Return the wolf to the wilds of Texas

By Rick LoBello

Over 5000 people in recent months have signed letters and petitions asking Texas Parks and Wildlife and the Governor of Texas to support returning the wolf to the ecosystem of our great state.  I often tell people that returning the wolf to Texas will be a monumental task because of the state’s politics more than anything,  but that I believe that it is an achievable and laudable goal.   After all here in Texas we helped to put a man on the moon at Mission Control in Houston.  You would think it would be possible to restore this important part of our natural heritage back into our ecosystem where it could once again become an important part of the balance of life.

It was back in 1978 when I was a park ranger in Big Bend National Park that I  was given the opportunity to see one of the last wild Mexican wolves known to science before the species went extinct in the wild.  It  it was a day I shall never forget.   I was stationed at Panther Junction Park Headquarters where it was a two hundred mile round trip to get groceries in Alpine.  One day my friend Roy McBride invited me to his ranch in Alpine to see a wolf that he had recently captured in Mexico as part of an emergency US-Mexico effort to save the species from extinction. As I looked at the recently captured wolf pacing back-and-forth inside a large fenced enclosure  a great sadness came over me. Just days before this wonderful animal was living wild and free in the mountains of northern Mexico.  Its ancestors had been an important part of the web of life for thousands of years.   I realized that I was looking at a species that not long ago was a part of the ecosystem in Big Bend National Park.  How could I knowing this reality do nothing?  I had to do something.

In 1988, ten years after I saw the captured Mexican wolf in Alpine, National Park Service Director William Penn Mott Jr., despite congressional opposition,  advocated for the return of the wolf to our national parks.   He inspired me to write about the wolf in the Big Bend National Park visitor guide newspaper called El Paisano.   Several years later I helped to organize the Mexican Wolf Coalition of Texas.

As a result of Mott’s leadership the wolf was eventually returned to Yellowstone National Park.  Today we now know just how important  wolves are to the biodiversity and health of the Yellowstone ecosystem.  How important is the wolf to the ecosystem in Texas?   We will never know until we give it a chance to return.

Like the name of this website we have only one lifetime to make any kind of difference in helping to take care of our earth.   When our ancestors killed off the wolf over most of its natural range during the 1800s it was not the best choice for the future of our environment.  Wolves have been successfully returned to the wild in places like Yellowstone National Park and the Gila Wilderness of New Mexico.   Isn’t it time that we gave the wolf a chance to re-inhabit its former homeland in Texas?   Past Chief Scientist of the National Park Service Roland Wauer once told me “I believe that reintroduction of Mexican wolves into the Big Bend country is both feasible and proper, and every effort should go into the program.”   The future of this species and the health of our ecosystem in Texas is in our hands.  Join the Texas wolf pack today and help bring back this amazing animal to the Texas Wilderness.   For more information contact me at ricklobello@gmail.com.

 

 

A message for President Trump

You can shut down the use of our social media accounts, but you cannot shut down the internet or take control of what we do with our personal time! We only wish to protect and preserve the environment for future generations to come.

Join the movement

– Arches, Shenandoah, Yosemite, Badlands, Yellowstone, Grand Canyon, Blue Ridge Parkway, Everglades, and Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

What’s going on here?

By Rick LoBello

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Every day in El Paso we see more and more of what remains of the natural landscape in lower elevations of Franklin Mountains going under the blade of the bulldozer.  In the name of progress we can’t seem to stop making more roads, building more Walmarts and more strip malls.   I am all in favor of progress, but is this the kind of progress El Paso needs to have a sustainable future?   What are we going to do when all the land has been developed?   Why can’t we build away from what remains of these lands and protect them for our community today and future generations who will need more open space for outdoor recreation opportunities?  Have you ever tried to find a hiking trail in the Franklins that did not include climbing up a mountain side?  We definitely need more trails for senior citizens and families who simply want to take more level walking trails.  Saving these wild places also helps to protect trails and pathways that wildlife need to move from one part of the landscape to the next.  Why can’t we focus more on building upward like we see happening downtown and in places like the Venue at Montecillo on Mesa?    We are running out of water too so what’s going on here?

Did you know that some of the oldest organisms in the world live in the lower elevations of the Franklin Mountains?   One creosote bush in the Mojave Desert was found growing in a single clonal colony up to 67 feet in diameter and was estimated to be 11,700 years old.  Who is to say some creosote bush rings right here in El Paso may be older.  We may never know since no one will have a chance to find out as every square inch of desert is destroyed and covered with concrete.

Here is what is going on, special interest groups with lots of cash are making lots of money destroying El Paso’s natural heritage.  We are talking about the southernmost region of the Rocky Mountains in the United States of America – they’re called the Franklin Mountains.  These mountains cannot survive ecologically with only the higher elevations intact.   The lower elevations are important too because many wildlife species spend their entire lives in or travel through these lower areas to get from one part of the mountain range to the next.  Some species survive only in the lower elevations.   For example, how many jackrabbits do you find climbing up a steep mountain side?   These prey species live in lower elevations areas and guess who eats the jackrabbit,  the Golden Eagle.    Golden Eagles have long been admired by people around the world and are one of best known birds of prey in the Northern Hemisphere.  They live in the Franklins and beyond and hunt in the lower elevations for rabbits and other small prey species.

Everyone in El Paso now and in the future needs to be connected to the natural world, for their physical and psychological well-being.   The estimated population of El Paso, County is now nearly 900,000.   The Franklin Mountains are home to thousands of species of animals and plants.    Looking for some good reasons to protect our natural environment?   How about 900,000?

Now that you have read this what are you going to do about it?     Need some ideas?   Contact organizations like the Franklin Mountains Wilderness Coalition and Frontera Land Alliance for some guidance.   Both are very active in trying to find solutions to protecting the natural environment in El Paso.  You can also form your own group and make your own noise.  Don’t just sit there and watch it happen. Look into the face of a child if you need some motivation and ask yourself, is it worth it for their sake?

Virunga’s elephants

Solar Cooker Workshop in Ghana

 

by Paula Ann Winchester

I left the USA the day after Thanksgiving and landed in Accra, Ghana, at 8 pm the next day.  As hundreds of folks mobbed the baggage conveyor belt, I anxiously waited for my 100# of solar cooker equipment in two suitcases.  I believe my two suitcases were the last two to arrive.  What torture!

The workshop was held on December 1, 2015 at 10 am with 5 representatives from the Bremen Essiam village of 27,000, 3 highly educated representatives from small city of coastal Elmina, several men from the neighboring farming community, as well as, three men from the radio and television stations. My explanations were interpreted for the group by Jael, a very poised and helpful young lady.  I could immediately tell that those who just minutes before who were unsmiling and not comprehending began to warm up by hearing the information in their native tongue.

Earlier before we started, I had set out in the sun a silver pot with water, a black pot with same amount of water, and another black pot with water, but this time placed  inside a turkey roasting bag and tied shut. During our discussion we moved from the shaded porch out into the sun to feel the difference in the pots to learn first-hand and very quickly which was the hottest. The black pot in the turkey roasting bag, gifted to my workshop by Liberty Bag Co. of California, was HANDS DOWN the hot HOT winner.

Afterwards I set up one solar cookit (from Solar Cookers International in Sacramento, CA) with 3 small stones.  I placed the water filled black pot wrapped in a turkey roasting bag on the stones in the solar cookit.  Inside was a WAPI, a tiny gadget that would indicate that the water (or milk) had reached a temperature high enough to pasteurize it, making it safe to drink. The 2nd solar cookit was set up in a similar manner but this black pot would cook rice.

Back to the shady porch.  We then had each person tell the group something they had learned. Questions were asked: can you fry with these? No.  How long will a solar cooker last?  The Cookit solar cooker will last only if you take very good care of it. What will we do with our silver shiny pots?  Paint them black on the outside top and bottom. Over and over we stressed that cooking with the sun, a FREE energy source, would save them money, improve their family’s health, save them time and worry, and preserve the environment.  You could see the wheels beginning to turn and their eyes beginning to glow.

Photos were taken. Snacks and cold drinking water was provided.  The men from the radio and tv stations interviewed participants. Two hours had quickly slipped by.  It was time to remove the hot black pots from the solar cookits and their bags.  Yes, the WAPI indicated that the water had gotten hot enough to pasteurized it.  But when I carefully opened the pot with the rice, did I feel their excitement explode.  They said, “a miracle had happened!” Bowls were filled with the rice for tasting and comments.  Needed salt.  It wasn’t burned on the bottom, which happened in their pots on charcoal fires (did you know it takes 7 lbs. of wood to make 1 lb. of charcoal?).  I learned that  Ghanaians prefer their rice cooked dryer that my  performance produced that day. There was ecstasy in the air! A kind of giddiness of pure delight. It was very clear what they could do with a simple solar cooker made just of cardboard with a shiny surface.

By that afternoon, we were hearing from folks in Elmina of the “miracle that happened at the Davies Villa Resort” where the workshop had been held.  Grace, from the Bremen Essiam village of 27,000 and hand selected by the chief to attend, said she felt she had been to the university that day.

Before receiving their gift of a solar cooker, WAPI, two turkey roasting bags, black sock (for cooking corn on the cob), and a pair of scissors or a box cutter,  they each had to stand and pledge a commitment to teach others of what they had learned and to work to make more simple solar cookits for those thousands who were yet ignorant of this “miracle”.  Within days, the word had spread.  The news had travelled so fast that I thought surely drums must have been used to send out the message!  The need is so great…and they were ready to take on that responsibility and ownership.  I was just the spark that set their world on fire by using the FREE sunlight so abundant in equatorial Africa.

 

Paula Winchester Enterprises, LLC
pwe@paulawinchester.com