Freedom to Roam

New York Times Examines Corridors for Quail

Matt Wagner — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 01:50:48 +0000

The New York Times’ James Card looked at what it would take to bring back the boom years for quail hunting across America, particularly the southeast. In his article, Card interviewed Freedom to Roam coalition member, National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, and Freedom to Roam’s Executive Director, Jeff Parrish.

As quoted in the article:

Jeff Parrish, executive director of Freedom to Roam, a coalition of organizations working to conserve wildlife corridors, said, “Bobwhite quail are like a crucible for what the future of wildlife is going to look like in North America.

“There’s a new coal mine we’re living in and it’s one that is really fragmented,” he said. “The quail are telling us a story that we never thought we’d hear, which is the world’s gotten chopped up and the only way we can protect those species is to connect them more.”

Check out the full story by clicking here.

Salt Lake Tribune: Initiative seeks to loosen the bounds that bind wildlife

Matt Wagner — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 16:35:24 +0000

As printed in the Salt Lake Tribune.

BY BRETT PRETTYMAN

The Salt Lake Tribune

First published Mar 23 2011

The loss of habitat through human development is a well-documented wildlife issue, but there is another threat in the continued expansion of homes, cabins and businesses in previously undeveloped areas.

Wild habitat across the country continues to become surrounded by development, effectively creating wildlife islands that can limit or prevent migration, lead to limited genetic diversity within a population and increase the loss of animals through human conflict (think auto/wildlife collisions).

The idea of protecting corridors for wildlife movement is nothing new, but the movement gained momentum when giant outdoor clothing company — and environmentally cautious — Patagonia entered the arena with its Freedom to Roam initiative.

Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard and Rick Ridgeway, vice president for environmental issues at Patagonia, came up with Freedom to Roam in 2007. What began as an attempt to inform the public about the importance of keeping the corridors open eventually grew into the company’s own conservation organization.

To read the entire article, please click here.

Buy A Song, Support Freedom to Roam

Matt Wagner — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 20:11:00 +0000

Patagonia has teamed up with a diverse group of world-class musicians to help protect and restore the natural environment.

Buy Mason Jenning’s, “Don’t Let the World Go Black” and support Freedom to Roam. This song is exclusive to the Patagonia Music Collective and the net proceeds will help Freedom to Roam preserve wildlife corridors.

Head over to patagonia.com/music to preview the song and purchase from iTunes.

Quebec, Canada will protect 50% of its northern area from all industrial activity

Matt Wagner — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 16:42:05 +0000

Today the government of the province of Quebec, Canada announced that it will protect 50% of its northern area from all industrial activity. This means that an area of 500 000 sq km (193,000 sq miles or 123 million acres) will be protected for the benefit of nature and traditional aboriginal activities, such as subsistence hunting.

“This is a globally significant announcement” said Harvey Locke, Vice President for Conservation Strategy at the WILD Foundation in Boulder, Colorado. “The government of Quebec is now moving formally to join the global leaders who are responding to the scientific imperative to greatly increase the level of nature protection all over the world.”

To read the entire news release, click here.

Gary Tabor on Stacey Stern’s radio show

Matt Wagner — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 18:50:15 +0000

Gary Tabor will be interviewed live on February 8th at Noon Pacific/ 1pm Mountain on The Stacey Stern Show ~ Enriching You! To listen to the show as it originally airs, go to www.voiceamerica.com and click on the Variety Channel OR go to www.StaceyStern.com and click on the banner on Stacey’s home page. If you don’t catch the show as it originally airs, you can download it for free from Stacey’s On Demand library

TrekEast Launch: Follow John Davis for 4500 Miles

Matt Wagner — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 16:54:54 +0000

One person has decided to commit the next five years to making an extraordinary attempt to inspire a greater number of people to be aware and act on behalf of wild places and wildlife. On February 3, he will embark upon TrekEast, a 4500-mile journey for nature in the East.

Working closely with The Wildlands Network and other generous sponsors, Davis is trying to inspire a network of people to help connect the East’s remaining wild places in order to save them.

Click here to follow John Davis on this epic trip.

NY Times: Climate Threatens Species at Every Altitude

Matt Wagner — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 17:43:48 +0000

The New York Times’ Elisabeth Rosenthal writes a great story about habitat shifts caused by climate change and what the impacts will be for birds. Please, check it out:

From the story:

“In response to warming, animals classically move to cooler ground, relocating either higher up in altitude or farther toward the poles. But in the tropics, animals have to move hundreds of miles north or south to find a different niche. Mountain species face even starker limitations: As they climb upward they find themselves competing for less and less space on the conical peaks, where they run into uninhabitable rocks or a lack of their usual foods — or have nowhere farther to go.”

Click here to read the full story.

Congress calls for more science before Arctic Ocean drilling

Matt Wagner — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 16:35:48 +0000

38 members write to Sec. Salazar on Shell’s pending request to drill in Beaufort Sea

WASHINGTON (December 21, 2010) – Thirty-four members of the U.S. House of Representatives joined an effort spearheaded by Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA), Rep. James Moran (D-VA), Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) and Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN) to ask Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to stick to his commitment to make science-based decisions on oil and gas development in the Arctic Ocean. In a letter sent to Sec. Salazar on Friday, the 38 members asked him to ensure that “we have the basic science and necessary spill response capacity before proceeding with any drilling in the Beaufort Sea and the rest of the Arctic.”

Despite a continued lack information about the Arctic’s fragile marine environment, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE) is currently processing Shell Oil’s application to drill in the Arctic’s Beaufort Sea, 12 miles off the coast of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in an area designated as critical habitat for the threatened polar bear that also serves as vital feeding and migration grounds for the endangered bowhead whale.

For the full article, click here.

Washington Habitat Connectivity Analysis: Statewide

Matt Wagner — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 16:31:29 +0000

At the statewide scale, we are looking for patterns of habitat distribution that dominate large landscapes. This can be thought of as a view of the land from 50,000 feet above the Earth’s surface. This view is interpreted through the behaviors and natural histories of some of Washington’s more mobile vertebrate wildlife, using computer models and our best understanding of what influences these species in their movement choices and the ways in which landscape features contribute to their survival and well-being. At this scale, we have analyzed the landscape with two approaches: a functional focal species approach and a structural landscape integrity approach.

The statewide analysis is a first-step toward identifying regionally important areas using relatively coarse-scale data. The analysis also helps to prioritize areas that need additional attention to address important habitat connectivity concerns at a more localized ecoregional scale, using finer-resolution data and field assessment approaches.

For the full article, click here.

Treasuring a Wildlife Landscape in Wyoming

Matt Wagner — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 18:01:08 +0000

Freedom to Roam would like to thank John Eddins and Wyoming Federal Highways staff for deciding to use $10 million of their general wildlife fund (as opposed to money that had to be used for the environment) to help pronghorn and mule deer! A special thank you to Freedom to Roam Coalition member, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation for their funding of leadership ideas and proven strategies in this most iconic corridor.

Timothy Male | Posted on 20 December 2010 |

The Wyoming Department of Transportation just announced it is spending the state’s general transportation funding on an important series of highway overpasses and underpasses that will reduce collisions between deer, antelope and cars along a busy highway near Pinedale, Wyoming. This is one part of what I see as one of the most successful examples of a cross-jurisdictional effort to save a landscape scale wildlife need – a migration corridor.

Although there are about 2 million pronghorn antelope in the United States, some herds are more important than others, in particular the herd of a few hundred (and growing) pronghorn that migrate 150 miles every spring into Grand Teton National Park, across a complicated mix of private, Bureau of Land Management, Forest Service and National Park land.

In 2008, the U.S. Forest Service made history by designating the first National Forest ‘Wildlife Corridor’ to make management of the pronghorn’s migratory corridor a higher priority for Bridger-Teton National Forest. “This migration is an important part of Wyoming’s history and we want to do all we can to maintain it,” said Kniffy Hamilton, Bridger Teton National Forest Supervisor.

In 2009, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation made a 5-year commitment to help fund the reduction of fence barriers to pronghorn movement on private and BLM lands in the area.

In 2010, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and WalMart, in partnership with The Conservation Fund and Wyoming Department of Game and Fish made the corridor a priority, by funding an easement on Carney Ranch that will keep a key bottleneck in the pronghorn migration route undeveloped and another 19,000 acres of nearby pronghorn habitat was also protected.

Now Wyoming Department of Transportation has let a contract to begin construction of a series of wildlife overpasses and underpasses that will allow the pronghorn to continue their migration without causing accidents and risking human lives on Highway 191. Once completed, the highway will no longer have the potential to disrupt a many thousand year old migration path of pronghorn and mule deer.

When the Administration rolls out its ‘America’s Great Outdoors’ initiative in January 2011, one measure of its success will be whether we see more collaborative successes like the efforts that have gone into conserving the Path of the Pronghorn.

For the full blog, click here.