The Appalachian Mountains, I’d been warned, do not end in Quebec but merely dive into the ocean, only to resurface on the island of Newfoundland and then again reappear thou-

sands of miles eastward, in Scotland. So, there in Forillon Provin-cial Park, at the dramatic eastern end of Quebec’s spectacular Gaspé Peninsula, I peered over sea cliffs and wondered: Is my trek incomplete, even after 7,600 miles of hiking and biking and paddling the wilder parts of the Appalachians and Atlantic Coast?

Yes, a long journey like this is never really finished; you just take a break from homesickness and sore feet. Were I to resume TrekEast, though, I’d not follow submerged mounts to Scotland, important and imperiled though their benthic wildlife be. I’d follow the Atlantic coastline north along Quebec, Newfoundland, and Labrador, with journeys westward up rivers and high into the Torngats. Exploring the wildest parts of eastern North America, I’d highlight the dire threats they now face from dam-building, mining, logging, and associated roads. An Eastern Wildway should run not just from Florida to Gaspé, but on northward through the Ungava Peninsula and Arctic seas and islands. Saving the boreal forest and tundra of Newfoundland,

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I N S I D E

Notes from Margo

The stunning images of J Henry Fair

Local wildlife tracking

Wild Earth Focus: Acts of Faith

and more…

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Labrador, northern Quebec, Ontario, and westward should be recognized as an international conservation and climate prior-ity, which a good trek could show.

That’s another journey, taken already by some intrepid Canadian and American conservation paddlers, and one I hope to follow some later time. For now, let me share lessons

gleaned on my trek from Florida to Forillon. I shall be working in the coming months with Wildlands Network and Island Press friends to draw out these lessons more fully

for an electronic book, which we aim to finish before TrekWest begins in early 2013. The overarching lesson of my trek and theme of the book is that the preservation and restoration of our natural heritage depend on protecting big, wild, intercon-nected systems of lands and waters—big, wild, and connected enough to accommodate the full range of native species conti-nent-wide, including top predators and other keystone species. A related finding is that all the grassroots conservation efforts in the East, while vital and worthy of increased support, are not adding up to continental-scale conservation. Local efforts are necessary but not sufficient. Some sort of national, at

Thoughts from Where the Mountains Dive into the Sea

Gazing Out from Land’s End, Gaspé Peninsula

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THE 2 0 12 WRESTLING MATCH for the U.S. presidency has inevitably morphed into a miasma cur-rently engulfing much of the public’s senses and sensibilities. Politics is visibly bringing out the worst in us. The burning spears are understandably aimed at economic and healthcare platforms, but the giant growling mon-ster in the room that affects everything—the unraveling of our natural world—continues to be largely ignored.

So let’s take a break from 2012 mudslinging and roll back the clock 48 years to 1964. On September 3, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Wilderness Preservation Systems Act now commonly re-ferred to as simply the Wilderness Act.

This policy was written, “In order to assure that an increasing population, accompanied by expanding settlement and growing mechanization, does not occupy and modify all areas…it is hereby declared to be the

policy of the Congress to secure for the American people of present and future generations the benefits of an enduring resource of wilder-ness.” Can you imagine a policy with this intention being passed by Congress today?

The document goes on to define what wilderness is: “…wilder-ness is further defined to mean in this Act an area of undeveloped Federal land retaining its primeval character and influence, without

permanent improvements or human habitation, which is protected and managed so as to preserve its natural conditions…where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visi-tor who does not remain.” It also calls out the need for humans to experience solitude, unconfined recreation with ecological, geological, scientific, historical and educational value.

Fast forward to 2012. We now know that for wilderness to truly function, these preserved areas need to be connected so that keystone species have the room they need to survive and to naturally manage a balance of life which we humans cannot. Global warming has heated up the urgency to make continental connectivity happen. It is going to take not only “an act of Congress” but also individual acts from private landowners, businesses, hunters, animal welfare advocates and community planners. In the end, we all will benefit from a healthier natu-ral world which we desperately need in order to support a robust economy and healthy human communities.

Readers, thank you all for being informed, and for tirelessly supporting Wildands Network and our part-ners. We are working very hard to grow the numbers of people understanding our important mission. Join the connectivity conversation on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and Google+.

For the Wild,

Many of the photos featured in this issue have been generously provided by David Moskowitz. A great friend of Wildlands Network, he also is a professional wildlife tracker, photographer, and outdoor educator, and has been studying wildlife and tracking in the Pacific Northwest since 1995. He is the author of Wildlife of the Pacific Northwest, a field guide to Northwest wildlife and wildlife tracking. He has contributed his technical expertise to a wide variety of wildlife studies regionally and in the Canadian and U.S. Rocky mountains, focusing on using tracking and other non-invasive methods to study wildlife ecology and promote conservation. David has worked on projects studying rare forest carnivores, wolves, elk, Caspian terns, desert plant ecology, and trophic cascades. He helped establish the Cascade Citizens Wildlife Monitoring Project, a citizen science effort to search for and monitor rare and sensitive wildlife in the Cascades and other Northwest wildlands. His next book, on wolves and wildlands in the Pacific Northwest, is due to be published in early 2013 by Timber Press. We encourage readers to get a copy of his book, it’s fantastic! Many thanks to David for his generosity.

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stops viewers in their tracks with his blatant use of the time-less rules of beauty. Colors appear otherworldly; the subject is abstract, void of perspective so as to plausibly pass as cellular or celestial. The images are spectacularly beautiful. But it’s not until one reads the accompanying photo captions that the abstractions become crystal clear. The images are actually birds-eye views of industrial devastation such as the BP Gulf oil spill; mountain top removal in West Virginia; bauxite waste from aluminum processing plants in Louisiana; and sadly, the list goes on.

The portraiture-photographer-turned-environmental- storyteller takes his staggering images from 1,000 feet in

We have all been necessarily shocked by environmental im-ages intended to drive us to action: industrial behemoths spouting noxious clouds, crowds of protesters fervently

waving banners, denuded landscapes, life forms—human, flora or fauna—sacrificed in the name of industrial progress. Pho-tographers that beg environmental action often approach their subject from these angles of news, documentation or reality, hitting us immediately and squarely between the eyes.

Far less frequently do we encounter full sensory assault intended to move us. Such is the expressed method behind the exquisite madness of renowned photographer J Henry Fair who ➤ page 14

Where Beauty Begins and EndsThe images of J Henry Fair are a catalyst for change

“I view my work as a catalyst. My pictures should make something happen, whether it’s saving 100 acres of precious wildlands in the middle of suburbia, or illustrating for Steinway the one-of-a-kind assembly of their instruments, the photographs affect the world in a larger way.”

Bottom ash disposal pond at coal-fired power plant, New Roads, Louisiana, 2010

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It started with the toes. I would find footprints in the dirt and count the number of toes, a clue to which animal passed by. Tracking was like learning to read; I started with reading the

letters. Eventually the letters formed words, and I could see whole footprints that spelled out: coyote, turkey, beetle, newt.

After the words came the sentences. A dozen or more footprints strung together told a story of how the animal was moving. Was it walking? Trotting? Loping? Why? Longer and longer strings of prints led to paragraphs, showing where an animal slept or what it ate. Then came pages of tracks, some-times even, chapters.

Now, more than a decade after I started counting toes, I have begun to read entire books written across our world’s land-scapes. These books, rich with information, are written in the tracks set down by animals going about their daily lives. From the small details contained within a footprint to macroscopic patterns drawn across our country by plant life, animal life and human life, much is revealed about the challenges wildlife faces and how we can help to mitigate those problems.

The long story behind tracking While many smaller animals may never move more than a few hundred yards from their birthplace, dozens of larger species must travel tremendous distances for fitness and survival. Large carnivores such as mountain lions and grizzlies must disperse and find their own individual home ranges. Herds of ungulates such as bison, deer, and pronghorn migrate to find adequate seasonal forage. Hundreds of bird species traverse continents and oceans

in search of warmer climes and historical breeding sites. And all of these movements, or more importantly the restriction of these movements, can be tracked; and evidence of the need for more connected habitat is clearly evident.

Wildlife stopped in its tracks As expected, wild-life pays little attention to park boundaries when their survival depends on migration and dispersal. Unfortunately restriction of this movement leads to wildlife fatality, and manifests itself in a number of ways. Genetic bottlenecking leads to inbred popu-lations of species; starvation occurs when herds cannot reach necessary sustenance; and deaths by vehicles result when animals cross roads. On his TrekEast, John Davis, wilderness explorer and Wildlands Network founder, stated that one of the most disheart-ening aspects of diminishing wildlands in the U.S. is the lack of safe passage for animals crossing roads and highways. Over and over he encountered animal fatalities upon the pavement.

How well do you know your own backyard?To help mitigate the increasing threat of roads to wildlife and humans, I have worked with several organizations that coordi-nate local citizens who monitor roadways, culverts, drainages, and open spaces. As money starts to dwindle and the conser-vation of huge tracts of land becomes more difficult, our local environment becomes critical for habitat connectivity. Thus it is absolutely necessary to learn the natural history of our backyards and record our findings. Private landowners and neighborhoods can create a coalition of citizen scientists who learn to track local

wildlife, protect existing corridors, and create backyard habitats that increase biodiversity.

From the outside looking in, this task may seem daunting, much as it would to a first grader given a book written by Tolstoy. But small practical actions soon uncover the

Tracks, A Good Read on Where You Can Begin

The tracks of a wolf trot, along a roadless ridgeline on the eastern edge of the North Cascades in Washington.

➤ page 15

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I N E A R LY 2 0 0 3 , a two-year-old male lynx was cruising through his territory near Kamloops, British Columbia, searching for snowshoe hares. He maneuvered through the forest, padding easily in deep snow, his large feet acting like snowshoes. All at once, what should have been just another in a lifetime of simple steps turned ill-fated. He found himself caught. No matter what he did, he could not free his foot from the hold of a trap. Soon a human came along and jabbed something sharp in his rump, which put him to sleep. When he awoke, his life had changed in surprising ways.

Although the young lynx didn’t know it, at this point, in addition to a bulky collar, he had acquired a name: BC-03-M-02. He soon found himself translocated to Colorado as part of the Colorado Division of Wildlife’s (CDOW) lynx reintroduction program. Eventually he was released into south-

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BY CRISTINA EISENBERG

Acts of Faith

ern Colorado’s high country. It was much drier there than his northern Rocky Mountain home where he was born, but there were plenty of snowshoe hares, his preferred food, to eat. As important, he found a willing, fecund mate. Life was good; in two years he sired three litters of kittens. And then one day in late 2006, something in his brain, some inchoate longing, some homing instinct, made him feel like roaming. At first he simply traveled from one snowshoe hare stronghold to another, find-ing food when he needed it. After a while he started ranging farther, and eventually just kept going. He ended up crossing landscapes unlike any he’d experienced before: the Wyoming Red Desert, followed by the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.

Biologists determined that over the next months 03-M-02 covered 2,000 miles. His last recorded collar signal, before the battery gave out, occurred in late April, 2007. Eventually he found his way remarkably close to where he was born, near Banff National Park, Alberta. And there his life ended, in

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another trap line—a lethal one set to legally harvest fur-bearing mammals. Superbly healthy at the time of his death, well-fed, with a luxuriant coat of fur, he set a world record for the longest known distance traveled by his kind. Despite his tragic end, BC-03-M02 proved that even in our fractured world, it is pos-sible for a carnivore to roam widely to meet his needs for food, a mate, and travel corridors. But ultimately, the media hoopla about how far he had traveled belied the tragedy of his death.

The lynx is a species with a large home range and the abil-ity to travel far. In recent years, lynx from the CDOW reintro-duction project also have dispersed south, into New Mexico’s mountains. Researchers did not anticipate these dispersals, which involved crossing interstate highways, traversing areas of high human use, and dodging death in a multitude of ways. En route, these dispersers had to find snowshoe hares to eat—not an easy task. Indeed, I consider such landscape-scale peregrina-tions to be acts of faith.

Other species besides lynx have an innate need to wander. These instinctive journeys involve both migration, defined as seasonal, cyclical movements from one region to another and back for breeding and feeding purposes, and dispersal, which is the process organisms use to permanently spread from one place another. Many species migrate—from pronghorn to elk to bi-son—as part of their annual life cycle and natural history. Fewer species disperse. Much has been written on migration. For example, in a recent High Country News article (http://www.hcn.org/issues/43.22/protecting-wildlife-corridors-remains-more-theory-than-practice), science writer Mary Ellen Hannibal focused on the path of the pronghorn, one of the most at-risk migration corridors in the Rocky Mountains, and on Wildlands Network’s efforts to raise awareness of these issues.

Here I focus on large-carnivore, continental-scale disper-sals—why they matter, and what we can do to preserve these vagile species’ fragile corridors. Wolves, wolverines, lynx, and cougars have natural histories that often include large dispersal patterns. Other species, such as grizzly bears, also disperse, although their movements are typically smaller compared to the other large carnivores. In our developed world, landscape-scale dispersals are becoming increasingly challenging for all species.

Lifelines: why cores and corridors matterIn their Island Press book Corridor Ecology, ecologist Jodi Hilty and her colleagues describe nocturnal photographs taken from space of terrestrial light emissions. These satellite images depict millions of bright dots strung into lacy, incandescent webs of light across the United States. These dots indicate the presence of humans and their cities and other forms of development.

They clearly show, for example, the myriad roads that criss-cross and dominate our nation. The negative spaces—the dark areas—which make up a sobering minority of what one sees in these images, speak volumes about how broken up by human development our nation has become.

Landscape fragmentation represents one of the leading conservation issues we face today. Scientists and conservation organizations such as Wildlands Network are striving to link landscapes to conserve wildlife and biodiversity and create ecosystems more resilient to climate change. For the past two decades, preeminent conservation biologists Michael Soulé, John Terborgh, and colleagues such as Dave Foreman have been urging conservationists to connect and rewild landscapes on a continental scale, to enable creatures, particularly those with sharp teeth and claws, to thrive. Carnivores, Soulé has long asserted, need room to roam. And carnivores, most scientists agree, are bellwethers of the health of an ecosystem. They recog-nize that an ecosystem that is sufficiently intact to support large carnivores likely also has the capacity to support a wealth of other species, such as songbirds and amphibians.

There are many stories on the landscape, evocatively told via the carnivores’ feet, along the Spine of the Continent. Wildlands Network has identified this cordillera as one of four continental Wildways (large landscapes for wildlife movement). The Spine of the Continent (now named the Western Wildway) spans the Arctic to the sub-tropics, running from Alaska to Mexico. Plant and animal species have used this, and the other Wildways (the Arctic/Boreal Wildway across the top of the continent; the Pacific Wildway down the West Coast to Baja California; and the Eastern Wildway stretching from Florida to Canada’s Gaspé Peninsula), as movement corridors since the retreat of the ice sheets during the Pleistocene Epoch.

Twelve thousand years ago, two ice sheets covered much of North America: the Laurentian, which ranged over most of Canada, and the Cordilleran, along the Pacific coast. The West-ern Wildway arose as these ice sheets receded, opening a path between them, called the Mackenzie Corridor. As the climate warmed, this corridor gradually widened, creating a passage for plants and animals. In time, lush forests arose, and large mam-mals began to inhabit and move through the steep slopes and fertile valleys of the Rocky Mountains. Today, animals continue to use this ancient migration and dispersal pathway. It’s part of their ancestral memory; it’s in their genes. Indeed, I like to think of it and the other Continental Wildways as “carnivore ways,” because of the carnivores who have worn deep trails in them since time immemorial.

Today we are using every tool possible to study human

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land use impacts on animals whose natural histories require abundant room to roam in order to thrive. Radio collars have been lauded as one of the major wildlife science breakthroughs of the 1970s. Until this technological development, biologists answered questions about wildlife use of a landscape via track and scat surveys and thousands of hours of field observations. Such meticulously gathered data provided much useful infor-mation, but at best could only provide an approximation of wildlife movements. Since radio-collars became widely available in the 1990s, their technology has been incorporated in many wildlife studies. While many of us prefer non-invasive monitor-ing methods, such as wildlife tracking, there are times when the collars provide an essential and otherwise inaccessible window into the large carnivore world. On several recent occasions, pre-cious data from these collars have told remarkable stories about the animals that have worn them, such as lynx BC-03-M-02, and the corridors they use to move across our continent. Thus, collar data have expanded our awareness in astonishing ways of how best to conserve wolves, wolverines, lynx, and cougars, which need enormous amounts of room to roam.

Wildlife corridors are passages that allow animal move-ments. They can vary greatly in scale and shape from species

to species; some are linear routes, others are intricate networks linking habitat patches. All provide wildlife with core habitat essential for species survival. Thus these corridors function like Lifelines (as coined by Wildlands Network), enabling animals to flow from one core area to another. Barriers to this basic need to move, such as human development, provide formidable threats to long-term survival of a variety of species. For the large carnivores, it’s not just about losing freedom to move, it’s about losing a natural process. Dispersal is one of their key sur-vival mechanisms, used to maintain genetic diversity. Addition-ally, scientists have recently recognized that these corridors are necessary to help animals adapt to climate change. This means without open corridors, many of the large carnivore species may be doomed.

Upon reaching adolescence, many of the large carnivores develop an irresistible urge to leave their birthplace, find a mate, and establish their own territory. Thanks to the collars that some of them wear, we have discovered animals the likes of which nobody had seen in many decades turning up in un-expected places, via dispersal. We have also learned about the tortured paths these animals have taken. Ten thousand years ago, when the North American Continent consisted of vast,

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unbroken tracts of land, these dispersals were probably fairly straightforward. But today, given our fragmented continent, such dispersals literally amount to acts of faith—faith that by acting on ancient instincts, these animals will find what they need to persist as individuals, and beyond that, as species: a safe home, suitable habitat, and a mate.

Audacious as such dispersals may seem, the animals that make them can’t help trying to do so. It’s imprinted in their DNA; it’s part of the shape of their bodies and how their minds work. Moreover, they do it with casual grace, as if these heroic dispersals amounted to just another day in their lives. There goes a wolf, loping a thousand kilometers in a harmonic, energy-conserving gait, its hind feet falling perfectly into the tracks left by its front feet. And a wolverine, artlessly running up mountains and back down them again in minutes, covering more ground and elevation—more rapidly and for longer dis-tances—than just about any other terrestrial mammal is capable of doing. But the operative word is “trying.” If it were a simple act of will, most of these stories would have happy endings. The stark reality is that these dispersal attempts are often met with at least as much failure as success.

As a conservation biologist who works with wolves, I have experienced my share of dispersals, some with tragic endings. But nevertheless, such dispersals fill me with hope that perhaps we will get it right soon, given the opportunities and powerful lessons these animals are conveying. Certainly, the undaunted spirit carnivores demonstrate has the power to capture the pub-lic imagination and mobilize entire conservation movements.

The carnivore wayIn February 2008, in California’s Tahoe National Forest, while doing an American marten study, Oregon State University graduate student Katie Moriarty’s remote-sensing camera pho-tographed what appeared to be a wolverine. The grainy image created a furor in wildlife science and conservation circles. It was California’s first substantiated wolverine sighting since the 1920s, although this species’ presence there had been long rumored.

At the time of Moriarty’s photograph, the nearest known resident population was about 900 miles distant, in northern Washington. DNA tests of collected scat samples from the animal proved that it was genetically related to Rocky Mountain wolverines, rather than to historic California specimens found only in museums. Thus, most experts believe this animal dis-persed from an out-of-state population. How the photographed wolverine got to California will ultimately remain a mystery.

In spring 2009, another young, male wolverine, M56, captured as part of the Greater Yellowstone Wolverine Program,

dispersed over 600 miles, across a portion of the Great Divide Basin, crossed Interstate 80 on Memorial Day weekend, and turned up in Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado. This marked the first verified occurrence of a non-translocated wol-verine in Colorado.

Also in spring 2009, a two-year-old female Yellowstone wolf wearing a state-of-the-art Argos collar made an astonish-ing 1,000-mile journey to Colorado and ended up not far from one of my study areas, the High Lonesome Ranch in north-central Colorado, where I work as the research director. The ranch comprises a sublime, 300-square-mile hunk of deeded and permitted Bureau of Land Management lands located in Colorado’s Rocky Mountain west slope. Its rugged, aspen-crowned mountains and deep, fertile valleys hold healthy deer and elk herds and provide a home to abundant cougars, black bears, and more. Threatened and endangered species returning to this part of Colorado include wolf and lynx.

It’s not exactly safe to be a wolf in Colorado; human tolerance for this species is low. Since initiating our food web research on this ranch, we have been referring to the roving canids that may be recolonizing this area from the Greater Yel-lowstone Ecosystem as “visitors from the north.” SW341WF, as she was called, hung around Eagle County, Colorado for a few weeks but was eventually found dead after ingesting poison.

In yet another astounding dispersal, in June 2011, a young male cougar turned up in Connecticut, road-killed by a sports utility vehicle. The 140-pound cougar was in good health at the time of its death. DNA tests furnished genetic evidence that he had traveled 1,500 miles from the Black Hills of South Dakota, via Wisconsin and Minnesota, to suburban Connecticut. Fur-ther, during the summer of 2011, multiple cougar sightings in Pennsylvania, one of the states through which this animal had passed, helped document his continental-scale dispersal. This cougar set a record for the longest dispersal ever recorded for his species and provided the first confirmed cougar presence in Connecticut in over 100 years.

The most recent dispersal story began in the fall of 2011. In October of that year, the Oregon Division of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) began posting on their website maps of a dispersing young male wolf, known as OR7. In these maps, a thick, black, zigzagging line depicted his path subsequent to his Septem-ber dispersal from northwest Oregon’s Imnaha pack. The ODFW regularly updated these maps to show OR7’s persistent southwestern trajectory. He cut a swath through the state, to the southwest Oregon Cascade Mountains, but stayed out of trouble. Just before Christmas, the news reported that he had settled down near Crater Lake.

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Over the previous three months, public attention had been riveted on this young male wolf as he wandered around Oregon likely in search of a mate, looping and doubling back, but each week trending farther south. Just after Christmas, a question arose publicly: How low would this vagabond wolf go? Oth-ers wondered whether he was looking for love in all the wrong places. Just before New Year’s Eve, the public got their answer to the first question. OR7 had crossed into California, becoming the first wolf confirmed in the state since 1924. Time will tell the answer to the second question.

These transboundary stories make our hearts beat a little faster and give rise to complex emotions: wonder, grief, hope. How many other such dispersals have there been of which we are unaware? Why do half of these stories have tragic endings? And how can we improve these outcomes, now that we are aware of them?

Mending the web footstep by footstepMending fragmented landscapes while also restoring their eco-logical function is one of the most urgent conservation topics in our rapidly changing world. Creating connected, landscape-scale permeable corridors for large carnivores and other species can provide an essential tool as we strive to cope with global change and mitigate the effects of a burgeoning human population. As a scientist who studies the effects of wolves on biodiversity and whole food webs, I have found that restoring large carnivores to degraded ecosystems is one of the simplest, most effective, and cost-efficient ways to create healthier, more resilient ecosystems.

Why carnivores? Because they are what Soulé and his col-leagues refer to as, “strongly interacting species,”—species that have large effects on whole ecosystems. In their seminal Island Press book, Trophic Cascades: Predators, Prey, and the Changing Dynamics of Nature, conservation biologists John Terborgh and Jim Estes explain that predation is intrinsic to maintaining life in all its forms. Each act of predation allows other organisms to live. Terborgh and Estes provide innumerable examples of how predation thus enables energy to flow freely through whole food webs, releasing nutrients for use by other species. These dynamics, which shape all ecosystems from aquatic to terrestri-al, directly and indirectly stimulate plant growth. For example, by preventing elk from standing around in one spot, eating saplings to death, wolves can indirectly enable aspen trees to grow taller. This ecological cascade thus creates habitat for other

species, such as songbirds. In addition to raising awareness of the ecological value of

large carnivores, Wildlands Network has been working to shift the conservation movement’s focus from preserving individual, often isolated, protected tracts of land which, for large carnivores and other species, essentially amount to habitat “postage stamps,” to a landscape-scale approach. This approach is defined by con-servation that looks beyond human-drawn borders toward land management at ecologically relevant scales, such as ecoregions.

OR7 and his comrades embody and exemplify Wildlands Network’s conservation vision. Specifically, Wildlands Network is applying a science-based approach to connect core land-scapes so wolves, wolverines, lynx, cougars, bears, and many other species, such as pronghorn antelope, have room to roam. The mounting pressure of climate change further necessitates leaving ample connected habitat for herds and individuals of innumerable species to be able to find and populate new homes. These goals require identifying and designing critical wildlife road crossings to reduce wildlife/vehicle collisions; bringing a large-landscape approach to ecosystem restoration and con-servation practitioners; raising awareness of the importance of protecting carnivores when restoring whole ecosystems; and inspiring private lands conservation.

In the past decade, Wildlands Network scientists have become aware that long-term survival of biodiversity, includ-ing large carnivores, depends on conserving a continental-scale network of permeable lands under a variety of ownership des-ignations—not just public lands. In fact, the majority of these lands are privately owned. Accordingly, Wildlands Network has been leading the charge to raise awareness of the importance of private working lands such as the many large ranches in the West. Establishing compatible uses on these working lands to achieve landscape-scale conservation involves fostering col-laboration among landowners, scientists, corporations, and conservation partners.

Inspired by iconic American ecologist Aldo Leopold, High Lonesome Ranch chairman/CEO and Wildlands Network Board member, Paul R. Vahldiek, Jr., hopes that his quintes-

Road closures, such as this one in Colville National Forest for Grizzly bear recovery, are an important part of restoring connected landscapes across North America.

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Join Island Press in reading the following new and classic conservation books! Until August 31, these titles will all be available with a 25% discount using code WILD25 at checkout at www.islandpress.org.

Corridor Ecology: The Science and Practice of Linking Land-scapes for Biodiversity Conservation by Jodi A. Hilty, William Lidicker Jr., and Adina Merelender. This book presents guidelines that combine conservation science and practical experience for maintaining, enhancing, and creating connectivity between nat-ural areas with an overarching goal of conserving biodiversity.

Trophic Cascades: Predators, Prey, and the Changing Dy-namics of Nature edited by John Terborgh and James Estes. This book, the first comprehensive presentation of the science on trophic cascades, brings together some of the world’s leading scientists and researchers to explain the importance of large

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animals in regulating ecosystems, and to relate that scientific knowledge to practical conservation.

The Wolf ’s Tooth: Keystone Predators, Trophic Cascades, and Biodiversity by Cristina Eisenberg. This book is a fas-cinating and wide-ranging look at the dramatic ecological consequences of predator removal (and return), exploring why animals such as wolves, sea otters, and sharks exert such a dis-proportionate influence on their environment.

Safe Passages: Highways, Wildlife, and Habitat Connectiv-ity edited by Jon P. Beckmann, Anthony P. Clevenger, Marcel P. Huijser, and Jodi A. Hilty. In our increasingly congested, fragmented world, finding ways that highways and wildlife can coexist by ensuring habitat connectivity is part of any large-scale restoration project. This book offers state-of-the-art ideas, real examples, and inspiration.

Continuing the ConversationA Recommended Reading List

sential western landscape will serve as a land ethic blueprint for private lands. Vahldiek and his partners’ key restoration strate-gies include reducing habitat fragmentation and conserving top carnivores. Their efforts involve predator-friendly ranch-ing, stream and grassland restoration, and using hunting as a conservation tool. They are working closely with Michael Soulé, who is helping to guide High Lonesome Ranch food web re-search, and with Wildlands Network Strategy Director Kenyon Fields, to advance private lands conservation on a continental scale, and to partner with other landowners to foster similar conservation efforts.

As a researcher who works on both federally protected lands, such as Glacier National Park, Montana, and Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta, as well as private lands, such as the High Lonesome Ranch, I strive to use my science to help contribute to the legacy of continental conservation that Michael Soulé, John Terborgh, and their colleagues established. But further, as a plain member of the biotic community, as Leopold put it nearly a century ago, I consider it my duty to help advance whole-ecosystem conservation to create a more sustainable future for our children and the creatures with which

we share this earth. But it takes a village and more to suc-ceed in this effort. Achieving continental-scale conservation to safeguard the survival of animals such as lynx BC-03-M-02 takes networks of people creating networks of permeable lands. Thanks to Wildlands Network and partners such as the High Lonesome Ranch, mending our tattered web is progressing steadily, footstep by footstep along the carnivore way.

In future months you will undoubtedly be stirred by fresh stories about long-distance animal dispersals. I have faith that as we further mend the web and our conservation networks grow and thrive, more of these stories will have happy endings.

Cristina Eisenberg is a conservation biologist and Wildlands Net-work advisory board member who studies how wolves affect eco-systems throughout the West. She recently earned her doctorate at Oregon State University and is working on a book for Island Press on large carnivore conservation on a continental scale, The Carni-vore Way: A Transboundary Conservation Vision in a Changing World. In her first Island Press book, The Wolf ’s Tooth: Keystone Predators, Trophic Cascades and Biodiversity, she explored the many ways that keystone predators shape ecosystems.

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Lobos face challenges in Sonora reintroductionIt’s been decades since the last wild Mexican gray wolves prowled the Sierra Madre Occiden-tal of eastern Sonora, but that critically endangered species is now back, leaving the first “lobo” tracks in a region where wolves have been missing for more than 32 years.

Thanks to the breeding program that resulted from the capture of the last remaining handful of lobos in Mexico in 1980, and to the Mexican government’s strong conviction that wolves should be reintroduced to their former range, five collared Mexican gray wolves were released to their former range just south of the Arizona border last October.

According to Naturalia, the non-profit conservation organization that partnered with Mexican federal authorities to make the release a reality, the reintroduction occurred last fall. The site was on a several-thousand-acre area in the Sierra San Luis west of the Janos Biosphere Reserve in Sonora, not far south of the U.S. border.

Tragically, several of the released wolves were reported to have been killed, possibly by ingesting poison used by ranchers to control other predators in the region. Federal officials are conduct-ing necropsy examinations to confirm cause of death. Naturalia staff and Mexico officials are discussing next steps for futher rein-troductions and how to best protect the wolves from persecution.

The breakthrough for the long-sought-after reintroduction came when the Sonora State Ranchers Association, influenced by Naturalia, agreed not to interfere with the release. However, other local entities remained opposed, ensuring that recovery to a sustainable population number will be a long and difficult road.

Any of the wolves or their descendants that do cross the border north into the U.S. will be completely protected from killing or capture via full endangered species status—as long as they do not traverse 150 miles further north into the Blue Range Wolf Re-covery Area (BRWRA) on the Arizona-New Mexico state line in the Gila Mountains—following an ages-old pathway for lobo movement between the two rugged landscapes.

If Sonora wolves do enter the boundaries of the BRWRA, their status would be changed to the less rigorous Experimental/Non-Essential classification of the 58 embattled lobos now living there, allowing for potential capture, re-location, or killing.

Arizona/New Mexico lobo numbers increaseThe state that helped champion the reintroduction of Mexican gray wolves into its far eastern backcountry has reversed a recent decision to withdraw its support for the recovery project, and now says it will allow new releases when warranted by illegal killings or other removals.

The Arizona Game and Fish Commission, which sets the agenda for the state’s game and fish department, voted last fall to halt its support for additional releases of lobos essential to boosting the endangered species’ struggling population numbers until after a new recovery plan and 10(j) rule are implemented—a process that could easily take two years. Lobo coalition partners, including Wildlands Network, collaborated to help pressure the commission to re-think its wolf commitment and support new releases.

At the end of November 2011, the collared lobo population in both Arizona and New Mexico consisted of 35 wolves with functional

radio collars dispersed among 11 packs, in-cluding six breeding pairs, 18 new pups and five single wolves. Other wolves may exist that eluded the end-of-year count. Includ-

ing other uncollared wolves, the estimated total population reached 58—the first substantive increase in numbers in three years, but still relatively stagnant due to illegal killings and other removals. The origi-nal recovery plan called for a population of 100 wolves by 2006.

Jaguar, ocelot sightings in Sky IslandsCochise County in far southeastern Arizona is abuzz with excite-ment over confirmed rare sightings of endangered carnivores. A large male jaguar—treed and photographed by a mountain lion hunter, and an adult male ocelot—captured by a motion-sensing camera, were both documented in the mountainous Sky Island re-gion north of the Mexican border last fall. The sightings dovetailed with a new University of Arizona plan to install 240 remote sensing cameras in a study area stretching from the Baboquivari Mountains south of Tucson east to the Animas Mountains of southwest New Mexico. This 150-mile stretch of habitat is where jaguar and ocelot sightings have occurred sporadically since 1996.

Intended to help verify the existence of breeding populations and movement patterns of the two wide-ranging cats, the study could add strong impetus to ongoing efforts by the USFWS to designate critical habitat for the animals. The three-year project, funded through a Department of Homeland Security grant, also will help to determine the effects of border security infrastructure on wildlife movement pathways and could confirm suspected cross-border wildlife movement corridors first identified several years ago by Wildlands Network and its regional partners. —Kim Vacariu

SouthwestCRITTER

Updates

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➤ TrekEast, from page 1

least, international if possible, conservation connectivity initia-tive is urgently needed.

TrekEast, then, confirmed the wisdom of my teachers, particularly Mary Byrd Davis (Eastern Old-Growth Forests: Prospects for Rediscovery and Recovery), Dave Foreman (Rewild-ing North America), Michael Soulé and John Terborgh (Conti-nental Conservation), Reed Noss (Saving Nature’s Legacy), Bill McKibben (The End of Nature), Gary Randorf (The Adirondack Park: Wild Island of Hope), Jerry Jenkins (Climate Change in the Adirondacks), and Margo McKnight (Wildlands Network ex-ecutive director). My observations in support of their teachings (but no implied endorsement on their part of my more sweep-ing generalizations!) include these:

First, most of the East really is starved of large preda-tors. When John Terborgh, Michael Soulé, Jim Estes, Reed Noss, Dave Foreman and others warn that our elimination of big animals, particularly top predators, from entire regions is having disastrous consequences, they do not exaggerate. (See Island Press’s recent predator-friendly books Trophic Cascades, edited by Jim Estes and John Terborgh, and The Wolf ’s Tooth, by Cristina Eisenberg.) To be strong and healthy, America needs wolves, cougars, and other keystone species throughout their native ranges. With my eyes opened by these teachers and my long trek, I now see that many eastern deciduous forests are be-ing deprived of their wildflowers and young hardwood trees by a ravaging excess of deer. It’s not the deer’s fault, of course, and they are beautiful animals; but without their predators to keep them moving and hold their numbers in check, deer devour forest understories. Feral hogs are worsening the damage. We should study how and where we might feasibly restore cougars and wolves to the wilder parts of the East. Carnivore recovery will only succeed if we protect big wild connected habitats.

Second, waterways can be wildways. Restoring broad areas of natural vegetation along and around streams, lakes, and coasts wherever possible will restore habitat for fish and other aquatic animals, provide travel corridors for terrestrial mam-mals, soften effects of climate chaos, and improve water quality. The quickest way to regain landscape-level connectivity may be by buffering waterways—as wide and wild as possible—together with linking existing protected areas. Closing and removing un-needed roads and dams in riparian areas and rivers will restore wildlife habitat and save taxpayer money. Riparian corridors are a particularly promising proposition in the Southeast Coastal Plain, where rivers run slowly and flood widely, and much riparian forest still survives. Conservationists and planners should identify roads, culverts, and dams that fragment and pollute waterways and watersheds yet serve no vital community

functions, and that may be indefensible in the face of climate chaos. Through ecological austerity programs at local, state, and federal levels, such infrastructure should be carefully removed and natural ecosystems restored—to the benefit of thousands of people needing jobs and thousands of species deprived of habitat. Wild waterways need to include big marine areas, for the benefit of wide-ranging fish, seals, whales, and seabirds.

Third, retrofitting roads with safe wildlife crossings will mitigate the effects of fragmentation and save wild animal and human lives. At the same time, heightened driver aware-ness and conscience—driving less often, in smaller cars, at slower speeds, and staying off roads at night—will reduce the tragedy of roadkill. Good for natural and human communi-ties, infrastructure retrofitting can be another restorative jobs program—modifying roads and culverts to make them more permeable to wildlife movement and more durable in the face of worsening storms and rising sea level. On TrekEast, I saw successful examples of wildlife underpasses in Florida (built for panthers and bears—and they use them!), but not many other places. I also saw unwise riprapping of streams and rebuilding of roads recently wiped out by severe storms, particularly Hur-ricane Irene. Seeing thousands of dead animals on roads across my trek made the lessons painfully clear: our transportation systems are deadly, to wildlife and people. Restoration of an Eastern Wildway depends on providing safe wildlife crossings under, over, and through roads and other infrastructure.

Fourth, another key ingredient of continental wildway protection is private lands conservation. Even out West, where much of the land is public, but most emphatically in the East, where the public domain is small, ample and connected habitats will only be achieved by providing private land-owners strong financial and other incentives for maintaining natural vegeta-tion and avoiding habitat fragmentation. Despite the noble efforts of the Land Trust Alliance, Nature Conservancy, and hundreds of smaller land trusts, most private lands have little or no protection, and financial pressures often force landowners to “liquidate” their timber or subdivide for housing develop-ment. Continental wildways or national habitat corridors efforts must include conservation easements, property tax reform, and other tools that reward good care of undeveloped private lands. Really, we need a national carbon tax, to penalize pollution and deforestation and fund habitat reconnection and energy retro-fitting programs; but fossil fuels lobbies in DC are making sure sane energy policies go nowhere.

Fifth, we need networks of people protecting networks of wildlands, as Michael Soulé aptly put it years ago. If there are any issues around which a national consensus could be built in these

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politically polarized times, one may be the need to protect our natural heritage—and three others could be on personal health, clean air, and clean water—all of which would be enhanced by a national and international conservation and recreation corridor system. At present, North America has thousands of good con-servation groups and efforts. All of them are well worth support-ing, yet they are not adding up to continental conservation. They are not tied together well enough to lead to continental wildways or national conservation corridors. Land and water conserva-tion will need to be well coordinated, if we are to reconnect natural habitats coast to coast. North America needs national and international conservation corridors initiatives.

Sixth, an Eastern Wildway or international conservation and recreation corridor should sweep through much of Florida and the Southeast Coastal Plain, follow rivers up through the Piedmont and into the Appalachians then follow these lovely old mountains thousands of miles northeast (with lateral branches along rivers draining the mountains, and through the Pine Bar-rens, Adirondacks, Tug Hill Plateau, and other wildlands outside the Appalachian Mountains) to and through southern Quebec’s Gaspe Peninsula. It should be a coherent mix of public lands fully protected for their highest and best uses—as wildlife habitat, climate buffers, and quiet recreation grounds —and private lands protected by conservation easement and good financial incentives.

Back to fragmented reality Finally, turning my at-tention back to my two-legged friends, I say we are not too late but we are nearly so. Our panther friend and her descendants

might be able to make such a heroic journey through our pro-posed Eastern Wildway, but the going would often be danger-ous. They would have to cross many roads lacking safe wildlife passages, and they would often be near developed areas where little more than the cats’ almost preternatural elusiveness, com-bined with sheer luck, keeps them safe from cars and guns. The habitat destruction and climate chaos wrought by our global industrial growth economy are nearing points of no return. (Perpetual growth is the ideology of the cancer cell, Ed Abbey presciently warned.) Still, travel to the parks, refuges, wilder-ness areas, and conservation easement lands of our continent, and you will find many reasons for hope—hundreds of millions of acres of hope, in fact. Much of North America, even in the overdeveloped East, remains wild and natural or nearly so.

I also found much hope in the people working heroically on behalf of wild Nature, and the many others who support these heroes. In 7,000 miles and hundreds of conversationists, I met no one who doubted the value of natural areas. Somehow we must mobilize the millions who agree our natural heri-tage is worth conserving but don’t yet know how to do so. An extraction economy is death on Nature; a restoration economy could be the salvation of Nature. Expanding and reconnecting remaining natural areas, buffering waterways, restoring missing species, reducing pollution, providing safe wildlife crossings, farming with the wild, and otherwise living with respect for our neighbors, we could permanently safeguard North America’s rich natural heritage, and this would be the greatest thing our nations have ever done. —John Davis

An extraction economy is death on Nature; a restoration economy could be the salvation of Nature.

—John Davis

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the air, composing his shot from the co-pilot seat of a light plane. The result is powerful, yet personal, expressions of industrial mayhem, urgency and magnitude oozing from his use of colors and form. Viewing his images begins with puzzling moments and leads to profound realizations that usually end with one asking oneself or the world at large, “How on Earth are we letting this happen?”

Now ten years in production, Fair’s “Industrial Scars” photo-graphic series continues to tap people on the shoulder kindly in-troducing itself as the reality we humans too easily ignore. It begs our permission to alight for just a moment and witness the price of our consumptive appetites. Experiencing elation and terror at the same time produces angst—exactly what the artist intends. Perhaps this jolt makes us think, and care, just a little bit more.

Recently, I caught up with Henry while working with his edi-tor, Joel, to put the polish on animated images that accompany a German Symphony. Yes, you read that correctly. In January 2012, the Weimar Staatskapelle premiered Fair’s new multi-media piece, Das Lied von der Erde Heute. This stunning performance piece re-imagines Gustav Mahler’s classic orchestral work pairing it with an animated series of Fair’s electrifying environmental photographs.

Born in 1960 to a southern conservative family, Fair gradu-ated from Fordham University and went on to build his career photographing everything beautiful, from diamonds to celebrities.

Fair’s calling to take on environmental causes did not ap-pear in one defining moment. He explains, “It’s always been part of me. It’s part of a larger energy we should all feel, but we’ve got-ten good at blocking it out, thanks to the media and to the toxins out there which are literally dumbing us down.” Exaggeration? Not likely. He not only spouts scientific facts, but also rattles off several of them in one breath. Dioxin/furan measurements and mercury counts roll off his tongue. He has gone so far as to study the emissions of mercury in a 100-mile radius of the location of one of his speeches to better inform his audience.

Presentations are, according to Fair, great ways to connect with people. In fact, many years ago, he saw Wildlands Network co-founder Dave Foreman give a talk, was inspired and immedi-ately became a supporter of the organization of bold thinkers. “It’s rare to have a big vision like that, you’re definitely in a Don Quix-ote position there,” he mused. Still a fan of Wildlands Network, he postulates, “If I were to tell the Wildands Network story in aerial images, I’d focus on the edges where development is encroaching.”

His mission to inspire environmental action began with the desire to make images of what was happening in the world. Drawn to rivers, he decided to visit “Cancer Alley” in Missis-sippi. There it occurred to him, “I’ve got to get on top of this story.” From that point on, he kept an eye toward finding new environmental stories and went about composing his images

like an engineer while building a story like a reporter. Openly referring to his photos as propaganda, he shamelessly aims to get the media involved. As he told John Davis of Wildlands Network’s TrekEast campaign, “You have to go where the people and media are. No one hears a tree falling in the woods!”

Interestingly enough, Fair does not indict the companies responsible for the devastation he shoots; he holds the consumer responsible. He explains, “The only solution to our environ-mental crises is to make smart choices about how we spend our money. Producers respond to the demands of their consumers. We must start with the simple things: turning off our lights; buy-ing post-consumer-fiber toilet paper; recycling aluminum. It’s not about unimaginable sacrificing, just adjusting our behavior.”

Fair, while very much a realist, also believes in miracles. As he matter-of-factly ticks off species on the “already gone” list (tigers and polar bears) he despairs about the state of nature. Yet, he doesn’t despair for long, and finds hope in some good news. He says confidently, “Recent studies show that people are reducing their consumption and that a tremendous shift in val-ues is occurring. Hey, we’re doing God’s work. I have to believe that miracles can happen and that we will change the way we approach the future of our kids.”

To find out more about Fair’s upcoming exhibitions and presenta-tions and to view his work, visit his websites: industrialscars.com and jhenryfair.com.

➤ J Henry Fair, from page 3

Tree line through bauxite waste impoundment, Darrow, Louisiana, 2010

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letters, words, and sentences that eventually tell the stories that the animals write onto the landscape.

Consider citizen science A good place to begin to learn about how to become a citizen scientist is your local library or bookstore where field guides featuring the animals in your area can be found. Do mountain lions roam your woods, or is it alligators looking for safe travel routes? Make a list of the species that “should” be there. Don’t forget to include the little ones, for example: gophers, mice, insects, frogs, newts, and lizards. Next, start a list of what really lives in your backyard or local open spaces. This will require some field time, for instance sitting in your backyard and watching the birds or taking short walks around the neighborhood. A comparison of these two lists will give you give you an idea of what species are presently missing from an ideal scenario. Perhaps this exercise will lead you to the question “WHY are some of these animals missing?”

Roadkill to road skill In trying to discover why cer-tain species are not present, you might begin to notice roadkill. According to the Humane Society of the United States, more than 1,000,000 animals are killed on our roadways each day. While perhaps a morbid hobby, you might want to consider ob-serving roadkill in your neighborhood as it provides a wealth of information. UC Davis (http://www.wildlifecrossing.net/) has a roadkill database derived from local agencies, scientists, and citizens. Their system provides guidelines on collecting data and allows individuals to submit their observations to a larger database. Local organizations can also record these data points and then overlay this information onto maps, which provides visuals of where animals cross roads.

Through tracking and working with concerned organiza-tions, I have seen that, if available, animals will use alternative passages linking habitat rather than crossing roads. Camera traps have photographed deer swimming in culverts to get to the proverbial other side. Tracks have shown that animals, rodents to mountain lions, would prefer an underpass to crossing asphalt.

Often in high roadkill-incident sites, linkages already exist but have fallen into disrepair. By simply removing brush or unplugging dams, passages open and once again allow animals to avoid the dangers of roads. Most animals will, if necessary, use whatever passage is available, but show a preference for particular linkages. Crossings come in all shapes and sizes; the preferences may have to do with the size of the passage, cover within the passage, substrate, or simply what lies on either side of the linkage. There might also be other cues that trigger usage which humans are not aware of like smells, textures and sounds.

Part of being a citizen scientist is finding out where the pre-ferred crossing are in your neighborhood.

Use your local resources Beyond the dangers of roads or lack of safe linkages, there may be many other contrib-uting factors as to why certain species are missing from your area; over hunting, habitat fragmentation from development, not enough or too many natural predators, or an ecological disaster. Ferret out the biologists, naturalists, and trackers in your town, and they can help analyze your area of study. Visit local univer-sities and natural history museums. Find the person research-ing the animal in which you are interested. I am continually surprised and thrilled by the deep well of ecological knowledge right next door. Organize workshops and welcome these unsung heroes to speak and share their passions. You can also learn by volunteering your time for existing research projects.

Citizen science works I offer citizen wildlife monitor-ing workshops for students and neighbors in the UC Santa Barbara area, and have witnessed the gaining popularity of citizen science. Together, we have created a collaborative effort between scientists and citizens for the sole purpose of protecting linkages and providing open spaces for the wildlife that use them.

On the East Coast similar movements are happening. Wild-lands Network’s Eastern Program Director Conrad Reining cites the Cold Hollow to Canada Links Project (CHC) (http://cold-hollowtocanada.org/) as a great example of Vermont community members working toward habitat conservation.

Recently CHC has taken on a new endeavor called Wild-Paths. He explains, “Developed in partnership with the Staying Connected Initiative, WildPaths engages community members in monitoring where wildlife are moving within and between the towns in our region. Our goal is to better protect these critical linkages that allow wide-ranging species to move be-tween the Northern Green Mountains and the Sutton range in Canada.” WildPath members document tracks, animal sight-ings, and roadkill to understand how to better preserve these critical corridors. These are but two of dozens of citizen science groups springing up coast to coast.

By responding to the stories laid down by paw, toes and bellies, people in rural and suburban communities can change the dismal course we have set not only for wildlife but also for human life. We can start anew by learning to read our landscapes and rewriting a new land ethic. —Meghan Walla-Murphy

Meghan lives in Occidental, California where she works as a free-lance writer and environmental and education consultant.

➤ Tracks, from page 4

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Wildlands Connection is published by Wildlands Network, a nonprofit educational, scientific, and charitable corporation. ©2012 by Wildlands Network. All rights reserved. No part of this periodical may be reproduced without permission. All images are the property of individual artists and photographers and are used by permission. Editor Lisa Lauf Rooper • Designer Kevin Cross Contributors John Davis, Cristina Eisenberg, Margo McKnight, Kim Vacariu, Meghan Walla-Murphy

OFFICERS AND DIRECTORSPresident Keith Bowers, Maryland • Vice President of Conservation Science Michael Soulé, Colorado • Secretary David Johns, Oregon • Treasurer Rob Ament, Montana Directors Barbara Dean, California • Jim Estes, California Oscar Moctezuma, Mexico • John Terborgh, North Carolina Paul Vahldiek, Colorado • Directors Emeritus Harvey Locke, Ontario • Brian Miller, New Mexico

STAFFExecutive Director Margo McKnight • Eastern Director Conrad Reining • Western Director Kim Vacariu • Strategy Director Kenyon Fields • Finance Director Sandi Boone Business Manager Chris Black • Outreach Director Tracey Butcher • Communications Director Lisa Lauf Rooper Conservation Scientist Ron Sutherland • Social Media Manager Lise Meinke

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campaign planning underway

Following a successful TrekEast campaign in 2011 that garnered major media and social network attention and exposed Wildlands Network’s vision for connectivity to more than 500 conservation organizations and professionals along the Eastern Wildlway, explorer John Davis is now focusing his attention on a similar TrekWest scheduled to launch early 2013. As part of this connectivity awareness and action campaign, Davis will follow the Western Wildway from Sonora, Mexico north to the Canadian border through seven Wildlands Network partner conservation planning areas along the Rocky Mountains and associated ranges. Wildlands Network staff and Western Wildway Network (WWN) partners have begun preliminary planning for the campaign, identifying potential travel routes, media outreach, and partner-supported events along the 6,000-mile trail.

Wildlands Network goes “Wild” for social media.

Wildlands Network continues to be early adopters of new social media platforms includ-ing Pinterest and Google+, both of which are rapidly expanding. Our Facebook page is at 2,080 fans and growing—why not be one of them? If you are one of the 100 million on Twitter, follow our tweets—or how about joining our Google+ circle? And if you are hooked on pinning, along with over 10.4 million registered users, check out our boards on Pinterest. Going social helps us share the conversation about Reconnecting Nature in North America by connecting with YOU!