Conservation Northwest protects and connects old-growth forests and other wild areas from the Washington Coast to the British Columbia Rockies, vital to a healthy future for us, our children, and wildlife. Since 1989, Conservation Northwest has worke
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Gaining ground Stories from the field Telling it our way The heart of Conservation Northwest is 16 staff. In this newsletter, using stories from the field, we celebrate 2012. Each of us relates a top moment for our work, a moment of "aha" or discovery. It's our chance to share the lesser known things we accomplish with the big, wild world and with you, our supporters. Together, we are making way for wildlife, as we protect, connect, and restore habitat in Washington and across the border into British Columbia. Our team, November 2012. Jeff DeBonis the fruitful path To wolf recovery Every day I am reminded of the intelligence of wolves, and as special projects director at Conservation Northwest, aiding recovery of Washington's wolves is my focus. My German shepherd Abbey never lets me forget it. Being the watered down domesticated version of Canis lupus, Abbey consistently amazes me with her ability to think, problem solve, communicate, and feel emotions on a relatively complex level. I can only imagine how much more heightened and intense these behaviors are in wild wolves. For me, this explains why so many people are passionate about wolves. I've been amazed at the number of wolf groups and wolf-related Facebook pages that have surfaced in recent years. But this year—more than any other—challenged me, as a self-proclaimed wolf lover, to put aside my own personal beliefs and feelings about the animal and consider what it will really take to have populations of wolves back in their home range across North America. And the big lesson I learned was this: compassion. It will take compassion. Not just for the wolves, but also for the people affected by their return. Too often I see wolf advocates discounting the direct effects wolves might have on people's lives. It's easy to react with defensiveness to the heated rhetoric out there that so obviously overstate impacts that wolves are having on the landscape. It's easy to react with anger when we see so many wolves being needlessly killed in the West. It's easy to cite statistics that show that only 1% of livestock losses are attributable to wolves. But what this approach ignores is the reality that there are people—whether it be an individual rancher, a hunter who Keeping the Northwest wild Jasmine Minbashian Special projects director, jasmine@conservationnw.org has spent his life hunting elk to feed his family, or a hiker who loves going out with his dog—who will be directly affected by the return of wolves. It doesn't mean overstating the impacts or using them as an excuse to eliminate wolves all over again across the West. But it means starting an open, honest dialogue about solutions that allow big toothy critters like wolves to coexist on the landscape with people. And that is much harder to do than react emotionally. Everyday I come to work, the words of wolf biologist Doug Smith from the film, Land of the Lost Wolves, echoing in my head. "We need this group in the middle that's willing to compromise on having wolves some places and not others, and that's going to be a much more fruitful path to solving our wolf issues." After the experiences of this year with the highs of seeing packs double in the state, but at the same time going through a "worse case scenario" with the Wedge Pack, I am committed to the wise words from Doug more than ever. Wolves need middle ground. © BBC/Discovery Channel