It’s once again time to bring you up to date on what we are doing. Our main focus, as always, is on protecting large carnivores and their habitats. These include the wolf, Canada lynx, wolverine, black bear and cougar. Our work area is the entire state of Utah and parts of surrounding states, as issues require. Most of our effort, however, is focused on the area where the states of Utah, Wyoming and Idaho join, which is roughly the western portion of the Heart of the West I have described to you before. This in-cludes the Uinta Mountains—Utah’s highest and wildest—as well as the Wasatch, Monte Cristo and Bear River ranges—or, more accurately, the watersheds associated with these ranges. Here’s a drawing.
The ovals are roughly where the named mountain ranges lie. The Uintas are
an east-west trending mountain range extending from the Wasatch Mountains on
the west to beyond the Colorado state line. The Wasatch, Monte-Cristo and Bear
River ranges are all north-south trending ranges connected almost end to end,
in that order, south to north. Nearly all of this land is federal public land—mainly
Forest Ser-vice land but also some Bureau of Land Management land.
The dashed double arrows indicate wildlife movement corridors. Thus, as you
can see, the area encompassed by the ovals is not only valuable wildlife habitat
but is a critical wildlife movement corridor connecting the Southern Rockies
of Colorado with the Northern Rockies of the Teton-Yellowstone coun-try and
beyond. It is in fact the only forested bridge between the southern and northern
Rockies. Con-sequently, it is of singular importance for facilitating migration
of forest carnivores such as the Canada lynx, wolverine, and fisher. Of course,
it is also important for larger carnivores, such as mountain lions, black bears
and gray wolves. If these animals are not able to move freely through this “bottleneck,”
ge-netic exchange among far flung populations of them is reduced—rather
like a clogged artery reducing the flow of blood to the heart—thus rendering
the smaller and more isolated populations more vulnerable to extinction. Unfortunately,
all manner of activities are taking place on our public lands that cumulatively
“clog” this bottleneck: livestock grazing, road building, oil and
gas development, explosive off-road vehicle use, hunting and trapping, etc.
Global warming will only exacerbate the problem and make this forested bridge
all the more important as animals are driven to seek higher elevations.
It is a real challenge to try to maintain connectivity through this region,
but that is what Western Wildlife Conservancy is committed to doing. Fortunately,
we have help. We commonly team up with sev-eral other organizations that also
have an interest in some part or aspect of this corridor. We don’t all
do exactly the same thing and we each have something important to contribute.
(Most of us also work out-side the ovals.)
For example, several of us recently submitted a joint set of comments on the
Ogden Ranger Dis-trict forest travel plan, asking that the “selected”
alternative be rejected and that proposed motorized routes be scuttled in favor
of quiet recreation and the needs of wildlife. (The Ogden Ranger District is
part of the Wasatch-Cache National Forest and is situated roughly in the middle
of the top oval.) Actu-ally, this was just the latest stage in a longer process.
First we critiqued the draft plan, but no changes were made. Then we appealed
the final plan and won: it was sent back for better “cumulative effects”
analysis. We judged this analysis to be woefully inadequate in our latest comments.
If the Forest Ser-vice decides to go ahead and approve the plan despite our
critique, we will undoubtedly sue in the federal courts to have it shelved.
And I think we will likely succeed because it violates many standards and regu-lations.
Its whole purpose is to promote motorized recreation on the national forest
at the expense of more important values, such as the value of the forest as
a wildlife migration corridor. Western Wildlife Conservancy submitted detailed
comments on the importance of this corridor, focusing on the Canada lynx as
a stand-in for all forest carnivores. Other groups focused on things like soil
erosion, noise, or species such as deer and sage grouse. That is the value of
collaboration: no one gets saddled with the whole task.
Earlier this year we attended meetings and wrote comments criticizing the Fish
and Wildlife Ser-vice’s proposal to delist the gray wolf in the Northern
Rockies. If this proposal goes through it will be a long time before there any
wolves in Utah. There’s a good chance it will not go through. Also, recently
I teamed up with someone who wants to start a group to educate folks about traps
and pet safety. Her pet dog was caught in a trap down by Moab earlier this year
and her husband hurt his hand trying to free it. They want to do something to
protect pets from traps and I am going to help them. Our focus will be on education—for
example, by placing informational brochures in veterinary clinics. We hope to
eventually achieve enough influence to force some needed changes in trapping
practices. (Incidentally, if any of you locals are interested in helping out
a little bit with this, let me know.) My next task is to write comments in support
of new Wild and Scenic Rivers designations in the Uintas and Bear Rivers, and
elsewhere in Utah. Later in the summer I will turn my attention to the upcoming
mountain lion proclamation that will set the hunting regulations and number
of permits for next season. We will do our best to ensure that the Utah Division
of Wildlife Resources tries to meet the goal of its own 10-year management plan
of maintaining “healthy populations of cougars in all currently occupied
habitat.” This is just a sample of the kinds of things we do. What most
sets us apart from other conservation groups working in our geographi-cal area
is expertise in carnivore ecology and behavior, coupled with legal expertise
(gradually becoming more expert).
Now I want to briefly inform you of a few facts about Western Wildlife Conservancy
that per-haps most of you are familiar with from previous newsletters, or perhaps
not. WWC is not a big organiza-tion. In fact, I am the only paid staff person.
I do virtually everything that needs doing, though I do get good help on some
things from our excellent board members, John Carter, Allison Jones and Trey
Sim-mons. At various times, for short periods, we have had part-time staff,
but not currently. And I don’t see the situation changing in the near
future. Currently, we raise roughly $32,000 - $36,000 a year to run the organization,
which of course includes all overhead and salary. There are no benefits. In
order to build the organization to accommodate two staff members, with benefits
(the next level), we would have to raise approximately $100,000 a year—a
formidable task indeed! Before this can happen (and before it should happen),
there must be a clear need. And this need will be one shared by many conservation
or-ganizations working in the geographical area—the ones that we commonly
collaborate with. Furthermore, this will have to be a need that, for whatever
reasons, Western Wildlife Conservancy is deemed in the best position to fill.
The idea is to be efficient by not duplicating the work of others, and effective
by mounting coordinated efforts. Instead of trying to cover everything, I limit
my attention to a certain range of issues where I believe I have the most to
contribute. In one way or another they all have to do, first and foremost, with
carnivore conservation. Of course, carnivores serve as an umbrella for myriad
other species: take care of the needs of carnivores and you take care of their
needs as well.
In recent years, WWC has received about $2,000-3,000 of its annual budget in
donations from you, the “members,” and the rest from grants that
we apply for. The donations amount used to be higher, but since I began law
school nearly six years ago, when I discontinued lengthy, quarterly newsletters,
the number of contributors has slowly dwindled to about 60—for a variety
of reasons, no doubt. But a big part of the reason, I’m sure, is that
I have chosen not to put a lot of time or effort into this aspect of the organization
in favor of greater reliance on grants and having more time to do the fundamental
work that is the purpose of the organization. I confess this with some trepidation,
because I wouldn’t for a minute want to give anyone the impression that
I do not appreciate your heart-felt donations. I certainly do. $2,000-3,000
goes a long way toward covering overhead for the organization, while the grants
are mainly earmarked for particular projects. So the donations make a difference.
But imagine the work it would take to build the membership so that 90% of the
income comes from member donations! I’m not even sure it could be done,
but in any case it would take all my time. Many of you have hung in there a
long time and I am grateful. I am thinking of thinking of Karen and Pat Garrett,
for instance, who send WWC something nearly every month. I have never even met
you, though you live only ten miles away. I could reel off nearly every name,
but I’ll resist. Just be assured that your donations are appreciated.
I hope you continue to believe that your hard earned money is going to a worthy
cause. And, as ever, if you have any questions, feel free to contact me.
Kirk Robinson
Here is an Op-Ed piece I published in the Salt Lake Tribune a few months back
that I think will interest you. You can see my philosophical side.
The Fish and Wildlife Service wishes to declare the gray wolf successfully
recovered through-out Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and adjacent parts of Washington,
Oregon and Utah. Some say "It's about time." Others say "Not
so fast."
The Endangered Species Act stipulates that endangered species be restored to
"all or a signifi-cant portion of their former range" to count as
recovered. But what if wolves occupy only 5 per-cent of the designated recovery
area, as they do in this case? What about the Wyoming, Salt River and Bear River
mountains?
How dearly people love dogs, yet how violently some of them hate wolves - a
fact more reveal-ing about humans than about canids. It suggests a puerile militarism
("You're either with us or against us.") targeted on the wolf as symbol
of inhospitable nature.
Sometimes nature must be tamed (a warm fire) or eradicated (smallpox) to make
the world habitable to humans. But unbridled enthusiasm for taking on the role
of nature's manager spawns willful ignorance of our inescapable dependence on
wild nature - a pathological condition aptly described as alienation.
It is exemplified, for example, by denial, in the face of overwhelming evidence,
of human-caused global warming and the calamities it will spawn if we do not
quickly clean up our act. It is exemplified also by hordes of people romping
over the land on ATVs in gleeful abandon, treating nature as little more than
a roller coaster with pretty scenery, never mind the consequences to watersheds,
wildlife and quiet recreation.
And it is exemplified by so-called sportsmen who demand that wildlife be managed
farm-like to provide them with easy, successful hunts - never mind the incremental
costs to ecosystem health and the endless need to micromanage.
A more realistic and saner view sees our place in nature as bounded, not by
our ingenuity, which inevitably outstrips our foresight and our wisdom, but
by moral necessity. Beyond an ad-mittedly fuzzy line there is wild (self-willed)
nature, substantially whole. We owe it respect, just as we do our own bodies.
And this means that we should try not to screw it up.
Some folks rebel against the imperative for self-restraint. They assert that
no part of nature is entirely free from human influence (which may be true),
or that human beings are part of nature, too (which is true), and from there
fly on the wings of fallacy to the absurd conclusion that to posit wild nature
in contradistinction to the human world is to falsify reality - as if, having
once inhaled second-hand smoke, you might as well begin smoking five packs a
day.
There are sound reasons why we ought to encourage wolf recovery to all parts
of wolves' for-mer range still capable of supporting them. One hypothesis worth
taking seriously is that it will do more than any other single thing we are
capable of doing, at the cheapest possible cost, to mend our ailing ecosystems
and watersheds and keep them healthy - something that becomes increas-ingly
urgent with the growing specter of global warming causing catastrophic habitat
loss and species extinction.
So far, the truth of this claim is unfolding wondrously in Yellowstone National
Park, as wolves (along with cougars) reclaim their rightful place in the scheme
of things: healthier watersheds and riparian systems, supporting a richer biota,
better capable of withstanding, and to some ex-tent ameliorating, global warming.
Second, large predators roaming the land will do much to inspire appropriate
respect for na-ture in surly humans, at the same time affording those with the
requisite aesthetic sensibility op-portunities to appreciate the priceless beauty
and sublimity of nature in all its majestic otherness.
Humans should worry less about mastering nature and more about mastering themselves.
Let there be wolves.