolves with collars. Thereceivers were initially offered as ameans for ranchers to protect livestock,but a coalition of conservation groupsis now calling for the agency to retrievethe devices as a safety precaution.

To date, since reintroductionbegan in 1998, 37 wolves have beenconfirmed illegally killed or are knownto have died under suspicious circum-stances with no necropsy resultsreleased to date. An additional 47wolves have gone missing, many undersuspicious circumstances. Only 42wolves, including just two breedingpairs, could be found during the annu-al census at the beginning of 2010. Aproposed release of eight additionalwolves is proposed for Fall of this year.

The U.S. Fish and WildlifeService and non-governmental organizations, including WildlandsNetwork, are offering a combinedreward of up to $60,000 for informa-tion leading to an arrest and convic-

tion for the illegal killing of a Mexican gray wolf.

Reintroduction in Sonora The long-delayed Mexican graywolf reintroduction program in Sonora, Mexico, may be backon track for animal releases in Fall, 2010. Western WildwayNetwork partner, Naturalia, will participate with the Mexicangovernment as a technical advisory group. The project’s successdepends on resolution of concerns voiced by the SonoranUnion of Cattle Ranching that its members will not have themeans to protect livestock from wolves.

To move the process forward, Naturalia has presented arearanchers with a package of wolf-friendly actions that can be takento prevent losses. However, Mexico’s National Commission forProtected Areas has urged Naturalia to secure funding pledgesthat can be offered to the ranching community as evidence thatthey will be covered financially if depredation does occur.

The return of wolves to their former range in the SierraMadre Occidental is considered an important step in reunifica-tion of the species throughout the Sky Islands borderlandsregion. The reintroduced population in the Blue RangeRecovery Area in NM-AZ is only 150 miles north of the pro-posed reintroduction site in Sonora.

For more information on how you can help ensure wolf rein-troduction in Sonora, contact Wildlands Network. —Kim Vacariu

Wolf Wanderings

T ed Stanley often commented to his wife Jennifer: “We aresome of the lucky ones.” The same words hold true aboutthose of us lucky enough to have been in Ted’s generous

company. A humble, quiet and informed East coast conserva-tionist and founder of the Town Creek Foundation, he passedaway on December 16, 2009. To be sure, his selfless giving andtremendous commitment to North American conservation is

something for which wewill be forever grateful.

Ted Stanley has beendescribed as many envi-able things: influential,thoughtful, humble,undaunted, kind, gratefulfor many things and huge-ly generous. According toJennifer who still resides inMaryland, the drivingforce behind his philan-thropy was that he enjoyednurturing and connectingothers’ passions, enjoyingthose who liked to shakethings up. With an insightuniquely hers, sheexplained, “If an organiza-

tion had a hook, possessed doggedness, and was a ‘doer,’ he wasall in. Ted loved a good fight. Anyone who was emotionallyinvested and managed to get his ear received support.”

With a grand respect for the bold, Ted opened the door toWildlands Project (now Wildlands Network) many years agoafter reading its Wild Earth publication. He began stronglysupporting the organization when he heard Wildlands Projectfounder, Dave Foreman, speak at Lawrenceville School, aboarding school in New Jersey that he attended during his highschool years. Ted was drawn to Dave’s “wildeor-like” zeal andfrequently referred to him as a “firebrand.”

Ted’s Lawrenceville School experience was one of thefondest of his life. It made such an impact on Ted that he madea very large donation for the Aldo Leopold DistinguishedChair in Environmental Science and Ethics in 1993, whichcontinued to inspire the creation of numerous other environ-ment and sustainability programs at the school. In 1949, Tedwent to work for the family company, Bowne & Company, afirm that prints stock certificates for Wall Street. When hisfather died in 1969, Ted became President and took the compa-

“Ted” and Jennifer Stanley, Creating A Conservation Legacy

ny public. While a Trustee at South Street Seaport Museum, he met Jennifer who was working there as an educator in 1974.They then moved to the Chesapeake Bay area where Ted’sinterest in that region’s ecological health was born. An avidsailor, he noticed the Bay’s suffocations and said to Jennifer,“This is our backyard now, we need to look after this.”

Already a large donor to charities focused on conservationprograms from Alaska to the Eastern shore, Ted founded TownCreek Foundation in 1981. Its mission: to seek a healthy envi-ronment, informed society and peaceful world. Today, TheFoundation continues to work to create ecological sustainabili-ty, particularly in the Chesapeake Bay area.

Within the Chesapeake Bay community, corridors are dis-cussed as necessary, and climate change is of grave concern giventhe area’s sea-level altitude. But according to Jennifer, “Thereported restoration of the Bay is inflated. The knowledge ofwhat’s wrong is there, and appropriate legislation has been passed.But the causes have not been remedied. Ted didn’t ferment aboutthese things, however. He was positive and a doer. He just keptplugging along, and he believed he was fortunate in this life.”

When asked what Ted would have thought about theEastern Wildway and the progress being made in creating a net-work to build it, Jennifer says with certainty, “He would havesupported, understood, and applauded it.” Adding her own view-point, she shares, “The world that we need is one with a differentleadership style. We need a coalition working together, separatefrom corporate and political influence. We need individuals par-ticipating in sustainable consumption and a healthy planet.”

Jennifer plans to continue championing the causes she andTed have supported for so many years. She finds her strength totake on the future by being positive, crediting her genetics andTed’s optimism for this gift. The Stanleys loved nature, albeit indifferent ways. Ted likened nature to quietness and an intuitivefeeling about “the comfort he found in appreciating the past,from a ‘from whence we came’ sort of perspective.” His love ofthe past segues to her love of the future. She earnestly states, “It’s a beautiful place, this Earth is, and if you can continue tofind beauty, there’s no signing off on that. You continue to fightfor it.” —Tracey Butcher and Lisa Lauf Rooper

The Board and staff of Wildlands Network have been honored toreceive the Stanleys’ generous support. Their shared vision to createan ecologically healthy home, their commitment to see the visionthrough and their respect for wild things and places have inspired somany of us. Ted was obviously a lover of life, and a voice for goodcauses. He will be missed and remembered. —Margo McKnight

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T H E R E M AY Y E T C O M E A D AY when the wind will once again gently whisper through the tops of a millionacres of longleaf pine trees. Nighthawks will dive down out of the afternoon sky through the sunlit spacesbetween the stately blackened trunks, feasting on the stridently buzzing insects,moving about the forest floor,carpeted with wiregrass and wildflowers. Lightning-sparked wildfires will sweep unimpeded across hundredsof square miles, stopping only when they reached the cypress and gum-laden banks of a meandering blackwa-ter river. Nervous herds of white-tailed deer will spook at the sight of a mother cougar walking her kittensalong the edge of a wet savanna dotted with the green spires of pitcher plants and the toothy rosettes of Venusflytraps. At night, as the full moon emerges from the clouds of a dissipating summer storm, the plaintivehowls of a pack of red wolves would pour across the dappled silver landscape, as millions of frogs and toadshop through the damp grass and pine needles on their way to breeding ponds filled by the warm rain.

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The Return of theSoutheast’sLongleaf Pine Forest

B Y R O N S U T H E R L A N D

A Chance toDiscover WhatWe’ve Missed

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I’ve often envisioned a restored longleaf pine wildernessarea in the southeast coastal plain of the United States to be asI’ve just described. The healthy mixture of natural fire regimes,top predators with room to roam, and incredible species diver-sity of herbaceous plants and reptiles and amphibians would allbe present. Sadly, they no longer exist in the region. Perhaps noother major ecosystem on earth has suffered so much loss, andyet offers so much hope for restoration to at least a magnificentfacsimile of its former grandeur.

The destruction of the longleaf pine forests of the southeast-ern USA was essentially complete long before there was reallyanyone to put up a fight. This is not to say that there weren’tlocal champions and newspaper editors here and there in differ-ent states who railed against the loss of one of the continent’smost iconic forested ecosystems. But the modern conservationmovement had yet to really gain its footing when the death knelltolled for longleaf shortly after the end of the Civil War.

In fact, in a twist of fate that was good news for the HighSierra in California but bad news for the coastal plain of thesoutheast, John Muir passed through a number of longleafstands on his way through Georgia and north Florida duringhis famous “Thousand Mile Walk to the Gulf ” in 1867.However, either the coastal flatwoods didn’t quite catch hisbotanical and geological fancies, or the malaria he caught onthe Gulf Coast must have erased his pleasant memories of histremendous hike, as he did not stick around to become amuch-needed advocate for southern forest conservation. Fromthe time John Muir set off for California in 1868, to his deathin 1914, the 90 million acres of longleaf in the southeast coastalplain were almost completely destroyed, at such an astonishingpace and to such an utter extent that few people in the regiontoday even realize what we’re missing.

The tragic and early demise of longleaf pine forests hasbeen well chronicled in recent publications by Lawrence Earleyand Cecil Frost. Suffice it to say, it was the usual tale of whathappens to a tremendous and nearly inexhaustible naturalresource when its discovered by the industrial appetites ofhuman society.

In 1892, close to the peak of logging, the steam-driven annu-al harvest of longleaf pine was estimated at 7 billion board feetper year. Not only did hurricane-adapted longleaf provideextremely strong and durable timber, but also the resin-rich woodof the tree launched a major naval stores industry that also playeda significant role in the collapse of this ecosystem. The trees wereboxed (i.e. a cavity was hacked out near the base), slashed abovethe box to make the resin flow, and then the resulting accumula-tions of thick sap were boiled down for tar and turpentine. This

crude harvesting process often led to the death of the tree, butgiven the ready supply of virgin longleaf, the industry just movedup river or down the rail line to find more fresh trees to tap.

Ecologically speaking, it was no surprise that the forestonly sustained this kind of abuse for 50 years. What was some-what surprising was that longleaf failed to regenerate itself onmost of the millions of acres of abandoned stump fields thatwere left behind in the wake of the devastation. At least threefactors colluded to ensure that the second-growth forests thatsprung up all across the southeast coastal plain were not lon-gleaf, and these factors are still relevant to restoring the futureof this forest in the decades ahead.

First and probably foremost, fire suppression was the ruleof the day. Well-meaning foresters prevented the successfulgermination of the longleaf seed bank that was left behind afterthe great virgin trees were cut. By stamping out the wildfireswhich would have inevitably raged through the cutover wood-lands, they also gave significant competitive advantage to lessfire tolerant tree species like oaks and loblolly pine. Second,during much of the 1800’s the southern forest savannas func-tioned as free range for millions of semi-domesticated hogs.The hogs were voracious predators on longleaf seedlings, andso as the trees fell to the turpentiners and lumbermen, the for-est had little chance to recover. In fact, one early experiment inLouisiana evaluated the effectiveness of hog-exclusion fences.In the fenced plots, over 6000 longleaf seedlings per acre sur-vived, whereas only 8 seedlings per acre were left after the hun-gry foraging of the hogs in unfenced plots.

Even the longleaf seedlings that did manage to survivewere notoriously slow growing during the first few years oftheir life, as the tree has a peculiar “grass” stage where most ofits attention is focused on sending a tap root down into the soilto search for water. Southern foresters eventually gave up onlongleaf and started planting loblolly and slash pines, a tradi-tion that has continued to the present day. Loblolly and slashpines can be reliably regenerated in the absence of fire, andthey grow quickly right from the start.

It didn’t take people long to figure out that paper could bemade from relatively young pine trees. Thus the modern south-ern pine desert was born—immense plantations of adolescentpines, with the trees packed in so tightly that under-story vege-tation is absent or nearly so, and harvested as often as every 20years. These pine deserts provide remarkable visual contrast tothe historic longleaf pine savannas that once covered so much

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The coachwhip (top) is a longleaf pine forest specialist. A prescribed burn in a longleaf pine ecosystem (bottom).

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of the region. The longleaf savannas were so open and grassythat you could walk or ride a horse through the forest for mileswith little impediment. And the fire-maintained ground coverwas extremely diverse, especially in the wetter flatwoods, whereecologist Bob Peet once found an incredible 40-plus species ofplants per square meter in some remnant sites.

Top predators in the pinesSo here we are in 2010, and more than 97% of the originalacreage of longleaf pine is gone, replaced by barren tree farms,cotton and tobacco plantations, and the southeast’s newest andfastest growing crop: urban development. According to a 1994survey by Varner and Kush, only around 12,000 acres of virginold-growth longleaf survived out of the original 90-million-acre swath, representing a loss of 99.9986% of the forest. Thenumber of endemic species, subspecies, and local genetic racesof plants, insects, fungi, and small vertebrates that went extinctduring the process is unknown.

We do know that today there are no longer any top preda-tors (besides omnivorous black bears) on the remaining tractsof longleaf pine. The few surviving red wolves that were left inthe wild (after being shot, trapped, and generally persecutedlike every other wolf in the lower 48 states outside ofMinnesota) in southeast Texas in the 1970’s were all captured.They then became part of a reintroduction program at theAlligator River National Wildlife Refuge in coastal NorthCarolina. The eastern cougar were driven down to the vast andimpenetrable swamps of extreme southern Florida, where theycame to be known as Florida panther by virtue of their absencein the other states.

Because both the longleaf pine forest and the predatorswere lost before any real studies could be undertaken, there isbasically no scientific information available as to the ecologicalimportance of wolves and cougar to that ecosystem. In theabsence of this kind of data, southeastern conservationists havelargely been concerned with restoring proper fire regimes tolongleaf forests, under the assumption that a large, well-burnedforest would constitute the picture of a healthy ecosystem.There also has been an intense focus on rescuing the red-cock-aded woodpecker, a species that nests only in the decayingheartwood of living mature pines. The federally-endangeredstatus of the woodpecker has in fact driven substantial improve-ments in the management of existing longleaf protected areas,and has prevented some measure of additional destruction ofthe remaining mature longleaf forest on private lands.

However, data from other fire-maintained regions (e.g. theRockies) suggest and confirm a very powerful ecological rolefor wolves and cougar. These top predators keep both the deerand the mesopredators in check, leading to profound changes inlocal plant and animal communities. In my opinion, we shouldassume that a longleaf forest without wolves and cougar is justas ecologically out-of-tune as Yellowstone was without wolves.

When top predators are restored to some of the existingmajor longleaf blocks, then we will be able to finally take acloser scientific look as to the importance of wolves and cougarfor southeastern forests. In many cases, there is already excel-lent plot-level data on the plant and small vertebrate communi-ties in longleaf forests, and with some bolstering and replica-tion these data could serve as the baseline from which to com-pare future conditions after the arrival of the predators. Thechallenge, of course, is getting the wolves and cougar back tothe forest, and expanding and connecting enough longleaf andother associated natural habitats to allow for the long-term per-sistence of these predators.

The Alligator River red wolf population in North Carolina

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has been doing relatively well since its initial re-establishmentin 1987. These wolves are classified as an non-essential experi-mental population, a legal designation that relaxes the regulato-ry protections offered to the reintroduced animals, making iteasier to convince adjacent landowners and local officials tosupport the project. The wolves have been slowly spreadingwestward toward the neck of the Albemarle Peninsula. A fewlone dispersers have made it as far north as the Great DismalSwamp in Virginia and as far south as Pender County (nearWilmington, NC), but strangely, to date, no packs have ven-tured forth onto the North Carolina mainland.

Although I have yet to see one of the wolves in the wild,each time I go to the reintroduction area, I end up puzzling overthe same two questions. First, why hasn’t the red wolf popula-tion exploded like the recolonizing gray wolves in Wisconsin orthe reintroduced gray wolves in Yellowstone? Second, whatexactly will happen when the wolves do finally spread off thepeninsula and outside of the official reintroduction zone?

Lack of prey does not seem to be the issue that is slowingthe wolves down, as there are plenty of deer on the peninsula,especially on the private farms to the west of the refuge. In fact,the density of wolf packs is much higher off the refuge than on,where only a couple of stable packs roam very large territoriesthrough the swamp forest. Other factors could include: the lim-ited genetic pool that the red wolves started from (In the end,only 14 animals were used to start the captive colony—thesewere the supposedly “pure” wolves that were saved from a poolof 400 wild canids caught and evaluated in Texas); the ongoingmortality levels from roads and gunshot wounds; and the gapin forest cover that seems to exist just to the east of the largeblock of corporate-owned forest at the neck of the peninsula.

Competitive interference from coyotes undoubtedly sharessome of the blame for the slow expansion of the red wolf popu-lation. Indeed, the USFWS wolf biologists spent nearly anentire decade trying to prevent the local coyotes from breedingwith (and thereby diluting the gene pool of) the red wolves.The agency continues to expend considerable effort trappingcanines on the peninsula, and they remove all coyotes andmost suspected wolf-coyote hybrids from the core red wolfpopulation zone centered on the refuge.

Unlike gray wolves, which tend to kill coyotes outrightwhen they can catch them, the red wolf is apparently just ashappy to breed with coyotes as chase them, particularly whenyoung dispersing wolves are involved, or adult wolves that havelost their mate. The latest genetic evidence seems to support redwolves and coyotes as distinct sister species, putting to rest someof the concern that the red wolf was simply a hybrid between the

gray wolf and the coyote. But red wolves and coyotes do sharesome close ancestral bonds, as both species are considered tohave new world origins, in contrast to the gray wolf, whicharrived more recently from the boreal forests of Asia.

The coyote issue brings me to my second question con-cerning what will actually happen when the wolves finallybreak out of the official reintroduction zone. At that point, itisn’t clear whether the wolves would still be classified as experi-mental, or whether they would suddenly receive the full pro-tection of the Endangered Species Act, including the require-ment of critical habitat designation and prohibitions against allforms of lethal take. I suppose a third option is that the wolveswould simply be captured and brought back to the refuge.

My impression is that either Congress or an influentialUSFWS official needs to step in quickly to clarify the legalfuture of this population beyond the official reintroductionzone, preferably in a way that allows the red wolf to expand tocover more of the Carolina coastline. The same high-level inter-vention will likely be needed to push the USFWS to launchadditional reintroduction efforts at new sites. It also remains tobe seen whether a wolf pack can break free from the mainpeninsula population and penetrate deeply into coyote territorywithout being absorbed without a trace into the coyote gene

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pool (Coyotes have invaded every county in North Carolina).Some ecologists, myself included, reason that a modest

amount of mixing between coyotes and red wolves would bothbenefit the survival chances of the wolf (by making them moresecretive and human-savvy) and help transform the coyote intoa larger, more social animal that would be more effective atlimiting deer and mesopredator populations. The giant coyotes(some of which are considered “coywolves”) in theNortheastern U.S. provide some evidence that this sort of posi-tive genetic mixing can take place.

I sympathize with the desire to protect the last vestiges of thepure red wolf genome, especially since this purity is what lendslegal protection to the wolf (whereas the coyote can be shot onsight in many states). But I worry that the desire to maintainpurity might make managers too reluctant to promote the estab-lishment of new red wolf populations in other areas within thesoutheast, all of which would harbor coyotes as well. In the longrun, and as recognized by the USFWS recovery plan for thespecies, we need to push for at least two additional red wolf pop-ulations, preferably with some degree of corridors or habitat per-meability between them. In the end, the red wolf genes will haveto hold their own against those of the coyote (or merge withthem to create a more human-tolerant, deer-hungry hybrid) if the

species is to have an ecologicallymeaningful future.

The situation with theFlorida Panther is similar to whatis going on to the red wolf, exceptthat there is no longer any possi-bility of maintaining a geneticallypure Florida Panther population.Texas cougars were released intosouth Florida in 1995 in a bid torescue the panthers from crisis-level inbreeding depression, andthe panther population appears tohave rebounded since then, to thepoint where there are now surplusyoung animals available for dis-persal each year. Unfortunately,the panther breeding populationhas been stuck south of theCaloosahatchee River for a longtime, and although dispersingyoung males have made it as farnorth as west-central Georgia(where one was shot by a hunter

in 2008), the females seem disinclined to disperse more than afew miles from their natal range.

The Florida Panther Society is adamant (and I agree) thatthe time is now long overdue for the cats to be reintroducedinto the Okefenokee Swamp National Wildlife Refuge/OsceolaNational Forest region in north Florida and southern Georgia.This is a huge block of forest and swampland (at least by EastCoast standards) with little urban development and few majorroads. Presumably, once panthers/cougars became establishedat this new site, they would then have a much easier time re-colonizing coastal Georgia and the Carolinas on their own.Moving in the other direction, the cats would also be able toreach the very extensive longleaf regions of ApalachicolaNational Forest and Eglin Air Force Base to the west, and thenmove from there north into the large rural landscapes ofAlabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, not to mention the south-ern terminus of the vast forests of the southern Appalachians.

Getting the reintroduction process started again will notbe easy, as state and federal panther managers are apparentlystill nursing political wounds they suffered when they tried areintroduction experiment with Texas cougars in the sameOkefenokee region. The experimental animals initially did well,but during deer hunting season they were often driven fromtheir established territories into more marginal habitats, and acouple were shot. A few of the other cats started predating live-stock, including one notable cougar that jumped a fence into aexotic game farm and killed five blackbuck in quick succession.

My own reading of the 1993 Belden and Hagedorn paperdescribing the reintroduction experiment is much rosier thanthe authors’ pessimistic conclusions (at the end of their abstractthey state “We cannot recommend the introduction of Floridapanthers into northern Florida at this time”). The panthers byand large did well, they caught and ate deer, wild pigs, andnumerous other prey items, and the two instances of livestockdepredation were compensated by the agency involved. Theauthors even admit that the general public was generally verysupportive of the effort. So it appears that a small minority oflandowners may be holding up new reintroduction efforts,despite the wishes of the broader Florida community, anddespite the relatively few problems that were actually encoun-tered during the release.

According to the Florida Panther Society, license platesales have already generated a substantial pot of money that issupposed to be used for restoration of the cat at new sites, andhopefully progress can be quickly made towards that goal.Otherwise a breeding population of the panthers may nevermake it through the urban gauntlet of central Florida (take a

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Continuing the ConversationA Recommended Reading List

Wildlife Law: A Primer by Eric T. Freyfogle and Dale D. Goble.A fascinating tour through the development and application ofU.S. laws—such as the Endangered Species Act—that anyone whoworks with wild places and wild animals needs to understand.

Conservation by Proxy: Indicator, Umbrella, Keystone,Flagship, and Other Surrogate Species by Tim Caro. Workingto restore or preserve biodiversity requires a familiarity withthe new-fangled terms that are the currency of the conserva-tion discussion today. Caro defines and distinguishes the con-temporary buzzwords with elegance and humor.

Safe Passages: Highways, Wildlife, and Habitat Connectivityedited by Jon P. Beckmann, Anthony P. Clevenger, Marcel P.Huijser, and Jodi A. Hilty. In our increasingly congested, frag-

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mented world, finding ways that highways and wildlife cancoexist by ensuring habitat connectivity is part of any large-scale restoration project. This book offers state-of-the-art ideas,real examples, and inspiration.

Climate Savvy: Adapting Conservation and ResourceManagement to a Changing World by Lara J. Hansen andJennifer R. Hoffman. Conservationists need to bring a holistic,resilient, and creative attitude to the challenges ahead. Hansenand Hoffman offer ideas, strategies, and optimism.

Wildlands Network Supporters: Please visit www.islandpress.org and insert WILD25 in the “promo code”box at checkout to receive a 25% discount on these books. The code is valid until December 31, 2010.

look at Orlando on Google Maps), and the longleaf forests andswamplands of the rest of the southeast coastal plain may haveto wait on cougars dispersing through Louisiana via east Texas.The Cougar Rewilding Foundation (formerly the EasternCougar Foundation) and the Cougar Network are monitoringthe spread of western puma from Texas and South Dakota intoeastern forests, and there have been recent confirmed sightingsin Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Arkansas, andLouisiana. As in Florida, most of these cats are likely to be dis-persing young males, and it may take many years for a breed-ing eastern cougar population to recolonize the southeastcoastal plain in the absence of a new reintroduction effort.

For both the Florida Panther and the red wolf, sea levelrise threatens to inundate their existing low-lying habitat with-in the next 50–100 years. This makes it all the more urgent thatwe take the needed steps to move these predators into moresecure networks of habitat distributed across the southeastcoastal plain. Numerous other species, including longleaf pineitself, will attempt to disperse northwards as the climate warms,and their success will also depend on these same linkages.

What is missing, in addition to new reintroduction effortsfor the Florida Panther and red wolf, are major new initiatives torestore and protect enough habitat to connect the existing coresites into a semblance of the majestic pine forests, river swamps,pocosins, and maritime forests that once graced the entire region.

Given that the southeastern coastal plain also contains millions ofpeople and many miles of busy highways, we also need a plan formitigating key dispersal barriers, so that a young wolf or panthercan cross over or under interstates and around cities as it tries tosuccessfully disperse from one core area to the next.

In cooperation with numerous partners, WildlandsNetwork is now initiating a wildlands network design processfor the Southeast Atlantic Coastal Plain region. The resultingmulti-state conservation plan will use the best scientific tech-niques available to pinpoint crucial habitat blocks and restora-tion areas from Virginia to Florida. Over the long term, oncethese ambitious plans are implemented, we hope to once againsee the return of the longleaf pine ecosystem as the dominantforest cover in the southeast coastal plain, with top predatorsand natural fire regimes restored.

Ron Sutherland recently finished his Ph.D. at the NicholasSchool of the Environment at Duke University. Under the tute-lage of Wildlands Network Board of Directors Member JohnTerborgh, he studied how a wide range of native wildlife speciesrespond to road traffic and urban development in the NorthCarolina Sandhills, a region that is home to some of the mostextensive longleaf pine forests remaining in the Southeast. Someof Ron's dissertation work will be published this fall inConservation Biology.

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R esidents of the sprawling rural landscapes surrounding theChiricahua and Peloncillo Mountain ranges of southeast-ern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico recently gath-

ered to talk about community issues. But the agenda includedmore than just schools, road maintenance, and garbage collec-tion. The list of discussion items also included other integralservices provided by a long-time community member: nature.

The annual gathering, called “Heritage Days,” celebratesthe region’s cultural and natural heritage and represents a newapproach to integrating nature appreciation and protection intocommunity core values. This popular and new event has laid afoundation of support for many of the key conservation con-cepts that have been difficult to incorporate into rural culture,such as the need to protect properties for their value as step-ping stones in larger wildlife corridors.

The past challenges in communicating those concepts areeasy to understand. While a key human ethos certainly encour-ages us to do what is right for nature, exercising that value inour daily lives often conflicts with many other, seemingly morepressing, issues.

The quality of local schools, maintaining an income that

supports a good standard of living, access to health care, eatingwell, having friends, and living in a safe community all surpassnature protection in priority status. Polling continually tells usthat, more often than not, nature protection is rarely viewed onan equal footing with these other “family values,” making iteasy for well-meaning people to push concerns for the survivalof wild animals and wild habitats aside in the face of providingfor the immediate needs and well-being of one’s own familyand home town. Even though the long-term health of our com-munities are inextricably dependent on nature, the two aremost often seen as distant cousins.

And therein lies the fundamental challenge for effectivedelivery of action-oriented conservation messages to ruralaudiences whose daily survival and happiness are likely theirmost important considerations. After all, what can place theneed for nature protection on a competitive level with the needfor a good job or health care?

The answer is not in the crafting of a one-size-fits-all mes-sage that will somehow, in the blink of an eye, change the waypeople view their responsibility for protecting the naturalworld. The solution to this ongoing communica-

Taking a Page from Aldo Leopold’s Simple SolutionA Community Conservation Pilot Program

➤ page 15

The Chiricahua Mountains of southeastern Arizona

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Ecological Restoration for Continental Conservation

The Society for Ecological Restoration (SER) andWildlands Network (WN) will sponsor a “Ecological

Restoration for Continental Conservation” meeting onNovember 15–18, 2010 at High Lonesome Ranch inDeBeque, Colorado.

This joint meeting will seek to identify the steps neededto promote ecological restoration as an effective means tore-connect fragmented landscapes, conserve highly interac-tive species, enhance biodiversity conservation, and engagelocal stakeholders. To this end, SER and WN will bringtogether key leadership working on those topics, including:restoration ecologists, restoration practitioners, wildlife biol-ogists, conservation biologists, land use planners, landmanagers, and state and federal government officials.

The results of this workshop will be made available toanyone interested in restoring landscape connectivity andecosystem function and needing to see how localizedrestoration projects may fit in a larger scale so that peopleand nature can re-establish a healthy relationship.

T he recent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has been both ter-rifying and tragic: terrifying not only because it was so dif-ficult to stop but also because it is bound to happen again;

tragic because of the dreadful impacts on local people and theirenvironment. Who wouldn’t anguish over the sight of an oiledseabird or the devastated local resident whose livelihood hasbeen placed in harms way? But these harsh realities that we seeand worry about overlie others that escape the eye. And it iswhat escapes the eye that concerns me more.

As a marine ecologist, I have rubbed shoulders with oilspills since the days of the Exxon Valdez. The primary responsethen and now has been to clean and rehabilitate oiled wildlife.

For any sensitive and car-ing person, this wouldseem like the right thingto do. But what are thebenefits? Does wildliferehabilitation directlypromote the conservationof populations andecosystems? The truthfulanswer to this awkwardquestion is, probably notmuch. What about theindividual animals thatare rehabilitated? Surelyit is good for them? Evenhere the answers are notnecessarily as we mighthope. Some must be

euthanized while others are destined for a different life in cap-tivity. Others are indeed returned to the wild but often with lit-tle knowledge of how they will fare.

Conservation is about the costs and benefits of maintain-ing biodiversity. If rehabilitation does not directly achieve thisobjective, then why do we do it? The truth is that we don’trehabilitate oiled wildlife for conservation, but instead formany of the same reasons we endeavor to keep a sick relativeor an ailing pet alive to the very end, regardless of their life’sremaining quality. People do this for themselves, mostlybecause it makes them feel better. I would never deny that rightto anyone. However, I do object to selling it as conservation.

The BP oil spill has been heralded as one of the worsthuman-caused environmental disasters ever. No sane personwould see the spill is anything but horrendous, but does it

deserve such standing in the archives of our assault on nature?Here again I wonder. The BP spill, like most others, occurredin an ocean in which most large consumers have been depletedby over-fishing, with untold and largely unknown ecologicalconsequences. It occurred in an ocean in which protected areasare few, far between, and literally the size of postage stamps.These existing conditions are the unseen tragedies of oceanconservation that would undoubtedly overshadow the Gulfspill in space, time, and impact, if we, not just scientists andmarine conservationists, could only see and understand them.

The Wildlands vision, which is to restore apex predatorsand their ecological functions to large interconnected tracts ofland, is largely missing from marine conservation. The largeanimals that live in the sea—whales, turtles, sharks, tunas,seabirds, and the like—move over even larger areas than theirland-based counterparts. And just as large predators on landare so critical to holding these ecosystems together, so must itbe in the sea with its spectacular megafauna. My concern overevents like the BP oil spill isn’t so much that it will leave a last-ing fingerprint on the environment, but that it will distract usfrom conceiving and implementing a proper agenda for themore fundamental needs of conservation. —Jim Estes

Conservation in the Wake of the Gulf Oil SpillFocusing on What Matters Most

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Sharing Our WorkWildlands Network Presentations(April–September, 2010)

Reconnecting the Spine of the Continent, Western WildernessConference (Berkeley, CA)

Living with Lobos, Portal Citizens’ Forum (Portal, AZ)

Colorado Wolf Recovery/Trophic Cascades, Western WildwayNetwork Workshop (Salt Lake City, UT)

Cross-fertilizing policy, advocacy, and connectivity ecology formaximum conservation gains, National Parks ConservationAssociation Workshop (Salt Lake City, UT)

Bringing A Continental Perspective to Ground: The WildlandsNetwork in North America and Two Countries, One Forest inthe Northern Appalachians, Johnson State College (Johnson, VT)

Protecting the Spine of the Continent Wildway, NatureServeConservation Conference 2010: Biodiversity withoutBoundaries/Large Landscape Symposium (Austin, TX)

Protecting the Spine of the Continent Wildway, Society forConservation GIS/Collaboration in Large LandscapeConservation—GIS Symposium (Monterey, CA)

Bringing A Continental Perspective to Ground: The EasternWildway and the Greater Shawangunks, Shawangunk RidgeCoalition Meeting at NY Dept. of Environmental Conservation(New Paltz, NY)

Wildlands Network Biodiversity Messaging Efforts, Brevard Zoo:Conservation Education Connection Workshop (Melbourne, FL)

Jaguar Recovery Update, Philadelphia Zoo Staff Meeting(Philadelphia, PA)

A Conservation Biology Perspective for Future National Parks,Meeting of National Parks Conservation Association (Salt LakeCity, UT)

Eastern Wildway Megacorridor Design: Large LandscapeConservation in the backyard of 140 million people, Society forConservation Biology (Edmonton, AB, Canada)

South Atlantic Coastal Plain WND and the South Atlantic LCC,USFWS Regional Office (Raleigh, NC)

Wild LifeLines™—Modeling potential broadscale dispersalpathways in the United States, Society for Conservation Biology24th Congress (Edmonton, AB, Canada)

Cross-fertilizing policy, advocacy, and connectivity ecology formaximum conservation gains, National Parks ConservationAssociation Workshop (Salt Lake City, UT)

Reconnecting the Spine of the Continent, Western WildernessConference (Berkeley, CA)

Colorado wolf Recovery/DNA Results, Lobo CoalitionWorkshop (Silver City, NM)

The Wildlife Ripple Effect, Heritage Days Celebration (Rodeo, NM)

John Davis Takes to the Eastern WildwayAn Epic Journey Begins in 2011

P revious editor of Wild Earth and Wildlands Network founder,John Davis, now 47, will soon embark on an ambitious effort to

bring awareness to the Eastern Wildlway as well as the need forconnectivity and keystone species. Beginning in the FloridaEverglades, he will travel north through the Southeast Coastal Plain,the Appalachian and Adirondack Mountains the Acadian Forestsand will finish when he reaches Canada’s Gaspe Peninsula.

Organized in partnership with Wildlands Network, his adven-ture, TrekEast,™ will be a nearly year-long, human-powered ramblethough the spectacular landscapes of the 2500-mile continentalcorridor for wildlife. Passionately stating his intention, he says, “Ihope to speak a word for nature, in its many forms, and for thosegiving their lives to preserve it, as well as those whose livesdepend upon its preservation. I believe that a wild adventure andthe exhilaration of motion can attract outsiders to the noble—butoft grim—cause of protecting wildlife habitat.”

Constantly in motion, he will be biking, paddling, pedaling, hik-ing, walking, talking, witnessing, solving, and inspiring. As anexperienced storyteller, conservationist and explorer, he will findand tell the stories of people, animals and issues found within theEastern Wildway. He will share them via website, blogs, videos,media interviews, speeches, and eventually, his own book.

Special focus will be given to apex predators and keystonespecies such as the Florida panther, Red and Gray wolves,bears, otters, beaver, Gopher tortoise, salmon and raptors. Alongthe way, he will be joined by old and new friends, eager to sharethe experience.

Due to set out on TrekEast™ in early February 2011, prepara-tions are well underway. We need your support to make this eventthe biggest conservation success in the East. Visit us at www.trek-east.org, www.wildlandsnetwork.org or Facebook to find out howyou can participate.

WILD NEWS

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to get from one patch to another, based on the particular needsand behavioral ecology of that species. The model also can beasked to identify those pathways that best avoid certain featuressuch as roads, housing developments, and open fields, thatmight be dangerous for the animal to pass through. The resultis a map of the “least cost,” or safest and most efficient, path-ways for that animal.

This process has yielded vital information for land man-agers and conservation activists; however, it is slow, expensive,and requires gathering enormous amounts of information.Given that conservation is now challenged by the speed of“development” and climate disruption, an additional, largerscale approach is required to understanding what places wemust protect so wildlife can move across the landscape.Inspired by Colorado State University researcher DavidTheobald’s recent work to develop a “naturalness metric” forthe United States, Wildlands Network formulated an idea forjust such an approach.

In essence, Dr. Theobald was putting together layers ofinformation about the degree of modification of lands, trafficvolume flows, housing densities, and other elements.Subsequent analysis led to the creation of a map of the U.S. thatcolored the country according to how much naturalness wasleft. The Wildlands Network science team saw naturalness as aproxy for what ecologists call “permeability,” or the degree towhich the landscape still allows movement by wildlife. Theythen asked, “If we are to conserve the existing potential forwildlife movement across the landscape at the national scale,what are the pathways along which that movement would bestoccur according to Dr. Theobald’s map?

Assuming that wildlife movement will be least restrictedacross “natural” areas and most restricted across “human-modi-fied” areas, Wildlands Network began working with Dr.Theobald to provide a broad scale look at landscape connectiv-ity based on landscape naturalness, freed from the constraintsof a focus on any particular individual species or habitat type.What developed was a novel modeling approach best explainedby analogy.

Imagine rain falling equally across the top of a mountain.It begins to run down-slope; as enough water gathers, a head-water stream forms, and begins to incise into the surface.Headwater streams merge to form second-order streams, andso on, until the flows converge to form a river, which is theaccumulation of all flows. As water flows across the surface ofthe mountain it follows paths of least resistance. Imagine nowthat “resistance” is human modification of the land. If animalsare “dropped” like rain equally across the nation and are then

constrained to “flow” across the country from the Canadian toMexican border avoiding human-modified areas, where wouldthey go? Where would pathways converge?

The result is a map of what we call Wild LifeLines™ (seepage 1). Similar to what could be envisioned as a wildlife circu-latory system or human bypass map, it is a pattern representingthe most efficient “flow” patterns across the landscape if fol-lowing lands of least modification, or highest degree of natural-ness. The thicker “arteries” represent convergences of flowpaths, and represent the highest amount of existing connectivi-ty. A cell’s naturalness value and its position relative to nation-al-scale naturalness values determine the relative importance ofa location. Thinner secondary and tertiary lines represent thebest ways for wildlife to get to primary arteries.

Our analysis is not influenced by the protected status orownership of lands. Although protected areas are importantelements of conservation reserve systems, they are not suffi-cient due to their isolation, and their utility is uncertain in theface of climate disruption. There are many lands outside ofprotected areas, both private and public, which will becomeincreasingly important elements in a national conservation sys-tem. The Wild LifeLines map helps identify them.

We expect that refinements will be made based on moredetailed data for local areas, and will incorporate specific needsfor well-known species through “focal species” and least-costmodeling efforts. Once we obtain comparable data for Canadaand Mexico, we can further refine the specific location of path-ways connecting beyond the U.S.

Wild LifeLines, a complementary tool to conservation net-work planning methodologies, helps large-landscape conserva-tion initiatives identify which proposed new core and linkagesshould be prioritized if the goal is to contribute to protection ofexisting connectivity at broad scales. It also provides generalguidance and priorities for locating potential highway crossingstructure projects; assists land trusts in assessing which of theiropportunities would best contribute to the larger context; andit can guide preferred locations for restoration projects. Lastly,and of urgency, Wild LifeLines indicates many of the mostvaluable pathways to conserve for climate change adaptation,given that wildlife will be forced to undertake large-scale rangeshifts over the next decades.

We’d like to thank the following for contributing to thisproject: Dr. Kevin Crooks, Dr. Sarah Reed, Conner Bailey, KurtMenke, and the Spine of the Continent Steering Committee.For more information and maps, please visit our website.

—Kenyon Fields

➤ A New Mapping Tool, from page 1

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tions dilemma has to be far more specific, timely, and personal,requiring a far different approach, than yesterday’s polling orfocus groups may have suggested.

Part of the solution, according to Wildlands Network staff,is following the advice written in two simple sentences by oneof America’s best conservation messengers, Aldo Leopold. Hisadvice is so simple that it apparently has been lost in the flurryof new-age communications research. “We abuse land becausewe regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we seeland as a (part of the) community to which we belong, we maybegin to use it with love and respect,” Leopold wrote more than70 years ago.

Today, we’re relying on the subtle beauty of Leopold’s mes-sage to engage rural residents living in priority wildway corri-dors, where the need for conservation is key, but where conser-vation lingo and scientific arguments have little traction. Ourmessage: there is no need to choose between protecting yourfamily or community and protecting nature because nature, inessence, is already a community member, or should be. Whenwe act to protect our communities, we are really practicing“community conservation.” Thank you, Aldo.

Making the Community ConnectionIf anyone needs reminded about why natural amenities qualifyfor community membership status, the justifications are easilyfound. Just as a community might have a difficult time manag-ing without the familiar presence of a post office or grocerystore, so it would struggle without the groundwater that flowsinvisibly beneath it.

Just as a rural community couldn’t exist without its roads,neither can it be healthy without its clean air. Without farmsand ranches, rural communities would be deprived of a tradi-tional lifestyle. But without the soil that supports that agricul-ture, there may be no lifestyle at all.

A landscape’s physical beauty, its trees, streams, mountains,are often taken for granted and left out of the definition of com-munity. However, if removed from a viewshed, the resultinglack of beauty would starkly hinder the sense of connection tothe land and natural health that rural communities enjoy.

Further, without the backdrop of chirping of birds, thecroaking of frogs, the quiet beauty of local wildlife in the yard,or the simple knowledge that a cougar or bear is raising youngout of sight in the near hills, a community’s unspoken feeling ofbeing an integral part of the land might seem strangely missing.

When Leopold’s concept of community conservation ispresented in terms of making sure all the pieces of a communi-ty, both natural and cultural, are accounted for and respected

➤ Taking a Page from Leopold, from page 11

A Community Conservation Event Agenda

Translating the community conservation message intoan event agenda for the Chiricahua-Peloncillo HeritageDays event required selecting presentations focusedon both cultural and natural topics—the intermixing ofwhich creates a celebratory atmosphere of interest andenjoyment that leads to an appreciation of the equalrole that nature plays as a community member.

Sample agenda topics from “Chiricahua-Peloncillo Heritage Days”A Local Watershed SnapshotThe Four Surrenders of GeronimoClimate Change EffectsThe History of Rodeo, New MexicoJaguars: Recolonization in the Sky IslandsConservation RanchingThe Wildlife Domino TheoryHow to Create a Conservation EasementAttracting Our Favorite BirdsPrivate Lands Conservation IncentivesAnts and More AntsSolar Power 101: How to Grid-tie Your Solar PowerLandscaping with Native PlantsEcotourism in Tight TimesCreating Habitat with Rock DamsRails to Trails: Converting Abandoned Rail Lines to TrailsLife Cycle of the Western DiamondbackGlobal vs. Local Food ProductionStatus of our WildernessExploring San Bernardino Wildlife RefugeOngoing Farmer’s Market Outside Venue

and protected, a foundation is laid on which conservation ofindividual properties and resources in the future can be morereadily accomplished. When delivered in a way that subtlyreplaces the common perception of community (people, busi-nesses, roads, and houses) with a holistic perception of com-munity (people and infrastructure plus air, water, earth, flora,fauna) this message suddenly becomes a highly successfulbridge over a once difficult terrain. —Kim Vacariu

For more information on how you can organize a “CommunityConservation” event in your own community, contact KimVacariu at 520-558-0165 or kim@wildlandsnetwork.org.

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Wildlands Connection is published by Wildlands Network, a nonprofit educational, scientific, and charitable corporation.©2010 by Wildlands Network. All rights reserved. No part of thisperiodical may be reproduced without permission. All images arethe property of individual artists and photographers and are usedby permission. Editor Lisa Lauf Rooper • Designer Kevin CrossContributors Tracey Butcher, Jim Estes, Kenyon Fields, MargoMcKnight, Conrad Reining, Ron Sutherland, Kim Vacariu

OFF ICE RS AN D D I R ECTORSPresident Keith Bowers, Maryland • Vice President ofConservation Science Michael Soulé, Colorado • VicePresident John Davis, New York • Secretary David Johns,Oregon • Treasurer Rob Ament, Montana • DirectorsBarbara Dean, California • Jim Estes, California • OscarMoctezuma, Mexico • John Terborgh, North Carolina • PaulVahldiek, Colorado • Tony Vecchio, Florida • Director Emeritus Harvey Locke, Ontario

STAFFExecutive Director Margo McKnight • Eastern DirectorConrad Reining • Western Director Kim Vacariu • StrategyDirector Kenyon Fields • Finance Director Sandi BooneBusiness Manager Chris Black • Outreach Director TraceyButcher • Communications Director Lisa Lauf Rooper

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

CR E DITSp. 1 top: WTI-PCA-MIR; bottom: iStockphoto.com/sarkophoto;map: Kurt Menke • p. 3 Phoenix Zoo p. 4 Jennifer Stanleyp. 5–9 Ron Sutherland • p. 11 Kim Vacariu • p. 12 USFWS/Kim Betton • p. 13 Margo McKnight p. 16 WTI-PCA-MIR

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* Conservation only receives 2% of all charitable giving. Most people believe it deserves more. Source: Giving USA

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Five-year Project Studies Wildlife Movement in Canada

T he federal government is pitching in $1 million for a research project that willstudy wildlife and transportation in Banff National Park. The project, a partner-ship between Parks Canada, the Miistakis Institute for the Rockies, the Western

Transportation Institute, the Woodcock Foundation and the Wilburforce Foundation,

will look at ways to continue the safe flow of wildlife across highways to protect bothanimals and motorists. Project partners will contribute $700,000 to the research for a$1.7 million project that will take place on the highway over the next five years.

Researchers will monitor animal movement and study collisions with wildlifeand track animals traditionally elusive, like the wolverine (captured on film here in aBanff wildlife crossing tunnel). As part of the Trans-Canada Highway twinning,approximately 20 new wildlife crossings are being built, adding to the 24 structureslocated between the east Banff gates and Castle Junction. All crossings will be moni-tored by project researchers. Projects goals include reducing wildlife/vehicle colli-sions and improving habitat as wildlife issues are not localized but have far reachingaffects to other national parks such as Glacier and Yellowstone National Parks.

TO BENEFIT