Episode 162: Inside Dave Parsons’ Battle to Bring Back El Lobo and the Decades of Carnivore Advocacy That Followed

Summary

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Episode Overview

Podcast: Rewilding Earth
Episode: 162: Inside Dave Parsons’ Battle to Bring Back El Lobo and the Decades of Carnivore Advocacy That Followed
Host: Jack Humphrey
Guest: Dave Parsons, former leader of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Mexican Wolf Recovery Program
Date: November 28, 2025

This episode delves into the pivotal, decades-long efforts to restore the Mexican Gray Wolf ("El Lobo") to the American Southwest, focusing on Dave Parsons’ leadership. The discussion explores the bureaucratic, scientific, and deeply personal challenges of carnivore restoration, the political and social landscape of wolf recovery, philosophies of effective conservation, and reflections on what it means to fight for wild nature over a lifetime.

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Main Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Origins and Struggles of Mexican Wolf Recovery

[02:41 – 08:05]

• Dave Parsons’ Start (1990):
  Parsons recounts how he became the first person to head the Mexican Wolf Recovery Program, an effort that faced initial opposition from state and federal agencies.

  "The federal agency U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had made an announcement that they were just going to give up on Mexican wolves and terminate the project... That sparked the very first lawsuit of many, many more that succeeded to get the project on track." (A, 02:41)

• Legal Mandates: The Endangered Species Act forced agency commitment, despite reluctance.

  "They had an obligation that couldn't be avoided under the Endangered Species Act." (A, 04:02)

• Political vs. Scientific Tensions:
  Parsons faced pressure to recommend ecologically inappropriate sites (e.g., White Sands Missile Range), due to back-room deals and political considerations, but persisted in following the science.

  "Our team decided to follow the science which is what's required... and we just couldn't make that happen." (A, 07:12)
  "That pesky science always getting in the way of political ideologies and goals." (B, 07:59)

2. Fieldwork, Public Engagement, and Emotional Resonance

[10:10 – 18:12]

• The Power (and Challenge) of Field Work:
  Parsons and Humphrey reminisce about the intensity, unpredictability, and camaraderie of field monitoring—ranging from logistically complex releases (amid blizzards and media crowds) to transformative wilderness experiences.

• The “$50,000 Wolf Howl” Story:
  Parsons shares a deeply moving story—guiding a foundation principal to a Mexican wolf release site; her emotional response to a wolf howl inspired major philanthropy.

  "It was just like a river of tears coming down her face... Following that, she made a series of donations... the last count I made was well over $50,000. So that’s what I call the $50,000 wolf howl." (A, 00:05 & 15:12–18:12)

  "You gotta love it to save it." (B, 18:12)

3. Political Realities and Setbacks in Wolf Recovery

[19:05 – 29:37]

• Federal–State Conflict:
  Legislation like Senator Tester's 2011 rider removed protections for Northern Rockies wolves, setting a dangerous precedent.

  "[Tester] stuck a piece of legislation into a budget bill... that took the Northern Rockies wolves off the endangered species list... and said this legislation can't be subject to judicial review... That’s why we have the mess we have in the Northern Rockies." (A, 19:39)

• Population Minimums vs. Ecological Health:
  Roiling debate over wolf numbers—survival vs. ecological function.

  "Populations and extinction are two different things. We’re not necessarily trying to save a species from going extinct. We’re trying to build a population that's ecologically more appropriate." (B, 22:32)
  "...agencies have never embraced that concept." (A, 23:01)

• The Limits of Policy:
  Agencies default to minimum viable populations, disregarding the ecosystem-restoration intent of the Endangered Species Act.

  "What gets created... is what I call just a wild extension of zoos... Mexican wolves are on a path to [extinction] that the agencies aren’t even beginning to address because of the genetics." (A, 26:32)

4. Reflections from Brazil: Inspiration from the Wild

[27:23 – 33:18]

• Parsons’ Personal Pilgrimage to the Pantanal:
  Stressing the need for conservationists to rejuvenate, Dave describes traveling to Brazil's Pantanal—seeing jaguars, giant anteaters, a "lifer" American pygmy kingfisher.

  "Those who fight to save the wild need to take a break and go enjoy it from time to time... It did not disappoint." (A, 27:23) "Yeah, wow, [giant anteaters] do exist. Unless I was hallucinating." (A, 28:48)

• A Joy for Birds:
  Appreciating nature for its own sake as a “bird watcher,” not just a “life-lister.”

  "A bird watcher is a birder who’s out to enjoy the animals, to observe their behavior, to not just identify them... but to spend some time, you know, watching what they do, how they live in the world." (A, 31:01)

5. Comparing International and U.S. Conservation Models

[33:18 – 37:36]

• Easier Rewilding Abroad?
  The relative speed of large carnivore reintroductions in South America comes down to simpler land ownership structures and fewer political obstacles—whereas in the U.S., public lands are deeply contested.

  "We've got the public land in the United States, but... political opposition... small factions of naysayers... have way more influence than would seem reasonable." (A, 33:18)

• Multiple Use Doctrine as a Barrier:
  The 1960 Multiple Use and Sustained Yield Act mandates competing uses for public lands, undermining wildlife even when they’re supposed to have “co-equal” status.

  "Nature conservation and wildlife conservation is supposed to be addressed on an equal basis... but... conservation is supposed to have an equal chance to thrive on our public lands." (A, 37:36)

6. Wildlands Network & Conservation Strategies for the Future

[38:10 – 41:03]

• The Buffer/Network Model:
  Challenges of creating a tapestry of connected cores, corridors, and buffers, and why this network approach is so important in a fragmented landownership/political reality.

  "We are coming up with the ideas... of a tapestry of connected cores of buffer zones... so wolves can get from point A to point B... it's also a very slow going process." (B, 38:10)

• Political “Windows of Opportunity”:
  Progress is nonlinear; conservationists must seize rare openings, as with Mexican wolf and Yellowstone wolf releases under Clinton/Babbitt.

  "Conservation success doesn't come in a constant rising line on a graph... It's political windows of opportunity when you make gains." (A, 39:33)

7. The Ongoing Political Fight & Need for Engagement

[41:03 – 43:30]

• Importance of Voting and Political Engagement:
  The future of conservation hinges on administration policies; sometimes the main tactic becomes merely holding the line until a better climate emerges.

  "Right now we're in that game of trying to hold on to what we've got. Wait for better times." (A, 41:57)

8. Advice for Young Conservationists

[43:30 – 46:23]

• Role of Agency Insiders:
  Having committed, science-driven biologists within agencies is crucial; whistleblower protections exist, but the path can be difficult.

  "If we have good biologists working for the agencies with integrity... to actually break the law and push forward and resist that, we have to have that." (A, 43:30)

• The Conservation–Agency Relationship:
  The outside advocacy community's support is essential; both "inside" and "outside" strategies are necessary to achieve meaningful change.

9. The Problem of Agency Culture and Leadership

[46:23 – 51:26]

• Agencies’ Shifting Constituency:
  Over time, agencies like the Fish and Wildlife Service have drifted toward serving extraction-friendly interests.

  "The Fish and Wildlife Service major constituency... ought to be the conservation community. And it has never been..." (A, 47:56)

• Leadership That Hinders Conservation:
  The current (at time of recording) director of USFWS, formerly from Wyoming Game and Fish, presides over policies antithetical to wolf recovery.

  "What’s going on in Wyoming? The worst wolf slaughter we’ve ever seen... Drives me nuts when incoming president thinks that a former director of a state game and fish agency has the proper credentials to be the Director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service..." (A, 50:07)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• The $50,000 Wolf Howl:

  "It was just like a river of tears coming down her face... That’s what I call the $50,000 wolf howl." (A, 00:05 & 15:12)

• On Living the Work:

  "I've been wilderness backpacking for 50 years... The Gila is the only place that I’ve repeated the same trip multiple times." (A, 15:12)

• On Politics and Science:

  "That pesky science always getting in the way of political ideologies and goals." (B, 07:59)

• On Agency Dynamics:

  "It drives me crazy that the Fish and Wildlife Service still looks at the conservation community as their enemy and not their friend..." (A, 47:56)

• On What Conservation Really Means:

  "We’re not necessarily trying to save a species from going extinct. We’re trying to build a population that's ecologically more appropriate." (B, 22:32)

• On Insider–Outsider Collaboration:

  "You gotta play the inside game to get something done that the conservation community playing the outside game has something to... support." (A, 45:45)

• On Enduring Activism:

  "When you care about something, it's hard to quit caring about it." (A, 53:17)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:05 — The $50,000 Wolf Howl story
• 02:41–08:05 — Early struggles and lawsuit leading to wolf recovery program
• 10:10–13:32 — Fieldwork anecdotes and emotional resonance
• 15:12–18:12 — Powerful impact of direct experiences in wolf country
• 19:39–26:32 — Dangers of legislative rollbacks and under-ambitious recovery goals
• 27:23–31:46 — Inspiration from the Pantanal, joy in watching wildlife
• 33:18–37:36 — Contrast: U.S. vs. South American rewilding; public lands as battleground
• 38:10–41:03 — Importance and slowness of wildlands network designs
• 41:03–43:30 — Political cycles, voting, and conservation setbacks
• 43:30–46:23 — Advice to aspiring conservationists on inside–outside strategies
• 47:56–51:26 — Critique of agency culture and problematic leadership
• 53:17 — Lifelong commitment to the cause

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Concluding Thoughts

This episode offers a rich, first-person account of both the victories and ongoing battles in wolf recovery and North American conservation. Parsons’ career—spanning fieldwork, agency leadership, and nonprofit advocacy—illustrates the immense personal, political, and philosophical challenges at the heart of rewilding. His advice, memories, and candid assessments provide unique insight for anyone invested in the fate of wild nature and those fighting, against the odds, to rewild the Earth.

Transcript

[A]

We got to the little knob in the dead middle of the Gila Wilderness was the actual release site for those wolves. And I was telling the story and I turned and looked at this woman and there were tears running down her face. She got so emotional about it. So then she asked me if I would do a wolf howl and so I did. I have to believe it might be the best wolf howl I've ever done. And then I turned and looked at her again and it was just like a river of tears coming down her face and it was super emotional experience for her. Following that, he made a series of donations to various a lot of them based on her asking me who she should give money to. That the last count I made was well over $50,000. So that's what I call the $50,000 wolf howl, which you've heard.

[B]

You're listening to the Rewilding Earth podcast. I'm your host Jack Humphrey. Dave Parsons is a pivotal figure in North American carnivore conservation. His career has been defined by on the ground work, most notably his Leadership of the U.S. fish and Wildlife Service's Mexican Wolf Recovery Program. Dave was instrumental in bringing the lobo back to wild Arizona and New Mexico, a monumental conservation achievement. Following his tenure with U.S. fish and Wildlife, Dave brought his deep ecological experience to the Rewilding Institute, serving as our carnivore conservation biologist as he continues to champion the science based coexistence of native carnivores. His dedication spans decades, showcasing his commitment to restoring biodiversity and the integrity of wild ecosystems. To kick things off, I asked Dave to take us back to the beginning to give us some history on the historic Mexican Wolf reintroduction program.

[A]

Well, it's been 35 years since the beginning. That was 1990, when through a series of completely unpredictable career paths, I got the job to be the first person to run the Mexican wolf recovery program. Got off to a pretty rocky start in that the federal agency U.S. fish and Wildlife Service had made an announcement that they were just going to give up on Mexican wolves and terminate the project because they couldn't get any support from the states for places to release wolves. The agency had made a pact with state Game and fish directors and other federal agency directors that they wouldn't release the wolves over the objection of any other government entity. And of course they all objected. The states didn't want wolves and the other federal agencies didn't want that headache on their properties like the Bureau of Land Management or even the Army. At White Sands Missile Range, though, the regional director called a press conference that said we're terminating a project. Well, that. That sparked the very first lawsuit of many, many more that succeeded to get the project on track to force the agency to actually do their job under the Endangered Species act, which required them to take action to restore the Mexican wolf because it was placed on the list of endangered species in 1976. And that lawsuit prevailed. And the agencies realized that they didn't have a case because they had an obligation that was. Couldn't be avoided under the Endangered Species Act. So they chose to settle the case. And the case was settled under the conditions that the U.S. fish and Wildlife Service would continue and initiate a program to restore and recover the Mexican wool, that they would hire a project biologist whose sole job was to run that program and that that biologist would remain in that position as long as Mexico wolf remained on the endangered species list, which it still does for this day, 35 years later. I saw that job advertised, came home from work, looked at my wife across the table, and said, I think I'm going to apply for this because looks like a job I might be interested in. And I did. And I got hired in fall of 1990 and began the process. Took a full eight years of what in the agency we called the BS and paperwork part of any project. You get get the approvals. The wolf projects were unique in that in most cases, regional directors of the Fish and Wildlife Service had decision authority. But Bruce Babbitt, who was Secretary of Interior at the time, did not delegate down any authority for decisions on any of the wolf programs. The red wolf, Yellowstone, and the Mexican gray wolf. Though the final go ahead had to come from Bruce Babbitt himself, which made for quite, quite an interesting process. We held 24 public meetings and hearings all over the Southwest, which were quite interesting. Got a few people yelling in my face at those making dire predictions about my future, things like that. But we managed to get through it. We got our environmental impact statement written and approved in 1996, and by 1998, we had the final piece of paper signed by Bruce Babbitt to go forward with the project. There's a lot more drama in there that we could talk about about where to put the wolves in that. The area I recommended was not the area my bosses were recommending to me to recommend, and. But that area was the White Sands Missile Range. And there was no possible way that that could be shown with the best available science to be the best place for wolves. So we resisted that.

[B]

That sounded like it was politically expedient.

[A]

Not ecologically, absolutely Totally political expedient. And actually promises had been made that I wasn't told about by high level fish and wildlife folks to states and others that that's where it would take place with swag and missile reach. But that information was kept from me except that I got told directly by my regional boss more than once that I should do everything I could do to make quite sense missile range the preferred alternative. Our team decided to follow the science which is what's required by efficient by the Endangered Species act. And we just couldn't make that happen.

[B]

That pesky science always getting in the way of political ideologies and goals.

[A]

Yeah. So we prevailed. Not because my bosses were in favor of my recommendation, but Bruce Babbitt was. And somebody, somebody got the Bruce Babbitt and explained to him that was the best place for wolves. Even though that the area where his family ranched he was all for it.

[B]

The only thing that I really remember are two things. One really good thing was really fun and impactful. Was working with now Senator Martin Heinrich, then activist Heinrich and me and several others on wolf reintroduction acclimation pins in Ladder Ranch at Ted Turner's. I never got to see a wolf in the wild, but I feel connected to the program just because I did some work on that. And also those howling surveys where you had to prove that in the Endangered Species act you have to prove that the species does not exist at all, not even one, one wolf before you can reintroduce. Am I remembering that correctly?

[A]

You're remembering that correctly, except that's the Provision of Section 10J is the experimental population rule. And there you have to prove because you put the animals out with less protection than the full force of the Endangered Species Act. But you have to prove there aren't any wild ones already out there. The Fish and Wildlife Service could in every case they've done reintroductions, reintroduce animals with the full protection of the Endangered Species act. But ever since 10J was put into the act they've always used the experimental non essential classification because it gives the agency the most flexibility to do what what the naysayers want to be done and make the those programs more palatable to those who oppose them on ranchers and state game and fish agencies. So yes, we had to prove there weren't any holes left in the wild.

[B]

Well, that was a formative time for me and a lot of people who were volunteering for that kind of work because we'd be out in some pretty remote places. And I remember one Night, when we were coming back, we had already gotten back to camp and the headlights of another group just stopped in the forest road a distance from our camp. But we could see their lights had stopped and they'd stopped for, I don't know, maybe 30 minutes. And we were just about to go down and see if they were having trouble. We knew they'd be hungry. We knew they'd had a long day like we did, and. And then the lights started moving. They came up and they were in the best mood ever. And they were just staring down a fox in the road. For that ent time, a fox had just popped up and was curious about the headlights and sat in front of their Jeep for all of that time. And they let him stay as long as he wanted. And it was experiences like that, too, that we were all out there. We were doing really great work. We felt really like we were contributing to something really, really big and then just had all kinds of side experiences like that were really, really cool and. And fun. Nothing like you carrying a wolf in with Bruce Babbitt and having the TV crews and everything there. But we felt like we were doing some pretty important stuff.

[A]

Yeah, you were. And I wanted to go back to reflect on the fact that Martin Heinrich, who's now our senior senator in New Mexico, was part of that team that was doing that work under the auspices of the AmeriCorps program. He remains a strong supporter of our program to this day, which is really fortunate. Yeah. I have to tell you that one day of that involved getting Bruce Babbitt to Larry A Wolf out to a Pin was not exactly fun. It was a nightmare of logistics, but we got it done.

[B]

Yeah, I heard you had to go quite a long distance.

[A]

Well, it turned out to be longer because it happened in the middle of a blizzard, and we had to use snow machines instead of vehicles to get down that forest road to where the pen was built. It was about two, two and a half miles down that road to where the pen was. And all that had to be done with snow machines.

[B]

So the image of you and Babbitt is a lot more glamorous than what actually took place the day of depends.

[A]

On how you describe glamour. What you don't see behind that image is the bank of about 25 reporters and cameramen. And all the national networks had sent folks out to record this thing. We had to rope off an area to keep all that contained so we could carry out the ceremony with Babbitt. But it was. Yeah, it was a bit of a logistical nightmare. But we got it done. What we did two weeks later, the next release was done quietly with no fan pair, no media, just project biologists doing the release. In the next a different pen of wolves. So we got to have our fun, too.

[B]

I wonder about the emotion that ran through everyone as you're doing this. The scientists and the Fish and Wildlife staffers and other people and you, as you look back on it, what kind of feelings does that drum up to this day? What's it like to have been involved in a program like that?

[A]

Definitely a sense of accomplishment for anybody with a career in wildlife biology has these kinds of accomplishments or rare and few between and so be having been in charge of and the prime mover of that is something that I'll carry with me for in my last days and have, you know, a feeling of accomplishment and pride about. It's hard for people always want me to go in the direction of woo woo on this, but that's not where I go.

[B]

Yeah, well, where you do go is back to the Gila just about every year ever since then, right? I mean, you. You've made a lot of visits back to not the scene of the crime, but the scene of the success. And you've seen wolves in the wild. You've howled with them and got them to respond. You've taken potential funders out to show them what it's like to be in wolf country, what it's like to. What it feels like to be there. And I know that you can make them quite emotional even if you stay a little bit on the other end of things. So maybe you can talk a little bit about that. Any one of the stories that you'd like to share about the countless visits that you've had in the Gila and other places since then.

[A]

Oh, wow. Well, there have been a lot of them. And, you know, I. I've been wilderness backpacking, oh, for 50 years. And the. This area, the Gila, and this particular area, the Gila is the only place that I've repeated the same trip multiple times. And I've actually lost count of how many times that is, but it's a lot. And because every time I talk to people about it and how wonderful a place that is and how special it is, and especially now with the wolves back, they say, well, I want to go there. And I'll say, well, I'll take you there. And so out we go again. But probably my most memorable was a trip that involved a woman who was a principal in a family foundation that was prone to giving Grants to environmental groups. And I won't name any names, but. And it was a trip organized by the New Mexico Wilderness alliance at that time, a small group. And so I'd taken this Weaver camp just down on the middle fork of the Gila river, just about a three and a half mile hike in where we had a base camp. And it was another seven miles to the location where the first wolves were released into the Gila wilderness in year 2000. And I offered up a hike to that place for anybody who wanted to do it then the next day. And out of the half a dozen or eight or so people there, there are only two people who said they wanted to do that hike. And it was this woman and her. Another woman who was her friend. So we hiked that seven miles one way, which meant 14 miles both ways. And we got to the little knob in the middle. Dead middle of the Gila Wilderness was the actual release site for those wolves. And I was telling the story, and I turned and looked at this woman, and she was. There were tears running down her face. She got so emotional about it. And so then she asked me if I would do a wolf howl. And so I did. And I have to believe it might be the best wolf howl I've ever done. And then I turned and looked at her again, and it was just like a river of tears coming down her face. And it was super emotional experience for her. Following that, he had. He made a series of donations to various environmental groups, a lot of them based on her asking me who she should give money to. That the less count I made was well over $50,000. So that's what I call the $50,000 wolf howl, which you've heard about before.

[B]

Yeah, that's why I wanted everyone else to hear that story, because that's an. That's more of an inner circle thing. That is now no longer an inner circle thing, because I think that's just amazing. You know, Dave Foreman and. And a lot of people have said that the only way to get real progress on conservation is for people to know what they're fighting for. How can they care about it if they never get out and they never, in this case, go cry and hear wolf howls and things like that. Because. And it's not just true for regular, average people. It's also true for people who run foundations. It moves everyone when they get out there and they remember where we come from. So I just think that's a great story that probably just tells it better than any other way that you possibly could what Dave was talking about, which is you gotta love it to save it.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I wanted to talk about wolves in general in the US a little bit. You know, you being a wolf guy, keep up with all of it and in different ways. And wolves in the north are not having a good time. We don't have a favorable administration to be willing to do anything about the status of the wolves. It's really up to the states. And the states are quite hostile to wolf populations as small as they are. What strikes you as the most urgent thing to, to watch for in the wolf saga in the United States in general?

[A]

Worst thing to watch for sneaky legislation that gets put through Congress that deals like was done in the Northern Rockies by Senator Tester back in 2011 because he thought he needed to take an anti wolf stance in order to get reelected as a Democrat in Montana. So he stuck a piece of legislation into a budget bill that was what they call a must pass budget bill that took the Northern Rockies wolves off the endangered species list through legislative action, which is not allowed under the Endangered Species Act. But he got away with it. He also sneaked a little writer into the bottom of that legislation that said this legislation can't be subject to judicial review, which seems totally unconstitutional to me. But it protected that, that particular legislation from ever being litigated. So that's why we have the mess we have in the Northern Rockies where this immediately the management of the wolves was taken away from the federal government and taken off the list of endangered species and put in the hands of the states. And from that day forward, they've done nothing but slaughter wolves in an effort to knock them down to as low as the delisting rule allows, which is 300 wolves for the entire Northern Watkies region. So what happened there would be less tragic had the original delisting criteria been more realistic from an ecological perspective rather than just the perspective of what's the fewest number of wolves we can save so that they don't go extinct. Which is the mindset of the agencies. It's totally devoid of any ecological thinking. So the recovery team back then decided that that's all they needed was they needed 100 wolves in, in Wyoming, Montana and Idaho keep them from going extinct. And so that's now the legally defined bar. And the states are not violating any law by hammering wolves, but they're doing it. And they're certainly getting a lot of, a lot of pushback from wolf advocates. But there's not much of a legal angle there. There is a Lawsuit in play, but I don't know that it has much of a chance of success because of the way this went down.

[B]

I don't want to gloss over that small number because we just, we had not too long ago, Paul Ehrlich was on and talking about the difference between a species about to go extinct and healthy populations of species. And populations and extinction are two different things. We're not necessarily trying to save a species from going extinct. We're trying to build a population that's ecologically more appropriate.

[A]

Right. Well, that's what we, the conservation community promote and the scientific community that understands the ecological role of species and ecosystems, especially the top predators, which have a very unique role and they've got a hold of the puppet strings from the top and everything below them is dependent on them having what Michael Sule defined as ecologically effective populations. Those populations can't just be in one little spot. They have to be distributed across the landscape and as he put it, natural patterns of distribution and abundance of your cop carnivores for ecosystems to work like nature intended them to work. And the agencies have never embraced that concept. It's interesting if you look at the Endangered Species act, it has right up front its purpose. And the purpose of the Endangered Species act, this will be near verbatim, is to save and restore ecosystems. And purpose number two is to save and restore the species that depend on those ecosystems. So it's an ecocentric law that has never been applied that way. Purpose number one has been swept under the rug. The agencies actually produce B listing criteria based on minimal, minimally viable population models. In other words, just in a numbers game, how many animals do we have to protect so they won't go extinct? And they don't even address anything like their ecological effectiveness. That's why we got all these low numbers. And then they let the states be really strong drivers in that process and push out the non agency scientific community and the environmental conservation community just get no say in those processes.

[B]

It's a brilliant political anchoring technique when you can make people fight over whether or not the wolves should go extinct instead of the argument they can't as easily win, which is what you just described, that we don't want the wolf to go extinct, but we want more than that. We want ecologically viable populations, effective distribution of much, much larger numbers than what people are talking about. But as long as they can keep the numbers close to extinction, then all we're arguing about is saving the wolves from being locally or in an entire region extinct, right?

[A]

Yeah. Yeah.

[B]

So I'd say that if you're mad about the wolf program, or lack of wolf program, the extermination program, you're not actually quite mad enough, because we're not even talking about where ecologically we should all be debating yet. We're talking about something that they want us to talk about, which is they're wanting to keep the wolf numbers low. We want them. We want them higher. But a lot of people, I think in the public eye, they don't know what kind of wolf populations we're actually thinking about and talking about, because we never get to do that. We never get to talk about that part.

[A]

Now, what gets created through a successful wolf recovery program under the federal guidelines and recovery plans is what I call just a wild extension of zoos. You've got more animals out there, and they're likely not going to go extinct in our lifetime. Although I think Mexican wolves are on a path to this extinction that the agencies aren't even beginning to address because of the genetics. That's a different story. But anyway, you're right. We've never even gotten close to implementing the Endangered Species act on an ecosystem level.

[B]

I want to talk also today about this trip to Brazil. Could you talk a little bit about that trip and how that went for you?

[A]

Yeah, well, you know, I think it was Ed, Abby, and I'm sure. And it was also the philosophy of Dave Foreman that those who fight to save the wild need to take a break and go enjoy it from time to time. And that's what I was doing. I was not on any kind of a. A mission that, you know, had an end game or I was out to just enjoy wild nature in a place long wanted to see. And that was the Pantanal region of Brazil, which is one of the world's largest wet area just below the Amazon basin. And it did not disappoint. We saw nearly 200 species of birds. We saw mammals I've never seen before. I got to see jaguars in the wild, giant anteaters, papers, and all kinds of wildlife that you have to go there to see. And it was my idea of just rejuvenating my, you know, my spirit and my resolve to continue to write for a while, Nature. But it was a great trip.

[B]

So you can confirm that anteaters are, in fact, real, because I have questions that, you know, it's got to be one of the oddest animals on the whole planet, at least for me. I've always felt that way. And I thought maybe they're not even.

[A]

Real, they can get six feet long and weigh, I don't know, well over 100 pounds. Just eating mostly the termites to be the name is a little misleading down there. There's termite mounds all over the place on the land and in the trees. And so the giant man eater runs around on the ground and just tears apart termites mounds and it has to slurp up. I don't remember how many tens or hundreds of thousands of termites a day to fuel that big body, but they do it. And then there's a smaller version called the lesser anteater that can climb trees and goes after the termites up in the trees. We got to see them both and yeah, wow, they do exist. Unless, you know, unless I was hallucinating, but I don't think so.

[B]

In the meeting yesterday, you, you confessed. Now we were all expecting a different answer and you said something we did not expect because you got a great picture of a jaguar in a tree branch looking right at you. Among all of these other pictures and experiences you had, I was for sure thinking that you were going to say that your favorite experience or picture was the jaguar and you said something different.

[A]

What was it? The American pygmy kingfisher.

[B]

Tell us why.

[A]

I do enjoy birds as much as I enjoy mammals and it's just so amazingly tiny, maybe 4 inches long or maybe 5 at the most. I'll send you the pictures. It's got multiple colors on it and it's just amazing that a little tiny bird like that has to dive into the water and catch tiny fish, which is the only thing it could handle exists and it hard to find and, and hard to get a picture of it because they don't stand still very long. But I, I did get a couple of pictures. They're not the best, but they prove that I saw it.

[B]

What did your bird lifer brain do when you realized you were getting a picture of something you had never didn't know if you would ever see in the wild?

[A]

I just enjoy the experience. Not a life lister birder, but I really do enjoy birding and I enjoy seeing them and I. There's birders and there's bird watchers. My definition is a birder who's out for the life list and a bird watcher is a birder who's out to enjoy the animals, to observe their behavior, to not just identify them in the binoculars and check the list and move on, but to spend some time, you know, watching what they do, how they live in the world, what their role is. And that's my enjoyment of birds is at that level. And it was just cool to see this little tiny bird that makes a living.

[B]

You're well aware of the reintroduction and breeding programs for the jaguar and many, many other species that Tompkins Conservation Rewilding Argentina, Rewilding Chile are doing. And you've probably heard the episodes where I've talked to several people from those pre programs, including Chris Tompkins, and I always have this question or maybe an observation on those, which is their reintroductions seem to be. And I know this isn't actually true because it's been explained to me that they do have their challenges, but from the American perspective and the struggles that you just described with the wolf reintroduction program, it almost didn't happen. It almost put them in the un exact wrong place that, you know, you had to fight all of this stuff. It was a lot of bureaucracy and everything else. When you look at what they've done, it's like, wow, it just seems like they can just stand up a reintroduction program. And again, I know it's not that easy, but relatively, it feels like we would have such a struggle to have a, like a jaguar breeding and reintroduction program here in the States just because it feels like our bureaucracy is almost suffocating in this area. What's your take on that? Is there any envy in your heart when you think about how they've been able to stand up some really, really effective breeding and reintroduction programs and if we could do it that fast or that easy here in the States.

[A]

What I don't fully understand down in Argentina is what the land ownership is down there in. Our problems in Mexico with the Northern Jaguar project are that there just is a general lack of public lands in Mexico that would tolerate reintroduction since most of the big land ownership in Mexico is large private ranchings and wealthy ranches. Wealthy ranch owners, very little public land. We've got the public land in the United States, but we just have tremendous political opposition that's influenced by small factions of naysayers that have way more influence than would seem reasonable. So I don't know what the land ownership was down in Argentina where they're accomplishing this. They think it's just some big areas that were. That were made possible through private, private donations and purchases. And I don't know that there's as much governmental pushback there. And I don't know that there's as much of a mixed land use like we have, particularly in the United States with our federal public lands having multiple uses overlaid upon them. One of those, one of those particularly being livestock grazing, which creates most of the pushback.

[B]

Well, I, I figure we have an example here in the United States. His name is Ted Turner. And if you can buy entire mountain ranges to fence in your bison and get rid of all of the invasive species, replace them with the missing or low populations of endemic species, you can do whatever you want on your land. Apparently, because he's completely rewilded, almost completely reliable rewilded. Every, every property he owns, he's on his way. Maybe that's the answer, but that's not a very good one because you don't have an awful lot of billionaires going around able to buy up 500,000 acres here and there.

[A]

Right?

[B]

So that's also a non answer because like that can't just easily be replicated.

[A]

And 500,000 acres sounds huge, but for things like wolf recovery, it's a postage stamp on a really large piece of paper. You can't achieve the ecologically effective naturally distributed populations of large carnivores even at that scale. You could house a number of them, but that's the problem. Even it would take huge private ownership to come up with the landscape scale area that be dedicated entirely to ecological restoration across the board. Our public lands are administered under an act that not very many people talk about, passed in 1960 called the Multiple Use and Sustained Yield Act. And in part it's bad and in part it's good in this, it identified five official uses of our public lands. This applies to Forest Service and blm that, that should be applied CO equally and wildlife and wildlife conservation is supposed to be co equally addressed on our public lands, equal with things like livestock grazing and mining and timbering and the other of the five officially identified uses. But nature conservation and wildlife conservation is supposed to be addressed on an equal basis with in our case, livestock grazing is the most critical impediment to getting anything done on our public lands. And it's rarely recognized that livestock, that wildlife is supposed to have an equal chance to thrive on our public lands.

[B]

See, I would have put it at a little bit higher priority than any of the other uses, you know, but I'm biased. But we're fighting for it to just be seen as an equal as it's supposed to be under that law.

[A]

Right, right. I mean, that goes all the way back to Gifford Pinchot and the, and his argument with John Muir about what, what should be the priority from public land.

[B]

We might need to update that. But I don't know. We're going to need a more favorable administration to have that conversation, I think.

[A]

Oh yeah, yeah, we're in deep trouble at the moment.

[B]

Well, wouldn't this all then make us really happy to know that the work was done by SULE and NOS and Foreman, the Wildlands Project, then Rewilding Institute and many, many other organizations to work on Wildlands network designs. Meaning that we can't really solve a lot of the problems because of private land use and everything is contested, everything is really testy and there's people who have more power than the public in the say of how public lands are used, that we are coming up with the ideas or we came up with the ideas of a tapestry of connected cores of buffer zones to get movement where we can possibly find it. So wolves can get from point A to point B and birds have great flyaways with support all along the way and everything in between. I mean it feels like that's kind of a saving grace for the situation that we find ourselves in the United States. But it's also a very slow going process. Also doesn't get respected yet as anything outside the conservation community as far as like the legal right. I mean it just doesn't have like a place that Fish and Wildlife is not talking about connected landscapes. I wouldn't. Too much.

[A]

Yeah, no, that's all extremely important work. Even though we don't see immediate benefits from it. It's good to have that basis because what I've discovered over 50 years in this business is that, and this is not just me discovering this, there's been papers written on this. Conservation success doesn't come in a constant rising line on a graph. It's, it's mountains and valleys. It's political. Windows of opportunity is when you make gains. The last big one of those really was under the Clinton administration where we got all the wolf projects across the line with Bruce Babbitt of our Secretary of Interior. And if I had not, if I had not been assigned the job of Mexican wolf recovery coordinator at the front end of the Clinton administration, I really doubt that we would have ever gotten it across the line. And we just barely made it. Final decision right before the end of the Clinton administration, but it wouldn't happen now. And we have to be poised to take advantage of those windows of opportunity where the stars align in our favor. It doesn't happen all that often and the opposing forces just seem to have way more clout than their numbers would justify.

[B]

So we probably have 100% listenership that votes. But, but for the people who are listening, another good way to couch how important it is to get out and be active and vote and, and the administration that we get is the one that we have to deal with the typical anti administration. It sets everything back and we always go into a waiting mode some in some cases. Right. It's like, well, we just need to hold on to what we've got and then hope for a better political climate. So that's something you can take to your people who are doubters and, and, and really get them activated. If nothing else has. This is what we go through every single cycle is what are we going to be able to get done? We need so much done and really exercise in patience.

[A]

Yeah. And with administration like we currently have, it's a game of, of hunkering down to try to protect as much as possible the gains we've made in the past so we don't have to come back after they're out of office and we have a more favorable administration and just that's been the game in the past. We spend the next four years trying to get back what we had before the administration that tore it all down was out of office. So right now we're in that game of trying to hold on to what we've got. Wait for better times. Yeah.

[B]

We could sure use a good long 20 year run of good luck and political climate for conservation. That would really, really help.

[A]

Absolutely.

[B]

Dave, you've been exposed to just about everything in the conservation movement. You've been on the, the government side, you've been on the nonprofit profit side. You've seen it from all angles. And I know you're really deeply proud and appreciative of your, of your work. And I was just wondering what you would say. It's a different climate now than where you started. It's certainly not the same at all for young people coming in or thinking about coming into the conservation movement or going into a government position like with Fish and Wildlife, like you did. What advice would you give people who are inspired by your life and the work that you've done and everything you've been able to accomplish as they're thinking about their careers?

[A]

Yeah. Like you say, I've had 25 years on the government side and 25 years on the nonprofit side and both are equally important. The main issue is that we in the conservation community don't have our hands on the puppet strings and that's the government and they've got control of, you know, all the Wild nature that's not privately owned and which is most of it. And that's where the decisions are made, you know, in order to have impact as a biologist. I couldn't have had the impact I had if I hadn't been working for the agency. Wasn't easy all the time. There was a lot of pressure put on me to do the wrong thing. But if we have good biologists working for the agencies with, you know, integrity and the ability to kind of stand down situations where they're being asked, in my case, to actually break the law and push forward and resist that, we have to have that. Otherwise we don't have good biologists on the inside. We're never going to get any good output for us conservationists to try to hang on to and protect. So I would encourage people going into wildlife biology and ecology to not shy away from working for the agencies, but to do so with, with integrity and, and an eye toward following the science. It doesn't always have a happy outcome. I mean, I enjoyed what I call surprise early retirement from the Fish and Wildlife Service because I was asked to not follow the science and I chose to do it. And I pushed past a sitting national director who was the one asking me to in this case promote the White Fence Missile Range as the reintroduction site for Mexican wolves, which could not be supported by science. So you'll find yourself in those situations. But you know, most people in government jobs are protected under whistleblower laws and such, so. But, you know, you gotta, you gotta play the inside game to get something done that the conservation community playing the outside game has something to, to hang on to and promote and protect and support. And, you know, I couldn't have gotten where I did with the wolf program if it wasn't for the tremendous outpouring of the conservation community to all the public hearings and, you know, writing comments on my draft environmental impact statement. And that support is critical. So takes both sides. You get things done.

[B]

I wanted to say too that just for people to understand what it was like on the conservation side watching Dave do his work on the inside, a lot of people might think, well, you were, it must have been a rosy situation, you were able to get wolves reintroduced. And I think Dave's pretty clearly made the case that it was not very easy. The climate wasn't so nice, that we just waltzed in there with wolves. A lot of fighting, a lot of you had to become a little bit more politically savvy than you would expect expect from your degree and the interests that you have and what you were hired to do. So a lot was asked of you. But I want you to know, I want everybody to know that when we were organizing that outpouring of support from the conservation side, we saw you as our number one hero on the inside. And the fact that we'd been shut out for so many decades, for the most part, in everything that we want to do, it was really obvious to us that you were one of us. We thought of you as one of us, even though you were with the agency, because you were doing, you were sticking to your guns. And I can tell you, man, we talked about you a lot around campfires. And it's like, we feel so good having that guy on the inside. We have a friend in there, and it was so rare to have that. I just wanted you to know you. I know you know this already. You've heard it a. A hundred times, but you were very, very much appreciated in the work that you were doing and admired from our side of the, of the battle.

[A]

Thank you. I really appreciate that. I've always been in my entire career with Fish and Wildlife Service frustrated by one. One thing in particular, and that is all federal agencies seem to have their kind of their primary constituencies, like the blm. It's grazing and mining and of course, service. It's grazing and mining and timbering. The Fish and Wildlife Service major constituency in my view, ought to be the conservation community. And it has never been, or it might have been back when I first started in the 70s, but starting with Reagan, it went completely south to where the Fish and Wildlife Service shunned the conservation community. They would keep them out of the loop. They would show preference to special interests that were anti environment and the states in particular, and states, you know, their attitude is driven largely by hunters and ranchers and the way they view wildlife management. And it just drives me crazy that the Fish and Wildlife Service still looks at the conservation community as their enemy and not their friend in getting important work across the line for what they're supposed to be supporting wildlife conservation and ecosystem conservation and integrity, but it's just not the case. It drives me crazy that they still have that attitude.

[B]

Yeah, well, I mean, there's a leadership problem there, right. And again, it goes back to elections have consequences, and whoever's elected gets to a point who. We don't have time to go into it, but they'll put exactly the wrong person in charge of the Fish and Wildlife Service. And that kind of, over time erases what you think should be there. We should have A good, strong relationship among fish and wildlife and conservation organizations. But if you keep putting the wrong leadership at the helm, they decide what the custom and culture of that agency is.

[A]

Look what we have now. We have the former director of the Wyoming Game and Fish department running the U.S. fish and Wildlife Service. What's going on in Wyoming? The worst wolf slaughter we've ever seen, and it spread into Montana. In Wyoming, you can shoot wolves over 90% of the state all year round. No license, no restrictions on methods or anything. The only wolves they choose to protect are those right up against Yellowstone national park, and those are even hunted. But it's called a trophy hunt. Anyway, it drives me nuts when incoming president thinks that a former director of a state game and fish agency has the proper credentials to be the Director of the U.S. fish and Wildlife Service, which has a completely different obligation under laws to not be. You know, they're supposed to be wildlife conservationists, not wildlife managers.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

We are now hunting on national wildlife refuges, and that's been increased under recent administrations. Drives me crazy. Wildlife needs sanctuary somewhere, you know.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

We need big places where wild life and wild ecosystems can play out like there's. Like they're meant to.

[B]

Yeah. There's so much to fix. When you start getting into that, you start thinking about we really stay on the surface wherever the biggest fires are that we need to put out. And it's easy to forget that things like this exist in the background at all times to be fixed. And in a normal world where there weren't so many fires to put out, we might have time to do it and think about it more often. But I remember ever since I first met you, you've been saying the same thing over and over and over again. It's just that we have. Somebody's trying to destroy this forest right now, or, you know, they're doing what they're doing with the wolves in the States. And it's sort of a protective blanket around agency atrophy and the militarization almost of agencies against the natural world and only for the business interests and ranchers and things. I mean, we don't seem to ever have time to work on that.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah.

[B]

So on that note, we have a lot of work to do. And I know you continue to do the work. You are more in an advisory position now. And although you would like to retire more than you have, we just won't let you.

[A]

And.

[B]

And we appreciate you for not. For not completely going dark as you so deserve to do. But so many people rely on your experience and everything that you have to offer, everything that you've learned, you're just an incredibly valuable resource to us. So I'm sorry, Dave, I'm glad you got to go to Brazil. I'm glad you got to go on that river trip this year, but we're going to need you to hang out as much as possible and keep going to Brazil and all of that. But we need to ask you questions from time to time when we get stuck.

[A]

Well, thank you, Jack. Yeah. It's hard to. When you care about something, it's hard to quit caring about it.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. Thank you so much for your time today and for everybody listening. All the resources that go with this always are in the extra credit section of this episode. So you would just go to rewilding.org pod and look up Dave Parsons and find this episode and you'll find all kinds of resources. The things, things we talked about. Dave didn't even get into iota of all of the things he could have today. So we'll put as many resources as possible so you can get the background on the wolf reintroduction program and all the work he's done [e-mail] pod and thank you all for listening so much. Dave, thanks again and I'll see you in the meeting next week.

[A]

Thank you, Jack. Been a pleasure.

[B]

Thanks for listening to the Rewilding Earth podcast. We do what we do because of you. This podcast is supported by listeners like you who long to live in a wilder world. Please consider [e-mail] and subscribe to our weekly news and article digest. While you're there to go the extra mile, you can follow and share Rewilding Earth on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. Bonus points for sharing this podcast with your friends. To listen to past episodes episodes go to rewilding.org pod that's rewilding.org pod.