WEBVTT

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[sil.]

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[music]

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What we need, quite frankly, I think,

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is a revolution in our worldview, how
we see ourselves in relationship

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to nature and, in particular,
to these large carnivores.

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Wolves, bears, mountain lions,

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the magnificent animals at the top of the food chain, even
their names evoke the majesty and mystery of wild America.

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But today, together with
smaller predatory wildlife,

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they often struggle for survival.
For generations,

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predator has been a dirty word even
when applied only to wildlife.

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But we are now coming to realize how important these animals
are and how nature’s balance unravels without them.

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Only be gone… All across America,
biologists, government officials,

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conservationists, and even ranchers, and
hunters are gaining a new understanding

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of the value of predators and working
actively for their protection.

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It may not be a moment too soon. If
you want nature in your backyard,

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you have to take nature on
her terms and not our terms,

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and her terms include carnivores
and the big predators.

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[music]

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They’ve been waiting since before
sunup above the Lamar Valley,

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and they’ve been watching for
the wild wolves of Yellowstone.

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In the grass, bones, were the wolves
took down an elk. And the air howls,

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but where are the wolves. Eyes turned
to an animal moving quickly, is it?

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No, it’s a solitary coyote keeping safe
distance from his bigger relatives.

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Then there they are, across
the valley, a few dark shapes

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scurrying through the sage, even at a distance,
there is something magical about them.

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And people are coming here from all across America just
to be where the wolves are, just to know they are there.

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I’ve relatives coming from California,
\"Go to Yellowstone Park, see a wolf,\"

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that’s the best thing they’ve ever seen.
You ever seen a wolf or hear one howl,

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you remember for the rest of your life. It’s one of the
truly magnificent experiences you can have in the outdoors.

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They also symbolize healthy ecosystems.
Having wolves in place

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mean all the links down to the lowest level
are intact. And I think people are aware

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of greater environmental connections
nowadays than they used to be.

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And yet there are only a handful of
places where Americans have any hope

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of seeing wolves in their natural habitat. Wolves were the
most widely distributed mammal in the northern hemisphere.

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They have been reduced from 98% of their original range. Ever since
humans came in contact with wolves, they’ve been eliminated.

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For Yellowstone’s other great
predator, the story is the same.

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Once, grizzly bears roamed throughout
the western United States.

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Between 1850 and 1920 which
is a 70-year period,

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humans managed to extirpate grizzly
bears from about 95% of that range.

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And between 1920 and 1970,

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we lost most of what was left. What is true for the
wolf and the grizzly is true for other predators.

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Early settlers moving westward marveled at
the power and grace of wild carnivores,

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but at the same time, they feared
them and tried to exterminate them.

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Certainly it’s legal to protect yourself and
your family. And the fear persists to this day.

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At a public forum in rural Arlington Washington,
state Fish and Game officers teach local residents

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how to avoid dangerous interactions
with cougars and other carnivores.

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Boys, make yourself larger than the
cat, make yourself a real hard target.

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John (inaudible) edits the weekly newspaper
in Washington’s remote Methow Valley.

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Not long after building a home in the
area, John had an unexpected encounter.

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Twenty yards in front of me, I saw the
face of a cougar looking right at me.

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He had a fawn under his paws and
was in the process of killing it.

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Now John (inaudible)takes precautions
appropriate to living in cougar country.

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You cover up your garbage and if
you got chickens or livestock,

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you want to make sure that they’re protected.
Small cats and pets can be vulnerable,

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and so you bring them in at night.
But cougars rarely attack humans.

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The number of attacks over the
past century have averaged

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about one half of a fatality per year and
about two nonfatal attacks per year.

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So if we compare that to almost
anything, even, you know,

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rattlesnake bites, black widow spiders,
getting killed by a domestic dog,

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I’m gonna… it would rank very, very low on
anybody’s list of things to worry about.

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In fact, more Americans die from bee stings or lightning
strikes than from all predatory animals combined.

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Despite his fear of
cougars, John (inaudible)

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believes in protecting them, but until
recently, a few Americans felt like he does.

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And it wasn’t until about the 1960s that people
began to question their view of all predators.

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And up until that time, all predators were
considered bad and the policy was to kill them.

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In some circles, it still is.

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Millions of predators have been killed
in the name of livestock protection.

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Roughly about $10 million each
year is spent to kill wildlife,

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and a lot of this killing is done on public
lands, it’s also done on private lands.

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The killing is done primarily by a
federal agency called Wildlife Services.

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At taxpayer’s expense, animals are
routinely trapped and poisoned.

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Other methods include aerial
gunning where they shoot coyotes

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and other predators from the air from
helicopters or low-flying aircraft.

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And just in 1998, they
killed about 25,000 coyotes

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with this method primarily in the western United
States. Come on, guys. America’s farmers and ranchers

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do face harsh economic realities, losses of livestock can
push smaller operators over the edge into bankruptcy.

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But the reasons for such losses are many.

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Take cattle, for example, of those
that never make it to market,

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only two percent die from animal attacks,
most are lost to extreme weather,

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disease, and other causes. Yet often, wild
animals unfairly take the blame becoming

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scapegoats for the other economic
difficulties facing ranchers,

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and so the killing continues. But
even if it stopped tomorrow,

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the prognosis for predators
would still be troubling.

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Set aside in 1872 as the
world’s first national park,

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Yellowstone is protected country. Here,
bison are hunted nearly to extinction

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on the nearby planes roam freely.
So do elk. Once,

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their numbers were kept in balance by wolves
and bears. Biologists now agree that predators

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are essential to maintaining
healthy ecosystems.

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Large carnivores are often called keystone species
because scientists recognize that without them,

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their prey overpopulate upsetting the
balance of nature. Too many deer

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and elk can strip an area of trees and
grasses leaving the animals to starve.

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Yellowstone needs its bears and wolves,
and they in turn need room to roam.

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The biggest loss or threat to them, of course,
is habitat loss, especially for the bears

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who require an enormous home range because bears
require seasonal food in order to survive,

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which doesn’t necessarily all grow in one area.
So a home range for bear has to be quite large

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to cover all the different foods
that bear’s capable of eating.

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But drawn by its natural beauty, fresh air,

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and pure water, people have been pouring into the
Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem during the past decade.

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New development makes it harder for bears and
other predators to migrate in search of food.

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Just outside Yellowstone Park,

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grizzly bears live out their lives in cages.
Tourists gape at their immense size and power.

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These animals are beautiful,
they’re intelligent,

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they require our protection, they require habitat, they require
basically that we let them be what they are, which is wild animal.

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But it’s too late for these
bears and many others.

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They cannot be released because they
are thought to be a danger to humans.

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They have become conditioned to eating our food, which is too
often left within their reach by careless residents or campers.

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Even in big wilderness
areas like Yellowstone,

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predators face an uncertain future.
But near our cities,

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they often cling to survival
on slender threads.

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They’re getting pushed out,
there’s no place for them to go.

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It’s inevitable as we develop, we’re… we’re going to lose the
wildlife. There isn’t… There’s not gonna be any habitat for them.

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Cindy Traisi and her husband Bob

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had been taking care of animals since she left
a teaching position and he a government job

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to start this wildlife rehabilitation
center near San Diego, California.

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It’s a place where suburban sprawl is
expanding into rural areas forcing people

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in wildlife into unwanted interactions
with tragic consequences for the animals.

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They are routinely hit by cars.

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On one occasion, one was
caught in the leg hold trap.

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Most of the bobcats we deal with come in
as interred adults. We deal with probably

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50, 60, 70 a year, hit by cars
usually, some gunshot wounds,

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some poisonings. Some of the animals
here were shot or trapped trap

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because they attacked pets that had strayed
from suburban homes. Stop it. We’re gonna live

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with the native wildlife around here. It’s our
responsibility to protect our domestic pets,

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that’s… you don’t let your cat’s out,
you don’t let your small dogs out.

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You know, it’s not the predator’s fault.

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Despite the dangers, predators do survive

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just outside big cities. Seth Riley monitors the
health of wildlife in the Santa Monica Mountains

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near Los Angeles where sprawl pushes right to
the boundaries of federally protected land.

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We’re been radio tracking bobcats
and coyotes in this area

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for a number of years now. And the idea is to learn about
how these animals are doing in a very fragmented system.

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What we’ve been finding so far
is that certainly both bobcats

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and coyotes do exist in this…
in this quiet urban area.

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Bobcats and coyotes in this area had been
captured and fitted with radio collars

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so their movements can be tracked. Each
has given a number which corresponds

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to a particular radio frequency. We
get to know the animals especially

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after you’ve been tracking them for awhile, when you’ve been following an
animal for a long time and then it dies, also gets hit by a car or something,

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that’s sort of wrenching it a little bit in
spite of being a scientist or whatever, so.

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Seth Riley knows all too well
the dangers facing wildlife

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in urban areas like this one. But frequent
conversations with local residents

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have convinced him that people want to protect predatory
animals. Most people are really sort of excited

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to… that they hear coyotes at night,
and they want to make sure we’re not

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wanting to kill the animals or anything like that. But
when they find out that we’re trying to protect them

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and preserve the populations,
they’re very excited

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and they all have many stories about this bobcat
that they saw or this coyote that they’ve seen.

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In rural America, as in the suburbs,
attitudes toward predators are changing.

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I figure if I can’t find a way to
coexist with the native species,

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then I shouldn’t be ranching. Becky Weed sells which
she calls predator-friendly lamb and wool products.

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Predator-friendly approach means that we make
a commitment not to shoot or trap or poison

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any native species like coyotes or
wolves or bears or mountain lions.

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Becky had a different attitude

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when she and her husband Dave (inaudible) bought this
ranch outside Bozeman, Montana several years ago.

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When we first started with a
small flock of sheep here,

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within a few weeks actually, we lost a few sheep to
coyotes. And we initially did what everybody does.

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They called Wildlife Services. An
agent came out and shot a coyote.

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Not long afterwards, Becky began looking
for a better way to keep her sheep safe.

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Really the more we harass the coyotes,
the more they tend to harass us.

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There’s lots of evidence that we
tend to select for the cleverest

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of the species by the way
we have harassed coyote.

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Primarily our tool to protect
our flock is guard animal.

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We have a couple of llamas on our place. Come
by. Easy now. Other people use guard dogs

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or Bernerds, but the
llamas are our main tool.

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And also, we use some electric fencing, we… we
rotate the sheep in… in different pastures,

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we… we patrol the pastures at odd hours.

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Overall, really in the last several years, we’ve
been very fortunate. Since we got the llama,

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basically we’ve had almost no losses to coyotes, which
is our principal concern right in this local area.

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I also think that ultimately,
it’s the most practical approach.

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But the native predators
have a role to play.

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And the coyotes, for example, help us
keep the rodent population under control.

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The solution isn’t foolproof. Recently,

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Becky and Dave lost several
sheep to raiding black bears.

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It’s still not a risk-free proposition
and that’s really our main rationale

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for asking a consumer to get involved.
We want people to understand

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what the real costs of agriculture are. And we need
to do our part to try to be ecologically responsible

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and the consumer needs to do
their part to share the burden.

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Becky and Dave are demonstrating by example

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that livestock and wildlife can coexist,
and other ranchers or paying attention.

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Overall, I’m… I’m pretty optimistic. I’m… I think
I’m more optimistic than I was a few years ago.

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We’ve gotten telephone calls from ranchers
all over the country and in Canada.

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It was people who say they don’t feel represented
by the typical Stock Growers Associations

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and they’re intrigued by the idea
of looking for alternatives.

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The change in attitudes extends to other groups who
traditionally saw predators as an enemy to be eliminated.

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I had been hunting ever
since I was old enough

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to carry a gun which in Montana is 12.
And as I grew up,

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really developed a sense of
caring for… for the outdoors

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and that’s what got me
interested in the environment.

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Environmentalists and hunters really should be working
for the same thing, you know, it’s all about habitat.

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The roads and motorized trails really
break up elk habitat and bear habitat.

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I spend a lot of time working to convince the Forest
Service, you know, to close roads into to rehabilitate

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some of the habitat out there that’s been, you know,
impacted or are broken up by roads and motorized trails.

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We’d like to hire… He doesn’t
need to convince Susan Lamont,

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a forest ranger in Yellowstone area.

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Here on the Gallatin National Forest, I’ve
helped obliterate over 100 miles of road.

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Biologists say roads are the
number one threat to wildlife.

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They leave habitat seriously fragmented making
it difficult for species like grizzly bears

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and cougars to avoid
interactions with people.

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To my right is a road that we closed five years ago. Looking
at it, you wouldn’t even know that it used to be a road.

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It’s completely overgrown. There are trees,

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woody debris, grass is coming. This
is 100% effective road closure.

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We work with the public to decide which word
should be obliterated and keep just a minimum…

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there… a minimum network of roads.

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Susan Lamont has no intention

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of keeping people out of the forest. In
fact, she believes her road closures

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are successfully improving animal habitat and the
quality of wilderness experiences for humans as well.

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It’s emotional thing for me.

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And other people may disagree but I find it
a real treat to hear wolves in the morning

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when I walk to work. That’s gonna be one that we
wanted to really make sure we pinned down, so…

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For people like Bill Bryan, who runs a travel business in
Bozeman, protection of predators also makes good economic sense.

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When we did a… a survey of our clients

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about a year ago, our client profile showed that
the number one interests was seeing wildlife.

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They really want to see those animals.

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They want to see them in
a natural surroundings.

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We get time and again people
saying, \"Are we gonna see a bear?

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Are we gonna even see a grizzly bear?\" For somebody
to see a grizzly while they’re out on a hike,

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that’s high adventure, even
if it’s half a mile away.

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Business-wise, if we didn’t have the wolf
and the bear, the Rockies would not be

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as unique a place to go to. In
parts of the United States,

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changing attitudes and popular support have
led to the reintroduction of some species

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to areas from which they’ve been eliminated. The most famous
case was the restoration of Yellowstone’s wolf population.

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We reintroduced 31 wolves in 1995 and 1996.

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The population grew rapidly.
At the beginning

00:18:45.000 --> 00:18:49.999
of this breeding season, in the Yellowstone
ecosystem, we had about 115 to 120 wolves.

00:18:50.000 --> 00:18:54.999
Wolves that do pray on
livestock can be killed,

00:18:55.000 --> 00:18:59.999
but that seldom been necessary so far.

00:19:00.000 --> 00:19:04.999
We’ve tried aversive conditioning techniques
such as firing cracker shells at wolves

00:19:05.000 --> 00:19:09.999
to kind of scare them away from livestock. We built
fencing and flagging. We’ve used electronic sirens.

00:19:10.000 --> 00:19:14.999
We gave ranchers radio receiver
so they can locate wolves.

00:19:15.000 --> 00:19:19.999
And so far in the past six years, we’ve had no abuse
of that. The wolves are doing remarkably well.

00:19:20.000 --> 00:19:24.999
They’re filling their role in the
ecosystem. They’re killing primarily elk.

00:19:25.000 --> 00:19:29.999
They’ve killed a lot fewer cattle and sheep than we had predicted
they would. The decision to reintroduce wolves to Yellowstone

00:19:30.000 --> 00:19:34.999
was made after careful scientific studies and
poll showing overwhelming public support.

00:19:35.000 --> 00:19:39.999
Wolves are now being restored to their
original habitat in the southwest

00:19:40.000 --> 00:19:44.999
and in other areas of the United States
as well. The recipe to success for wolves

00:19:45.000 --> 00:19:49.999
is to have wolves with us, large
contiguous tracks of unsettled wild land,

00:19:50.000 --> 00:19:54.999
places of low human population density.

00:19:55.000 --> 00:19:59.999
We’ve got to save big wild lands.
And by saving big wild lands,

00:20:00.000 --> 00:20:04.999
you can save wolves. Saving big wild lands

00:20:05.000 --> 00:20:09.999
is necessary for the protection of all predators. But
those areas must not be separated from each other

00:20:10.000 --> 00:20:14.999
as islands in a sea of development.
That’s a lesson Claire Schlotterbeck

00:20:15.000 --> 00:20:19.999
learned after she fought to save the open
space near her home in southern California.

00:20:20.000 --> 00:20:24.999
This is one of the world’s 20
hotspots for biodiversity.

00:20:25.000 --> 00:20:29.999
There’s more variety of life in this region than
any region of comparable size in the country,

00:20:30.000 --> 00:20:34.999
which makes it a hotspot. And it’s a
hotspot because it’s falling apart

00:20:35.000 --> 00:20:39.999
being threatened by development. Claire
lives on the edge of the Chino Hills,

00:20:40.000 --> 00:20:44.999
grassy rolling country north of the
high tree-covered Santa Ana Mountains.

00:20:45.000 --> 00:20:49.999
The Santa Anas are part of
Cleveland National Forest,

00:20:50.000 --> 00:20:54.999
while the Chino Hills are protected by a state
park Claire fought to create back in 1980.

00:20:55.000 --> 00:20:59.999
Fifteen million people live within
an hour’s drive of the area.

00:21:00.000 --> 00:21:04.999
The state park and national forest are
separated by a busy freeway. And by this deep

00:21:05.000 --> 00:21:09.999
(inaudible) called Coal Canyon. For wildlife, Coal
Canyon provides what ecologists call connectivity,

00:21:10.000 --> 00:21:14.999
the corridor between large
protected open spaces.

00:21:15.000 --> 00:21:19.999
And they all use this river of life to flow

00:21:20.000 --> 00:21:24.999
from the big large open space of the Cleveland
National Forest to Chino Hill state Park and beyond.

00:21:25.000 --> 00:21:29.999
A few years ago, a major housing project was
planned for the lower part of Coal Canyon.

00:21:30.000 --> 00:21:34.999
Biologists Paul Buyer and park ranger
Gary Hun warned conservationists

00:21:35.000 --> 00:21:39.999
that the development would block predator
migration, dooming mountain lions and bobcats

00:21:40.000 --> 00:21:44.999
and threatening the entire ecosystem.
It made me realize

00:21:45.000 --> 00:21:49.999
that everything I’d worked for
the last 20 years as a volunteer

00:21:50.000 --> 00:21:54.999
in establishing Chino Hill State Park was at
risk and that unless we connected Coal Canyon

00:21:55.000 --> 00:21:59.999
to the Cleveland National Forest, everything
I’d spent 20 years working on would be gone.

00:22:00.000 --> 00:22:04.999
So Claire looked for a way to
stop the proposed subdivision.

00:22:05.000 --> 00:22:09.999
She persuaded other people to come and see Coal
Canyon and join with her in the effort to save it.

00:22:10.000 --> 00:22:14.999
And we formed a very big coalition
to help stop the development

00:22:15.000 --> 00:22:19.999
and purchased the land. But
it was very expensive land

00:22:20.000 --> 00:22:24.999
because it was entitled and ready to build.

00:22:25.000 --> 00:22:29.999
In fact, they had to raise
$50 million to buy the land.

00:22:30.000 --> 00:22:34.999
They got it from individuals, corporations,
municipalities, foundations,

00:22:35.000 --> 00:22:39.999
and the state park system. But we
had to fight for every dollar.

00:22:40.000 --> 00:22:44.999
November 2000, Claire Schlotterbeck
and her fellow activists

00:22:45.000 --> 00:22:49.999
celebrate victories as Coal Canyon is
officially added to Chino Hill State Park

00:22:50.000 --> 00:22:54.999
guaranteeing the predators will always
have a corridor between the hills

00:22:55.000 --> 00:22:59.999
and the high Santa Ana’s. Citizen action to
save the canyon was a resounding success.

00:23:00.000 --> 00:23:04.999
Perhaps more importantly, it was a victory
for the principle of connectivity.

00:23:05.000 --> 00:23:09.999
And it redefined state parks priorities

00:23:10.000 --> 00:23:14.999
and, in fact, it’s been called a
watershed moment in state parks

00:23:15.000 --> 00:23:19.999
because now they’re the first state agency to get it.
They understand that all the state parks they’ve saved

00:23:20.000 --> 00:23:24.999
are at risk unless they connect
them to other large open spaces.

00:23:25.000 --> 00:23:29.999
And I hope it can serve as a real inspiring examples to
say, \"Okay, let’s look at the map. Where do we go next?\"

00:23:30.000 --> 00:23:34.999
We need to set aside more land now,

00:23:35.000 --> 00:23:39.999
it’s never going to get any cheaper.
By any standard, 50 years from now,

00:23:40.000 --> 00:23:44.999
the land that we would buy today is cheap.
You often hear from politicians that…

00:23:45.000 --> 00:23:49.999
that there’s no money to do these kinds of things.
There is money for anything we place priority upon.

00:23:50.000 --> 00:23:54.999
Even in the inner cities, they’re saying, \"We
want more parks. We want places to recreate.

00:23:55.000 --> 00:23:59.999
We’re worried about the mental health of our
children. We’re worried about the discipline

00:24:00.000 --> 00:24:04.999
and the delinquency problems of our
children. And we see parks, we see refuges,

00:24:05.000 --> 00:24:09.999
and wildlife areas to take our children
to teach them different values

00:24:10.000 --> 00:24:14.999
than they learn in a concrete jungle. We’re
gonna play a predator prey game right now.

00:24:15.000 --> 00:24:19.999
And the coyotes have to bring

00:24:20.000 --> 00:24:24.999
their prey over to their den. These
Orange County, California school children

00:24:25.000 --> 00:24:29.999
are learning nature’s values through a game that
lets some of them be predators and the rest prey.

00:24:30.000 --> 00:24:34.999
They discover how important predators
are to the delicate balance of nature.

00:24:35.000 --> 00:24:39.999
They will understand more deeply
than did generations before them

00:24:40.000 --> 00:24:44.999
why saving land and wildlife matters.
And also, coyotes are…

00:24:45.000 --> 00:24:49.999
From Los Angeles to Yellowstone, from the
Southern Rockies to the Northern Appalachians,

00:24:50.000 --> 00:24:54.999
Americans are learning that people and
predators can coexist in harmony and balance.

00:24:55.000 --> 00:24:59.999
We’ve already witnessed a revolution,

00:25:00.000 --> 00:25:04.999
going from seeing them as commodities is just meat
on the hoof, to where we genuinely cherish them

00:25:05.000 --> 00:25:09.999
and we’ve done lots of things for them. And I think there’s
no reason why that transformation has to stop now.

00:25:10.000 --> 00:25:14.999
I think it’s gonna continue. And that’s
gonna be the salvation of large carnivores.

00:25:15.000 --> 00:25:19.999
Ultimately, the decision to save predators

00:25:20.000 --> 00:25:24.999
is not just about science, it’s
about us, about our values,

00:25:25.000 --> 00:25:29.999
and the maturity of our civilization,
about our appreciation of the right

00:25:30.000 --> 00:25:34.999
of all species to live freely on this
earth. We can assure that our children

00:25:35.000 --> 00:25:39.999
and all children to come inherit a
world still filled with the beauty,

00:25:40.000 --> 00:25:44.999
magic, and power of these wild animals.
It’s up to us.

00:25:45.000 --> 00:25:50.000
[music]

00:26:25.000 --> 00:26:30.000
[sil.]