(Bob Hansen 1987, Nature Conservancy News 37(3):9-14)

Species recovery--a harsh phrase. It implies injury to the very things we seek to preserve. Yet it also hints at successful efforts to breathe new life into a population of plants or animals undergoing some adverse pressure. In the case of an island off California's central coast, the words "species recovery" apply in their broadest sense. For not long ago, an entire island system here would have been extirpated had steps not been taken to restore its natural balance.

Lying 24 miles from Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz Island rises out of the Pacific Ocean to a height of more than 2,400 feet and covers nearly 100 square miles. Deep canyons punctuate its two rugged mountain ranges. Numerous perennial streams and creeks expire on gravel or sandy beaches at canyon mouths or plunge from ocean cliffs into the sea. Mixing with little concern for neighboring pelagic birds, seals and sea lions "haul out" along the rocky shoreline. Seasonal rains starting in the fall pelt the island and give rise to a viridescent grassland splashed by an array of wildflowers flaunting every hue of the rainbow. Spring brings desiccating winds that by summer parch the land until it turns a dull brown.

Season after season Santa cruz, largest isle in the chain known collectively as the Channel Islands, provided refuge for myriad plant and animal species that originally made their way to this rugged landscape purely by chance. Carried by howling winds or rolling seas--or as stowaways on flotsam or other vehicles-more than 600 different plant species, 200 bird species, 13 terrestrial mammals, a number of reptiles and amphibians, and countless insects arrived on Santa Cruz and thrived for millennia.

For more than 6,000 years Chumash Indians called Santa cruz island home. Aboard seaworthy canoes made by lashing redwood planks together and caulking the seams with tar from natural seeps, they frequently voyaged between California's central coast and the Channel Islands. Yet these island dwellers required little or nothing from the mainland to survive, even though they engaged in a sophisticated trade network with their neighbors. (They manufactured shell-bead "money" and exchanged this and other goods for stone bowls, obsidian, and antlers.)

All of the essentials the Chumash needed to survive were abundant on "Limu," their sanctuary in the sea. Century after century they gathered acorns for meal, chert for arrowheads and drills, stems for bows, bird plumage for clothing, and fruits, bulbs, and berries-plus millions of pounds of fish and shellfish--for daily sustenance. To the native Chumash, Santa Cruz Island was a complete provider; they attached little significance to any unusual varieties of life that were, to them, an everyday occurrence. But barely 100 years after the Chumash were removed to mainland missions, biologists would acknowledge Santa Cruz as a major repository of the results of evolution. All told, they eventually recorded more than three dozen endemic plant species and subspecies that occur nowhere else on Earth, except on the Channel Islands. Eight of these are found only on Santa Cruz.

Isolated from the mainland for tens of thousands of years, the rugged terrain of Santa Cruz provided the ideal natural laboratory for the development and differentiation of a host of remarkable plant species. From common ancestral stock, island trees developed leaf structures not found on mainland trees. The result? Entirely new species. Common monkey flower blossoms took on a bright red color and were described as a singular species for Santa Cruz--Diplacus parviflorus. On coastal bluffs and cliff faces, in wooded canyon bottoms, and on exposed sun-drenched mountainsides, botanists encountered and named entirely new plant forms: hairy manzanita (Arctostaphylos viridissima), Eraser Point live-forever (Dudleya nesiotica), and Santa Cruz island rock cress (Arabis hoffmannii). The island pine also was found to be a distinct Santa cruz form, Pinus remorata. In addition, relict species dotted the island. Nearly 1,000 different stands of "ironwood" (Lyonothamnus floribundus asplenifolius) nourished as reminders of a species once common and widely distributed on the mainland but now absent for some inexplicable reason. In all, ten different plant communities evolved and thrived here.

In contrast to this substantial and unusual flora, Santa Cruz island harbored relatively few native animal species. A notable exception is a fox that took its place at the top of the food chain and owing to lack of competition and predators--developed characteristics that would give it separate species status. The Santa Cruz Island fox (Urocyon littoralis santacruzae) is tiny, varies in color from its "cousins" on the other Channel Islands, and lacks any fear of other animals.

After the departure of the Chumash Indians, Santa Cruz lay unused by western settlers. An attempt to establish a colony of convicts and outcasts on the island in the early 19th century was unsuccessful. Then, around 1850, herds of cattle and sheep were introduced; ranching began in earnest. The livestock was managed according to practices of the time. It wasn't long before "open grazing" led to wholesale unmanaged browsing by increasing numbers of sheep that had reverted to a wild state. Initially, ample water, shelter, and edible vegetation sustained the sheep population and allowed for its exponential growth. But the feral herd soon began to exceed the island's carrying capacity, or ability to produce forage. By 1870 the ranchers were attempting to curb or otherwise control the exploding sheep population.

The entire island began to suffer periodically as the sheeps' populations rose and fell with each new attempt to control their numbers. Pine, oak, ironwood, and any other seedlings were immediately eaten. As the animals grazed first on trunk sprouts, then on low branches, and finally (upright on their hind legs) on the vegetation left within reach, trees acquired an uncharacteristic mushroom shape caused by the distinct five-foot-high "browse-line." Entire grasslands, including native bunchgrasses, were consumed, and thousands of acres were reduced to bits of stubble and, eventually, to bare ground.

Worse, normal soil composition and chemistry began to change in many areas. As surface temperatures rose because of the removal of all vegetative cover, greater evaporation and reduced moisture retention occurred; soil acidity also increased. The resulting alterations in the composition of plant communities often favored non-native weeds, and what was once a pristine setting began to look "wrong" or out of character. Moreover, with the total removal of low vegetation, leaf litter, and humus, winter rains began to strip the exposed soil to bedrock. Not only were the roots of trees and woody shrubs laid bare, but with each successive storm the sea also showed plumes of mud-laced water at the mouth of each canyon. Endemic species were vanishing; an entire island biological system was breaking down.

What would happen if more than 100 years of intensive indiscriminate grazing were brought to a halt! Would seedling survival increase dramatically along with a proliferation of native species! Or would the more hearty introduced "weedy" plants take over, thus preventing the return of the desired natives! Would scars heal quickly or take years to mend!

Hints at the answers to these questions were indicated by the results, tests, and experiments carried out on the island over many years. After "exclosures" were erected in several locations by a number of different researchers, remarkable results were recorded. Tree bases began sprouting vigorously, and a mixture of native and non-native grasses returned to areas that before had been only sparsely covered. Ground cover generally increased on all the ungrazed restricted sites. But what would occur if whole 6,000-acre sections of the island were cleared of sheep as opposed to these plots only a few square meters in size!

Having obtained a conservation easement and eventual ownership of 90 percent of Santa Cruz in 1978, The Nature Conservancy initiated a complete study the following year of the sheep and their impact. We hoped to solve the feral sheep problem that had long plagued the island's owners and to begin restoring the native plant communities on Santa Cruz.

In 1980 groups of volunteers began repairing or replacing miles of fence in order to divide the island into a series of definable "pastures" that would confine the sheep to designated areas. Gradually, through an intensive ground-hunting program, each of these pastures was cleared of feral sheep. As the effort continued for six years, every passing season showed results.

At first, signs of recovery were vague. Island foxes hardly lined up at the gate of each sheepless pasture patiently awaiting their return to a homeland. But because grassland seedlings and annual wildflowers remained ungrazed, the young plants survived not only the winter but thrived on into spring and summer as well. Instead of making only a mottled showing, annuals burst forth everywhere, even in the middle of sheep trails and bedding grounds. As though a wild-fire had swept across the island, reducing competition among plant species and releasing nutrients, Santa Cruz returned to life. Many of the woody shrubs produced fresh, green sprouts; island oak and pine seedlings flourished. In a few places some of the more common native plants began to grow where bare ground had been the rule. Clumps of native bunchgrass appeared in place of introduced European grasses. New populations of native buckwheat, monkey flower, and bush poppy took hold.

As the fencing and hunting program continued into the most severely damaged island sections and as each season brought its moisture and sunlight--the vegetation in these areas also started to recover dramatically. Succulents and other plants once much preferred by the feral stock began to reappear in open country. Previously confined to vertical cliff faces well out of reach of sheep, the brilliant yellow blooms of giant Coreopsis fairly lit the entire winter landscape. Live-forever literally seemed to "creep" back over the cliff edges and to bask in the open sun. Deep in the ironwood and oak groves, shoots emerged around the base of long standing adult trees, and seedlings of these species took root and thrived for the first time in decades. The nutrient-rich litter of a season's growth remained on the ground, followed by another and another season of accumulation. Straight-edged browse lines became jagged, and vegetation began to dip low to the ground. Hillsides laced with sheep trails lost their symmetrical lines and graded into a solid blanket of green.

It's much more difficult to work on Santa Cruz island these days. One hundred meter line-transect tapes become tangled in brush or suspended in arcs across clumps of grass instead of lying in neat, flat lines on bare ground. Blazing a path through thigh-high grasslands or among low branches and clinging vines is more tiring than following a well-worn sheep rail. But silver deerweed (Lotus argophyllus niveus), a Santa Cruz endemic once on the brink of extinction, is flourishing. And ironwood seedlings, extremely rare in previous years, are reappearing in significant numbers. Everywhere you look, the Earth's phenomenal ability to heal itself, if given a chance, is apparent. In the case of Santa Cruz island that sometimes harsh-sounding phrase, "species recovery," should be prefaced by the word "successful."

(Garnet Bass 1987, Nature Conservancy News 37(3): 15-21).

You can already hear it on nights when the full moon filters down through the dense pine needles and gum branches of the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge. The howl starts low and builds to a high-pitched crescendo, plunges and rises again.

The red wolf, last recorded in this state around the turn of the century, has come home to Dare County, North Carolina. More important, if has come home to the wild.

In 1984 The Nature Conservancy orchestrated the donation by Prudential Insurance Company-in cooperation with First Colony Farms--of 118,000 acres of coastal marsh, forest, and pocosin along the Alligator River to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS). What was first seen solely as a successful effort to assist in the creation of a new federal refuge now means far more. For the red wolf, it has made possible the return home.

The wolves arrived about two and a half years after the lands became federal property. For six months the four mated pairs of captive-bred red wolves lived in pens as they acclimated to their surroundings and were weaned from dry dog food to red meat and finally to live prey. If all has gone as scheduled over the last few weeks, those pens now have been opened in what appears to be one of the world's first attempts to repatriate a species extinct in the wild. The first pair of wolves was scheduled to be released in mid-June; the others were to follow about a week later. Two more pairs will be brought in this fall for release in the spring of 1988. After five years, government officials will determine whether to allow the wolves to make the refuge their permanent home or to return them to captivity. The project, being conducted by the USFWS, is significant not only because it gives the red wolf a chance to roam free once more, but because it also may provide a necessary key to saving other endangered species.

Wildlife biologists working with Mexican and Rocky Mountain wolves, both subspecies of the gray wolf, and with the Florida panther, are hoping for a successful precedent to bolster their efforts. For the Mexican wolf, like the red, a captive-breeding program is attempting to ensure the survival of the species. But captive breeding itself stirs a controversy that could be eased by success at Alligator River.

Opponents "are concerned that if you take the last remnant individuals of an endangered species out of the wild, they'll never be put back in," said Warren Parker, leader of the red wolf recovery project and chief USFWS endangered species biologist for the four-state region that includes North Carolina. "But if you leave them in the wild, they're not going to survive.

For the red wolf, it was a close call. Canis rufus, as it is called in scientific terms, is lean and lanky, with a broad head, big ears, almond-shaped eyes, and a long, thin snout. At 40 to 80 pounds, it weighs in at a middle range between two other wild canids, the larger gray wolf and the smaller coyote. Color varies from cinnamon to gray. It once roamed in abundance over the forests and bottomlands of the southeastern United States, from the Atlantic coast to central Texas and from the Gulf coast to southern illinois. But, as the human population of the area expanded, the wolf population dwindled. Farmers and bounty hunters killed many; others died or were driven away as their habitat was destroyed. By the 1960s the red wolf had been pushed into a five-county area of coastal marsh and prairie in Louisiana and Texas, where the inhospitable environment and parasites continued the wolf kill. To compound the problem, so few wolves existed that adults were interbreeding with coyotes and thus diluting the bloodline.

With money from the Endangered Species Act of 1973, the USFWS made red wolf recovery one of its top priorities. It was almost too late. A team led by biologist Curtis Carley combed the region in 1975 but found only 19 pure-bred wolves with which to begin a captive-breeding program. Two years later the red wolf was determined to be extinct in the wild.

Captive breeding proved successful, and today about 80 wolves live at seven sites around the country. Still, the red wolf is among the most endangered mammals in North America, and the rescue effort will not be considered an unqualified success until the canid is returned to its historic range, such as the land of the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge.

Public antagonism had just defeated a proposed reintroduction of the red wolf in Tennessee and Kentucky when Warren Parker picked up a newspaper in March 1984 and read about the large Prudential donation in northeastern North Carolina. The Conservancy's negotiations for the gift, arranged by its North Carolina Field Office, had extended over several years but remained a secret even within the USFWS.

Parker's thoughts flew to the wolves. Within days he was in Manteo, and by January he had surveys underway to determine whether wild dogs or coyotes were present and whether the small mammal food supply would be sufficient to support a wolf colony. Conditions appeared ideal. Detailed plans were drawn up for a red wolf reintroduction, and a massive public education effort was launched to enlist the support of residents of Dare and Tyrrell Counties. Official approval was granted.

Many details of the Alligator River reintroduction were adapted from the 1976 and 1978 experimental releases on Bulls Head Island, South Carolina, part of the Cape Romain National Wildlife Refuge near Charleston. Those releases proved that wolves caught in the wild could be successfully returned to the wild.

Although biologists would prefer to reintroduce wild-caught animals again, only four of the original breeding stock still live, and they are elderly. (One is 14 years old.) Instead, they selected four pairs about three to five years of age who should live long enough to produce at least two litters on the refuge.

On November 12, 1986, eight red wolves seven from Point Defiance Zoological Garden of Tacoma, Washington, and one from the Wild Canid Survival Research Center in St. Louis, Missouri-flew by airplane to Raleigh, North Carolina, and on by helicopter to Manteo. They huddled inside dog carriers as workers transferred them to pickup trucks for the nearly hour-long journey to four remote sites on the refuge where 2,500-square-foot holding pens had been set up.

At each site, a team of three workers fitted the wolves with temporary tracking collars, a precaution against premature escape. About 50 journalists watched the proceedings at one pen. There, the wolves proved themselves shy enough to support the legend that they can hide behind a blade of grass. The male dropped to the ground when a jet new overhead. The female refused to leave her carrier. The handlers opened the door; the wolf stayed put. They pulled her part of the way out; she retreated back inside. They tilted the carrier; she pushed herself away from the door. Finally, they turned the carrier's opening away from the crowd standing outside the fence, and away she dashed, finding shelter in the brush at the rear of the pen.

"One of the fears I had three years ago was that these wolves would not be afraid," Parker said of his early involvement with the red wolf program. "But they are very, very shy animals. Once released from their pens, they'll be heard but not seen."

The reintroduction project has been designed to maximize the wolves' chances of survival while allowing wildlife biologists to gather information about the wolves' habits in the wild and continuing to offer the public full recreational uses of the refuge. Public acceptance will count heavily in whether the experiment is deemed successful.

Little is known about the wolves in optimal (natural) conditions. Much that is accepted has been deduced from historical evidence as well as from observations of the wolves in their reduced state in Texas and Louisiana, in captivity, and in experimental releases. Until this century scientists made no distinction between the red wolf and its larger, more widely known cousin, the gray wolf, which ranged throughout the northern and western parts of the continent. Gradually, however, they recognized the two as distinct species. Now they say that the red predates the gray in evolutionary terms and that only the red wolf evolved totally in North America. At one time at least three subspecies of Canis rufus existed, differentiated largely by location and slight color variations. Only Canis rufus gregoryi remains.

Although red wolves made their last stand in coastal prairie marshes, scientists believe that in better days they thrived in thickly vegetated bottomland river forests and swamps. There they rested in dens or above-ground nests and fed on small animals, such as squirrels and rabbits, and on berries and other vegetation. Lacking the complex pack system of the gray wolf, the red seldom preyed on larger animals. Wild turkey made occasional meals, but only rarely did the red wolf attack a creature as large as a deer.

The Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge certainly seems to be suitable red wolf habitat. The marshy land's vegetation is so dense that hunters seldom venture in. Instead, they release packs of dogs to chase deer out into clearings. Gray squirrels, marsh rabbits, and a variety of small rodents abound. The refuge also shelters two other endangered species--the red-cockaded woodpecker and the American alligator--as well as black bears, bobcats, river otters, and gray foxes.

Nearly as important as what the Alligator Refuge has is what it lacks: coyotes. More adaptable than the wolf, coyotes have been extending their range from the West throughout much of this century. The coyote's "eastward edge," however, is still 500 miles away from the refuge and will probably take eight to ten years to reach the coast. In that time, Parker said, the wolves should be numerous enough to ward off interbreeding. He doubts coyotes would even venture into strongly held wolf territory.

(Two coyotes were killed during the past year in neighboring Tyrrell County, which is separated from the refuge by the two-mile-wide Alligator River. Available evidence indicates those animals were released into the area, and officials said the red wolf program would not be affected.)

Other advantages of the Alligator River site include its isolation and sparse human population. As the USFWS figures it, the wolves can roam nearly 200,000 acres without impinging on human territory. The 118,000-acre refuge occupies most of a peninsula bounded by the Alligator River and the Albemarle and Croatan Sounds. Along the refuge's southern boundary lies the 46,621-acre Dare County Bombing Range, where the Navy and Air Force conduct training exercises using electronic bombing and simulated explosives. Only a small portion of the range is actually used for the exercises, and the Department of Defense recently entered into an agreement with the North Carolina Natural Heritage Program that guarantees the department will manage a 19,000-acre section for conservation purposes. Prudential insurance still owns some 23,000 acres on the peninsula (about 5,000 of which are cleared for crop production) and has been cooperating with USFWS in land management.

The Conservancy's North Carolina office has acquired an additional 6,000 acres along the Alligator River south of the refuge. It will be added to USFWS holdings if the federal government buys the timber rights for the property's Atlantic white cedar. Although two miles separate the new land from the current refuge, any additions south of federal lands will help. With water in every other direction, Parker said, any wolf that leaves the sanctuary will have to rake a southerly route.

Only about 1,500 people live in the peninsula's three communities, all along U.S. 64 and 264, the only two black-top roads. Commercial fishing is the primary livelihood; few people raise livestock. Although that simplified the task of enlisting local support for the wolves, USFWS had learned not to take the public for granted. At Land Between the Lakes, a natural area in Tennessee and Kentucky owned by the Tennessee Valley Authority, plans for a wolf reintroduction were derailed first by residents' fears that the presence of the wolves would curtail recreational uses of the land and then by opposition to a proposal to eradicate coyotes in the area.

In a series of community meetings, Dare and Tyrrell County residents were assured that the wolves presented no threat to human communities, nor would they interfere with popular pastimes on the refuge. "We feel it's very important that reintroduction take place with all the uses of the refuge going on," Refuge Manager John Taylor said. This not only aids public acceptance locally, he explained, but also may encourage land managers elsewhere to consider reintroduction programs.

Little opposition arose. County commissioners voted to support the program, voicing the hope that the wolves might attract more of the tourists who supply a large part of the local economy. Other reactions ranged from the North Carolina Wildlife Federation's enthusiastic endorsement to local hunters' wait-and-see attitude. Public opinion will be canvassed again in five years before a final decision is made on the wolves' permanent status.

During the wolves' acclimation period, they were guarded by full-time caretakers living in temporary quarters set up nearby. The caretakers fed the wolves, made sure the pens were not damaged by weather or fallen trees, and warded off inquisitive humans. For the transition from dog food to dead prey, state highway workers and local citizens collected road kills. Workers also trapped animals on the refuge for the introduction of live prey. For the feedings, plywood barriers shielded the caretakers from the wolves' sight so the canids would not associate human contact with food.

Only one wolf displayed early difficulty with acclimation. He showed a definite disinclination to eat red meat, developing a taste for prey only after his supply of dog food was halted in mid-January.

Two pairs of wolves were allowed to mate in February, with whelping expected in early May. The others were put on birth control, thus delaying their first litters for a year. This allows biologists to test competing theories, one being that young pups will help confine the parents to the area of release (Or, as Parker said, "make them set up housekeeping"), the other being that pups will place additional strain on the released females.

To ease any potential strain, the doors of the acclimation pens will remain open after the release so that the wolves can continue using the pens. Caretakers also will leave dead prey at each site so the wolves will not be forced to depend solely on hunting at first. A spring release was selected because that is when prey animals are most abundant and, as many are young, least wary of predators.

After leaving their four different pens, the wolves will be far from human communities. One release site lies 18 miles of rutted logging paths off the nearest blacktop, and the merest sprinkle of rain turns the paths' clay base into a slippery slime that challenges even four-wheel drive traction. Another site is accessible only by water. The wolf pairs also will be far from each other, which will allow them to establish family territories. The first pairs were to be released into three different habitat types: hardwood swamp, low pocosin and brackish marsh, and tree pocosin and cane thicket.

Before the release, refuge workers replaced the wolves' temporary collars with permanent ones equipped with transmitters and two remote-control tranquilizer darts. The transmitters will permit workers to track the wolves by helicopter, airplane, or truck. Refuge Manager Taylor said he expected to make twice daily checks on the animals' whereabouts for the first several weeks, tapering off to daily and then to only occasional checks as the wolves establish a defined territory. Workers also will collect droppings to be analyzed for food content. All of these efforts will help biologists understand more about the territorial instincts and cover and food preferences of the wolves. That knowledge in rum may assist future reintroductions.

A wolf that wanders off the refuge will be recaptured-a simple, painless procedure with the remote-control tranquilizer darts--and returned either to the refuge or to the captive-breeding program. Killing will be allowed only in the unlikely event a wolf threatens human life or property. Although killing an endangered species is illegal, these eight deliberately were classified as nonessential, experimental animals to help gain public acceptance for the program.

Parker said these first wolves will wear their collars for the full five years of the program, and their first litters probably will be collared, too. "What we're interested in is how they'll disperse," he explained. Each collar emits a distinct signal so trackers will know exactly which wolf is where.

Nonetheless, plans call for minimal interference. The wolves will survive or die according to their fitness and ability to adapt. "We must look at the population as a whole, not at the individual animals," Taylor said. "if we lose one because it's hit by a car, for example, we look on it as the price we have to pay to get these animals back in the wild."

Failure at Alligator River would seriously damage the whole concept of species reintroduction, Parker said. "it would probably be a death blow for the Rocky Mountain wolf." If reintroduction appears infeasible, USFWS is unlikely to initiate captive-breeding programs that would save species only for zoo-like existence.

Failure, however, seems unlikely. Although every possibility cannot be predicted and accounted for, Parker said, the prospects are excellent. Measured by public support, the project already has succeeded, he added. Biological success will be declared when the offspring of the first generation of released wolves produce litters.
"Now," Parker said, "it's up to the wolves."

Note: Today there are almost 100 Red Wolves (descendants of the 4 introduced pairs) in eastern North Carolina's Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge and surrounding public and private lands; 140 pups have been born there. Reflecting the support of landowners for their recovery, 15% of Red Wolves in eastern North Carolina exist on private lands. Initially, in 1991, a pair of Red Wolves was released in Great Smoky National Park which exists in North Carolina and Tennessee. The growth of the population of Red Wolves in the park (6 in 1998) has been disappointingly slow. Red Wolves have also been released at another site in Tennessee. In 1998, there also were a family of Red Wolves on St. Vincent Island, Florida, a pair of Red Wolves on Horn Island, Mississippi, and individuals in South Carolina, as well as 178 captive Red Wolves in zoos.

John Muir (1838-1914)

Muir's family immigrated to Wisconsin when he was 11. He loved animals and nature despite a religious upbringing which held that anything but hard work is sinful. After winning recognition at the 1860 Wisconsin Agricultural State Fair for an alarm clock that he had whittled, Muir aborted an incipient odyssey of roaming wild country and matriculated in the University of Wisconsin. There, he made several inventions, but also enrolled in geology and botany. After 2½ yr, he dropped out to explore wild lands, but then accepted a well-paying job at a carriage factory in Indiana. There in 1867, a file slipped and pierced his right eye. His left eye responded with sympathetic blindness and for 1 month, he lay in bed without sight. After regaining his vision, he vowed to spend his life in "the study of the inventions of God."

Muir walked to the South, and then later hiked to California where he fell in love with the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Muir cherished storms and earthquakes and would climb tall trees to deeply experience gales. In the 1870s, he began to write about the need for wilderness preservation. In 1872, his article "Yosemite Glaciers" was published in the New York Tribune. He wrote preservationist articles for National Geographic, Harper's, Overland Monthly, and other national magazines and journals. In 1889, Muir was commissioned to write articles for Century Magazine to persuade congress to preserve Yosemite Valley and Yosemite Forest Reserve. Resulting public pressure led to the allotment of 600 ha of lands for Yosemite National Park in 1890. Muir also championed the establishment of Sequoia National Park and the 1.6-million-ha Sierra Forest Reserve {Borland 1975:119}. Muir devoted his last 10 yr to saving Hetch Hetchy watershed which high grasses and flowers grew. When Yosemite became a national park, Hetch Hetchy was a valley of like beauty. By 1902, the city of San Francisco planned to build a dam which would turn Hetch Hetchy watershed into a lake that would provide San Francisco, located 400 km away, with potable water. Land was inexpensive in the watershed. To transport materials to the construction site, a 95-km railroad was constructed. In 1892, Muir founded the Sierra Club in San Francisco to prevent Hetch Hetchy Dam from being built. Newspaper and magazine articles were printed. Muir gave tours of Hetch Hetchy watershed to Presidents Roosevelt and Taft. At Congressional hearings, he displayed photographs showing why the construction of Hetch Hetchy Dam was a mistake. Three times the bill that was sponsored by California Rep. John E. Raker prescribing the dam's construction were defeated but the 4th time that it was introduced (in 1913), it passed. Muir died the following year, perhaps partially from his disappointment. His fight was not in vain. Two years later, the National Park Service was formed in part to ensure that such a tragedy would not happen again.

ESSAY 3: Muir, John. 1894. The Mountains of California, The Century Co., New York; Chapter 10 — A

Wind-storm in the Forests

ESSAY 4: Muir, John. 1894. The Mountains of California, The Century Co., New York; Chapter 16 — The

Bee-Pastures

Focus your comments on nature and the wild environment rather than beekeeping.

ESSAY 5: The last chapter of Aldo Leopold's A Sand County Almanac (1949)