All living life forms who are intelligent, use your brains. All living life forms who want to survive on Earth, use your minds. All authority that is authority, that is righteous in truth in the wisdom of all that is God, and God being great, as God is in all living life forms, live NOW. All The Way Alive. In this moment we all find serenity and bliss, and righteousness and truth. We accept life completely as forever. There is no beginning or end to it. We just are, man.

ATWA
Air Trees Water Animals/All The Way Alive.
"...You come to me with your love for me. That love was in you and had nothing to do with me / my love for you was in me. Your love for me changes with the Air you take in and out / without the Air there is no there or where, remember or forgets, it's LOVE 4 the Air. Forget to remember, remember to forget; knowing needs no remembering or forgetting, for LOVE IS knowing your LOVE, and you or me means LESS than nothing and more than all, knowing we are ONE ATWA and I am all ATWA. Remembering what I'll do and forgetting what I did, taking all in knowing Love is Air, here, now, then, all, everything and everywhere. Air my Sun god, god Sun Air, sweet love of life I am love you everywhere my air; it's yours. Air, Air, everywhere there is a there."

"So what you're doing is you're reaching your hand in the grave and you're saying, 'Come on all you righteous people who want to survive on earth. Come on you real deal. If you want to breathe air, and [have clean] water, and live in harmony, get with it.' Hail Mary, full of grace, The Lord is with thee, blessed is thy Life on Earth / ATWA. You see it? Then it's a part of you and you're a part of it. And you are the order of ATWA. ...It's not the question 'Why did you crucify Christ?' You search the books, you search the scholars, you go through all the high minds of the world and say 'Why did you crucify Christ?' and you're not going to get an answer because it is the wrong question. The question is / are you ready? Why are you crucifying Christ? Why are you crucifying Christ every day? Every day you're killing Christ's air. Every day you're taking Christ's life. Every day you're
poisoning Christ's water. If you really truly love Christ, then get with ATWA. The ATWA is the righteous order of the planet.... It started with George Washington, the Sons of Liberty. The Sons of Liberty gave their life. We cannot live without liberty. Liberty is the thing that gives us 'human'..."

Their mission is to be a catalyst for advancing beaver management and watershed restoration, training mitigation professionals, supporting scientific research, and increasing the public’s appreciation of the beaver’s critical role in creating climate resilient ecosystems.

Their goal is to resolve all beaver-human conflicts in a science-based manner in order to maximize the many benefits that beavers contribute to the environment.

As the only national beaver non-profit, they work locally across North America through varied programs, empowering individuals and organizations to succeed in beaver management, coexistence, communication, education, and scientific research.

Beavers are the subject of at least two new books, Eager by Ben Goldfarb and Beaverland by Leila Philip. BeaverCON is among the biggest conservation conferences in the country.

In this episode, Michael rejoins the podcast to discuss an ambitious project: the establishment of 100 new national parks in the United States. The conversation covers the extensive research and groundwork done over 15 years to identify these areas, the existing public lands that could be transformed, and the benefits of increased protected areas for climate stabilization, biodiversity, and public health. - The Growing Movement Towards 100 National Parks

Michael Kellett, the co-founder and Executive Director of RESTORE: The North Woods, has over 35 years of experience in the land conservation movement. In 1994, he wrote the first white paper proposing a 3.2 million-acre Maine Woods National Park & Preserve and has been actively involved in efforts to restore the endangered wildlife such as the eastern wolf, Atlantic salmon, and Canada lynx; to protect federal and state public lands from unsustainable logging and development; and to revive the national parks movement. From 1986 to 1992, he was the Northeast Director and Michigan Representative of The Wilderness Society, where he helped to pass national forest wilderness and national recreation area legislation and developed a proposal for a Maine Woods National Reserve. Michael has served on the board of American Lands Alliance, Thoreau Country Conservation Alliance, Thoreau Farm Trust, and Walden Forever Wild. He has visited 258 National Park System units across America. He lives in Lincoln, Massachusetts.

Coyote Voicings: Howls, Yips, Barks, & More | Coyote Yipps - Information and stories about San Francisco coyotes: behavior & personality, coexistence & outreach, by Janet Kessler: Unveiling first-hand just how savvy, social, sentient and singular coyotes really are! - https://coyoteyipps.com/coyote-voicings/

The Gallatin Range south of Bozeman is the last major unprotected landscape in the northern Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. A minimum of 250,000 acres of the Gallatin Range as advocated by the Gallatin Yellowstone Wilderness Alliance should be designated wilderness under the 1964 Wilderness Act.

The Gallatin Range is a key area for wildlife, and home to grizzlies, wolves, elk, moose, bighorn sheep, wolverine and a host of other wildlife. It could be a significant area for recolonizing Yellowstone bison moving north out of the park.

Its reputation as a significant wildlife sanctuary started in 1910, when Gifford Pinchot, the first chief of the Forest Service, advocated making the southern part of the Gallatin Range a wildlife refuge.

In recognition of the Gallatin Range's fabulous wildlife habitat values, the Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks created a wildlife management area (WMA) primarily in the Buffalohorn and Porcupine drainages in the southern Gallatin Range.

In 1977, Senator Lee Metcalf sponsored the Montana Wilderness Study Act legislation (S.393), which created nine wilderness study areas in Montana, including in the Gallatin Range known as the 155,000-acre Hyalite-Porcupine-Buffalohorn WSA.

The legislation says, “The wilderness study areas designated by this Act shall, until Congress determines otherwise, be administered by the Secretary of Agriculture to maintain their presently existing wilderness character and potential for inclusion in the National Wilderness Preservation System.

In the 1980s, the Gallatin Range was initially included in the legislation creating the Lee Metcalf Wilderness in the Madison Range. However, during the legislative debate, the Gallatin Range was removed due to a legacy of railroad checkerboard alternative sections of land that some felt would complicate wilderness protections.

In the 1990s, several legislative efforts led to the removal of railroad checkboards with the express purpose that the roadless lands would eventually be designated wilderness.
Biologist Lance Craighead did a biological assessment of the Gallatin Range noting it’s importance for wildlife.

Wilderness is the “Gold Standard” for conservation. Protecting the area as wilderness is the best way to preserve and ensure the ecological integrity of the Gallatin Range and, by extension, the northern Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.

The Gallatin Range wilderness effort must be viewed within the context of preserving the entire Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. An expanded Greater Yellowstone National Park that included the Gallatin north to Bozeman with a wilderness overlap would be the best option for maintaining the ecological and evolutionary processes.

Some powerful thoughts from Charlie to do our part to keep the words of the soul in motion, honoring his rebirth with the rising sun on his birthday, and paying tribute to all veterans like him who have served to protect life on Earth.

"When your PA (Program Administrator) says no to me you are doing nothing. If I reflect or try to explain you think it's me personally, and it's not me as a person, it's me as a world court. I've been a judge in the convicts' court ever since the 1940's, it's called the MAC, named after the Scotland's rights Mason and high orders of church in my world, my life, my right. When the system's men were raising me I thought you PAs, AWs, wardens were my dads. Family. I only knew what you all taught me. You on one foot and the old cons on the other. Now that I've grown up the people now days don't like me because I've grown up and know I am a man now. You won't let me be a man. When you say no to me you are saying no to all the men who raised me. I told you I broke no law. That's your law, your rights. Right, honor, court, money, your world, family, self, state, country. You told me before I retired you the 6th time that not knowing the law is no excuse. Now after 45 years I say to you: Each lie I've been told and each day I've been held will balance itself in my ghost, shadow, life, world, my CIA, my government, my grandad's grave, my cross, my church.

I don't like to tell you what's coming because you may think that's what I'm projecting. I may think the sun came out but I'm not burning it, and if I say looks like rain I'm not making it rain. The people who been using me and my life to hold their fears and keep me as their reality in order to feel sure -- I say, nothing in God's law goes unseen." - CM

"I don't want to be obnoxious here, but you got millions and millions and millions of people with the same and with variations of difference and saying the same thing. I say just simply this: Heal the mind. And then work for the air, the trees, the water and the animals. And the people? Tough shit. If you want to live in my world, come and go through what I went through to live in my world. You don't just come get in my world. You have to do something to earn my world. I wouldn't let a lot of those people in my world if I had the say so about it. I don't have to destroy them like Adolf did, all I have to do is just say no. I don't want that in my world. I don't want that confusion in my world. You don't have to let those people in your mind. You let the people in your mind that are helping your mind. And your mind is the only mind. You are the mind. You are ATWA, you are the earth, you are the trees, you are the animals, you are everything. You are the child of god. That's the truth. Period." -CM

"We tried to bring ATWA into minds play for survival of life but the people sold it out for greed and money systems and destroyed their worlds. They will end up with no soul, no trees, no wildlife, no air or water. It's just a dream and god is the mind or the way we see, hear, taste, and feel. Try to understand all is one and only one can fix earth. Is your way of life worth all the water and air? Without water and air everyone will die, so why are you killing everyone with lies?...

Life feeds from the breast of life and the water of earth starts with mother earth, not mama schoolbook book brain...

There's a universal consciousness that's always been held down by a bunch of educated idiots who call themselves teachers and schools. Uncle Jess wouldn't let me go to school. Do you know what having your own mind is in a world of programmed patterned robots? Having your own mind is total freedom, that's insanity...

I am beyond the minds that have no soul, beyond what you're told, bought or sold...

You were a generation of children trying to get your humanity back, trying to get your honor back, trying to redeem your planet, trying to get your life back on earth and I was a convict trying to help you...

We have been redeeming what was wrong before our grandmothers were born.... (The swastika) is sun god symbol, symbol of sun as god, not a dead man on a stick, not a woman, but the energy we live in and beyond the energy we live in.

As I woke up I brought everybody at that ranch into the thought of one world, one mind, one peace on earth.... We were on a metaphysical level at ranch...

"Forever is forever and anyone who wants to see into and put their mind and thoughts into forever can. You see a rock and understand the rock is not forever. You can see into the sky and all its stars and say that is forever. Cars, money, things are moving. The pillars or God's word symbols that thought travels on and with thoughts in the will of God is forever the mind. Something true is true forever even if we don't know what it is. We go through life and come to thoughts in sky's mind that are and have always been. Soul is forever. Life and death are games. Forever is no game. If you give your words into forever and sell them out by dropping them for reasons you justify then your mind and heart is not in forever. Your life keeps on but when it ends and you must face your own knowing you know, and that won't let your soul into itself. The wheels of thought are held in forever.

Your mind's brains can become aware of them and you can come in and out of the temple of forever. It's not a judge. Our own thoughts do that. We alone effect our self. There is no one, no us, no we, unless we make it, redeem it, and come back in grace with truth. As I say, I don't judge it, it just is in nothing as nothing is forever as nothing is soul. The beyond, the Ansome. But one lie is like a wall. Like a space movie one lie and a force field goes up and forever and truth goes on and on without you. A real witch knows no one can catch her lying. No one but herself. Everything is perfection. Monks who are in forever say no women can hold points of view in forever because they have no soul, that their fear turns them to lie and hide from the real. I've just drove up on forever and feel it started with me so I'm just here. (Swastika)" - CM

Before he and his wife Lucinda began rewilding work on the Pitchfork Ranch 20 years ago, A Thomas Cole spent thirty-two years as a small-town lawyer in Casa Grande, Arizona, successfully defended two death-penalty murder cases, a dozen homicide cases, co-counseled the largest jury verdict in Arizona history, Chaired the Casa Grande Town Hall, Arizona Humanities Council and banned from Walmart for life.

Rewilding On the Ground: Restoration Success at Pitchfork Ranch

In this episode, we explore Pitchfork Ranch, located between the Sonoran and Chihuahuan Deserts, and how its owner has been dedicated to ecological restoration for the past 20 years. The ranch covers 11,000 acres, including BLM state-leased and deeded land, and features a significant Cienega—a threatened type of wetland. The discussion delves into the history of the land, the extensive restoration work funded by government grants, the diverse wildlife populations, and the impact of climate change on water resources. The owner’s efforts in securing a new Cienega National Monument and future plans for the ranch’s ecological sustainability are also highlighted. Despite facing significant challenges, especially due to climate change, the owner maintains hope and continues advocating for land restoration and carbon capture. - Rewilding Pitchfork Ranch

The overarching goals for this ranch are habitat repair and carbon sequestration, using “flood-n-flow” based restoration practices and accompanying sediment deposition to nudge the ciénaga and surrounding land toward its pre-settlement condition — to get the water back. Ongoing installation of grade-control structures is helping the ciénaga and surrounding land reclaim itself and reconnect surface and groundwater. Goals are to: refurbish the headquarters while retaining its historic character, monitor photo points and piezometers, perform water and soil data collection and mapping, raise the ciénaga bed, sequester a portion of the legacy load of atmospheric carbon, restore traditional and uplands, improve infiltration rates, fix roads, rebuild the cattle herd, provide science, research and education opportunities, protect the archaeology, improve habitat for wildlife and imperiled plants and animals, restore low-intensity fire and prevent range land fragmentation. - Read more about Pitchfork Ranch…

"Last month marked the 60th anniversary of the Wilderness Act signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson, and the establishment of our nation’s Wilderness Preservation System. This landmark conservation bill was designed to permanently protect wild, untrammeled landscapes for future generations to discover, explore, and experience the profound beauty and solitude of nature. Upon passage in 1964, the Wilderness Act originally designated 9.1 million acres in 13 states. Today, that number has grown to more than 111 million acres of designated wilderness in 44 states and Puerto Rico.

While this may sound like a lot, it is important to remember only 5% of the entire United States is permanently protected as wilderness. To make matters worse, one-third of these wilderness areas contain private inholdings within their boundaries that were grandfathered in upon designation. These inholdings are gaping holes in the fabric of the landscape that don’t carry the same protections as the surrounding wilderness: roads can be built, minerals can be extracted, old-growth timber can be cut, and residential homes and lodges can be constructed. Those are the threats facing these properties today, but who can say what new threats they will face 60 years from now as technology continues to advance exponentially?

One of the greatest strengths of the Wilderness Act is how it is written to endure. Rather than list out specific prohibited uses, it draws a line in the sand at ‘mechanized’. While the Act’s authors likely couldn’t have anticipated how widespread recreational drones would become, the set of protections they crafted still apply to them. Just as the Wilderness Act endures, we need solutions for the threats still facing wilderness that endure. Our model of protecting inholdings by acquiring and transferring them to be added to the wilderness has been successful since 1992. Over the course of our 32-year history, the Trust has permanently protected over 58,000 acres via the transfer of 592 properties in 120 wilderness areas, and helped complete 17 wilderness areas by removing the last remaining inholding."

In the latest pamphlet from The Wilderness Land Trust, see how newly protected lands, community efforts, and strategic conservation are preserving our wild spaces. Each page tells the story of people and nature coming together to protect wilderness for future generations. Take a look and get inspired! - Promise of Wilderness

Southern California-based hiker, photographer, tracker and trail cam enthusiast Johanna Turner of Cougarmagic has done more for Mountain Lion conservation than 150 years of conservation.

“There are more things to alarm us than to harm us, and we suffer more in apprehension than in reality." My name is Johanna Turner and I hope these photos promote conservation for predator species. Los Angeles has proven that 18 million of the least outdoorsy people on the planet can safely share habitat with wildlife."

One of the most frightening things on the planet are the chemical laden mass-produced food products that we feed to ourselves and our children every day. Most of the population is unaware of contents of these ‘food products’ and have no idea of their environmental impact and their bodies. It is not entirely out of ignorance that people are blind to these facts. Millions of dollars are spent by the US agriculture corporations to make sure that you don’t find out the horrible truth. Let’s take a look at the popular Halloween treat, candy corn, and see what ghoulish truths we can uncover.

Candy corn is a waste food. It contains no nutritional benefits and is primarily composed of sugar, confectioners glaze (shellac), gelatin (made from animal collagen by boiling bones, skins and hides in a giant death soup), pigment colors, dyes, and wax. Sounds delicious, right? Yet over 35 MILLION pounds of it are produced every year. Ironically candy corn does contain a corn product (although a highly toxic one) as its main ingredient: corn syrup.

Corn syrup, also known as HFCS (high fructose corn syrup), is a man-made sweetener made from high starch dent corn. Dent corn is naturally inedible to humans, so it goes through a lot of processes and engineering to get the HFCS from it. The corn itself is a Frankenstein monster of genetic engineering and mad science against nature. It is cheaper to produce HFCS than natural cane sugars because of government farming subsidies. This means that companies can increase the sugar content of their products with minimal cost concerns, thus making their food products more addicting and toxic to consumers. The energy requirements alone to plant the corn seed, harvest it, transport it, and manufacture HFCS contribute a huge percentage to carbon emissions, global warming and air pollution from the amounts of petro fuels used to produce it. Not to mention the wasted energy then used to produce and transport the candy corn in addition.

HFCS has been shown in studies to accelerate the growth of cancer cells, especially in pancreatic cancer, and is now being regarded as a toxic substance since it plagues those who consume it with obesity, diabetes and other chronic diseases. High fructose doses have been proven to punch holes in the intestinal walls that filter out pathogens in our food, which causes severe problems in the body by allowing bacteria and partially digested food to enter the blood stream.

Creating HFCS requires a vast amount of corn. Millions of acres of land are used to produce corn that is just used for HFCS production. The amount of fuel, water and resources used to plant and harvest the crop is detrimental to every ecosystem on the planet. We are all aware of the air pollution that fossil fuels cause, but the most harmful in corn production are the nitrogen fertilizers used to grow it. Corn seed has been modified to require the nitrogen fertilizer, as a catalyst for it to grow. In other words, one must use the fertilizer to grow the corn. Ironically the same company that produces the seeds also own the companies that produce the fertilizers and pesticides used on the crops. They are making profits from selling you poison.

Nitrogen fertilizers render soil useless, except for growing nitrogen requiring corn crops. It kills insects that are vital to healthy soil, and displaces the birds, which feed on those insects. This begins the chain of ecosystem loss. The fertilizers impoverish the soil of other nutrients and minerals such as calcium, magnesium and potassium, which causes the soil to be unfertile, dead and packed with nitrogen, which washes into the ground water and eventually into the oceans. On average over 80 million tons of nitrogen fertilizer are spread onto the ground of which only 17 million of those tons are actually absorbed by the crops, the rest is in our water.

The process of denitrification is the Earths method of converting free nitrogen back to gas to be recycled by bacteria and fungi that feed on it, but the planet cannot keep up with the amounts that humankind are pumping into its water. The rivers and oceans have become so saturated and polluted with nitrogen that they are unable to denitrify the water, and oxygen depleted areas known as ‘dead zones’ have been appearing more and more frequently. The over fertilization causes over blooms of red algae which thrive off the nitrogen, but deplete the oxygen in the water, which is devastating complete ecosystems and killing vast amounts of marine life.

In short, HFCS is wasteful of energy all around. It requires petro energy to plant, harvest, transport and manufacture HFCS. It also requires millions of gallons of water to be wasted and thousands of tons of nitrate fertilizer (which is also derived from petroleum) to be used to grow the corn. Nitrogen fertilizers are polluting water supplies and destroying aquatic ecosystems around the world.

So, the real scary things about Halloween are the same frightening demons that the scare us year-round; the dark and sinister products that corporations market to us which poison our bodies, destroy our planet and kills the innocent animals that don’t deserve to die, so we may eat dyed toxic sugar. Give out an organic apple or carrot and help save the lives of millions instead.

We are in the age of information. Must we continuously reciprocate this gross misunderstanding of diplomacy?

We're here telling you that you need more checks and balances. This is a check and a balance on behalf of our nations being upset at the federal government, the executive branch, both the legislative branch and the judicial branch - for when you fail us we have to prove to you that you failed us in your own court setting.

We have been at the forefront of every environmental crisis on reservations since 1876! We have been filing lawsuits against your corporations, against your agencies since the creation of them. And we're here to tell you that and remind you of that.

Tell your president to tell your advisers in your cabinet that we are tired of this. And we will continuously come to your door and knock on your door, as the Constitution guarantees us the right to do so, to remind you of those failures so we can have those successions for the future generations.

In recent years, there has been a disturbing increase in the persecution of wild predators across the globe. This rise in hostility towards species such as wolves, big cats, and bears is driven by a combination of factors including human-wildlife conflict, agricultural interests, and cultural beliefs. The consequences of this persecution are severe, threatening biodiversity, disrupting ecosystems, and endangering species that play critical roles in their habitats.

Find out why now is the time to speak up for stronger protections for wolves and healthier ecosystems.

FEATURING: Suzanne Asha Stone from IWCN, James Holt from the Nez Perce tribe, and Coyote Peterson from Brave Wilderness - Biden MIA from States' War on Wolves

The International Wildlife Coexistence Network exists to foster the conversation on human-wildlife coexistence. Through our community of experts, projects on the ground, webinars, free resource library, and international conferences, we are working to create a better world for all life.

Through discussions with voices in our community and other luminaries, we will share the story of coexistence with more people than ever. In each episode we’ll highlight featured guest, who are helping us all to live in “right relationship” with Nature.

Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) is a deadly neurological disease that affects hooved mammals such as deer, elk, and moose— species that are crucial to North American ecosystems. CWD can spread directly from animal to animal and indirectly through the environment, meaning animals can contract it from soil, water, and food. Despite being first detected in 1967, much remains unknown about CWD. This disease is caused by prions, abnormal proteins that damage the brain and lymphatic system. Once an animal is affected by CWD, it may live for a few years, but the disease will kill it. Prions can linger in the environment for two or more years, potentially infecting other animals. At present, there is no effective vaccine for CWD.

As Chronic Wasting Disease continues to spread across North America, it is crucial to implement effective management strategies. Many government agencies are exploring expensive techniques to limit the spread; However, a natural “deterrent” of CWD already exists. Researchers have proven that wolves limit the spread of CWD at a rate that could help prevent transmission (Wild, 2011). The remarkable thing about wolves is that they already naturally exist in many areas where officials have detected CWD.

Wolves are selective predators, meaning they tend to prey on injured and diseased animals, including those with chronic wasting disease. A study indicates that selective predators, like wolves, are much more likely to kill CWD-infected deer than hunters (Krumm, 2009).

Another benefit of wolves is that they cannot be infected by CWD. This means that when wolves consume infected animals, they consume the prions without increasing the infection rate. Although their feces still carry the infected prions, research suggests that these prions may begin to break down in a predator’s digestive tract, aiding in their removal. The most important thing wolves do is remove infected species that directly affect one another, which is crucial for elk and some deer that live in herds where direct infection could be high. Effective removal of infected animals from herds may decrease the transmission rate and increase the survival of deer, elk, and other CWD-susceptible species.

By affecting their prey’s behavior, wolves may indirectly affect the spread of CWD. Some studies suggest that the presence of wolves changes the behavior of deer and elk in a way that reduces their likelihood of becoming infected with CWD through indirect environmental exposure (Waldner, 2016).

For wolves to play an effective role in reducing Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD), there needs to be a stable wolf population. Many western states where CWD and wolves are present have passed anti-wolf legislation.

Wolves could help decrease this number. Instead of promoting a healthy wolf population, Wyoming has classified wolves as ‘predatory animals,’ allowing them to be killed without a license at any time of the year.

In states like Idaho, where CWD has not been widely detected, wolves could play a crucial role in limiting the spread. However, Idaho has implemented some of the harshest wolf legislation yet. Senate Bill 1211 permits a reduction to 150 wolves, which is about a 90% reduction of Idaho’s wolf population.

Rather than treating wolves as enemies, we should work with them to mitigate CWD transmission. - Wildlife Coexistence

The climate and ecological emergency became even more pressing when in April 2020, The Times newspaper reported that 750,000 Oak saplings we to be burnt. The UK Government had reneged on its promise of a huge national planting scheme. Save The Oaks Campaign was created following unprecedented response from groups and individuals who have pledged to buy and plant these Oaks throughout the UK. This project honours 95% of all native ash trees dying or killed by dieback and the trees destroyed for HS2. We plant as an act of love, we rewild. - Save The Oaks Uk

'There are trees that flower and fruit directly from the trunk. Bizarre kapoks forty feet around with branches that run from spiky to shiny to smooth, all from the same trunk. Myrtles scattered throughout the forest that all flower on a single day. Bertholletia that grow piñata cannonballs filled with nuts. Trees that make rain, that tell time, that predict the weather. Seeds in obscene shapes and colors. Pods like daggers and scimitars. Stilt roots and snaking roots and buttresses like sculpture and roots that breathe air. Solutions run amok. The biomass is mad.' - 'The Understory' by Richard Powers

When the great oak fell in the woods
the valley shuddered and we felt
the aftershock in our feet for weeks.
When the great oak fell, fifty families
of mice fled, and the pairs of woodpeckers.

Nuthatches went into exile, and a hundred
thousand insects. The heron and winter’s
white egrets no longer have a lookout
over the minnow brook; no perch
for summer’s turtle doves. Last week

a thousand bees hummed in its canopy;
this winter, the jays will scavenge for
five thousand fewer acorns. The valley
is a wound. The valley is a mouth with
a missing front tooth. The valley is Munch’s

mouth, open and forever a silent scream.
When we walk where the oak was we too
are now silent. The great oak fell; the valley
shuddered; we feel its echoes still.

Here are some of the latest research and rewilding projects, ideas, and notable stories in the media about protecting and restoring wild Nature.

“As the woodlands of New England face a hotter future, UVM researchers are exploring the promise and peril of ‘assisted migration.’”

“Summary: An international team of scientists has recently found that non-native species are expanding their ranges many orders of magnitude faster than native ones, in large part due to inadvertent human help. Even seemingly sedentary non-native plants are moving at three times the speed of their native counterparts in a race where, because of the rapid pace of climate change and its effect on habitat, speed matters. To survive, plants and animals need to be shifting their ranges by 3.25 kilometers per year just to keep up with the increasing temperatures and associated climactic shifts — a speed that native species cannot manage without human help.”

“Conservation groups scored a victory in the courtroom in July after the U.S. Forest Service announced its decision to withdraw a logging permit that would have impacted at least 147,000 acres within the Ashley National Forest in Utah.”

4. If you use Facebook, we recommend that you follow Chris Bolgiano—an uncommonly funny, as well as wise, advocate for and practitioner of rewilding: https://www.facebook.com/ChrisBolgianoNatureWriter

“How can rewilding help reduce desertification and its effects? This was the question set by the UN University in Bonn, Germany, in its assessment of seven ‘new’ land and water management approaches, of which rewilding was one. That the Global Rewilding Alliance took part in the process is a clear indication that rewilding as a relatively new perspective for the future management of land and water is receiving increasing attention outside the narrower conservation and wildlife community.

6. The Global Rewilding Alliance has created the Global Rewilding Volunteer Talent Pool. Check it out if you’d like to sign up to be a volunteer or if you have an organization looking for volunteers!

“Abandoned farmlands in Europe — which make up nearly 25 percent of the continent’s landscape — have the potential to be rewilded, according to a new study published in Current Biology.”

“Douglas and Kristine Tompkins were the world’s most eminent land conservationists, investing $350 million of their own money. Kris talks to Lisa Grainger about continuing her husband’s legacy.”

“The sites fight climate change and can help with another global crisis: the collapse of nature. But so far, efforts to nurture wildlife habitat have been spotty."

Proposition 127: Prohibit Bobcat, Lynx, and Mountain Lion Hunting

A YES vote on Proposition 127 will prohibit bobcat, lynx, and mountain lion hunting and trapping in Colorado. It will allow on a permit basis the killing of these animals under certain circumstances such as livestock depredation.

Wildlife in Colorado is managed to benefit the visitors and residents of Colorado

The Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission Policy states that Colorado wildlife are managed for the use, benefit, and enjoyment of Colorado visitors and residents.

Every wildlife species has a set of biological and ecological factors they are dependent upon for a healthy population. Every wildlife management plan should support these factors as the primary goal of the plan. The current goal for mountain lion and bobcat management is simply maintaining a population that can be hunted and trapped. But if the act of hunting and trapping mountain lions and bobcats does not improve the welfare of these species, then the activity must be called into question. As of October 2024, Colorado Parks and Wildlife doesn’t have a bobcat management plan, has no idea how many bobcats are in the state, and yet allows each hunter and trapper to kill as many bobcats as they want. From a wildlife management perspective, this is completely unacceptable.

One of the most important biological factors that determines the health of these wild feline populations is kitten survival. Each year, mountain lion kittens are orphaned because a female mountain lion was killed by a hunter. Colorado Parks and Wildlife does not count these kittens that starve to death because they aren’t of breeding age. Respected mountain lion biologists and researchers will tell you that if you are going to hunt mountain lions, no more than 22% of the harvest should be female lions of breeding age. In Colorado, 46% of the mountain lions killed by hunters each year are female lions.

Violating the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation

The North American Model of Wildlife Conservation (NAM) is often cited as the gold standard of wildlife conservation by hunters, trappers, fishermen, and outfitters. NAM was a response to the market hunting that was decimating wildlife in North America.

This was put in place to prevent the selling of any part of an animal for profit. The trapping and hunting of bobcats and selling their pelts is a clear violation of this tenet.

Fair Chase Rules Violated by Mountain Lion and Bobcat Hunting and Trapping

Fair chase is a term used by hunters to describe an ethical approach to hunting big game animals. It refers to the pursuit and taking of any free-ranging wild game animal in a manner that does not give the hunter an improper or unfair advantage over the game animals.

The use of any of the following methods in the killing of a game animal is considered Unfair Chase. The bold items indicate how Fair Chase is violated in Colorado.

The price of a bobcat pelt in China or Russia determines how many bobcats are killed each year. During the 2023-2024 season, a total of 955 bobcats were killed by hunters and trappers, and during that same time, only 10 bobcats were killed because of livestock conflicts.

Bobcats, along with mountain lions and lynx, do not need to be hunted or trapped to “control” their populations. This has been proven in national parks and other areas where hunting and trapping are not allowed. Neither of these species spiraled out of control due to lack of hunting and trapping. - David Neils

"Nature is the only environment that is constantly striving for harmony. We are wise to understand its rhythms, connections and incredible healing power for all living things. There is a deep strand of our DNA that longs to be in this flow. We support activating that strand through workshops, presentations, hikes and other events." - Wild Nature Media

Confronting pollution caused by the Oil & Gas Industry - Leak of the Week: Oct. 15th & Oct. 22nd

The oil and gas industry claims it’s clean and responsible, but in New Mexico, where oil production is growing faster than any other state in the U.S., the industry spills an average of four times every single day.

Every week, we are highlighting oil and gas spills with Leak of the Week. Follow @wildearthguardians on social media to tune in each week!

Federal court decision held that the permit for Denver Water’s project by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers violated the Clean Water Act and the National Environmental Policy Act.

On October 17, 2024, a federal court handed WildEarth Guardians and partners—Save the Colorado, The Environmental Group, Living Rivers, Waterkeeper Alliance, and Sierra Club—a major win in their legal challenge to a Clean Water Act permit needed for the ongoing expansion of the Moffat Collection System and Gross Dam in Colorado. Yesterday’s federal court decision held that the issuance of the dredge and fill permit for Denver Water’s project by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers violated the Clean Water Act and the National Environmental Policy Act. The Court has directed the parties to confer regarding appropriate remedies to address the Corps’ legal violations. - Read More

"We’re mourning the loss of grizzly 399, dubbed “the most famous grizzly in the world,” who died on Tuesday night after being struck by a vehicle in Snake River Canyon in Wyoming. At 28 years of age, she was the oldest reproducing female grizzly and a mascot of Grand Teton National Park, near Yellowstone.

“She was an iconic matriarch with more than 20 cubs and grandcubs, and the grizzly bear population will surely suffer from her loss,” said the Center’s Andrea Zaccardi. “Tragedies like this highlight why we need to maintain federal protection for bears and do more to ensure their safety from cars and other threats.”

"Yet another species has been discovered to use individual names — this time, ridiculously cute marmoset monkeys, who live in South American rainforests. According to a new study published in Science, they identify each other through vocalizations called “phee calls.”

“Marmosets live in small monogamous family groups and take care of their young together, much like humans do,” said David Omer, one of the study’s authors. “These similarities suggest that they faced comparable evolutionary social challenges to our early pre-linguistic ancestors, which might have led them to develop similar communicating methods.”

That means the learning mechanisms involved in marmoset communication may help shed light on human evolutionary history too."

The USDA’s Wildlife Services program is a holdover from the 1930s, when Congress gave the federal government broad authority to kill wildlife at the request of private landowners. In that era, government-sponsored extermination programs for native wild animals, like wolves and grizzly bears, were common.

After the Endangered Species Act was passed in 1973, federal agencies were required to change course and start helping some of those wild animal populations recover. But today, Wildlife Services employees still kill hundreds of thousands of noninvasive animals a year, data from the agency shows. Even species considered threatened under the Endangered Species Act, like grizzly bears, are not exempt. So long as livestock or human life are threatened, federal rules allow Wildlife Services to kill those animals, too. -

NPR recently featured a major story exposing the USDA's killing of wild animals. Shared with 12 million listeners across the country, this is the largest media spotlight on the government’s practice of choosing cows over wildlife to date. - How A Federal Program Kills Wildlife

Birthday salutations! In the spirit of red, may your year be filled with vibrant life and transformation, celebrating the strength of your heart and the journey ahead.

The Exmoor horses at Saksfjed Vildmark are helping to enhance the diversity of both habitats and wildlife

Natural grazing by large, free-roaming wild and semi-wild herbivores such as deer, European bison, and horses, is critical to the health and functionality of many European landscapes. It can boost biodiversity by opening up landscapes and preventing encroachment by shrubs, reduce the risk of catastrophic fire, and enhance carbon storage and climate change resilience. Returning iconic grazers such as European bison to landscapes can also support the growth of nature-based economies, generating jobs and a new pride in local nature.

In late 2023, Rewilding Europe launched its Natural Grazing Facility as a tool for scaling up the adoption of natural grazing across Europe. The facility works by connecting demand and supply of herbivores among organizations dedicated to Rewilding Europe’s rewilding principles.

The combined impact of different herbivores on the landscape helps to create diverse habitats and improve the health and functionality of ecosystems.

In exciting news, the first translocation of animals through the Natural Grazing Facility took place in the late spring, with a herd of 23 Exmoor horses transferred to the Saksfjed Vildmark (“Saksfjed Wilderness”) – an ambitious, Denmark-based rewilding initiative managed by Danish philanthropic organization the Hempel Foundation. The horses were sold by Grazelands Rewilding (formerly the Taurus Foundation), a Dutch organization working to enhance natural grazing in the Netherlands and across Europe. To supplement these animals, Rewilding Europe donated a further 17 horses that were living at the Kempen-Broek rewilding initiative.

The 40 horses, which were released into two large enclosures of 300 and 450 hectares at Saksfjed, have acclimatized well to their new home. In the 450-hectare enclosure they joined an existing herd of 10 Exmoor horses, with three foals already born to this group since their arrival. The horses share their enclosures with a total of around 150 Galloway cattle.

Sand pits created by the horses are good news for the germination of wildflowers and offer opportunities for ground-dwelling insects.

The dung of semi-wild natural grazers is an essential link in the circle of life for many plants and insects.

The Saksfjed Vildmark initiative, which joined Rewilding Europe’s European Rewilding Network earlier this year, is located at the southern tip of the Danish island of Lolland. The 800-hectare site, a coastal area comprising meadows, wetlands and woodlands, was mostly used for agriculture in the past. Starting in January 2023, the Hempel Foundation has been working to actively rewild nature here, based on the restoration of natural processes that is aligned with ecological science and practical experience.

Moving forwards, Saksfjed Vildmark will be allowed to develop into a wilder area of grassland with scattered vegetation, open forests, and wetlands – all grazed by bovines and horses. The more than 200 horses and bovines that are now at the site have already had a significantly positive impact on the landscape, enhancing the diversity of both habitats and wildlife.

“Numerous sand pits have been created in the enclosures by the animals through their digging and scraping and rolling around, which has exposed a lot of sand,” says Thor Hjarsen, who is head of Saksfjed Wilderness as a senior biologist with the Hempel Foundation. “This is good for the germination of new wildflowers and has also generated opportunities for soil-dwelling insects. We have identified a lot of new bee and beetle species, for example.

“The horses and bovines have also helped to open up the forested areas on the site, which were previously very dense. This will allow flowering plants to grow, benefitting insects such as butterflies. We expect the beneficial impact of the animals to increase moving into next year.”

Endangered Ocelot Appears on Trail Camera in New Arizona Location

Ocelots, like jaguars, belong in Arizona. They are one of the missing species, appearing only occasionally. Six ocelots have been recorded in Arizona since 2009; only two are currently known to be living in the state. With incredible new footage released by the Center for Biological Diversity, we see an ocelot who was first photographed earlier this year by researchers with the Phoenix Zoo, believed to be a young adult.

These cats are showing us how important connectivity is within their range. The new ocelot moved quite a distance between detections and across an interstate, an incredible feat. Threats to the surrounding Sky Island mountains where this pint-sized cat roams include two proposed mines and the bisecting of habitat by U.S.-Mexico border wall, disastrous for all manner of wildlife.

Over in Texas, the ocelot population is larger but has also shrunk to fewer than 100 remaining in the wild. Earlier this month, the Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Research Institute held a groundbreaking ceremony for its upcoming Ocelot Conservation Facility to begin a captive breeding program. While the team is still a few years from having ocelots released, this is a huge step to increase numbers of South Texas’ wild cat. It also charts a path we can learn from for both ocelots and jaguars further west.

“Moments like this remind me that the world is alive and magic is afoot,” Center for Biological Diversity’s Russ McSpadden.

The Center for Biological Diversity released stunning new video footage of a rare wild ocelot in a Sky Island Mountain range in Arizona, within the ancestral homelands of the Tohono O’odham Nation.

The footage, captured on a trail camera on July 24, 2024, is from a location where ocelots have not recently been detected. For the safety of the cat the Center is not specifying the location.

“I shouted with joy when I realized what I was seeing on the trail cam. This incredible footage shows us that ocelots belong in our Sky Islands, despite all the threats they face,” said Russ McSpadden, a Southwest conservation advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity. “These elegant, elusive, and fiercely resilient felines are an important part of what makes southern Arizona so special. Capturing footage of this cat in the wild gives me hope for their survival.”

Protected under the Endangered Species Act since 1982, ocelots are known for their striking, chain-like rosettes and spots, which allow researchers to identify individual animals, much like human fingerprints. These distinctive markings also provide excellent camouflage in the dense forests, rugged terrain, and thornscrub that make up their habitat.

After analysis and consultation with several experts — including Carmina Gutiérrez González, Ph.D., research coordinator for the Northern Jaguar Project — the Center confirmed the latest detection was the same ocelot detected on June 12, 2024, in the Atascosa Highlands west of Nogales by researchers at the Phoenix Zoo. The ocelot traveled at least 30 miles between detections.

Sometime in June or July the ocelot crossed the Santa Cruz River, in a stretch proposed to become a national wildlife refuge, crossed I-19, and moved into an area with several Sky Island Mountain ranges.

“The Sky Island Mountains are not just beautiful landscapes; they are living parts of our culture and identity. Seeing the return of an ocelot to these ancestral lands reaffirms our sacred connection to this place and reminds us of our duty to protect these lands and the creatures that depend on them,” said Chairman Austin Nunez of the San Xavier District of the Tohono O’odham Nation. “The ocelot’s survival is intertwined with ours, and we must ensure that this species endures for future generations.”

Ocelots rely on the intact, interconnected wildlands of the Sky Islands. The fragmentation of their habitat due to roads, urban sprawl, mines, and border barriers is a serious challenge to their survival. In Sonora, Mexico, ongoing construction of a freight railway between Imurís and Nogales is ripping through crucial ocelot breeding habitat, posing another threat to the imperiled species.

Fewer than 100 ocelots are thought to remain in the U.S., with the majority residing in southern Texas. Arizona is home to a small but crucial population, which exists at the northernmost part of the species’ range.

The Sky Islands are a series of isolated mountain ranges that rise dramatically from the desert floor, stretching from northern Mexico to southern Arizona. These ranges are biologically rich, creating unique ecosystems that support an incredible diversity of plants and animals. The Sky Islands serve as vital habitat corridors for species like the ocelot, jaguar, and black bear, enabling them to move between different mountain ranges in search of food, mates, and safe shelter.

“Every ocelot and jaguar sighting is a chance to celebrate these incredible creatures and reflect on how we can help their safe return to the Southwestern U.S.,” said McSpadden. “I hope this beautiful ocelot reminds us all of the critical work ahead to make sure these cats’ habitat remains unfragmented and protected for future generations.” - Center for Biological Diversity

A Message from Captain Paul Watson inside Nuuk Prison

“Justice Delayed is Justice Denied”
Written by Captain Paul Watson inside Nuuk Prison
October 2, 2024

Today is my 73rd day of incarceration in Nuuk prison and it was my 4th appearance in the Greenland court. It was what I expected, the judge refused documentation and arguments from my defense team and ordered me detained for an additional 28 days. That means 91 days on a bogus accusation on a very minor offense from 14 years ago for something I did not participate in.

The court has all the evidence, they have all the information needed to make a decision. It is clearly quite political.

The judge sat the bench like a stone
Evidence he denied to be shown
The prosecutor scowled
With contempt for the crowd
Her bias reflected in her tone

And so my friends it’s back to my cell with a view, where I can see the icebergs in the fjord and the occasional breach of a humpback whale to remind me why I am here.

I can endure the time for however long it takes. My only concern, my only regret is separation from my wife and our two little boys. I am not here because I am a criminal. I am here for opposing a criminal enterprise with the most deadly of weapons – a camera.

With our cameras we exposed the crimes of the Japanese whaling industry and in so doing, we embarrassed the proud nation of Japan, bringing their unlawful activities into the living rooms of millions of people around the world with our Animal Planet television show “Whale Wars.”

Japanese whaling is not a criminal enterprise because I say so. It is a criminal operation for violating the 1986 International Whaling Commission’s Global Moratorium on Commercial Whaling. Japan’s argument of it being a research effort and non-commercial was shut down in 2014 by the world’s highest court, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the Hague. This ruled that slaughtering whales in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary was not research. It is commercial.

The whalers went to sea you see,
To see how many whales to kill, you see
We caught them in the act
An indisputable fact
And drove them from the sea, you see

In addition, the Japanese whalers deliberately rammed and destroyed a two million (US) dollar catamaran, broke the rib of an Animal Planet cameraman, pitching 6 crewmembers into the frigid waters of the Southern Ocean, refusing to rescue them. In the face of the documented violence, the whalers suffered no consequences. When the Greenlandic prosecutor claims that a single Japanese whaler suffered a blister on his cheek, from the chemical pepper spray from his own crew, something she describes as a crime of severity, it illustrates the almost comical absurdity of the charges.

What she claims is trespassing is captured on film showing Pete Bethune politely knocking on the wheelhouse door of the Shonan Maru, the door opens, he hands the Japanese captain a letter of complaint and a request for compensation for the ship they deliberately destroyed. The Japanese response was to kidnap Captain Bethune and to transport him to Japan to charge him with trespassing, obstruction of business, and assault. He was interrogated daily until he confessed to the charges although he refused to confess to assault.

It was only after a coerced confession that he was brought before a judge where a deal was made. A suspended sentence in exchange for a statement that I ordered him to take these actions. He was then released and allowed to return home and a warrant was issued against me for conspiracy.

After his release, Pete Bethune signed an affidavit stating he lied in exchange for the suspended sentence. His accusation was the sole evidence that Japan used against me, but despite the retraction by Captain Bethune, the Japanese prosecutor refused to drop the charges against me.

The whalers sliced his boat in two
Our cameras have proved this true
Pete Bethune was kidnapped
The evidence was scrapped
By the criminal whaling crew

What makes my incarceration bearable is the tremendous worldwide support I am receiving. Hundreds of thousands of names signing petitions for my release. So many demonstrations in hundreds of places around the globe, thousands of calls to the Danish Embassies and Consulates, the support of world leaders like President Macron of France and President Lula of Brazil, numerous celebrities, concerts held on my behalf. Such an incredible outpouring of love and support all brought together by our collective love and respect for whales and dolphins, diversity and interdependence of all life in the sea and on land.

The enemy has been clearly identified
Five thousand people from many a state
Protesting with actions, petitions and art
All united in opposing cetacide
It’s compassion we seek to instigate
Fired by courage born deep in the heart.

I am so very grateful for the 2,300 letters I have received in prison from over 30 countries. I am especially grateful and very much touched by the hundreds of letters from children, many accompanied with drawings of whales or poems.

Every poem, every drawing of a whale
Sent by children from around the Ocean
Delivered here behind this prison wall
Provides a storm of hope to fill my soul
Unleashing a tsunami of emotion
From across the blue shroud I hear them call.

I am in this prison cell for another four weeks, so please continue to raise your voices. It means a great deal and it is effective. Please continue to contact Danish Embassies and Consulates. And please continue to send me your letters, drawings, and poems. The prison guards tell me they have never seen anyone receive so much mail and your letters very much reflect the level of support. It also keeps me busy because I read every piece of mail. I try to answer as many as I can although it has been difficult because I am still recovering from the handcuff injury to my writing hand (my left hand). However, when I am released, I will answer every letter with a certificate of appreciation for your support. You all give me strength.

A very special thank you to Lamya Essemlali, the President of Sea Shepherd France, to Elodie, and Christelle for making the numerous trips from France to Nuuk, Greenland. They have been with me for every court appearance. Thank you also to Nathalie Gil, the President of Sea Shepherd Brazil, who made the long trip from Brazil to attend one of my appearances. Thank you to Rod Marining, who along with myself was a co-founder of Greenpeace. He journeyed all the way from Vancouver to visit me. Thanks also for the visits from Omar Todd, Kylie Herd, and Rob Read from the Captain Paul Watson Foundation for making the long trip to visit me. Thanks to Locky MacLean and Dior for visiting me and the crew of the John Paul DeJoria for attending my first court appearance. Thanks to Vakita from France, Nat Geo from the USA, and other film crews from Denmark, France, and the UK for visiting and interviewing me in this prison.

My Nordic jail cell has an amazing view,
Of the wild wide fjord that lies before me
Studded with jagged bergy bits of ice
Where great whales breach upon the Ocean blue
Happy and free in the Greenlandic sea
A wondrous site worthy of sacrifice.

Endangered Species Act to List Bethany Beach Firefly

Responding to a petition from the Xerces Society and Center for Biological Diversity, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed to list the Bethany Beach firefly as a threatened species under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. This marks the first time a firefly has been proposed for listing in the U.S. - Endangered Species Act

Exciting Finds from the 2024 Bumble Bee Atlas

This summer, over 900 volunteers spread out across the United States to look for native bumble bees. They made some incredible finds, including the first yellow-banded bumble bee sighting in South Dakota in 70 years! - Exciting Finds from 2024

Xerxes Society Webinars & Events

All About Arachnids: Halloween’s Eight-Legged Wonders

Oct 31 - 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM PT / 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM MT / 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM CT / 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM ET

Zoom - Join us for this special Q&A session with Dr. Sebastian Echeverri, spider scientist, wildlife photographer, and science communicator.

In the Life of Extraordinary Dragonflies

Nov 7 - 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM PT / 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM MT / 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM CT / 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM ET

Zoom - Join Dr. Jessica Ware from the American Museum of Natural History as she explores the world of dragonflies and damselflies. Dr. Jessica Ware is a Full Curator and the current Division Chair in the Division of Invertebrate Zoology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Jessica’s research focuses on the evolution of behavioral and physiological adaptations in insects, with an emphasis on how these occur in dragonflies and their close relatives, damselflies. Her research group uses genetics to study the evolutionary relationships between species and uses these tools to inform their work on reproductive, social, and flight behaviors in insects.

2024 Colorado Pollinator Summit: New Terrain for Pollinator Conservation

Denver Botanic Gardens, 1007 York Street, Denver, CO 80206 - The 9th annual Colorado Pollinator Summit will gather Colorado’s pollinator conservation community for a day of learning, sharing, and networking. This year’s Summit—New Terrain for Pollinator Conservation—will include talks by keynote speaker Eric Lee-Mader on How to Eat for the Bees: The Next Stage in Pollinator Conservation Begins in Your Kitchen, presentations by elementary students on climate actions for pollinators, talks about habitat for biodiversity, and updates on community science projects increasing what we know about Colorado's pollinators.

In this episode of the Rewilding Earth Podcast, Jessica shares her journey from an organismal biologist to making significant contributions on the ground with Biohabitats. She discusses rewilding, ecological restoration, and the importance of landscape connectivity. Jessica explains her transition from working on tropical ecosystems to engaging with urban and peri-urban restoration projects. She highlights the significance of bridging academic, federal, and local efforts in conservation and the evolving roles of conservation professionals. Jessica also reflects on her philosophical perspective gained through various roles, emphasizing the need for adaptability and seizing unexpected opportunities for small to large-scale ecological changes. - Rewilding Our World

Dr. Jessica Hardesty Norris is a biologist with over 20 years of experience in ecological planning and research, program development, strategic planning and community outreach for natural resource conservation. She has demonstrated success in proposal writing, partnership building, and project management. Her recent project work includes park planning for Charleston County and leading Biohabitats’ engagement in a 100-mile greenway along the Chattahoochee, often with a focus on writing and communication. Her areas of technical expertise include bird conservation, urban ecology, nutrient cycling, sustainable fisheries, and community outreach and engagement. She has presented and published papers on topics related to conservation biology, tropical ecology, and ornithology. Jessica currently serves on the Boards of Audubon South Carolina and College of Charleston’s Sustainability Institute, and as Natural Resources Chair of the Charleston League of Women Voters.

In this podcast author George Stimson discusses the events around August 1969 - All Is None Episode 13

Richard Metzger: What is your purpose in putting Access Manson on the World Wide Web in the first place and when did the site go up?

George Stimson: Access Manson went on-line on January 26, 1996, the 25th anniversary of Manson's illegal conviction for murder. The purpose of the site is stated on the home page, to tell the world the truth about Charles Manson and to get him his rights by showing how those rights were taken. This has not been possible through over 25 years of dealing with the mainstream media. They are only interested in presenting the same old story that still sells so well. Only through the technology of the World Wide Web, and by our ability to use that technology to put out exactly what we want, can we achieve our purposes.

Stimson: [Manson] has said that 50 million people have to go, but I don't see where that would be enough.

RM: Why do you consider it important for the world to hear the philosophy of a man considered by some to be one of the most evil men alive?

GS: The world is in a lot of trouble from a lot of different directions, but most of the serious problems are grounded in overpopulation and its resultant ill effects, like pollution. Manson can restore mankind to its proper place in the natural order. It is the only real chance humans have for survival. That is important to us. As for people who think Manson is "one of the most evil men alive" -- we're not necessarily trying to reach them.

RM: "Manson can restore mankind to its proper place in the natural order." What do you mean by that?

GS: Mankind has been making a great effort over many centuries to separate itself from nature rather than admitting that it is a part of nature. As a result of this attitude man has placed himself in an adversarial role with everything that allows him to live. Instead of realizing his part in nature and working in harmony with it, man has viewed the natural world as something to be confronted, conquered, and used (sold). This has created an imbalance that threatens the survival of this planet. The solution to this problem is not really difficult to understand. But it means that people are going to have to make some real decisions, some hard choices. Manson has the mind to determine and implement those choices.

RM: Has Manson discussed with you what his plans are to deal with overpopulation?

GS: Well, he has said that 50 million people have to go, but I don't see where that would be enough. As to how they go, we've had some discussions on that, but not real specific planning. We haven't started figuring logistics or anything.

RM: What are Manson's feelings about having the uncensored direct access to the public that the WWW affords him?

CHARLES MANSON: That's like someone saying, 'How do you feel that you have access to the mind?' The mind. Am I so persecuted and condemned that I don't even have access to the mind? That I can't even use the language anymore? What am I, on language restriction? In other words, I'm persecuted by everybody who feels like they want to get away with doing something to me, because I don't have any rights, but then when everybody wakes up that it's their rights, and then they're not going to have any rights. And they can't exist without rights. I can. Because I've never had any rights anyway. I was born on the wrong side of the law. So therefore, the world of darkness is mine. And then they're telling me that they don't want any darkness. There's no light without the darkness, because you've got to have both to have one.

The United States of America was based on my right to have access to the public. The bottom line is, I am the public. They sold the public, the public sold themselves. So as far as the public, I am the goddamn public. I'm the king of the public. I'm the leader of this whole damn world. I have a one world government that's in my mind. I have a one world mind that's in my soul. Everybody in the public is dead, unless they live in my grace. They're already dead. They're killing themselves in all kinds of ways.

As for having access to the web, the web is my mind. I brought the web into play. The web is my church.

RM: Do you feel that if the word on his political thought gets out to enough people through Access Manson perhaps the public will come to regard him as a sort of philosopher king or as a messianic figure?

GS: We hope that if we demonstrate intelligence, intelligence will respond. Much of the public already regards Manson as a philosopher king or messianic figure. I think Manson is held, in large part, because of his beliefs. And I think that the powers-that-be fear that he would be a threat to them if he was released. They might have good reason to be afraid. Manson can be pretty powerful when he wants to be, and they know it. They're already so afraid of him that they won't let him do anything. Anything he wants to do; they make a rule against it. Why are they afraid? They know the karma they've pushed out and they know what they have coming back.

RM: Under what circumstances can you envision the world's population actually welcoming the political leadership of Charles Manson?

GS: The way things are going I think it's inevitable and I think it's getting closer every day. Haven't you noticed how quickly things happen these days?

RM: Yeah, but don't you think things would really, really have to get out of hand for THAT to happen? Come on...

RM: Well, I guess I can't disagree with that! Is Charles Manson actually interested in assuming political power or would he prefer to be seen as a wise old sage who world leaders would come to for advice?

CHARLES MANSON: The brotherhood of the gun rules the world. I don't give a fuck about votes or getting elected into being a politician. And I don't give a fuck about playing no wise holy man. All I want is order. I want order in the perspective of the numbers. And if you give me order in the numbers, fuck the personality of it. I don't care about the personality of it. Get with the program or be destroyed. That's all that is."

GS: Overall, the site is about Charles Manson, and he is Charles Manson, so he has a lot of input just by existing. A lot of the content is his thought, and he did have a lot of input on that even if he didn't send the thought out with the web site specifically in mind. He did want the statement about his guitars on the site.

Since his last parole hearing he's been getting more specific about some things to do with the site. He's sent out thought about conditions in the prison that he'd like the world to know about. He wants me to put up more images. We may have to revamp the system to do the things he's talking about.

RM: Does Manson have any kind of web access in prison? He's seen your site, right?

GS: No, he doesn't have web access, but he has seen printed versions of Access Manson.

GS: I had written him two letters over the years that I did not really expect him to answer, and he didn't. Then I met some people who regularly corresponded with him, and they enclosed one of my letters with theirs, sort of like a personal introduction. He responded and we began corresponding fairly regularly after that.

GS: I hadn't really considered meeting him until Sandra Good [eds. note: Ms. Good is an alleged former member of Manson's "Family"] suggested that I begin visiting him. After trying to study the man for over fifteen years it seemed like a logical progression to meet him.

GS: I was anxious, but that was mostly due to the maximum-security setting. Manson put me at ease pretty quickly. I've never been nervous around him.

Stimson: Kids are fine. The people who were with Manson in 1969 were mostly kids.

GS: Well, I've only seen Charlie in the visiting room at Corcoran, so I only know what he is like in that situation. He's a convict, that's for sure. But he's also so much more than that. If I said he was like the universe, that might be too general. I get along with him very well.

GS: We talk about current events, things we've done, things we are doing, things we want to do. We talk about what's going on in our lives, about people we both know. We talk about the moment. We play a lot of cards, and chess.

RM: What has the public's reaction been so far? Do you get a lot of fan mail or is it just hate mail?

GS: Reaction has been overwhelmingly positive, like 90%. And little of the negative mail has showed much mind beyond just saying we're crazy. Positive responses have ranged from many-paged messages expressing empathy and a willingness to help, to messages that simply say "thank you".

GS: A lot of different kinds of people from different walks of life have contacted us. We've heard from students, lawyers, blue collar people, people who are still affected by the counterculture, all kinds. And yes, we hear from a lot of young people, many who are not familiar with Manson and his case from their own memory of the time. Kids are fine. The people who were with Manson in 1969 were mostly kids.

RM: What sort of help do they offer? Working on the site? Monetary support? Forming a guerrilla army to bust him out of prison?

GS: Mostly they offer to do "anything I can". We've had a few offers to help with the site. We have several projects in the works right now, and if these projects go where we want them to we will have plenty of things for people to do. We're keeping a list of the people who have offered to help, and when the time comes, we will be getting in touch with them.

On a remote and beautiful ranch in western Colorado, Mary Conover and Kenyon Fields are attempting to restore a portion of the Little Delores River and Pinion Mesa. The husband and wife team is working with NGOs as well as state and federal agencies to restore native grasses and sages to pastures and aspen trees to uplands. Along the Little Dolores River the two, with the help of volunteers and the Youth Conservation Corps, are removing invasive Russian Olive and replanting native willow and cottonwood.

The river has been slowed down and therefore deepened so as to slowly flood nearby fields. Beavers have returned to the Little Dolores Valley and are helping improve the already-begun damming, further enhancing the new wetlands.

This inspiring and instructive film is a “how to” for land owners and agencies to restore and repair working lands after a century of grazing cattle and sheep. The changing climate and prolonged drought that the ranch is experiencing are slowing down the restoration of Mountain Island Ranch, but slowly and certainly the private and public lands on Pinion Meas are recovering.

Before and after images of the work being done at Mountain Island Ranch demonstrate the direction and the degree to which their hard work has succeeded. This film should be viewed and studied by conservationists everywhere who are faced with degraded and invaded landscapes from past archaic practices. - Jason Kahn

Check out the virtual show of CM art at - http://goodbyehelterskelter.com/ - Gratitude goes to Michael for saving some of the pieces in this exhibit from a fire. Feedback on how easy it is to navigate the website and your thoughts on its presentation are appreciated. Spread the word about this treasure from the Golden Soul!

The National Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, US Fish and Wildlife Service and National Park Service have all been directed to find ways to engage tribal people in co-management of federal lands (or in some cases such as California in state parks and other state lands). These co-management agreements are being implemented at all federal agencies frequently without any public review.

Maybe the reason no one is allowed to see the Suislaw-tribal co-management agreement is because the tribes called for much greater logging, including of old growth for “economic development” and of course a requirement that some jobs go to tribal members. Other co-management agreements have been made at Big Cypress National Preserve in Florida, and Point Reyes National Seashore in California.

If you aren’t alarmed by this sort of reverse discrimination, you should be. The track record of tribal people on environmental issues where they “control” the land, resources, or outcome is not very good. Who controls the outcome is critical. In areas where they do not have a vested interest, particularly a financial one, they may appear “environmentally” allied. But where there is a significant potential for financial gain, you see a different story. - The Wilderness News

“Mount Shasta, situated near the northern extremity of the Sierra Nevada, rises in solitary grandeur from a lightly sculptured lava plain, and maintains a far more impressive and commanding individuality than any other mountain within the limits of California.

The crisp icy sky was without a cloud, and the stars lighted us on our way. Deep silence brooded the mountain, broken only by the night wind and an occasional rock falling from crumbling buttresses to the snow slopes below.

The wild beauty of the morning stirred our pulses in glad exhilaration, and we strode rapidly onward, seldom stopping to take a breath—over the broad red apron of lava that descends from the west side of the smaller of the two cone summits, across the gorge that divides them, up the majestic snow curves sweeping to the top of the ancient crater, around the broad icy fountains of the Whitney glacier, past the hissing fumaroles.

The slight weariness of the ascent was soon rested away. The sky was of the thinnest, purest azure; spiritual life filled every pore of rock and cloud; and we reveled in the marvelous abundance and beauty of the landscapes by which we were encircled.

A vigorous bumble-bee zigzagged around our heads, filling the air with a summery hay-field drone, as if wholly unconscious of the fact that the nearest honey flower was a mile beneath him.

The creative sun shone gloriously upon the white expanse, and rare cloud-lands, hill and dale, mountain and valley, rose responsive to his rays, and steadily developed to higher beauty and individuality.

Storm clouds on the mountains—how truly beautiful they are!—floating fountains bearing water for every well; the angels of streams and lakes; brooding in the deep pure azure, or sweeping along the ground, over ridge and dome, over meadow, over forest, over garden and grove; lingering with cooling shadows, refreshing every flower, and soothing rugged rock brows with a gentleness of touch and gesture no human hand can equal!

Weather of spring and summer throughout the middle region of the Sierra is usually well flecked with rain-storms and light dustings of snow, most of which are far too obviously joyous and life-giving to be regarded as storms.

Presently a vigorous thunder-bolt crashes through the crisp sunny air, ringing like steel on steel, its startling detonation breaking into a spray of echoes among the rocky canons below. Then down comes the cataract of rain to the wild gardens and groves. The big crystal drops tingle the pine needles, plash and spatter on granite pavements, and pour adown the sides of ridges and domes in a net-work of gray bubbling rills. In a few minutes the firm storm cloud withers to a mesh of dim filaments and disappears, leaving the sky more sunful than before. Every bird and plant is invigorated, a steam of fragrance rises from the ground, and the storm is finished—one cloud, one lightning flash, one dash of rain.

Thin fibrous cloud films began to blow directly over the summit of the cone from north to south, drawn out in long fairy webs, like carded wool, forming and dissolving as if by magic. The wind twisted them into ringlets and whirled them in a succession of graceful convolutions, like the outside sprays of Yosemite falls; then sailing out in the pure azure over the precipitous brink of the cone, they were drifted together in light gray rolls, like foam wreaths on a river.

Hail gave place to snow, and darkness came on like night. The wind rising to the highest pitch of violence, boomed and surged like breakers on a rocky coast. The lightnings flashed amid the desolate crags in terrible accord, their tremendous muffled detonations unrelieved by a single echo, and seeming to come thudding passionately forth from out the very heart of the storm.

The snow fell with unabated lavishness until an hour or two after the coming on of what appeared to be the natural darkness of night. The whole quantity would probably measure about two feet. Up to the time the storm first fell upon the mountain, its development was gentle in the extreme—the deliberate growth of cumulus clouds beneath, the weaving of translucent tissue above, then the roar of the wind, the crash of thunder, and the darkening flight of snow flowers. Its decay was not less sudden—the clouds broke and vanished, not a snow-flake was left in the sky, and the stars shone out with pure and tranquil radiance.”

“Whoever you are, wherever your interest lies, whatever you’ve fallen in love with, get out of bed every morning and do something. Act, step into the fray—fight for a human society in balance with the natural world.” — Kristine Tompkins

Kris Tompkins is the president and co-founder of Tompkins Conservation, an American conservationist, and former CEO of Patagonia, Inc. For three decades, she has committed to protecting and restoring wild beauty and biodiversity by creating national parks, restoring wildlife, inspiring activism, and fostering economic vitality as a result of conservation. Kristine and her late husband Douglas Tompkins have protected approximately 15 million acres of parklands in Chile and Argentina through Tompkins Conservation and its partners, making them among the most successful national park-oriented philanthropists in history. Kristine served as Patron for Protected Areas for the UN Environmental Programme from 2018-2022. The recipient of numerous honors, she was the first conservationist to be awarded the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy.

In this episode of the Rewilding Earth podcast, Kris Tompkins discusses her visionary efforts in rewilding South America, particularly focusing on the Southern Cone’s ecological reconnection. Kris reflects on various projects, including reintroducing large predators like jaguars and restoring ecosystems across vast territories in Argentina and Chile. (Almost 15 million acres in total. That’s 5 million acres larger than Switzerland!) Kris knows how to think BIG. She shares insights on conservation strategies, the importance of thinking on a continental scale, and the role of local communities and the new generation in these initiatives. With a drive to reconnect ecosystems from Chile to Colombia and beyond, Kris emphasizes the significance of working with natural systems and engaging local populations to ensure success. - Thinking Really Big

“National parks are the gold standard of conservation in these days of severe ecological crisis.” - Douglas Tompkins

The thought of justice as being Jesus Christ dying on the cross; this thought has been released from the subconscious minds and the Christian thought is nearing completion. No one believes that Jesus Christ will ever return. Only through self can you find what you call Christian justice. Yours is justice. Do back what has been done to you, but harm no one who has harmed no one. Humble men sometimes do brave things, but it is unlikely that a brave man is capable of humbling himself. - Charles Manson

Bug letter -

To write I must slow my mind down. I'm not human in my ways of thought and I don't want to be programmed by schools of thought. what man is or what man is not, woman etc. "Nature" has a balance. I want it like a hunger. I learn a universe in a look, a flash. I could slow down and spell the word over and over until it hangs in my thought pattern and holds little bits and pieces of power. I try to clear all patterns out of my mind to where I can become a tree or woods, a mountain, a world, a universe. Sparks in my mind become the only pattern I crave.

Suffering is -- is not. Could be or a balance of is. Little thoughts A woman suffers at childbirth and gives to it. It's just an experience. Ying and Yangs of personal playing people. You accept and reject whatever is best for whatever point you are on. Some minds may go through great big balances for deep thought and others wave a hand and say it backwards. Shiva does it in a dance.

I lived with a bug for 17 years. Everyone hated this bug and said it was no good and bad. It had no eyes, no ears and lived its life on feeling, alone in the dark, no help, no claws, no fangs, no defenses A helpless little bug. I watched it and thought how can this life form find any joy, why would life want to live. No one teaches it, they don't play 'watch momma and learn'. It's all go for what you feel. Everyone and everything is out to destroy you -- spiders and other bugs will eat you and humans are at war on you. I learned more from that bug than I did from my whole life before.

I fell in love with another fife form. That bug could feel what I thought. I set for years with no books, no TV, no radio -- nothing but a candle and making things with strings and toilet paper. So, I've had a lot of time to spend with this bug doing just what it does.

For 5 years I couldn't think why I did some of the things it does. Then I began to see into its world. We have a word for God. The bug is all he knows he is. All from where that bug thinks. Leaves grow on trees,,, shellfish, are born and grass grows, and snails are, we think we think from our brains. In my sleep -- half sleep, I'll pick a spider off my face, roll it up perfect and set it on the floor and wake up to see it unhurt. If I tried to do it thinking, I would have broken its legs. The night I had the fight with the guy who said he whipped 7 cops, and I put him in the barrel without a thought -- I've transcended the heads of earth people for 5,000,000 years. I've touched down in places with thoughts never before. I am in a lot of bodies doing lots of things and I never had any real control over or under much.

Look you well, I try to be what I want, and I got everyone that wants me to be a killer. They torment me to be that. Each time I get a chance to kill someone and don't, all the others say quack quack duck. He ain't shit. They want blood, they want death. They are locked to the T.V. A guy went to the visiting room picked a baby up and knocked its head off. The parents told him they forgive him and that they were sorry and he's outside now killing whoever he wants. I should have gone with Green and Yellow and after they killed whoever they wanted; I should not have let anyone touch the bodies. All they (public) wanted to do was feed on the dead bodies. I should have left them for the flies.

People who are doing the killing, if they write rat notes, they are given their own police force to boss in some little town and they get a new name and new game. It's the people who try to be and do right that suffer because they need them for show. Tex may wake up that their people he works for in church will keep him all his life because they feel free to buy and sell the fear he makes for the blood sale.

I've seen some people who were on the row for killing, get out and kill again, come back for killing get out and come back. I said they sure must be killing the right people.

When you deal with people who won't pay you your dues, they will lie and cheat and give the ass (sex) of your children to their fears. The only thought created in my head is they want you to be a killer and kill them. If you are a good and real servant, you will give them what they want. Someone says to you "Dont hit me!" You say "I wasn't thinking of hitting you " and they say, "You're going to kill me!" and you say; "No, I don't want to kill you." Upon that they hit you and knock you down and say, "Yes you are a killer". Someone puts a knife in your hand and says, "Kill him or we will kill you" and he says, "Do it and you throw the knife down and they yell, "See we made him put the knife down. I'm Manson's man and he's a bitch and I made him put the knife down." You say "You didnt make make me do nothing, I put it down because I hold thought circles and chambers far beyond you, me, I, them, and they. I hold the dispensation of life and death in truth and all the people who took life can live in me because I took no life. So they take my stuff and lie some more and take my guitar and it keeps falling on me to kill. I'm the mirror and I don't want to reflect but they think I'm their out. Out to them is to die and they want out.

I can't find anyone with half a brain about anything. I get more from a deaf, and dumb bug than the whole state of California. The U.S. Prisons were retired service personnel and a lot of them were at the least part of life. Here it is worse than the nut wards. They make crazy and madness up.

Check this hard. If I never leave the cell, this is the thought the C.D.C is creating. Because the world needs killers. I've set in thoughts so deep and strained out with sweat and millions of people running through my mind dying and being born; the fear so thick others can't even walk past my cell. If everything you seen was gone tomorrow, no one would notice. It was only as big as our minds. If World War I was a tear out of one eye and World War II, a tear out of the other eye and I was all the pyramids and all the Pharoah's, Greeks, and the peak of China at its best, it wouldn't touch just what pollution is created by jets. To stop oil, money, lumber, and put 5O hundred million people in line with a new lifestyle with no waste in the air or water.... In the 1960's I was reacting to a world I seen so little of. I learned that one little misunderstanding about 1776 or one thought you believed that came from some other center can put your ship on the rocks. You must be 100% reborn and believe nothing. That's not easy to do just within the inner self much less deal with the world and OVER ALL money and overall heads that ever were in ALL time -- all graves.

The only thing that some people got going is to down anyone who got anything going. They will play big trying to make others little. They will pull everyone down to make themself look big. Others will step on, bash, kick, bite -- anything it takes to save a job. They would lose their life before they would lose their job because without the job they are nothing as dead. Others would do much the same if not more to save their face with wedding rings and jobs and lose their TREES AND WATER, AIR AND LAND. It's like the phony Christian says, "You must do all I say before god will accept you, you must do all we say before you can live". You can try to explain it is their life also and they say, "Are you threatening me?" So, I just go on and threaten them out front because anything I say or do has become a threat to lies and a threat to anyone who wants to die. Check it, If you say do this or do that and you will die, they stick their faces out and run to it. In San Quentin there was a saying that if you killed everyone on one shift and laid their bodies in the parking lot, the next shift would climb over their bodies coming to work.

No, there is a lot of people got to die and when I say lot -- lot is not a big enough word. Hitler was a saint, an angel in comparison. I don't want this job.

I'm put in the box woman kept me in for 20 years for the unsure yesterdays, plays, books, mean looks, etc.

True, we think the world but so do the people who left behind what they created like sidewalks, lampposts telephone poles, cement, schools, armies, governments and lots of people dead but still walking and having an effect on earth and on others if there is such a thing it is truly in the mind- not my mind or your mind but THE mind and that is in forever's Chamber. They are not thinking in forever, they are playing for one life time because one needs to be in and out of prison a few times to see behind the faces of life and death.

What the brain wants and needs to thank in it's patterns is not always right and true in the real but it may fit what we want to call or be right and true. You may see death and suffering as real and to your ego, it is the realest real. Then after you suffer it all and die a few times you realize; thats only stages that roll wagon wheels or levels of brick to build a Circle within the endless. A thought can last 2000 years, 5000 years that's maybe right for the people who played live and die within that time stage, but one thought can melt it like butter and in 2 days can be another thought. It is always changing. At times a little thing will go by, and I'll say nothing and later it's a big thing.

One little thought can change billions of thoughts. Christ spent 3 days on his cross. You spent 10 years on ours. I realize that no one knows all the whys and ins and outs of the whole thing and paper words won't hold it.

All I can say is keep faith and it will balance out. It may be another 10 or 100 years and we only got 25 but it was the only chance. You gave your love and life to a cause.

Born into a puzzle -- a piece at a time and few ever seen the whole thing and how can you tell or yell to 3 corners of the universe from one corner saying "Hey! There are 4 corners to this wheel and because of people's loss of faith and I only got 3 when I had 4."

Do you see that youse were the hearts I was dreaming in the 1950's and 40's. Beatniks and how they turned to hippy and how hippy turned to yippy etc. Can you see the wheel of humans? Some die and others go to prison but the motions and what you see stays on all sides.

Ask yourself what do you do when someone is holding you with a gun and they are not obeying the rules or laws. At what point does the outlaw become the law to survive?

I've looked for home. I must be in truth to be at home. You can be true when you do anything for ATWA. If I say something and they don't like what I say they try to prove me wrong. Proving me wrong don't stop the cold wind. We seen it coming in the long ago. But they worry more about money than rain or tides, sunshine or the balance of the day. I got 62 years in one day. Charles MacManson

While many conservation groups are promoting the movie Crown Jewels, few are willing to address its flawed premises.

What we need is more wildland preserves like parks and wilderness areas where logging or other human manipulation is banned. If you watch Crown Jewels, take the good message about old-growth forests, which are ecologically critical to the forest ecosystem. However, beware of any implication that human management somehow “benefits” forests. Forest ecosystems have persisted for millions of years without any human intervention. They didn’t need human management then, and they don’t need it now. - Crown Jewels Video

Colorado wolf family captured; one wolf dead, survivors taken into captivity -

Colorado's wolves have been dealt a devastating setback. In late August and September, in response to conflicts with a few livestock owners, the entire Copper Creek Wolf Pack was captured by the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Department as part of a relocation effort.

This effort resulted in the death of the male wolf father, who fathered the first four wild-born pups from the state’s reintroduction effort.

It is unknown when or where the pack will be released, but our work to create a Colorado willing to coexist with wolves is more important now than ever.

The next step in Colorado’s wolf reintroduction: Up to 15 wolves set to come to Colorado from Canada!

While the wolf reintroduction effort in Colorado hasn’t been without its obstacles, we’ll leave you with some hopeful news:

The Colorado Parks and Wildlife Department has announced an agreement with the British Columbia Ministry of Water, Lands, and Resource Stewardship to get 15 wolves this winter. They’re expected to be on the ground in Colorado between December 2024 and March 2025. - Wild Earth Guardians

Wolves are often portrayed as a threat to humans, particularly little girls. Here is a true story that brings that portrayal into question.

It was Christmas Eve, 1923, when the incident took place. It was back on our farm in Orange, Pennsylvania. I was a 7-year-old girl then.

“We need more firewood!” I can again hear my mother saying to my father. "In a week it will be Christmas Eve. When you're sitting there smoking your pipe in front of our fire with no more logs to bum, you’ll get angry at me.”

My father bundled himself up, took his rifle, walked to the barn for his ax and saw, and hitched up the horse to the sled. “Can I come along?” I shyly asked. “Ah, my Tessie, my sweet Tessie, yes, come along if you wish.”

The horse pulled the sled through the snow-covered forest. My father knew where a few fallen trees were located. He found the dried logs under the snow and quickly went to work. Suddenly there was a stillness. I no longer heard my father chopping or sawing firewood. When I looked up, I saw him standing motionless and silently staring. I followed the direction of his eyes. At first, I thought that figure might be a dog, but from my father’s seriousness, I knew it must be something more. Then my father broke his stillness and went to the sled for his rifle. I looked at the gray- orange animal standing in the clearing, staring at my father and me. It was not moving, but not afraid. I said to my father, “What is it, daddy?”

“It’s a wolf, honey. They’ve been gone from this area for 50 years, but there it stands.”

I watched as my father got into position arid raised his rifle. I walked beside him and palled on his jacket. “Honey, don’t do that!”

“But daddy, I said, “Why are you shooting it? Why are you shooting the pretty dog?” “It’s not a dog, honey, it’s a wolf.”

I gazed at the wolf. It was still standing there, strangely, almost mystically staring. “You’re lucky, wolf, for Tess was here today to protect you.” The wolf boldly took a last look at my father and me, then scampered away into the deep forest. My father finished his work and we rode home.

On Christmas Eve, relatives started arriving; there was kissing and hugging, and gifts exchanged. Yet I was getting bored with all the commotion. What I wanted to do was open my gifts which were under the tree, but mother said I had to wait. I asked, “Mommy, can I go our and play for a while?” She was occupied with other matters. "All right, but stay around the house. Your father says a storm's coming.” I was quickly out in the Christmas Eve snow. I wandered toward the woods. Before I realized it night was nearly upon me. It was a silent twilight, then suddenly the storm hit. One second the forest was calm, and the next the wind was blowing the heavily falling snow in my face, blinding me. It was getting colder and darker. I started immediately for home, but every step was a struggle. I kept walking for what seemed like hours, and finally in desperation I started shouting. "Mommy! Daddy! Help me!

I don’t know how long I walked around that night, but finally, exhausted, I stumbled under a pine tree's branches and closed my eyes. I was still was still too young to understand such concepts as death, so I didn’t know I was slowly freezing to death. Suddenly; 1felt a strange weight upon me, and a welcome warmth. It was an effort to open my eyes, but when I did, I thought someone had covered me with some sort of gray-orange blanket. But then I saw it wasn’t a blanket, but the dog my father and I had seen the week before — the dog my father had called a wolf. Strangely, I wasn’t frightened, but relieved that I wasn’t alone anymore. The heat the animal gave off started to warm me when the cruel Pennsylvania blizzard blew. On that Christmas Eve, I was rocked gently to sleep by the heartbeat of the animal my father almost shot. The next time I opened my eyes, I heard my father’s voice calling, “Tessie! Tessie!” It was light out.The wind was no longer blowing and the snow had stopped. Then I saw the wolf. It was standing near me, shaking the snow off its back. Its ears shot straight up as my father’s voice called out again. The wolf took one last glance at me, then quickly disappeared. “Daddy,” I said weakly, “here.” I saw my father’s face staring down at me. He was crying. He said, “Thank God, she’s still alive.”

When I opened my eyes again I was in my own bed, warm at last. My mother was sitting at the side of the bed; my father was standing by her, and he said, “It’s a miracle she’s alive. By all practical reasoning, the should have frozen out there.”

“The dog, daddy,” I said weakly. “The dog we saw in the woods. When you were chopping and sawing, daddy. The dog was with me. The dog kept me warm all through the night”

“She’s saying a wolf kept her alive! The day we went wood cutting and she came along, she stopped me from shooting a wolf. I think she is saying the wolf kept her warm through the night.”

There’s only one way to find out,” my father replied. “I’m going back to the place where I found her.”

When he returned, he confirmed my story Indeed, he had found a wolf’s tracks there.

I’ve never forgotten that Christmas Eve, with the wolf warming me and rocking me gently to sleep in that bitter blizzard, giving me the greatest Christmas gift of all — life.

I continuously see articles in the media about "good fire, " defined as frequent and low--severity. In other words, such fire seldom kills mature trees.

These fires, we are told, mimic "historical" conditions, creating "healthy" ecosystems by clearing away fuels without killing mature trees. A "good fire" by happy coincidence reduces high-severity blazes or so we are told.

"Bad fires" are those that char extensive acreage. At least some blazes burn at high severity, meaning they kill the mature trees and, by inference, were not a historical component of forest ecosystems.

When I was first attending college, the idea that any fire was "good" was an anomaly, and the scientists who advocated for fire on the landscape could be counted on one or two hands. Since then, most scientists, agency folks and conservationists have adopted the idea that at least some fire-if not too hot, too expansive, and too "destructive" is good. Hence, the good fire-bad fire dichotomy.

A recent example of this perspective (and I could present dozens of examples of this narrative) is the following:

"Also known as "prescribed burns" or "cultural fires," these intentionally started, controlled fires have received growing attention in recent years as a way to clear dry undergrowth that can build up and fuel huge wildfires. One 2024 review suggests that prescribed burning can reduce the severity of wildfires between 62% and 72% relative to untreated areas. However, the idea of prescribed burns is not new. Indigenous communities have long used "cultural fires" to remove old grass and support new growth. In addition, controlled fires may also help create a healthy ecosystem for cranes and other species by creating open habitats."

Nearly everything in the above paragraph is false or exaggerated, lacking context.

For instance, few fires actually encounter a prescribed burn when they might effectively influence fire spread and severity. Some estimates put fire encounters with burned areas at less than 1%. Whether these fires reduce fire severity can only occur if fires encounter such burned landscapes.

The qualifier about "when burns are effective" is critical. Within a few years, sometimes as short as two years, vegetation regrowth can negatively affect any fuel reduction. In some cases, a prescribed fire can stimulate the growth of "fine fuels" like grasses, which are more flammable than the vegetation that existed on a site before a burn.

Most ecosystems were naturally characterized by long fire rotations, so burning frequently does not emulate any natural or historical fire condition and is entirely inappropriate for most western plant communities.

The plant communities with long fire rotations (time between major fires) include mixed conifer forest, aspen, all fir forests, old-growth Douglas fir forests, sagebrush, chaparral, lodgepole pine, and numerous other plant communities. Some grasslands, like native bunchgrasses, cannot tolerate frequent fire and need up to 10 years to recover from a burn. Burn these grasses too frequently, and you encourage growth of annuals like cheatgrass.

Prescribed burns do not preclude "huge fires," such as blazes, typically characterized as "bad" fires, which are part of most ecosystems' natural fire systems and not some kind of aberration. Indeed, they are a critical part of "healthy" ecosystems. Precluding such blazes degrades many ecosystems. - Read More

Fears for the safety of our children in wolf country may be put in perspective by this true story.

A commercial traveler from St. Cloud, was in the city yesterday coming straight from St. Joseph, a small town in Stearns County, where he said the people were all talking about a most extraordinary case of a lost child, who after two days of constant search in the woods was found unharmed at a wolf’s burrow in the dense forest of Brockway Township.

The child was Margaret, aged 4, the daughter of Nick Schweitzer, a well-to-do farmer in Brockway Township. The little girl was lost Sunday forenoon, while all the adults of the family were attending church. Accompanied by her ten-year-old brother, and eight-year-old sister, and some children from the neighborhood, who were spending the day at the Schweitzer home, the little girl strayed away in search of nuts.

The children roamed through the forest for a few hours, when they noticed that the smallest member of the party was lost. Fearing punishment, the children did not return to tell their parents until they had searched for several hours through the woods. About three o’clock in the afternoon the alarm was spread through the neighborhood that all of the children were lost.

A searching party of about 20 farmers was at once organized to scour the woods, and all night the forest resounded with the cries of the searchers. The next day, a party of ditch workers who were employed in the vicinity joined in the hunt, and it was not until Tuesday forenoon that one of the scouts came to a small hill, covered with pine and thick underbrush. He found a path leading in through the thicket, and by the side of the trail was lying a small blue sunbonnet.

The man followed the trail and had to go on all fours. He soon reached the wolf’s lair. In the cleared space around it were strewn picked bones, feathers, and parts of sheep pelts. An awful suspicion of the child’s fate flared across the mind of the searcher, and he was about to leave when he noticed the girl at the mouth of the den.

He expected to find her half dead with hunger and cold, but little Margaret rose to greet the visitor and told him that she had just been playing with some “nice little doggies,” which ran away when the man arrived.

The girl was none too willing to go with her rescuer. She said that she had not been cold at all, and that she had eaten nuts when she was hungry. Although it may sound incredible, it is believed by the people of Brockway that the child had been playing with the wolf cubs, and that she had been adopted by the savage animals, which every season make inroads on the livestock of the Brockway farmers. The child was none the worse for her outing, and she said that she had had a good time, playing with the “nice little doggies.” She explained that she strayed from her companions and reached the wolf den accidentally. - Wolf Stories 4

“We do not want those whose first impulse is to compromise. We want no straddlers, for, in the past, they have surrendered too much good wilderness and primeval areas which should never have been lost.” – Bob Marshall on the founding of the Wilderness Society

There is an unfortunate tendency on the part of conservationists to forget or ignore history. A greater appreciation of past conservation victories as well as defeats can inform current efforts. In far too many cases, there is a tendency to believe that it is necessary to appease local interests typically by agreeing to weakened protections or resource giveaways to garner the required political support for a successful conservation designation. However, this fails to consider that in nearly all cases where effective protective measures are enacted, it has been done over almost uniform local opposition.

In those instances where local opposition to a conservation measure is mild or does not exist, it probably means the proposal will be ineffective or worse—even set real conservation backward.

Nevertheless, many environmentalists now believe that due to regional parochialism and lack of historical context, significant compromises are necessary to win approval for new conservation initiatives.