IN THIS ISSUE
Since 2006, a dedicated network of regional conservation partners has been diligently working to protect and reconnect the “Western Wildway,” a 5,000-mile-long wildlife corridor stretching from Alaska’s Brook’s Range south across Canada and the U.S. to Mexico’s Sierra Madre Occidental. Accomplishing this international conservation project is as large and daunting a task as the landscape it embraces is vast. But acre by acre, connection by connection, we are making astounding progress toward our goal of revitalizing North America’s most iconic wildlife pathway. In this first edition of Western Wildway News
, you’ll find a sampling of success stories and challenges as told by the people and organizations who work every day to make this continental vision a reality. Please feel free to forward this update to your own lists as appropriate. Enjoy!
Kim Vacariu, Wildlands Network
Contents
AMERICAN WILDLANDS:
FOCUS ON McARTHUR LAKE WILDLIFE LINKAGE
American Wildlands’ Priority Linkage Assessment in the northern U.S. Rockies has identified the McArthur Lake linkage zone as one of the highest priorities for connectivity conservation in the Cabinet-Purcell Conservation Region. Read More...
DEFENDERS OF WILDLIFE:
MAPPING CROSS-BORDER JAGUAR CONNECTIONS
Defenders of Wildlife’s Southwest Office is partnering with Wildlands Network to launch a new project to model northern jaguar habitat suitability and potential dispersal linkages in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands region. Read More...
GRAND CANYON WILDLANDS COUNCIL:
DEVELOPING COLLABORATIVE INITIATIVES
A new opportunity for constructive interaction between the agencies and conservationists led Grand Canyon Wildlands Council to host a “Grand Canyon Ecoregion Climate Change & Habitat Resilience” workshop. Read more...
NATURALIA:
PROTECTING JAGUARS, PRAIRIE DOGS, AND MEXICAN WOLVES
Mexico’s most prominent conservation organization has created a first-of-its-kind jaguar reserve, protected private lands, and is working with the Mexican government to reintroduce the Mexican wolf. Read more...
NORTHERN JAGUAR PROJECT:
SAFEGUARDING JAGUAR BREEDING POPULATIONS
NJP is protecting the northernmost population of jaguars from illegal poaching, improving conservation knowledge and activities in the local ranching community, and helping to map and protect areas for jaguar range expansion and north-south travel corridors. Read More...
ROUND RIVER CONSERVATION STUDIES:
INDIGENOUS LANDSCAPES OF UTAH AND COLORADO PLATEAU;
MONITORING PINE BEETLE DAMAGE IN YELLOWSTONE;
TAKU RIVER PROJECT
Round River is currently assisting tribes in interviewing elders, conducting literature reviews, mapping, and developing tools the tribes can use to advocate for their interests in the conservation of land and natural resources. Read more...
SKY ISLAND ALLIANCE:
DOCUMENTING JAGUAR, OCELOT, BOBCAT, AND
MOUNTAIN LION IN MEXICO
SIA’s field efforts quickly turned into conservation action when Sky Island Alliance and Rancho El Aribabi signed a conservation agreement to protect and restore 10,000 acres of riparian, desert, and upland wildlife habitat. Read more...
SAN JUAN CITIZENS ALLIANCE:
WATCHDOGGING TRAVEL MANAGEMENT IN ROADLESS AREAS
Our successful appeal of the Rico/West Dolores area travel management EA resulted in a fresh start to travel planning in this quarter million acre locale that embraces seven inventoried roadless areas. Read more...
WESTERN WILDLIFE CONSERVANCY:
PROTECTING THE UINTAS-YELLOWSTONE CONNECTION
Western Wildlife Conservancy has been hard at work helping to halt the Cherry Creek Ski Resort, influencing the Ogden Ranger District’s Travel Plan, and exposing fencing violations on BLM grazing lands. Read more.../p>
WILD UTAH PROJECT:
PROMOTING ECOLOGICAL SITING OF TRANSMISSION LINES;
CHALLENGING BLM GRAZING MANAGEMENT
Wild Utah Project is working with the Utah Renewable Energy Zoning task force and the Utah Governor's Energy Initiative to make certain that any new energy facilities are placed in deference to the needs of the Western Wildway. Read more...
YELLOWSTONE TO YUKON CONSERVATION INITIATIVE:
MORE PROTECTION FOR ALBERTA’S GRIZZLIES
The Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative has been a lead participant in a collaborative campaign that has resulted in a Threatened listing for Alberta’s grizzly population. Read more...
WILDLANDS NETWORK:
WILD LIFELINES; CORRIDOR PROTECTION THROUGH
COMMUNITY CONSERVATION
Wildlands Network is implementing two new, but very different, conservation tools ultimately designed to protect wildlife corridors: A “Wild Lifelines” mapping project and our public “Heritage Days” events encouraging Community Conservation. Read more...
AMERICAN WILDLANDS:
McARTHUR LAKE WILDLIFE LINKAGE
American Wildlands’ Priority Linkage Assessment in the northern U.S. Rockies identified the McArthur Lake linkage zone as one of the highest priorities for connectivity conservation in the Cabinet-Purcell Conservation Region. U.S. Highway 95 bisects this linkage zone and experiences high enough volumes of wildlife-vehicle collisions (WVCs) to be a serious hazard to human safety and a threat to wildlife connectivity. The McArthur Lake linkage represents the narrowest point of connection between the Cabinet and Selkirk ranges. It sits at the nexus of three important recovery zones/analysis units: the Cabinet-Yaak Grizzly Bear Recovery Zone and Lynx Analysis Unit, the Selkirk Grizzly Bear Recovery Zone, and the Selkirk Caribou Recovery Zone and Lynx Analysis Unit. Preliminary analysis of crash and road kill data indicates that the section of Highway 95 through the linkage zone
has one of the highest rates of WVCs in the state.
Over the past two decades stakeholders have made several attempts to address wildlife safe passage in the McArthur Lake linkage. Most recently, a proposal to install a crossing structure was shelved for lack of funding. The project was removed from the Statewide Transportation Improvement Program and the issue lost recognition.
Over the past year, AWL has actively worked to revive the McArthur Lake wildlife safe passage and human safety project. In collaboration with The Nature Conservancy of Idaho and the Kootenai Tribe, we initiated conversations with the Idaho Transportation Department (ITD), Idaho Fish and Game, Boundary County and other stakeholders to develop a plan to improve connectivity and driver safety. In response, ITD conducted a value engineering study and concluded that more precise data on wildlife movements is needed to select a proposed alternative. To help implement IDT’s recommendations, AWL submitted a $1.6 million proposal on behalf of Boundary County and ITD to the Federal Department of Transportation requesting planning and design funds. Moving forward, AWL and The Nature Conservancy are jointly seeking new sources of funding to cover research and planning costs for wildlife safe
passage in the McArthur Lake linkage. For more information see www.wildlands.org.
DEFENDERS OF WILDLIFE:
MAPPING CROSS-BORDER CONNECTIONS
Like many large, solitary predators, jaguars can cover an immense territory. While these elusive cats once roamed throughout the southern U.S. from Louisiana to California and as far north as the Grand Canyon in Arizona, only a handful of solitary male jaguars have been documented north of the U.S.-Mexico border since the mid-1990s. Jaguars have been all but completely eliminated from the northern portion of their historic range by poachers, eradication campaigns and habitat destruction. Today, the northernmost documented breeding population for the jaguar is located only 125 miles south of the U.S.-Mexico border. The jaguar can make a comeback – if we are willing to tolerate their presence and ensure they have sufficient room to roam. On the ground, jaguars are increasingly hemmed in by roads, mines, agriculture, miles of border walls and other developments. In the policy
arena, the jaguar is currently a hot topic because it is next in line for the establishment of a bi-national Recovery Team, the development of a Recovery Plan and ultimately the designation of critical habitat. Given that jaguars are wide-ranging, top predators whose range bridges the transition between the Northern Sierra Madre and the southern Rockies along the North American cordillera, the genesis of a Jaguar Recovery Plan presents an important opportunity in the context of the Western Wildway Initiative.
The Defenders of Wildlife’s Southwest Office is partnering with Wildlands Network to launch a new project to model northern jaguar habitat suitability and potential dispersal linkages in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands region using geographic information systems (GIS). Defender’s has contracted with Bird’s Eye View GIS to begin the first phase of this analysis. Indeed, it is Kurt Menke -- sole proprietor Bird’s Eye View and active long-time member of the Western Wildway Initiative – who developed the proposal for this ambitious mapping project. In his project proposal, Kurt noted that while habitat suitability has been modeled independently by the respective state wildlife agencies in Arizona and New Mexico, their methodologies were different, and both stopped short at the Mexican border.
The goal of this new project is to generate a seamless, transboundary jaguar habitat and predicted dispersal corridor model that is derived from the best available spatial data. Phase I of this project is now underway, and will include: outreach to agencies and experts; identifying the appropriate spatial extent of the study area; and both acquiring and cross-walking disparate data sources in order to create seamless datasets in jaguar country across the border region. Phase two of the project, for which funding has not yet been secured, will utilize these datasets to conduct jaguar habitat suitability models and linkage designs. In addition, this phase of the project will model linkage designs both with and without border walls factored in to the equation in order to better understand the impact the wall has upon jaguar habitat connectivity and to identify the pinch-points and
crucial connections jaguars need in order to maintain a viable metapopulation in their northernmost range. It is our hope that this project, when fully funded, will provide a powerful tool that will help inform jaguar conservation planning and research priorities.
For more information see www.defenders.org.
GRAND CANYON WILDLANDS COUNCIL:
DEVELOPING COLLABORATIVE INITIATIVES
Recent pronouncements from the Secretary of the Interior and Secretary of Agriculture have focused on more direct interagency cooperation as our landscapes face unprecedented stress as a result of climate change. DOI has initiated Landscape Conservation Cooperatives, and Arizona national forests are developing new land management plans. A new Mexican Wolf Recovery Plan is in the works, and the Sierra Club is beginning a Resilient Habitats campaign for the Grand Canyon ecoregion.
 In response to what we believe is an opportunity for constructive interaction between the agencies and conservationists, Grand Canyon Wildlands Council hosted a “Grand Canyon Ecoregion Climate Change & Habitat Resilience” workshop this past July 15th. The workshop was attended by seven conservation organizations and nine governmental and educational entities. Our meeting goals were three-fold:
- To identify the conservation challenges confronting land management and wildlife agencies in terms of climate change and habitat resilience in the GC ecoregion.
- To achieve mutual agreement for conservation goals that can be reflected in various management plans and implemented in a timely fashion relevant to meeting the challenges of habitat resiliency and climate disruption.
- To be briefed about Landscape Conservation Cooperatives and the potential involvement of NGOs and government agencies.
Meeting participants identified issues affecting ecosystem resilience on agency managed lands in the Grand Canyon ecoregion, and came to consensus on outcomes that address these issues. These include:
- Preserve native biodiversity
- Manage for connectivity and function
- Increase NGO effectiveness and expand base
- Reshift agency priorities from resource use/extraction
- Improve effectiveness across jurisdictions/disciplines
Our intention is to take the initiative in developing collaborative initiatives around several of these outcomes. For example, we intend to spearhead the interagency effort on connectivity and corridors, including continued active involvement in the on-going forest plan revisions in northern Arizona and the Mexican wolf recovery effort. In addition, we are pursuing direct involvement in the Southern Rockies LCC, with the goal of ensuring Western Wildways Network partners representation on the Steering Committee. GCWC believes that not only can we contribute to landscape-level conservation initiative, but we can bring funding “home” to the Grand Canyon ecoregion. In addition, we are directly involved in the Sierra Club’s Resilient Habitats Campaign targeting the Grand Canyon ecoregion.
For more information, see www.grandcanyonwildlands.org.
NATURALIA:
PROTECTING JAGUARS, PRAIRIE DOGS, AND MEXICAN WOLVES
Naturalia is a Mexican conservation non-profit devoted to preserving Mexico’s endangered wildlife and ecosystems. Our work in northwestern Mexico is focused on establishing sanctuaries throughout the Sierra Madre Occidental and adjacent areas, collaborate with stakeholders to secure the linkages needed to these sanctuaries, and implement direct conservation actions for a suite of highly interactive species that are fundamental to the long-term sustainability of the ecosystems in the region. With our conservation partner the Northern Jaguar Project, we have established a private reserve for the northernmost population of jaguars (see NJP’s update), and in partnership with The Nature Conservancy and another Mexican non-profit BIDA, we have established Los Fresnos as a 10,000-acre reserve in the San Pedro River basin, which is shared by Mexico and the U.S.
Our work in Los Fresnos seeks to expand conservation practices throughout the Mexican portion of the San Pedro River, home to an astonishing diversity of migratory birds, one of Mexico’s last population of beavers, and Sonora’s last two colonies of black-tailed prairie dogs. Recently, we have secured funding to implement the first prairie dog relocation in Sonora, which will establish a secure colony within Los Fresnos. One of our main projects, and a huge challenge for our organization during the next years, is the Mexican Wolf Reintroduction Project.
Anyone aware of the obstacles such reintroductions have faced in other parts of the Western Wildway will understand the significance and complexity of recovering the top predator in regions used primarily for cattle ranching. Coordinating with federal and state governments, addressing the politics and logistics of the reintroduction, implementing support schemes for ranchers in the region, and educating the public about the behavior and environmental importance of wolves are the main actions we have undertaken in the past year. As a long-term project in its earliest stages, we will be updating our partners as key steps are taken to secure the re-establishment of a viable population of Mexican gray wolves in Mexico.
Finally, our work with the Yaqui tribe is focused on building their capacity as stewards of their ancestral territory, home to the smallest and most vulnerable jaguar population in Sonora. We are planning a meeting with key elders and leaders of the tribe to better understand their territorial concerns and to seek partners willing to undertake wildlife monitoring and conservation as a means to establish presence and deter trespassing, while preserving their natural and cultural heritage. Ultimately we hope they will establish and manage a jaguar reserve in southern Sonora’s Sierra Bacatete. For more info, see www.naturalia.org.
NORTHERN JAGUAR PROJECT:
SAFEGUARDING JAGUAR BREEDING POPULATIONS
As jaguars have vanished throughout their range, the Northern Jaguar Project (NJP) is the only U.S. non-profit dedicated entirely to the preservation of the world’s northernmost jaguar population. NJP and our Mexican conservation partner Naturalia are committed to safeguarding this breeding jaguar population. Our goals are to protect this northern population from illegal poaching and surrounding threats, improve conservation knowledge and activities in the local ranching community, help map and protect areas for jaguar range expansion and north-south travel corridors, and provide a wildlife sanctuary that is of adequate size and location to best allow the northern jaguar population a future. Our 45,000-acre Northern Jaguar Reserve, the largest private wildlife reserve in Sonora, Mexico, is one of the last truly wild refuges for the northern jaguar and has emerged as a focal point
for overall biodiversity. The reserve is the centerpiece of our ongoing work to protect, maintain, and improve quality habitat for wildlife.
Camera trapping at the Northern Jaguar Reserve offers a unique, non-invasive opportunity to better understand northern jaguar population size and habitat needs. Our jaguar guardians, two intrepid biologists who are the backbone of all research, maintain a network of more than 150 motion-triggered cameras on the reserve and neighboring ranches. Positioned along known wildlife corridors, the cameras help us identify individual jaguars (and ocelots) through their unique spot patterns.
Placing more cameras has led to an increase in photographs; this documentation will allow us to better understand the jaguars’ movements and activities. In 2009-2010, we have taken more than half of the total jaguar pictures since monitoring began. We are able to distinguish ten individual jaguars from the last year – three males, three females, and four as-yet undetermined. We have recently had a new jaguar identified as the first jaguar sighting on that particular neighboring ranch, one resident dominant male seemingly replaced by another on the reserve, and most excitingly, several instances of male and female jaguars passing in front of the same camera only days apart – leading us to believe they were spending time together and probably mating. The female jaguars are the great hope for a continuing viable population, as it is their kittens who may eventually wander
north into the U.S., and they are the highlight of NJP and Naturalia’s unique and necessary work to safeguard the northern jaguar population. As with jaguar photographs, we have been able to identify individual ocelots by reviewing their unique spot patterns and markings. Through June 2010, we have documented a total of 13 individual ocelots – including a mother ocelot and her cub.
For more information about our continuing work, including recent jaguar photographs and regular reports from our field staff, please visit www.northernjaguarproject.org.
ROUND RIVER CONSERVATION STUDIES:
INDIGENOUS LANDSCAPES OF UTAH AND COLORADO PLATEAU; PINE BEETLE INFESTATION IN YELLOWSTONE; TAKU RIVER PROJECT
Round River is providing consultation and technical assistance to the Utah Navajo, the Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah, and the Confederated Tribes of the Goshute to assess the needs and priorities of each tribe to protect their cultural, spiritual and ceremonial interests. Round River is currently assisting tribes in interviewing elders, conducting literature reviews, mapping, and developing tools the tribes can use to advocate for their interests in the conservation of land and natural resources throughout each of their ancestral territories (see map.) The Goshute are currently battling the threat of Las Vegas dewatering vast regions of Utah’s West Desert, the Utah Navajo are developing a land-use proposal to inform congressional legislation regarding public lands in San Juan County, and three bands of the Paiute are developing land plans to influence county by county legislation,
forest service management, and inform their own planning in southwestern Utah.
Native rights and perspectives have never been adequately considered in land management decisions in the US, even though tribes likely hold some of the richest insights into living sustainably on the lands of their ancestors. Politically, now is a great time for tribes to make significant gains, despite the challenges, which persist from deep wounds that have been inflicted on Indian People throughout U.S. history. Round River hopes to assist the tribes in writing a new chapter in history, by better understanding native interest in these lands and resources and the valuable contributions that tribes have to offer in guiding land management.
Ground Truthing Beetle Kill in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem
During July and August of 2010 the Round River Student Program initiated our pilot project in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem focusing on issues around mountain pine beetle infestations in whitebark pine and potential ramifications of pine loss to wildlife. We focused our field efforts in the Wind River and Absaroka ranges, and worked with other researchers to establish monitoring protocols for future citizen science efforts. The field efforts sought to ground truth beetle kill as observed from aerial surveys to ascertain information on both death of whitebark pine, and also potential recruitment of saplings. While collecting this data we also conducted surveys to record use of stands by Clarks Nutcrackers, Red Squirrels, and evidence of Grizzly Bear.
The amount of change on this landscape in recent years is obvious, and there are many questions about what comes next that will affect land use in the region. Our hope is to continue to increase our ability to spend more time on the land documenting this change and be a resource informing land use decisions.
Taku River Wildlife Conservation Project
Round River continues to provide technical support to the Taku River Tlingit First Nation in their ongoing negotiations with the Government of British Columbia concerning the Atlin-Taku Land Use Plan in northwestern British Columbia. It is anticipated that by the end of November representatives of the BC Government and the Taku River Tlingit, will sign off on a proposed land plan for the Atlin-Taku. After this point the proposed land plan will require approval by the Wolf and Crow Clans of the Taku River Tlingit and by the BC Cabinet, with establishment of the new protected areas through legislation. The process to establish legal protected areas may take a year or more but the significant milestone will be Cabinet approval of the Land Use Plan that could take place by mid 2011.
The Atlin-Taku Land Use Plan very broadly covers an area of 8 million acres. The plan will include the designation of no commercial logging areas, Special Management Areas specifically managed for wildlife and cultural values, fully protected park lands and Salmon Ecosystem Management Areas along all major salmon bearing streams. These designations together will represent a highly contiguous area that captures high percentages of Tlingit cultural sites and high quality habitats for salmon, bear, moose, caribou, sheep and goats.
Another component of the negotiations is an agreement regarding ‘shared decision making’. Under this arrangement, a first of its kind in British Columbia, the Taku River Tlingit and the BC government will cooperate in resource management decisions, through a collaborative process. These arrangements will provide meaningful opportunities for the Taku River Tlingit to be involved in implementation of the land use plan, as well as other aspects of resource management decision-making, including management of wildlife populations, development of management plans for the new and existing protected areas, and operational decision making, including the joint consideration of applications for permits and tenures.
Much work remains to ensure the land plan negotiations are completed and approved, that the land use plan is fully implemented in practice, to complete additional needed planning for new protected areas and for fish and wildlife, and to participate meaningfully in the newly-created management decision making arrangements.
For more information, see www.roundriver.org.
SKY ISLAND ALLIANCE:
DOCUMENTING JAGUAR, OCELOT, BOBCAT, AND MOUNTAIN LION IN MEXICO
Sky Island Alliance initiated wildlife surveys using remote cameras and tracking transects in private properties of northern Sonora, Mexico in 2007. The “Cuatro Gatos” Project aims to build cooperative relationships with landowners in order to facilitate ongoing scientific research, encourage large predator conservation and protect patches of habitat throughout the sky island region.
Our field efforts quickly turned into conservation action when Sky Island Alliance and Rancho El Aribabi signed a conservation agreement to protect and restore 10,000 acres of riparian, desert, and upland wildlife habitat. Carlos R. Elias and his wife, Martha, co-owners of El Aribabi Ranch, are “thrilled about the results of this collaborative project.” For years their family has worked to restore ecological processes in this land and hope to establish a sustainable model that protects biodiversity and supports landowners and their families at the same time. In their own words: “predators are crucial for healthy ecosystems; open space, wild prey populations and wildlife corridors are vital for the survival of felines. We have to protect and maintain those connections across the border region.”
 To date, we have recorded over 25 species of wild mammals, including the four species of cats living in the region: jaguar, ocelot, mountain lion and bobcat. Almost one year after the tragic death of the jaguar known as “Macho B” in Arizona, we collected the first photographs of a northern jaguar in January and April 2010, also in the Mexican state of Sonora.
Back in Arizona, in 2009 Sky Island Alliance photographed an ocelot in Cochise County, only 40 miles north of the US/Mexico border, while participating in the Witness for Wildlife program, supported by the Freedom to Roam Coalition and Patagonia. Although politically divided by an international boundary, the two areas where ocelots have been photographed are biologically connected, via the sky islands. For ocelots, jaguars and all wildlife species to continue to live in the Sky Island region, wildlife migration corridors that link important habitat areas between Mexico and the United States must be protected. Sky Island Alliance has been working to protect high-diversity private lands in Mexico’s sky islands.
Sky Island Alliance is a grassroots conservation organization dedicated to the protection and restoration of the native species and habitats in the Sky Island region. For more information, please visit: www.skyislandalliance.org or follow Sky Island Alliance on Facebook.
SAN JUAN CITIZENS ALLIANCE:
WATCHDOGGING TRAVEL MANAGEMENT IN ROADLESS AREAS
San Juan Citizens Alliance engages a diversity of efforts to enhance and protect the Western Wildway including involvement in public lands planning, watershed protection, grazing and forest health issues, area specific land preservation campaigns and others.
Our travel management planning endeavors focus on preserving landscapes to preserve healthy and intact habitat. Recently our successful appeal of the Rico/West Dolores area travel management EA resulted in a fresh start to travel planning in this quarter million acre locale that embraces seven inventoried roadless areas. Our stance underlines the importance of minimizing motorized travel with the aim of providing secure habitat for numerous species including elk and lynx in the headwaters of the Dolores River. In the adjoining Boggy-Glade travel area we pushed for a high level of road decommissioning to reduce road densities as well as the designation of a 35,000-acre zone as a new non-motorized zone.
Working with other partners, we are proceeding with initiatives in the upper San Juan River, Hermosa Creek and Piedra River drainages that will bring together an array of protective prescriptions with the aim of maintaining, and where possible, restoring terrestrial and aquatic habitat. For more info see www.sanjuancitizens.org.
WESTERN WILDLIFE CONSERVANCY:
PROTECTING THE UINTAS-YELLOWSTONE CONNECTION
Western Wildlife Conservancy, along with Western Wildway Network partner Wild Utah Project, has been concentrating its efforts on protecting the "Uintas-Yellowstone Connection," consisting of the Uinta Mountains in northeast Utah, Utah's highest range, and the Bear River Range, which extends from northern Utah into southeast Idaho. These mountain ranges lie end to end and comprise an important carnivore movement corridor connecting the southern Rockies of Colorado and New Mexico with the northern Rockies of Wyoming, Idaho and Montana. In fact, it is the only continuous mountain corridor joining the two. Canada lynxes and gray wolves have in several instances been documented using it during the last decade. It is no doubt also important to cougars and black bears, and potentially to wolverines and grizzlies, as well. It is under serious and growing threat from development,
motorized recreation and livestock grazing. Here are four actions that Western Wildlife Conservancy is engaging in, or has recently engaged in, to protect this vital corridor.
Halting the Cherry Creek Ski Resort
This last year, Western Wildlife Conservancy, and one of our sister organizations, Bear River Watershed Council, joined forces to defeat a proposed ski resort development in Cherry Creek Canyon on the west slope of the Bear River Range. Much of this canyon is privately owned and the owners took it upon themselves to begin clearing potential ski runs of trees and brush in anticipation of having the requisite county permit rubber-stamped. However, we learned of the scheme and documented the illegal activity with photographs, then publicized what we'd found. We demanded that Cache County authorities speedily investigate and report to us (I signed the letter as legal representative of both organizations). They did so, at first denying that the clearing work was inappropriate only to recant shortly after as they began to worry about the possibility of a law suit. The owners of the
property soon withdrew their request for a permit and have apparently given up on the idea of their dream ski resort.
Ogden Ranger District Travel Plan Appeal
A couple of years ago Western Wildlife Conservancy, along with a handful of other conservation organizations, including Wild Utah Project, appealed the Forest Service's Ogden Ranger District travel plan on the ground that it violates NEPA and the APA by improperly promoting an increase in motorized recreation on the Forest at the expense of the interests of non-motorized users and the needs of wildlife. The Ogden Ranger District includes the southern-most end of the Bear River Range, as well as a segment of the nearby Wasatch Range. The appeal was denied and Western Resource Advocates recently filed suit in federal court on our behalf.
Exposing Fencing Violations on Logan Ranger District
Last year Western Wildlife Conservancy learned that some ranchers had built a new fence several miles long from the valley of Bear Lake on the east side of the Bear River Range to the crest of the range. The fence was to replace an old "lay down" fence that was used to divide summer grazing pastures. It had deteriorated over the years and had become difficult to maintain, as well as to put up and take down because of forest growth. The Logan District Ranger knew of and approved the plan to replace this fence. Unfortunately, the ranchers decided to make the work easy on themselves by employing chain saws and a D9 Caterpillar to blaze a fence line some 30-60 feet wide from valley to mountain crest. I notified a local TV news reporter who met me and one of the ranchers at the site for a story. The TV camera told the story better than our words. The ranchers involved
have had a portion of their allotment closed to grazing for a period of years for violating the terms of their permit. For more information, see www.westernwildlife.wordpress.com.
WILD UTAH PROJECT:
ECOLOGICAL SITING OF TRANSMISSION LINES; CHALLENGING BLM GRAZING MANAGEMENT
Scrutinizing Renewable Energy
We all want renewable energy. The emphasis for utilities and often policy holders in many western states is to promote major solar and wind facilities in wild places. These areas are further impacted by a new need for more transmission lines.
Wild Utah Project is working with the Utah Renewable Energy Zoning task force and the Utah Governor's Energy Initiative to make certain that any new energy facilities are placed in deference to the needs of the Western Wildway. We are identifying areas where ecological impacts are minimal and also promoting policies that promote renewable energy to be constructed first in the built environment. Addressing the core driving forces for siting requires looking at shifting traditional economic policies that now favor wildland habitat siting.
Addressing a Key Grazing Stressor
No single land use has degraded on a large scale habitat function for ecosystems more than livestock grazing. Restoring the health of these lands is a critical part of rewilding the Spine of the Continent. Addressing the key stressor is a fundamental issue. Wild Utah Project and our partners are involved in a challenge of grazing management on BLM lands. When the hearing before a federal judge is completed, this will be the longest hearing on grazing on record, 12 weeks. We are challenging the absence of science in BLM management. We have five years of detailed field data that provides us with a scientific basis to challenge the core methods BLM uses in grazing decisions. Early indicators show that we are likely to have a ruling that supports much of our case. The ruling on this case, due next year, could have far reaching effects on land use and wildlife habitat condition in
the West. For more information, see www.wildutahproject.org.
YELLOWSTONE TO YUKON CONSERVATION INITIATIVE:
MORE PROTECTION FOR ALBERTAS GRIZZLIES
Within the Y2Y region, Alberta’s foothills represent the northern front lines of retreat for the continent’s grizzly bear population. Intense resource development pressure and unregulated motorized access on public lands are putting Alberta’s bears (estimated at fewer than 700 animals) at great risk of decline. The Yellowstone to Yukon (Y2Y) Conservation Initiative has been a lead participant in a collaborative campaign to gain more protection for Alberta’s grizzly population, particularly more protected core areas and a new regulatory approach to road density and access management.
In June of this year, our efforts were rewarded when the Alberta government listed the provincial grizzly population as “Threatened” under Alberta’s Wildlife Act. While the protection provided under this Act is extremely weak, the Threatened listing provides activists with a platform from which to push for greater habitat protection and continued public communication about inadequate land management practices. Partners working with the Y2Y organization on this campaign include CPAWS-Southern Alberta, the Alberta Wilderness Association, the Sierra Club of Canada, the WildCanada Conservation Alliance, and the Natural Resources Defense Council. For more info, see www.y2y.net.
WILDLANDS NETWORK:
CORRIDOR PROTECTION THROUGH COMMUNITY CONSERVATION; WILD LIFELINES MAPPING PROJECT
Wildlands Network is implementing two new, but very different, conservation tools ultimately designed to protect wildlife corridors. Our Wild Lifelines mapping project will help partners refine the science of their conservation plans, and our public “Heritage Days” events are already encouraging rural communities in linkage areas to embrace habitat conservation as part of their cultural heritages.
Wild Lifelines Mapping Project
Wildlands Network has been working with Dr. David M. Theobald to depict potential dispersal pathways in the U.S. between the Mexican and Canadian borders that emphasize the least human modification and highest extant connectivity for wildlife, and that will complement the core-corridor mapping approach already used in our exiting Wildlands Network Designs. These new “Wild LifeLines” pathways are the result of a novel modeling approach that is based on a Natural Landscapes Index built from layers of land cover types, distance to roads, traffic volume, and housing density, and that identifies the least fragmented connections between remaining natural areas. Wild LifeLines complement identification of cores and linkages within conservation planning boundaries that might secure landscape capacity for broad-scale wildlife movement within extant high-connectivity lands.
Although LifeLines identify areas important for landscape permeability, the intent is not to prioritize selection of parcels or local scale linkages, but rather to identify the most efficient existing pathways allowing broad-scale, regional dispersal. Wild LifeLines is a powerful new expression of places and pathways that are important for  connectivity preservation projects with the goals of mitigating habitat fragmentation, providing for the dispersal of wide-ranging species, and facilitating adaptation to climate change.
Building Community Conservation Awareness
While modern communications firms spend much time attempting to develop the perfect conservation message that will bridge the gap between caring for and protecting one’s family and conserving nature, the great conservationist Aldo Leopold already put the message of community conservation in clear context more than 70 years ago when he wrote: “We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.”
Wildlands Network is using Leopold’s message to raise awareness of the need for landscape connectivity among residents of the sprawling rural landscapes surrounding the Chiricahua and Peloncillo Mountain ranges of southeastern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico. Through sponsorship of annual “Heritage Days” public events that blend a celebration of the region’s cultural and natural heritage, WN is successfully integrating nature appreciation and protection into community core values. This popular and new event has laid a foundation of support for many of the key conservation concepts that heretofore have been difficult to incorporate into rural culture, such as the need to protect properties for their value as stepping stones in larger wildlife corridors.
When Leopold’s concept of community conservation is presented in terms of making sure all the pieces of a community, both natural and cultural, are accounted for and respected and protected, a foundation is laid on which future conservation of individual properties and resources can be more readily accomplished. When delivered in a way that subtly replaces the common perception of community (people, businesses, roads, and houses) with a holistic perception of community (people and infrastructure plus air, water, earth, flora, and fauna) this message suddenly becomes a highly successful bridge over a once difficult terrain.
To get more information about these projects, follow Wildlands Network on Facebook, or visit us at www.wildlandsnetwork.org.
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