Wildlife and Wildways: Join the Rewilding Revolution
A broad swath of unbroken expanse in southern Arizona, where jaguars roam © Eric Trefney
Rewilding is paramount and our north star. Join us and make a donation today. Thank you in advance for your support!
The entire planet felt the seismic shift that just happened, a serious setback in ways we don’t even yet know. In the weeks, months, and years to come, we will find out what we are as a society and people. And we will dig in our claws to relentlessly protect wildlife and wildways, carnivores and connectivity.
We will also foster a bold, hopeful vision for the future. At The Rewilding Institute, we believe most people want a better world. We sure do, and know that you do as well. We appreciate your support now more than ever before.
In dark times, bright lights do come out. Maybe the greatest value of rewilding is in its inspiration. Rewilding shows us that we don’t have to put up with the continued crash of wildlife species and exploitation of wild places, that not everything is collapsing. We can advance continental-scale actions that are bigger, better, and wilder.
Dave Foreman never saw conservation as a partisan issue. He taught us to sit across the table from anyone willing to protect nature. Dave embraced any opportunity to collaborate with those who wanted to leave a wild legacy; a shared passion for conservation was all that mattered. Listening to him talk was a masterclass in how bipartisan support can get big things done, from wilderness bills and national park creation to endangered species protections.
This is the foundation upon which The Rewilding Institute was built. While we aren’t naive about the current political temperature, we recognize that it is essential to work with anyone who shares a modicum of Aldo Leopold’s Land Ethic. Backed by the lessons Dave left us, we are optimistic that wilderness restoration can transcend politics.
Through our team’s actions this year and the groundwork we laid for long-term rewilding projects, we feel ready for this moment. This is how we make our world more wild.…
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“A key focus for The Rewilding Institute is to be a portal for people to step through,
so they go from being somebody who watches nature shows on TV to somebody who steps outside and gets involved in helping rewild nature.” – Dave Foreman
REWILDING EARTH
If you ever feel like you need to hone your ecological vision, our Rewilding Earth podcast is the place to turn. Each episode is timeless, and hopeful, with the voices of activists, conservationists, scientists, and thinkers. The podcast not only connects listeners to a broad catalog of people and organizations doing great work, its extra credit section provides ways to get involved.
Some of our favorite episodes this year included the campaign for red wolves in North Carolina and a deep audio dive into the conservation challenges on the U.S.-Mexico border. Jaguars were a recurring theme that extended from Arizona to Argentina.
During her podcast appearance, Kris Tompkins said she believes rewilders are not thinking big enough if we are thinking about actions we can accomplish in our lifetimes. She includes herself in that. “We have to be as bold as possible and don’t take anything as being too difficult or too scary. Because we have nothing to lose. Remember that.”
The Rewilding Earth podcast is now approaching a quarter million downloads. Thank you for being part of our core audience. Without you, it would be nothing more than a whisper in a hurricane. Going forward, we intend to produce more frequent content, and we already have a long list of guests in the queue.
Alongside the podcast, we shared dozens of stories this year through our website and in our weekly Rewilding Earth emails. These resources are a megaphone to distribute news, compel action, and bring more people into the rewilding movement. Some posts have even gone viral, like a summertime essay that reflected on 10 years since dam removal on the Elwha River.
In the New Year, we will add a field editor who will bring more original content and generate the big-picture thinking we all need. We will also revamp the information hub that is our website, a home for articles, papers, opinion pieces, and strategic thinking on the science, policies, and practices needed to advance rewilding. The new website will encourage discussion and engagement, and it will be designed to catalyze action.
A favorite ecosystem engineer: Beavers make frequent appearances on the podcast. Expect that to continue. We co-sponsored BeaverCON this year, the preeminent gathering of beaver experts and aficionados. Now our intrepid host is eager to fit beavers into every podcast.
Beaver © Eric Trefney
BRING BACK THE JAGUAR
We support wolf, jaguar, puma, and grizzly bear conservation and restoration wherever they are native and could thrive. For the jaguar, that means large parts of Arizona, New Mexico, and Sonora.
Confirmed earlier this year, the newest U.S. jaguar, O:ṣhad Ñu:kudam, followed his predecessors’ footsteps on a trail that leads to vast areas of rugged habitat and abundant prey.
What O:ṣhad shows us: These places are still wild, we still have our apex predator, and the U.S.-Mexico border is still porous enough that jaguars can cross it. Jaguars are telling us with their movements that they need access to both sides of the border. We need this new jaguar to be a catalyst for protecting habitat and keeping linkages open between core areas.
Our focus this year centered on raising awareness that jaguars are at home in the desert Southwest so more people advocate for their recovery. We also set out to build a coalition of organizations to create more cohesion, communication, and effectiveness as we safeguard borderland cats. This vital work will continue to gather steam in the months ahead.
© Lauren Strohacker
Jaguar rising: We backed artist Lauren Strohacker to create larger-than-life projections to bring attention to the damage the border wall inflicts on wildlife. We continue work to protect those places that have not been walled off, where habitat and connectivity remain intact.
There is a spark that keeps us going. Three days after the presidential election, we hosted an energetic, standing room-only meeting of our budding coalition. All the great minds were there: Anti-border wall experts, landowners and Mexican conservation organizations, and researchers from the U.S. brought the science. Everyone agrees there has got to be hope.
The needs are so much greater now, threats are everywhere, and yet we also have some real opportunities to build upon. One of these is pursuing work in the corridor between protected hotspots in Sonora. We call this the El Tigre Wildway. It is where jaguars roam and where we can make a difference by promoting coexistence with our wild neighbors.
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“Your efforts are truly admirable and impressed me greatly. You have such important
insights of what needs to be done and the determination to accomplish your
goals in the years ahead.” – George Schaller to The Rewilding Institute
WILDWAYS AND BEYOND
Other places we continue on-the-ground work include the Mogollon Wildway, important for Mexican gray wolves. This wildlife movement corridor extends from the Grand Canyon to the Gila Wilderness, where we had an informative gathering and strategy session to mark its centennial earlier this year.
In the Northeast, we supported healing-edge road ecology work for the Adirondack to Algonquin Wildway, and we assisted land trusts in securing critical acreage in the Split Rock Wildway, linking the Champlain Valley with the Adirondack High Peaks.
We helped establish and facilitate the Northeast Wolf Recovery Alliance to advance protections for wolves, identify their presence, and protect wild canids across the region. We also are working to strengthen State Wildlife Action Plans and include keystone species as priorities.
We unabashedly advocate for missing species, wolves, and cougars. © Eric Trefney
The value of The Rewilding Institute is in the places we help protect and with the people we inspire to take action for wild beings. We start with the assumptions that all natural creatures are inherently good and that most of the world should be wild, and we keep working tirelessly to achieve that abundant, diverse future.
We want to personally thank you for making our work possible. Our goal is to raise $50,000 by year end. Your involvement is essential, and we appreciate every single donation. On behalf of those who need big, wild, connected habitats – the cougars and wolves and jaguars – we look forward to hearing from you soon.
Ever grateful to you,
John Davis, Executive Director
Jack Humphrey, Outreach Director
Katie Shepard, Managing Editor
Megan “Turtle” Southern, Jaguar Recovery Coordinator
Nadia Steinzor, Northeast Carnivore Coordinator
Jolie Coursin, Financial Administrator
The Rewilding Institute (TRI) mission is to explore and share tactics and strategies to advance continental-scale conservation and restoration in North America and beyond. We focus on the need for large carnivores and protected wildways for their movement; and we offer a bold, scientifically credible, practically achievable, and hopeful vision for the future of wild Nature and human civilization on planet Earth. Subscribe | Support