Grand Canyon Wolf Recovery Project
About a month ago I attended the North American Wolf Conference in Flagstaff, AZ. While there I learned of a new organization dedicated to restoring the wolves to the Grand Canyon ecoregion. Here is brief extract from their website.
The Grand Canyon Wolf Recovery Project (GCWRP) is a coalition of conservation organizations, zoos, universities, and individuals from throughout the southwest, who have come together to support wolf recovery in the Grand Canyon Ecoregion (GCE), because science tells us it is the last best place for wolves in Arizona.
The organizations involved with the coalition have a long history of success with predator issues. Coalition members, including Defenders of Wildlife, Sierra Club, and the Center for Biological Diversity were instrumental in returning the wolf to southeastern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico, through the Mexican Wolf Recovery Program. Many of the organizations are currently working together on the upcoming forest management plans to ensure that lowered road densities, recovery of other native species, and extirpation of non-native species, are a priority, creating safe havens and safe passages for wildlife and paving the way so that some day we may hear the sound of wolves howling across Arizona.
For more information about the project, contact:
Paula Lewis
Coordinator
Grand Canyon Wolf Recovery Project
P.O. Box 1594
Flagstaff, AZ 86002
(928) 202-1325
info@gcwolfrecovery.org
William Lynn :: Jun.14.2007 :: Environmental Studies, Human-Animal Studies, Wolves :: 2 Comments »
I notice there is nothing in the extract that mentions the human factor in “restoring” the wolf to the Grand Canyon. The extract claims success for organizations involved with predator issues, but ignores the cost of that so-called success to the people who already live in the areas where, for instance, the wolf was “returned” to southeastern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico.
Human beings are also a species which deserves consideration in these programs, a species which is all to often simply ignored in the enthusiasm for recovery of other species.
I am a former resident of Grand Canyon Village, the only population within 90 miles of the south rim. I am for wolf recovery and so are at least 70% of the people that live THERE.
South of the canyon are the Babbitt ranches and Bruce is the guy that was there for Yellowstone and the Blue Range - he must be for it.
Hardly anyone lives on the North Rim and the Grand Canyon Trust runs the only allotments up there.
I think the human factor has been accounted for at GCNP.
Even where you live Lif, the times they are a changin. Get with the program.