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WILDLANDS CONNECTION FALL 2015 AS A KID RIDING IN THE FAMILY CAR on the way to almost any destination, I got used to seeing dead animals on the roadsides. My parents saw those mangled critters too, pointing out, “Look, there’s a deer,” or “Did you see that raccoon?”—a casual and well-meaning education on wildlife identification. ere was never a mention of how the animal died or how dangerous wildlife-vehicle collisions (WVCs) were to people. Eventually, new high-speed highways proliferated, numbers of vehicles skyrocketed, and the disastrous biological and economic effects of WVCs on society and nature began to emerge. In response, now almost 50 years ago, the first bridges and underpasses providing safe passage for wildlife across highways were installed in Europe and Canada. Of course, the long-term effects of those safe passages on wildlife survival and vehicular safety were unknown at that time. Today, however, the results of decades-long monitoring of those crossing structures have more than confirmed their astounding value in reducing wildlife-vehicle collisions and their associated impacts on personal safety, liability costs to insurers and highway agencies and, most importantly, on wide-ranging wildlife species of all types. WVC statistics across the U.S. are shocking. According to insurance industry records, vehicles hit up to an estimated two million animals every year, the equivalent of a collision every 26 seconds. And those numbers only reflect collisions reported to insurance companies or law enforcement, usually involving only large animals. Add the unreported roadkill of lizards, rabbits, turtles, snakes, raccoons and other species that do not cause vehicle damage when run over, and the total number of critters killed on highways becomes almost incalculable. Most disturbing is that, according to the Federal Highway Administration, death by car represents a serious threat to scores of endangered or threatened species of all sizes, including bighorn sheep, Canada lynx, ocelot, red and gray wolves, desert The Golden Age of Road Ecology By Kim Vacariu ABOVE: ARTIST’S RENDITION OF THE AWARD- WINNING WILDLIFE BRIDGE DESIGN TO BE BUILT ACROSS I-70 AT VAIL PASS IN COLORADO. CONTINUED PAGE 7
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WILDLANDS CONNECTION

FALL2015

AS A KID RIDING IN THE FAMILY CAR on the way to almost any destination, I got used to seeing dead animals on the roadsides. My parents saw those mangled critters too, pointing out, “Look, there’s a deer,” or “Did you see that raccoon?”—a casual and well-meaning education on wildlife identification. There was never a mention of how the animal died or how dangerous wildlife-vehicle collisions (WVCs) were to people.

Eventually, new high-speed highways proliferated, numbers of vehicles skyrocketed, and the disastrous biological and economic effects of WVCs on society and nature began to emerge. In response, now almost 50 years ago, the first bridges and underpasses providing safe passage for wildlife across highways were installed in Europe and Canada.

Of course, the long-term effects of those safe passages on wildlife survival and vehicular safety were unknown at that time. Today, however, the results of decades-long monitoring of those crossing structures have more than confirmed their astounding value in reducing wildlife-vehicle collisions and

their associated impacts on personal safety, liability costs to insurers and highway agencies and, most importantly, on wide-ranging wildlife species of all types.

WVC statistics across the U.S. are shocking. According to insurance industry records, vehicles hit up to an estimated two million animals every year, the equivalent of a collision every 26 seconds. And those numbers only reflect collisions reported to insurance companies or law enforcement, usually involving only large animals. Add the unreported roadkill of lizards, rabbits, turtles, snakes, raccoons and other species that do not cause vehicle damage when run over, and the total number of critters killed on highways becomes almost incalculable.

Most disturbing is that, according to the Federal Highway Administration, death by car represents a serious threat to scores of endangered or threatened species of all sizes, including bighorn sheep, Canada lynx, ocelot, red and gray wolves, desert

The Golden Age of Road Ecology By Kim Vacariu

ABOVE: ARTIST’S RENDITION OF THE AWARD-WINNING WILDLIFE BRIDGE DESIGN TO BE BUILT ACROSS I-70 AT VAIL PASS IN COLORADO. CONTINUED PAGE 7

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2 WILDLANDS CONNECTION FALL 2015

AS DAYLIGHT GIVES WAY to shorter days, so too does it appear our time for conservation success is waning. Our friend E. O. Wilson is on the speaker’s circuit, warning us all that we face a 50-percent loss of all life in the next few decades if we don’t change the course we’re on; quickly.

Paul Ehrlich and colleagues publish a dire prediction, once again warning that, even using the most conservative assumptions, we are wiping out life on Earth at an unprecedented rate. And what is the Obama Administration doing to help? It allows the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the agency charged with protecting our wild flora and fauna under the Endangered Species Act, to strangle recovery programs for endangered wolves, cougars and bears through intentional neglect. And what about Congress and state governments? Let’s not even go there.

Will we ever wake up? Well, the Pope has, and in his remarkable defense of life on Earth, he specifically calls out our strategy: protect the connections and landscapes needed for the rest of the 10 million species with whom we share this fragile place. We (you and all of our wildlands community) have been awake all along, of course, and as our time shrinks, Wildlands Network is ramping up.

CONSERVATION VETERAN Kelly Burke joins us as director of strategic partnerships, while continuing to run Grand Canyon Wildlands Council; and Kelsey Johnson joins us as a community organizer in Utah, working with Kelly and Kim Crumbo to protect federal lands and to make designation of the Grand Canyon Watershed National Monument a reality. Maggie Ernest, a recent graduate of Duke University’s Nicolas School of the Environment, joins us in North Carolina where she is helping Ron Sutherland develop wildlife crossings and convincing state and federal agencies to plan for landscape connectivity. Juan Carlos Bravo has hit the ground running in Mexico and is tackling expansion of jaguar habitat and wildlife crossings on a major highway project that parallels the border wall and threatens to double down on the ineffective barrier’s disastrous ecological impact.

Friends, our window of opportunity is getting smaller. That’s why we have doubled our staff—our on the ground capacity—in less than a year. We’ve got to move further, faster, stronger, more aggressively. Continental-scale connectivity is hard work. We are stretching ourselves to the maximum. Because of this, we continue to find success amidst a volatile political and physical environment. We are able to keep this pace only because of you and with your support. We do what we do for the wild things, and for you, and for us, and for our children and all future generations. Please help us keep pushing.

GREG COSTELLO NOTES FROM THE DIRECTOR

Take a Walk on the Wildlands Side

THERE ARE A FEW SEATS left for our Zimbabwe and Botswana ecotour November 4–19, 2015. Visit tri-nation multi-million-acre wilderness areas, Victoria Falls and the Okavango Delta. Comfortable, yet rustic in places, this educational excursion will feature all of the apex predators present in southern Africa. And don’t forget our winter Yellowstone National Park trip in January of 2016. Join conservation luminaries as we go in search of gray wolves—a species that changes rivers and that has been pivotal to our conservation strategies since our founding.

Yellowstone National Park

Zimbabwe and Botswana

Hofmann Forest Campaign Leaders Recognized

Wildlands Network’s Ron Sutherland (top) and our key partner in Hofmann Forest Campaign efforts, Fred Cubbage, have received a Pelican Award from the North Carolina Coastal Federation for their work on saving the 79,000-acre forest. The Pelican Awards annually recognize the effective work of people, businesses, non-profit groups, local and state governments and educators to improve environmental quality on the North Carolina coast. Congratulations Fred and Ron!

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WILDLANDS CONNECTION FALL 2015 3

JUAN CARLOS BRAVO INSIDE MEXICO

THERE ONCE WAS A TIME when a grizzly bear could, at least in principle, walk unhindered from the mountain ranges of Alaska, all the way south to Durango—not Durango, Colorado, but Durango, Mexico, 900 miles farther south. Had it done so, it would have found itself among its cousins of the now extinct subspecies U. arctos nelsoni, the last of which was probably hunted in 1976, the same year I was born.

Soon after, between 1977 and 1980, the few remaining wild Mexican wolves were trapped and taken from the Sierra Madre Occidental to the U.S. as the starting deed of a captive breeding program that continues to this day. Thus, before the turn of the century, the mountain ranges of northwestern Mexico had lost two of its most iconic carnivores.

What will it take for them to return? Wildlands Network, having recently decided to expand its activities to Mexico, is hotly pursuing this audacious question as part of implementing its equally audacious vision for North America. They started by hiring me to figuratively, and somewhat literally, help lay some bridges between our two countries while taking down walls (I know one in particular I’d like to remove).

No doubt, wilderness is always a tough sell; in Mexico it may prove to be even tougher. Mexican conservationists focus most of their efforts on promoting the sustainable exploitation of resources, which, necessary as it is, provides no substitute for wild, unbroken, unmanaged nature. They do so for important reasons: 1) unlike the U.S., Mexico has no significant public lands system—every parcel of its almost 2M square kilometers is already claimed by someone; and 2) many of these owners live under, or dangerously near, the poverty line.

Likewise, philanthropy in Mexico is only recently becoming part of our culture, hindered by economic and political dynamics with deep roots in a corrupt pseudo-democracy. In such an environment, human issues loom large, and wild landscapes and creatures seem more a luxury for North Face-wearing “first worlders” than a vital necessity for Mexico’s citizens.

Yet a growing number of us in Mexico disagree. We see in wild open spaces the bedrock of any human endeavor, of civilization itself. Wildlands Network will provide leverage

for such conservation individuals and groups that venture into the realm of wilderness protection protection, and we will bridge the many gaps and walls that still artificially divide North America. To accomplish this, we will engage in: strategic place-based actions with partners, supporting leaders seeking green-policy changes, and advancing a bold vision of one connected continent where wild things can roam freely.

As alien a vision as ours might be in some places, I firmly believe every person has a love of nature embedded in their DNA. After all, not so long ago we were hunters and gatherers. Whether our ancestors were European or Mesoamerican, we inherited from them a love and dependence upon the wild.

I am quite sure no grizzly will roam the Sierra Madre in my lifetime; yet, wolves are already being re-introduced in Chihuahua. Although they face innumerable obstacles to establishing a breeding population, these wolves would never have been released were it not for more and more people opening their minds to the need for wilderness. Seizing this time of change, I will work with my team for a wild Mexico, and hopefully some future generation will see grizzlies again in the Sierra Madre.

Turning Up the Dial on Saving Mexico’s Wilderness

The landscape in the Los Ojos Voluntary Conservation Area lies in the center of the Sky Islands, a key corridor for wildlife on the U.S.-Mexico border, which links the Sierra Madre Occidental and the Rocky Mountains. Above: A highly endangered Mexican gray wolf roams around its enclosure in Africam Safari, a Mexican zoo participating in the captive breeding program that provides individuals for reintroductions to both Mexico and the U.S.

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THE SNOW HAD BEEN FALLING in bucket loads across the remote forest south of Alpine, Arizona on the day the Mexican gray wolf holding pens were opened. Despite the cold and the sound of blowing drifts against the outside of his tent, wolf biologist Dave Parsons had a broad smile on his face as he finally crawled into his sleeping bag for the night. It was March 29, 1998—a day Parsons would never forget.

Only an hour before, as dusk fell across the blizzard-buried landscape, the leader of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) wolf reintroduction effort and his team had pulled the pins on three holding pen gates, giving 11 wolves access to the wilds for the first time in more than 60 years.

As an excited Parsons lay watching his steamy breath rise into the darkness of his tent, he thought of only one thing—the fact that, after eight grueling years of agency planning, political skirmishes, and unimaginable personal dedication, he was witnessing his dream come true.

Well-known and admired among wolf reintroduction activists, respected by his former peers at the USFWS, and a dreaded force to be reckoned with among the anti-wolf crowd,

Dave Parsons remains a stalwart of the wolf conservation crusade. Dave’s outward calm and professorial demeanor belies a rock solid, unrelenting commitment to the natural environment, especially keystone carnivores, and especially the endangered Mexican gray wolf, the Lobo.

I speak for Wildlands Network and myself when I say David remains one of the preeminent carnivore conservation heroes of our time. He began his federal career with the USFWS in a quiet fashion typical for the job. However, dedication to protecting wildlife and unpredictable fortune led him to achieve great things including using his expert testimony as a USFWS biologist to save 100,000 acres of Cypress swampland in western Tennessee from an Army Corps of Engineers river channelization project.

Many other successes span his career, but perhaps none more poignant than keeping the Mexican Wolf Recovery Program alive. This wolf ’s extinction tale has been told many times over but bears repeating. By the 1940s, political pressure from ranchers and others led to the systematic slaughter of all breeding packs in the U.S., followed by 30 years spent picking off dispersers crossing

A Hero for Lobos

KIM CRUMBO WESTERN WILDWAY FOCUS

Above: Preparing for initial release of wolves in February 1998: Recovery Team Director Dave Parsons (left), USFWS Director Jaime Clark (second from left) and Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt (second from right). Below: Arizona Game and Fish Dept. and USFWS wolf recovery staff releasing wolves into Hawk’s Nest Release Pen in late 1998.

In March of 2000, as a newly retired FWS volunteer, I was asked to “pen sit” the first release of wolves in the heart of New Mexico’s Gila Wilderness—the nation’s first designated wilderness inspired by the famous conservationist, Aldo Leopold. As far from a road as one can get in New Mexico, I was alone in a camp about a mile

from the pen, which was the type that wolves could chew through if they knew to try. Sitting in a camp chair with only a hint of light left, a startling howl broke the wilderness silence from a slope less than a 100 yards away. As I strained to see anything move, a gray form travelled through the woods an even shorter distance away. I like to think this was my official “thank you” from the Lobos. —DAVE PARSONS

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WILDLANDS CONNECTION FALL 2015 5

from Mexico, until the last Lobo was killed. Along came the 1973 Endangered Species Act, which resulted in the listing of the Mexican gray wolf as an endangered species in 1976.

Between 1977 and 1980, under an international agreement, five wild Mexican wolves (four males and one pregnant female) were captured alive in Mexico and transferred to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum in Tucson, Arizona, to establish a captive breeding program. In 1982, the USFWS and its counterpart Mexican agency approved and signed the Mexican Wolf Recovery Plan.

But the forward motion soon came to a screeching halt. Space does not allow for complete regaling of the sordid tale that led to identifying, then withdrawing the insufficient White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico as a reintroduction area. But in the end, not all was lost when Major General Thomas Jones, 18th Commander of the Range, who killed the Recovery Plan by withdrawal of the site, actually became instrumental in reviving it by reversing his decision to avoid litigation. He went on to insist that the USFWS compare the suitability of the missile range for wolf recolonization with alternative habitats in the Southwest in an Environmental Impact Statement.

Science-based habitat analyses ultimately presented in the EIS demonstrated the inadequacy of White Sands Missile Range habitat and the superiority of more diverse, productive and prey-rich habitats elsewhere in the Southwest.

The stars aligned in 1990 as the USFWS selected Dave to lead the charge to reintroduce endangered Mexican gray wolves to their former range in Arizona and New Mexico. His leadership forced the USFWS to select the best habitats for the initial reintroduction of Mexican wolves in the Apache and Gila National Forests in Arizona and New Mexico, an area now called the Blue Range Wolf Recovery Area. While much work remains, Dave’s passion for landscape-scale wildlands conservation and his extensive knowledge of biodiversity conservation keeps him in constant demand by his colleagues, including our Wildlands Network team. He is a credible and irreplaceable source of advice and direction critical for wolf recovery throughout America’s Southwest.

Recently I asked Dave, a person of seemingly endless energy and commitment to a cause riddled with gunshots and agency stonewalling, how he keeps going. As it turns out, he relies on others much like himself. “My inspiration is bolstered by the incredible support Mexican wolves receive from a diverse array of citizen activists and scientists whose impassioned willingness to show up and speak up for our Lobos seems limitless. They do that because the wolves have shown us they can make it, and we can’t stop trying to help them make it.”

Huertas Named National Celebrity Ambassador

This summer, we were thrilled to announce multifaceted actor and performer Jon Huertas, currently playing Javier Esposito on the ABC television series CASTLE, is now our national celebrity ambassador, a voice for our organization and the protection of nature. Our announcement was made in Seattle at Woodland Park Zoo’s award-winning Northern Trail exhibit where he met grizzlies and wolves, some of the North American carnivores for which he is now advocating, as well as to meet the staff, guests and ZooCorps teen volunteers. His also visited Wolf Haven in Tenino, to participate in the announcement of the birth of 10 more critically endangered Mexican wolves in their sanctuary.

In addition to participating in our celebrity fundraising events, Jon will promote outdoor adventure programs and other Wildlands Network advocacy and outreach to kids of all ages, including inner city and at-risk youth. He firmly believes that our youth hold the key to a future with wildlife in it. Already scheduled is his September PaseoWILD trip to one of our Western Wildway priority wildlife corridors, the Grand Canyon Watershed, in hopes of fostering youth support for making it a national monument.

Jon’s career spans television, film and music, and he is a social media master…so follow his posts for saving all things wild on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. We sincerely thank the amazing staff at Woodland Park Zoo and Wolf Haven for such a wonderful welcome and personal introduction to the great carnivores we work to protect.

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6 WILDLANDS CONNECTION FALL 2015

WILD IMAGINATION NEW WORKS IN ART, MEDIA AND CULTURE

Born To Rewild: Trekking the Western Wildway also is scheduled for completion later this fall. Writer/conservationist/athlete John Davis shares his 6,000-mile human-powered journey along the Western Wildway as a soulful and eye-opening call to help connect this continental landscape. Photographer/editor Ed George is joined by producer/writers Kenyon Fields and Lisa Lauf and composer Joseph Roda in bringing the film to life. Contact Wildlands Network for more information on screening Born to Rewild.

TWO NEW AND NOTABLE FILMS

Red Wolf Revival: An Uncertain Tomorrow is nearing completion This short film, directed and produced by Rosh Patel and his team, will investigate why the roughly 100 endangered red wolves left in the wild could be the last our children will ever know.

While the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service considers the future of the program, people in North Carolina are voicing their opinions. After speaking with several residents, scientists and landowners, it is clear that the issue isn’t as simple as being “pro-wolf ” or “anti-wolf,” as it is often portrayed.

 This short film investigates the reasons North Carolina is abandoning this species and will help those with opposing perspectives see eye-to-eye. According to Rosh, “We hope the film can help the conversation reach a point that considers the importance of wild species, while addressing concerns from people directly affected by these decisions.”

Though the wolves may remain in zoos and nature centers across the country, the USFWS’s decision could effectively terminate the red wolf ’s chance for survival in the wild. Further, it would set a precedent for endangered species across the country that would allow for irreversible changes to our biodiversity.

This film was a Kickstarter “Staff Pick” with nearly 179 backers who have pledged $17,875. Executive Producer Susannah Smith believes the qualitative research gained from the screenings will help advise how effectively the film affects people’s views. “We will start our screenings right in the heart of red wolf country in North Carolina and branch out across the state, the East Coast and the country. We hope our research will inform us on how an unbiased film can affect learning and establish new ground for co-existence with this struggling species.”

Look for them at facebook.com/RedWolfRevival and watch for updates from Wildlands Network.

The red wolf (pictured top left), facing a very uncertain future, is the focus of the upcoming film Red Wolf Revival. Director/videographer Rosh Patel (pictured top right) and feature interviewee Ron Sutherland paddle through core habitat for this critically endangered animal. Author/conservationist/athlete John Davis is narrator and host of Born to Rewild, a film that inspires conservation action along the Western Wildway.

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WILDLANDS CONNECTION FALL 2015 7

Big, Wild, and Connected In 2011, John Davis walked, cycled, skied, canoed, and kayaked on a 10-month, 7,600-mile journey from

the keys of Florida to a remote seashore in northeastern Quebec. He shared this story in a series of electronic-only books titled Big, Wild, and Connected. Now those stories will be available in a new paperback edition with a new preface.

The Science of Open Spaces Since the days of the frontier, management policies have promoted a one-size-fits-all mentality for large landscapes. Charles G. Curtin argues for a science-based approach that accounts for the dynamic nature of complex systems and gives local stakeholders a say in their future. The Science of Open Spaces proposes we return to fundamental physical laws of the universe and think about complex systems from the ground up.

Satellites in the High Country In Satellites in the High Country, Jason Mark seeks wildness wherever it survives. In California, oysters and wilderness pit allies against one another. In Washington, a wild woman connects with a primal past. And in Colorado’s High Country, clear air reveals an expanse of stars flawed by a passing satellite. Expeditions to the civilization’s edge show the mystery of the wild is more crucial than ever.

FROM ISLAND PRESS

Don’t forget to use your WN discount code and get 25% off Island Press books. 2WILD}

tortoises, grizzlies and Florida panthers, to name a few. These daunting threats to wildlife won’t disappear any time

soon, but professional road ecologists say the tide is turning. Safe passage for wildlife is becoming part of the standard lexicon for highway agencies, conservation organizations and citizen scientists across the country. According to biologist Paige Singer of Colorado’s Rocky Mountain Wild, whose organization is leading the effort to construct a state-of-the-art wildlife bridge across Interstate 70 on Vail Pass, “We have seen a huge surge in public interest in protecting wildlife on highways. Our growing network of citizens reporting wildlife collisions has greatly enhanced our ability to locate where crossing structures are most needed.”

Rob Ament, road ecology program manager at the Western Transportation Institute in Montana, has recently begun marketing the concept of building wildlife bridges and underpasses with a first-ever compilation of real public and private cost benefits resulting from such crossing structures. He hopes these statistics will convince non-conservation entities to embrace the idea. “The positive cost benefits of WVC mitigation is a powerful rationale, particularly for those who may not be interested in the non-monetized values of wildlife conservation,” Ament points out. To further bolster his approach, he notes that there are more than 29,000 human injuries per year in the U.S. resulting from WVCs, including more than 200 fatalities, resulting in more than $1 billion in annual property damage.

Studies show that installation of crossing structures are reducing those numbers and costs by as much as 80 percent at many WVC-heavy locations, a potent argument for wildlife crossing investments across the country. Ament also is working with Mexican partners to incorporate crossing structures along that country’s soon-to-be-widened Highway 2, running just south of the U.S.-Mexico border—a road project that could block critical cross-border corridors for endangered species like jaguars and ocelots attempting to move north along the Western Wildway to recolonize their native ranges.

According to Wildlands Network Executive Director Greg Costello, the time to protect wildlife from highway dangers is now. “Wildlife crossings are absolutely essential mechanisms for stitching together continental Wildways across North America.”

As Singer’s and Ament’s work comes to fruition (there are hundreds of highway crossing structures planned or under construction today across the U.S.), and the “golden age” of road ecology dawns, future parents will need to be more creative in describing to their younger passengers the names of animals moving across “that funny-looking bridge up ahead” rather than those lying motionless by the side of the road.

ROAD ECOLOGY, FROM PAGE 1

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Wildlands Connection is published by Wildlands Network, a nonprofit educational, scientific and charitable corporation. ©2015 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 Designer Kevin Cross • Contributors Juan Carlos Bravo, Tracey Butcher, Greg Costello, Kim Crumbo, Kim Vacariu

OFFICERS AND DIRECTORS President Susannah Smith, Florida Vice President Steve Olson, Maryland • Founder Michael Soulé, Colorado • Secretary David Johns, Oregon • Treasurer Tom Stahl, California • Directors Karen Beazley, Nova Scotia • Barbara Dean, California • Jim Estes, California • Diana Hadley, Arizona • Mark Higgins, California • Richard Pritzlaff, Colorado • John Terborgh, North Carolina • Paul Vahldiek, Colorado • Directors Emeritus Harvey Locke, Ontario • Brian Miller, New Mexico

STAFF Executive Director Greg Costello • Policy Coalition Coordinator Susan Holmes • Western Director Kim Vacariu Development Associate Crystal Gartner • Wildway Advocate John Davis • Finance Director Alicia Healey • Landscape Conservationist Maggie Ernest • Southwest Utah Wildlands Organizer Kelsey Johnson • Northeast Wolf and Predator Organizer Kathy Henley Outreach Director Tracey Butcher • Communications Director Lisa Lauf • Conservation Scientist Ron Sutherland • Western Conservation Director Kim Crumbo • Development Specialist Nancy Sears • Director of Operations in Mexico Juan Carlos Bravo Director of Strategic Partnerships Kelly Burke

CREDITS Page 1: Rob Ament/WTI • Page 2: Tracey Butcher (top), iStockphoto.com/RichardSeeley (bottom) • Page 3: Juan Carlos Bravo • Page 4: Courtesy Arizona Game and Fish Department (right, top and bottom) • Page 5: Tracey Butcher • Page 6: Roshan Patel(left), Madison McClintock (upper right) • Page 8: Shutterstock.com

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Because all creatures are connected, each must be cherished with love and respect, for all of us as living creatures are dependent on one another. Each area is responsible for the care of this family.

—ENCYCLICAL LETTER LAUDATO SI’ OF THE HOLY FATHER FRANCIS ON CARE FOR OUR COMMON HOME

Wildlands Network’s fall phone-a-thon began in 2007 as a way for our board, staff and volunteers to remind our friends and supporters of the lasting difference they made possible by their past investments in our work and why it’s important to keep our conservation programs in motion.

We’re tremendously fortunate: because of your generous spirit in years past, we’ve always met and often exceeded our goals. This year, we’re relying on your kindness once again. Please, pick up the phone, share your ideas and feedback that ultimately inform our work, and give generously to continue reconnecting nature and protecting carnivores. We promise not to take too much of your time.

Your meaningful acts of generosity make the world more wild and beautiful. Thank you.

Fall Phon-a-thon Invites You to

Answer Our Call

PHONES STILL SOURCE

for Meaningful Conversation


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