Since then, visitors have continued flocking to parks: More than 25,000 visitors poured into Utah’s Zion National Park on a single day; at New Mexico’s Bandelier National Monument, hikers went off-trail across closed restoration areas; at Colorado’s Rocky Mountain National Park, sightseers walked through sensitive meadows, ignoring posted signs.

Meanwhile, there’s been virtually a public blackout about what’s been happening inside parks after key staffers were fired. That’s because top agency officials curtailed the freedom of park staff to communicate with the public, while website updates went dark. As the shutdown continues, national parks lose $1 million a day in uncollected fees.

But the government shutdown and its salary hiatus are only the latest blows to national park management. Because of new federal policies aimed at shrinking government agencies, including the Interior Department, one in four Park Service staffers is now gone for good. 

I’ve been learning what this severe cutback looks like as the new Southwest regional director for the National Parks Conservation Association, a nonprofit dedicated to protecting the 433 national park sites across the country. I get to care about and advocate for a landscape of remarkable parks across Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Arizona.

One of these parks, the Black Canyon of the Gunnison, sits close to my home in Paonia, in western Colorado. Early in the Trump administration, federal reductions cut one-third of its staff. That meant even before the shutdown began, all custodial workers had lost their jobs. Workers who were already filling in for missing staff had to set aside core responsibilities and shift to bathroom maintenance.

With no rangers left, signs posted on the canyon’s North Rim warned visitors that they would need to “self-rescue” if they got into trouble. Then came the South Rim fire, which closed the park for the first time in its history, consuming several park buildings though sparing the visitor center. It’s no secret that wildfires in the West are increasing in frequency, even as fewer staff remain to respond.

Of all the American institutions I thought would outlive me, the National Park Service seemed like a safe bet. Throughout 109 years of park history, national polls consistently show that Americans of all stripes love their national parks. They also respect the rangers who bring deep knowledge to their work, rescue adventurers who get into trouble, and help ensure that visitors enjoy themselves. People from all over the world come to experience our national parks and monuments because this country has been wise enough to preserve our magnificent landscapes, wildlife and history.

Yet here we are witnessing a deliberate effort to mismanage our national parks by depriving them of the very people and funding needed for their upkeep. The Trump administration also plans another round of mass terminations, meaning many furloughed park staff may never return.

Earlier this year, Congress gutted $267 million from the Park Service budget, eliminating funding that was congressionally allocated for critical park staffing. President Trump’s proposed 2026 budget also calls for a $1 billion cut, which could force hundreds of park sites to close across the country. 

By starving the Park Service of necessary money for maintenance and repairs, wildlife management, research and other important functions, the administration is setting up our national parks to be sold out from under the American public or handed over to private interests.

We’re living in a moment where hypotheticals—once unbelievable—have become possible scenarios. That is, unless Americans speak up loudly. We need strong advocates to ensure that the Park Service can carry out its mission to “preserve unimpaired the natural and cultural resources and values of the National Park System for the enjoyment, education and inspiration of this and future generations.”

We can help by urging members of Congress to hold the line against more indiscriminate firings of Park Service staff, and to restore funding so that parks can rebuild and flourish in the years to come.

Alex Johnson is the Southwest Regional Director at National Parks Conservation Association, npca.org, and is a contributor to Writers on the Range, writersontherange.org, an independent nonprofit dedicated to spurring lively conversation about the West.

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Last week, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee updated its budget bill to include making over 250 million acres of public lands in 11 western states eligible for disposal, including recreation areas, wilderness study areas, inventoried roadless areas, critical wildlife habitat and big game migration corridors, according to analysis by The Wilderness Society. 

At the same time, Trump’s Interior Department is aggressively pursuing ways to industrialize, privatize and monetize the public lands. But these places, rich with ecological values, are held in trust for us to conserve and deliver intact to future generations.

Despite the administration’s rhetoric about wanting to reduce the deficit, its goal is to dispose of these lands—to remove them permanently from the public domain. This serves an ideology that reflexively favors private ownership over public enjoyment, whether by diminishing long-term protections on public lands, promoting their immediate development or selling them outright.

What are the effects of this wrongheaded policy?

First, once it’s gone, it’s gone forever.Any land pulled out of the public domain for development will never be returned. As a result, wild places will no longer offer open space for people to hike, hunt or fish, wildlife to thrive, waterways to flow unimpeded and much more.

Second, it’s a slippery slope. We lose environmental protections not by a one-time tsunami of destruction, but by nibbles. If we lose a piece of land today for an appealing idea (for example, deficit reduction, space for housing), then tomorrow we will hear an equally appealing idea to develop the neighboring piece. Then the next day, even more land will be needed for another reason. And so on. The process of destruction by nibbling will never end until there is nothing left to devour. 

Third, there’s one upside: It’s an excellent opportunity for conservationists to expand public support for nature.The current attack on public land is enabling conservationists of different stripes to come together and build alliances. Think of hunters and fishers, farmers and ranchers, mountain bikers and horseback riders, campers and birders who all cherish open lands—whatever their politics.

Fourth, we need to make the case for urgency. If public land advocates don’t stand strong now to protect nature, who will?Right now, we need to defend the water, the trees, and the wildlife on the public lands for generations to come. We need to tell our representatives in Congress that their duty is to never sell out the public estate.

Fifth, standing up for nature brings out the best of humanity. The framing of the “debate” in Congress and the public is always human-centric, the same approach that has caused so much environmental destruction throughout the world. Ignored is what would be lost, from water storage and wetlands to places for wildlife to live out their lives. We must tell the story of what nature brings us just by being left alone.

Compared to most developed countries, America is extraordinarily rich in public lands that everyone can enjoy, no matter their income or their background. Thanks to those who came before us who knew their value, Congress set aside these unique places as designated wilderness, national parks and monuments, and other special types of land, not to mention national forests and Bureau of Land Management lands that serve multiple purposes. That means all of us can roam land that has no fences or “No Trespassing” signs.

Humility and restraint, not privatization and exploitation, are the words that unite us as we fight to preserve our public lands. This is the public’s land, and let’s keep it that way forever.

T. A. Barron is a contributor to Writers on the Range, writersontherange.org, an independent nonprofit dedicated to spurring lively conversation about the West. He is a board member of the World Wildlife Fund and the Wilderness Society, and the author of more than 30 books.

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The survival of spotted owls meant a lot to me as a young environmental activist. In 1985, I spent days living on a plywood platform perched high in the canopy of an Oregon Douglas fir. The tree was majestic, over eight feet wide at the base—just one of many in a stand hundreds of years old.

 If you’re a certain age you might recall the banners: GIVE A HOOT: SAVE THE SPOTTED OWL. They spawned a bumper sticker in what became a culture war: SAVE A LOGGER, EAT A SPOTTED OWL.

My 40-year career as a conservationist began in those Northwest timber wars as I joined other tree-sitters and protesters to halt the logging of gigantic old-growth trees.

The threatened survival of federally endangered spotted owls in the region’s forests became the central issue in a storm of litigation. In 1994, the dispute finally led to President Clinton protecting 24 million acres of ancient forest housing the owls. But even then, barred owls were invading from Eastern states, stealing a prey base of small animals from the spotted owls. The numbers of spotted owls continued to plummet.

Last August, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service signed off on a controversial Barred Owl Management Strategy that relies on hiring sharpshooters to kill up to 16,000 barred owls a year at a cost of up to $12 million. The plan aims to give spotted owls a chance to survive.

During the 1990s, President Clinton’s sweeping forest plan to save the owls by saving old-growth forests was among many highlights of my conservation career. But I also recall numerous lows-lows. The first was when I learned that loggers had chain sawed that huge tree I’d occupied.

Mostly, I’ve managed to be hopeful about conservation no matter the grief from accelerating losses on the ground. But here’s the dilemma: How are we to process the steady decline of the spotted owl? Conservationists won an epic battle against logging because of these owls, only to see their habitat becoming the arena for an owl-on-owl smackdown.

Must the solution be that we shoot one species to save another? The plan is based on research overseen by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, whose experiments showed that removing barred owls in limited areas could help spotted owls survive.

When the federal agency’s plan was announced, animal welfare interests sued to block it, arguing that it would fail. They also claimed the costs would add up to more than $1 billion over three decades. Officials at the agency say they will start small and demonstrate their plan’s effectiveness and affordability.

Mixed feelings like mine are shared. Madeleine Cameron, who was part of a University of Wisconsin team involved in experimental removals of barred owls, told the Seattle Times: “I personally did not decide to do owl work thinking this is where my career would be. You get there through watching all your favorite owls disappear.” Meanwhile, some biologists foresee adaptation and hybridization. “Sparred” owls already exist in the Northwest, filling the niche of displaced spotted owls.

Reluctantly, I support killing some barred owls. But like Cameron, this is not what drew me into conservation. And now the whole issue might be academic as the Trump administration disrupts scientific research and agency continuity.

Elon Musk’s cost-cutters fired more than 400 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service employees in March, an action the Supreme Court upheld April 8. With voluntary retirements and likely further reductions in force, it’s a real question whether the agency will have the funds or staff to carry out the shooting of barred owls.

Meanwhile, the bullies of the forest are winning.

Mitch Friedman is a contributor to Writers on the Range, writersontherange.org, an independent nonprofit spurring lively conversation about the West. He heads Seattle-based Conservation Northwest, which he founded in 1989 after years with Earth First!. His book, Conservation Confidential: A Wild Path to a Less Polarizing and More Effective Activism, is about to be published.

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Grizzly 399 wasn’t just another wild bear in northwestern Wyoming; she was a window into the secret lives of grizzlies. Over nearly three decades she raised 18 cubs amidst the millions of visitors and residents of Jackson Hole and Grand Teton National Park.

Her death speaks, as her life did, about the urgent need to better protect these intelligent, rare creatures from roads, human foods, farm animals and trophy hunters.

Grizzly 399’s life captivated millions of people. Attentive and patient, she worked hard to make sure her cubs had sufficient food and warm dens and were protected from male bears and other dangers.

The doings of her many families, the first in 2004 and the last in 2023, made her legendary, like the time she and her four cubs feasted on serviceberries right next to a road, gently picking berries among the leaves.

There was also the time she crossed the Snake River with four cubs following like the tail of a kite, while hundreds of people gathered to witness. These intimate glimpses inspired countless numbers of visitors to Wyoming’s wilderness and gave them a connection with the famous bear and her broods.

Grizzly 399 had always been careful around roads. She often waited at a highway’s edge until a photographer stopped traffic or she heard no vehicles coming her way. She frequently navigated busy highways and the streets around Jackson Hole.

In the end it was not enough.

Vehicle collisions, a leading cause of wildlife deaths, are just one more threat for grizzly bears. This year alone, the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem has seen record numbers of mortalities. By October 2024, at least 68 grizzlies had died—most killed because they came near humans or were shot by hunters.

With their habitats shrinking, their foods vanishing and more roads fragmenting their territories, grizzlies have become marooned on geographic islands for their survival. Their lands have been increasingly hemmed in by developments, energy projects and deadly highways.

Once 50,000 strong, fewer than 2,000 grizzly bears now survive in the Lower 48 states. Coexisting with them means addressing preventable conflicts by bear-proofing human-food sources or safeguarding livestock. Many of Grizzly 399’s cubs were killed by humans. Perhaps half of them survived to adulthood.

One Jackson Hole resident, for example, deliberately and defiantly fed them, despite the dangers of getting bears accustomed to human-provided meals. Teton County has since introduced tougher enforcement measures, including requiring bear-resistant garbage cans with self-locking mechanisms. The Wyoming Department of Game and Fish and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service also required residents of Teton County to make garbage and bird feeders inaccessible to keep Grizzly 399 and her cubs safe.

One takeaway is that grizzly bears can be managed with compassion. This needs to be the norm, not the exception, and we need to shift practices to prioritize coexistence over killing.

In bear country, people can make human foods unavailable, ranchers can employ electric fencing and remove cattle and sheep carcasses, and hunters can carry bear spray and accurately identify their targets before shooting.

Grizzly 399’s last surviving cub, Spirit, has not been seen since its mother’s death. Nearly two years old, the cub was last reported as healthy and may have a chance at survival. Its future—indeed, the future of all grizzlies—depends on people’s willingness to change behaviors.

It is especially important that we resist calls to strip grizzly bears of their Endangered Species Act protections, certainly until grizzlies are truly recovered, with genetically diverse and connected populations across secure habitats.

This means creating safe passages, including highway crossings, between their populations. We must also hold the line against trophy hunting. Removing Endangered Species Act protections, which are now under attack in the U.S. Congress, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and elsewhere, could set back years of conservation work.

With Grizzly 399’s passing, it feels as though something is missing in the Tetons—something vivid and wild that moved us. Her legacy calls us to act, to create a future in which grizzly bears and people live together in safety.

The writers are contributors to Writers on the Range, writersontherange.org, an independent nonprofit dedicated to spurring lively conversation about the West. Wendy Keefover works for the Humane Society of the United States; Kristin Combs is executive director of Wyoming Wildlife Advocates.

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According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, in 2022 there were 10% fewer hunters across the country than there were when hunting peaked in the 1980s. At the same time, four Western states — Colorado, Montana, Idaho and Utah — saw more hunters than ever before.

A key driver of this trend is out-of-state hunters who have run out of luck in their home states: elk, deer and other big game species have declined precipitously in many parts of the nation.

“Opportunities to hunt elk are very limited where I live,” said Wisconsin resident Erik Rollefson. “My home state only has a few hundred elk and issues fewer than 10 elk hunting permits per year. I have a better chance to get a license in any Western state.”

Out West, big game hunting licenses are distributed in state-run lotteries. While most are reserved for local residents, some can be allotted to non-resident hunters. Hunter numbers are down 8% in New Mexico, but the state still reserves 16% of its licenses for non-residents.

Contrast that with Colorado, where as many as 35% of the licenses go to out-of-state hunters. Colorado also sells unlimited “over-the-counter” licenses that do not require a lottery entry to purchase. Policies like this have contributed to a whopping 26% more hunters in the state than there were in 2008.

It’s not surprising that many local hunters resent losing hunting opportunities to visitors. “Many residents depend on hunting for food,” said Rebecca Bradley, a bow hunter from Colorado. “I’d prefer that the state reserve licenses for locals that want them before setting any aside for non-residents.”

Consider Montana, where hunter numbers are up almost 4%. Big Sky Country sold slightly fewer hunting licenses to residents from 2008 to 2021, but non-residents bought 35% more licenses over that same period. With more out-of-state hunters pressuring game, some residents tell me they’d rather stay home.

“The non-resident (hunter) numbers have gone up like crazy,” said Joe Perry, a Montana rancher and founding member of the Montana Sportsmen Alliance. “That excludes residents.”

Though hunting tourism may discourage some locals from hunting, It’s a windfall for state wildlife agencies while subsidizing license prices for residents.

Except for Utah, which reserves just 10% of its tags for non-residents, Western states such as Colorado, Montana, Idaho, New Mexico, and Wyoming receive more than 60% of their license revenue from non-resident hunters.

That’s because non-residents pay so much more to hunt than residents do. The Wyoming Legislature recently passed a bill to increase certain kinds of non-resident elk licenses from $576 to $1,258, while a resident pays just $57.

Increasing costs for hunting licenses and what many say is crowding in the outback may finally reduce the ranks of out-of-state hunters. “It’s a big expense, and you don’t get to experience the wilderness if the mountains are overrun with hunters,” said Rollefson, the hunter from Wisconsin. “I’d rather go less often but have a higher-quality hunt, with fewer hunters and more animals.”

Joe Livingston, a public information officer for Colorado Parks and Wildlife, said the agency’s approach is that “the animals take priority,” although “crowding has become a factor.”

The agency is considering reducing the non-resident license allocation from 35% to 25%, a change expected to cost the state $1.4 million. 

I live in Colorado, but I no longer hunt locally. I support allocating fewer hunting licenses for visitors so that locals don’t feel locked out. I believe resident hunters and a local hunting culture that’s invested in public land and its wildlife deserve to take priority over hunting tourism. Those of us who live in the state are the ones who pay taxes, vote and volunteer to clean up trails in the mountains.

If locals lose interest in hunting because wild places have become crowded, and animal populations drop because deer and elk are over-pressured, the next generation of hunters will be seasonal tourists rather than year-round stewards of their local area.

We need to preserve the wildness we’ve got left in Colorado along with the wild animals that depend on it. To do that, local hunters need to come first when it comes to issuing licenses to hunt.

Andrew Carpenter is a contributor to Writers on the Range, writersontherange.org, an independent nonprofit dedicated to spurring lively conversation about the West. He lives in Colorado.

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Sad to say, but that wide-open home on the range that Bing Crosby sings about in Brewster Higley’s “Home on the Range,” has been steadily diminishing with every passing decade as the Western landscape has been sliced and diced by roads and barbed-wire fences.

Today, only an extremely savvy deer or antelope (or elk, moose, or bighorn sheep) can move freely across private and public lands. Wild ungulates may have co-evolved nicely with carnivores on the top of the food chain, but they are overwhelmed by the “metallic carnivores” that roam highways. They also have little defense against the snagging attacks of barbs on fences.

What to we do about it? As with every bit of technology we invent, humans can learn to adapt to their downsides. There are ways to make things safer for wildlife.

With that goal, Colorado State University and Fort Collin’s Front Range Community College enlisted some of their students — with financial support from Colorado Parks and Wildlife — to take down gates and make road and fence crossings safer for deer, elk and antelope on the Roberts ranch in Larimer County, CO. Zach Thode, ranch manager championed efforts on the 17,000-acre Roberts Ranch. A working ranch, the ranch is in a conservation easement and Thode takes the conversation part of his job seriously.

The result, less wildlife mayhem on highways and fewer cases of animals getting snagged on barbed wire, where they die painful deaths.

What’s amazing is that the fixes are inexpensive, costing just $100 in materials and the students and their teachers who do the work come away enriched with the knowledge that they have increased the ability of wild animals to move about safely.

Eliminating barbed wire gates is remarkably simple:  Install posts 4 feet above the ground and 17 inches apart. Walla! Cows, horses, and mules are too broad to pass through but ungulates easily slip past. Then take down the gates and count the comings and goings on a trail camera.

An alternative model constructed by Colorado State University and Front Range and Front Range Community College places a log horizontally on vertical supports, 40 inches above the ground. That allows antelope to pass underneath safely while deer and elk can easily jump over. Cows are blocked because they have too much mass to make the jump.

Since this opened with a lyric about freedom, here’s a fitting conclusion to this modest effort that makes the West safer for wildlife, written by Cole Porter:

“Oh, give me land, lots of land under starry skies above,
Don’t fence me in.
Let me ride through the wide open country that I love,
Don’t fence me in.
Let me be by myself in the evenin’ breeze,
And listen to the murmur of the cottonwood trees,
Send me off forever but I ask you please,
Don’t fence me in.”

Richard Knight (richard.knight@colostate.edu) and Heather Dannahower (heather.dannahower@frontrange.edu) are contributors to Writers on the Range, writersontherange.org, a nonprofit service that seeks to spur lively conversation about the West. Dannahower is a professor of natural resources at Front Range Community College and Knight is a wildlife conservation professor at Colorado State University.

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Just off the road stands a bull elk — a 700-pound animal with three-foot tall antlers — and a woman is standing not even four feet away from it. All it would take is for the elk to make one sudden swing of its head and the woman would be hospitalized.

“Here we go again,” I say, rolling my eyes. Then I hop out of the van, instructing my clients to wait here while I try to handle the situation.

I work as a privately contracted guide to lead visitors on wildlife and geology tours of Grand Teton and Yellowstone national parks. Leaning on my wildlife biology degree and six years of living in the Rocky Mountain West, I educate clients about the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. At 22 million acres, it’s the largest nearly intact temperate ecosystem on earth. Almost all plants and animals that existed prior to human presence in North America still exist here today. So people flock here from all over the world to see wildlife as it is truly meant to be — wild.

“Excuse me!” I shout from the roadside, trying to get the woman’s attention. “Please back up!”

She doesn’t even flinch.

I try again. “Excuse me, woman in the white top and white hat! Please give this animal at least 75 feet of space!”

She still ignores me.

Although I do not have the authority that comes with being a park ranger, I do have George N. Wallace’s advice in his paper, Authority of the Resource. He says the average person can claim the power to confront someone whose behavior harms the environment or the public’s ability to pursue recreational activities in that environment.  If, for example, you see someone approaching wildlife too closely, you can speak up.

Far too many times this summer, I’ve had to speak up. In May, Grand Teton National Park recorded over 360,000 visitors, a 30% increase from May 2019. In July, Yellowstone had over a million visitors, a record. There’s a rule of thumb: more people mean more opportunities for them to get into trouble with wildlife.

Because some of these visitors were traveling to wild places for the first time, things sometimes went south quickly. Yet most rule-breakers were lucky enough to walk away unscathed; few even recognized the danger they were in.

But it’s heartbreaking to watch elk or bears become agitated by human ignorance. It is even more heartbreaking to know that these instances will only increase as more people visit these national parks. Wildlife may change their behavior, heading farther into the backcountry and therefore farther from view.

I love my job. I love driving around these two magnificent national parks and watching animals live their lives every day. Hearing the mating call of a bull elk echo through the valley at sunrise is nothing short of magical. Watching grizzly bears dig for food in preparation for hibernation never gets old.

Because these are experiences I want everyone to share, here are some tips for visitors:

Know the wildlife-viewing regulations of the area you visit. National parks require you to stay 25 yards away from most wildlife and 100 yards away from predators. Check relevant websites before you travel.

Follow the instructions of authority figures. Often, this will be a park or forest ranger stationed in wildlife hotspots.

Don’t block the road. Please do not stop in the middle of the road! And turn your car off so everyone can enjoy the silence.

Book a wildlife-viewing tour. While no wildlife guide will ever guarantee an animal sighting, experts know their stuff and will keep you — and the animals — safe.

Carry binoculars. This is an incredible tool for viewing wildlife from a distance. I never leave home without my pair.

Become an authority for the resource. Speak up if you see someone breaking the rules, and don’t be discouraged if you get a nasty response. You have the right to protect everyone’s access to nature.

When I return to the van after the woman finally returned to her car, my clients immediately begin expressing their disbelief.

“I’ve heard stories and seen videos of people acting like that,” one woman says, “but to see it first-hand is something else entirely.”

“You’d think people would know better,” says another.

You’d think. Kelsey Wellington is a contributor to Writers on the Range, writersontherange.org, an independent nonprofit dedicated to spurring lively conversation about the West. She works as a private guide in Grand Teton and Yellowstone national parks.

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The term “crisis” also describes the border with Mexico. Water that once flowed, wildlife that needs to roam, and religious pilgrims — none know political boundaries. Yet to build this wall, vegetation was wiped away, roads bulldozed over mountains, waterways blocked and groundwater depleted by pumping. Lighting that never goes off has been installed on top of steel barriers 30 feet high.

Animals have been blocked from migration, their food chains disrupted. Now, exotic weeds, insects and diseases can use the lengthy scar as a nick point for invasion, ultimately disrupting far more than what human border-crossers can do. 

Meanwhile, the many people involved in borderland alliances have learned hard lessons from this wall, and the lessons need to be shared.

First, any effort to protect and restore what’s been harmed must engage the First Nations of this continent, who still live along one-fifth of the border, from San Diego to Brownsville.

Any “environmental protection” coalition that lacks Native American elders and professionals among its leaders will not get far. Vice President Kamala Harris and Interior Secretary Deb Haaland need to ensure that all agencies err on the side of more inclusiveness and environmental justice for all.

Second, when we neglect to listen to the voices of ranchers, farmers and other private land stewards along the border, everyone stands to lose. 

Coalitions involving tough Texas property owners did far better at getting some concessions from Homeland Security than did coalitions in other states. At first, federal agency professionals and activists largely dismissed the concerns of ranchers and farmers who said they wanted better border security, but not a 30-foot wall.

In southeastern Arizona, the situation was different. As early as 2010, the Malpai Borderlands Group in Southeastern Arizona and adjacent New Mexico developed and implemented a tight border security plan. But its on-ground success was ignored by Homeland Security’s right-wing ideologues and discounted by left-wing activists who opposed any form of border security.

Third, we need to rally people around concerns that are universally shared. One is the need to better protect artesian springs and flowing watercourses from groundwater pumping and blockage of stream flows.  At least 80% of all neotropical birds and bats migrating between the U.S. and Mexico rely on wetland stopovers on or near the border. These water sources are also crucial to ranchers’ livestock, farmers’ food crop irrigation and local wildlife, especially as severe to exceptional drought affects every Western state. 

Unfortunately, border activists failed to sufficiently recruit the support of food producers and waterfowl enthusiasts on the corridors north and south of the border to protect these vulnerable links. Now, we need their support to remove wall segments and floodgates that block transborder streams and wildlife movement.

Finally, one of our effective strategies for building broader coalitions to eke out some concessions was to link the protection of sacred sites at the border to constitutionally guaranteed religious freedoms granted to all Americans.

We rallied support of intertribal and interfaith organizations to denounce the way the wall would impact spiritual sanctuaries along the border, from Quitobaquito to La Lomita Chapel. Spiritual leaders themselves should now direct the restoration of sanctuaries that were damaged in several states. And in Organ Pipe National Monument, cultural properties need to be fully returned to — or co-managed with — the Tohono O’odham and Hia-ced O’odham.

Many O’odham and Kumeyaay youth put their lives at risk to protect their “places of the heart” while agency professionals stood meekly aside.

Since then, the Tohono O’odham Legislative Council has passed a resolution granting “sacred personhood” to all saguaros in their aboriginal homelands. This puts agencies on notice that the mutilation of thousands of cacti will never happen again on their watch. 

I believe that United States, Mexican and First Nations peoples can work together to heal the wounds in the border landscapes in ways that heal the divisions among us as well.

It’s time to start. Gary Paul Nabhan is a contributor to Writers on the Range, writersontherange.org, a nonprofit spurring lively conversation about the West. He is a Franciscan Brother, conservation biologist, writer and agrarian activist living in the borderlands.

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Would you like to earn money and prizes by killing coyotes, foxes, cougars, bobcats, wolves, raccoons, squirrels, crows, rattlesnakes, rabbits, prairie dogs, woodchucks or skunks?

If so, you can enter any of the thousands of wildlife-killing contests permitted and sometimes promoted by 44 state game and fish agencies. Such contests are legal in all Western states save California, Washington, Arizona and Colorado.

These events have names like “Song Dog Smackdown,” “Good Ol Boy’s Fall Predator Tournament” and “Predator Palooza.”

Names of competing teams are no less evocative. Placing high in a Lone Star Predator Calling Classic were “Beer Belly Varmint Hunters” and “Team Anthrax.”

Standard equipment includes reclining chairs, electronic predator calls, tripods and other gun rests, spotting scopes, spotlights, night-vision goggles, other thermal-imaging equipment and high-capacity assault rifles equipped with telescopic sights. Prizes include cash — $50,000 if you win the West Texas Big Bobcat Contest — and such paraphernalia as camo clothing and AK-47s.

Many contests have children’s divisions. Sponsors include gun companies, sporting-goods stores, fire departments, 4-H clubs and chambers of commerce.

Body counts are impressive. One of the 717 teams in last year’s Big Bobcat Contest turned in 94 foxes. Carcasses are piled, photographed and invariably discarded.

“Event coordinators are being hassled,” lament directors of a killing-contest support group called Coyote Contest. “Help us promote those who still understand and value the services that predator hunters provide!” Commentators on the group’s website explain these “services”: “Save a fawn; kill a coyote,” “Wanted dead or alive for the crimes of stealing fawns, turkeys, & livestock,” “Saving livestock one bullet at a time!”

It doesn’t work this way. Predators do kill game and livestock, but no game species in the United States is suppressed by predation, and overpopulated species like elk and deer lack the predators needed to maintain their health and that of native ecosystems.

Robert Crabtree, who did the seminal work on coyotes in central Washington and Yellowstone National Park, reports that to reduce a coyote population, at least 70 percent of the animals need to be eliminated — something he says “rarely, if ever, happens.”

He found that where coyotes aren’t persecuted, average litter size at birth is five or six, but because of competition for prey an average of one to two pups survive their first year. When coyotes are shot, trapped or poisoned, pup survival increases because competition is reduced.

So coyote “control” results in more, not fewer, coyotes.

What’s more, Crabtree has found that indiscriminate killing of predators increases livestock loss. Because coyote “control” (which, again, doesn’t approach 70 percent) reduces the number of adults able to feed young, packs tend to abandon their normal small-mammal diet mammal diet and turn instead to larger prey, like livestock.

Carter Niemeyer, a retired predator-control agent, tells the story of the rancher who phoned him after one aerial operation. “Carter,” declared the rancher, “do coyotes revenge kill? We haven’t had trouble with coyotes all winter. We saw your helicopter the other morning and heard lots of shooting. Now we’ve got coyotes killing sheep. What the hell’s going on?”

Here’s the explanation: Random shooting of predators creates chaos by removing “desirables.” Other predators fill the void including “undesirables” that do kill livestock

The public wearies of wildlife-killing contests. Three years ago they were legal in every state save California. Now they’re also banned in Washington, Arizona, Colorado, Massachusetts and Maryland. New Mexico and Vermont have banned coyote-killing contests.

Competing to kill wildlife outrages the fair-chase hunting community. “We don’t like anything that smacks of commercialization with money or prizes,” remarks Eric Nuse, a hunter educator who serves on the boards of Orion –The Hunters’ Institute and the New England Chapter of Backcountry Hunters and Anglers. “Anything that doesn’t honor the animals grates on us.”

Wildlife-killing contests can erode “the public’s view of ethical hunting,” reports the Wildlife Society, comprised of 11,000 biologists and managers.

No trained wildlife professional believes that killing contests accomplish anything worthwhile. This from the Pennsylvania Game Commission: “The agency (has) finally accepted the reality that predator control does not work.” Yet the Commission still sanctions 27 major wildlife-killing contests that attract thousands of participants.

Why do 44 state game and fish agencies continue to allow these contests? Money. Employees are fed and clothed largely by hunting-license revenue; and wildlife-killing contestants must buy hunting licenses even though they’re not “hunters.” 

More accurately, people who compete to kill wildlife are described by their critics as “assassins.”

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