INSIDE: El Lobo Fate of The Once and Future Wolf plus... Tumacacori update Sky Island outings other events Winter 2004 1 Sky Island Alliance Many Thanks to Our Contributors! Jane E. Evans, afficionado of na- tive grasses; Jan Holder, Arizona Sky Island Front cover: Photo illustration based on photograph by Dr. Robin Silver of predator-friendly rancher; Sky captive Mexican gray wolf “Chico,” alpha male at the Phoenix Zoo’s Mexican Jacobs, self-trained naturalist and Alliance gray wolf breeding facility. artist; Craig Miller, Director of Protecting Back cover: View of the Sky Islands’ Pinaleno Mountains, native territory for Southwest Programs for Defenders Mexican gray wolves, seen from the Blue Range region of the current Mexican of Wildlife; Jean Ossorio, SIA Our Mountain Islands gray wolf recovery area. Wolves can easily cross such distances, but current US tracker who represents the South- & Desert Seas Fish and Wildlife regulations call for wolves to be caught or killed if they wander west Environmental Center on the outside the artificial boundaries of their release area. Photo by Tim Van Devender. Southwest Gray Wolf Recovery 520/624-7080 • fax 520/791-7709 Team; Dennis Pepe, owner of the [email protected] excellent Green Fire Bookshop in www.skyislandalliance.org Tucson, AZ; Kathy Pitts, exclusive P.O. B ox 41165 Table of Contents Flora and Fauna columnist for Re- Tucson, AZ 85717 Rambling Rants from the Director’s Desk..........................3 storing Connections; Asante Office: SIA in the News...............................................................3 Riverwind, Chiricahua Mountains Historic YWCA artist and activist; Nancy Reid, SIA 738 N. 5th Avenue, Suite 201 Wilderness in the Tumacacori Highlands.............................4 tracker; Michael J. Robinson, who Sky Island Alliance is a non-profit represents the Center for Biological Help Protect Mo’ Wilderness...........................................................5 membership organization dedicated to Diversity on the Southwest Gray restoring and protecting the unique The Once and Future Mexican Gray Wolf..............................................................6 Wolf Recovery Team; Robin Silver, diversity of the Sky Islands of South- physician, photographer and activ- eastern Arizona, Southwestern New Will the Real Mexican Gray Wolf Please Stand up.................................................7 ist; Bob VanDeven, photographer Mexico, and Northern Mexico. Reward Increases as Wolf Killing Continues.........................................................7 and writer extraordinaire; and Tim Van Devender, SIA volunteer and S T AFF Predator-friendly Ranching..............................................................................10 David Hodges wolf enthusiast; and, of course, the Executive Director Booknotes: Return of the Mexican Gray Wolf .....................................................10 SIA staff. [email protected] Acasia Berry Poetry.............................................................................................................11 Associate Director Road Rattlings................................................................................................12 [email protected] Upcoming Issue Matt Skroch Tracking el Lobo.............................................................................................12 2004 marks the tenth aniversary of the Field Program Director first conference to feature our “Madrean [email protected] Wildnews!.......................................................................................................13 Archipelago” Sky Island area as a distinct Trevor Hare Conservation Biologist Biodiversity and Mgmt of the Madrean Archipelago II................14 region worthy of attention and protection. In honor of this, we’re co-hosting a [email protected] ........................................................back cover Cory Jones follow-up conference in May (see page GIS Specialist 14). We’re also focusing our next news- [email protected] letter on the region’s changes and trends, Janice Przybyl ten years back and ten years forward. Wildlife Monitoring Program The newsletter feature “Looking [email protected] Back, Thinking Ahead” will be a com- Gita Bodner munity effort. We invite submissions on Conservation planning this theme from all perspectives and all [email protected] formats (biology, hydrology, culture, poli- Caroline “Frog” Tinker tics, etc., in prose, poetry, drawings, pho- Events Coordinator tographs, etc.). Look back and reflect on [email protected] how the region has changed in the last 10 Jennifer Wolfsong Legal Intern years (or longer, but using 10 years as a [email protected] bench mark). Think ahead and speak Lenny Alvarado about what you hope for, what you fear, Legal Intern what you expect, and what your intuition [email protected] sees. What predictions of a decade ago Jennifer Katcher have come to pass and which have not? Webmaster Where have we made progress and where [email protected] have we slipped back? Chart the history of your favorite issue and show us where Newsletter its future meets the horizon . Submissions Gita Bodner and are due April 4, 2004 (see below). Dug Schoellkopf, general editors Bob VanDeven, feature editor Board of Directors Seeking SIA newsletter submissions: Rod Mondt, President Send us your poetry, your words of wisdom, your art! Randall Gray, Vice President We want to keep this newsletter filled with inspirational, informative material, and we’d like your help! Do you write Nancy Zierenberg, Secretary poetry? Draw, sketch, paint, or photograph? Like to address regional conservation issues? Review books or websites? Dale Turner, Treasurer Anything that relates to the Sky Islands region is fair game! You can respond to items in our recent newsletter, comment on Curtis Bradley your experiences as a volunteer or conference-goer, etc. Also, let us know if you’d like to be a regular contributor, e.g. with a Paul Hirt Lainie Levick column each issue. The deadline for our next newsletter is April 4, 2004. Material submitted after that date may be saved for Rurik List subsequent issues. Please email submissions to [email protected], or mail them to Sky Island Alliance attn: Carlos Lopez Gonzalez Gita, P.O. Box 41165, Tucson, AZ 85717. Resolution of digital images should be at least 300 dpi if possible, but we can work Steve Marlatt with some lower-resolution images. Miss our restaurant reviews? That’s because no one sent us any! C’mon, folks, you know Todd Schulke there are some great eats out there. Give your favorite small-town restaurant a boost by letting us promote it! 2 Sky Island Alliance Winter 2004 Rednecks for Red Wolves During the summer of 1996 my family population for this species. Reintroduc- is looking at other areas within the South- this piece, long-time wolf advocate and I had the good fortune to spend time tion of the red wolf into North Carolina west, far from baileyi’s native range. Michael J. Robinson captured the issue traveling and camping in North Carolina. began in 1987 and today nearly 100 This in itself would not affect the return dead-on. “Mexican gray wolves would Surprisingly, the most common bumper wolves live in the wild and range across of wolves to the Sky Islands, however the successfully adapt to Colorado, as would sticker we saw that summer proudly pro- an area covering a half million acres. This Fish and Wildlife Service has taken the po- Northern Rocky Mountain gray wolves claimed “Rednecks for Red Wolves.” Upon is a testament to the generosity of the sition that any wolf found outside of the ar- from Yellowstone National Park. But further investigation, we found that not people of North Carolina who embrace bitrarily derived recovery zone will be re- there is more at stake. The Endangered only were rednecks for red wolves, but all their own natural heritage to welcome moved. Nowhere else that the Fish and Species Act is intended to ‘provide a sorts of other folks were as well. Young, back native wildlife. Wildlife Service is involved in wolf recov- means whereby the ecosystems upon old, rural, and urban folks were proud of For more than a decade much attention ery does this onerous burden exist--not in which endangered species and threatened the fact that a part of their heritage had has been focused on the efforts to reintro- the southeast, the Great Lake states, or in species depend may be been restored. We left the Carolinas im- duce the Mexican gray wolf to the South- the northern Rockies. In the case of the red conserved.’ Putting lobos in Colorado pressed with how well people and wolves west. What hasn’t always been clear dur- wolf, the recovery program started out us- should not come at the expense of allow- could live with one another. ing this time is that Canis lupus baileyi, the ing a model similar to ours with poor results. ing them to recover in the habitats in In many ways the plight of the Eastern Mexican gray wolf, rarely existed in the Only after this boundary restriction was which they evolved along the US-Mexico red wolf parallels our own Mexican gray United States outside the Sky Islands re- lifted did red wolves begin to flourish. If this border. The diminutive Coues white- wolf. In the early years of the 20th cen- gion and then only after adjacent regions barrier to recovery is not removed and/or tailed deer deserves the predator which tury the red wolf was