Wildlife on the Wind: A Field Biologist's Journey and an Indian Reservation's Renewal

Chapter 1: Gettin’ There

3 1 Gettin’ There W hat’s it like working with Indians? Early on, the question unsettled me. Not because I had no consequential answer, but because of how it struck my sensibilities. Often I interpreted the question’s tone to probe dark secrets about the Indian people, rather than to learn about our shared endeavors. Perhaps I would confirm someone’s preconceived notions or disclose a shocking revelation. I heard the question directed toward those who were different from us, as if inquiring about strange aliens. Ironic this seems to me now for the obvious reason. If anyone, we non-Indians are the aliens. But there’s another paradox. For years I was among those who were uninformed about who these people living in our country were. Native Americans—the politically correct term invented by us white folks decades ago—rings hollow with a Sioux or an Iroquois or a member of any of 500 other tribes scattered from Plymouth Rock to California’s Mission Valley. At least that was true three decades ago when I was among native people. Don’t get me wrong. I understand our genteel intent. But to the ears of those whose homeland was overrun and renamed America, it’s a subtle reminder of Euro-Americans’ past treachery. Wildlife on the Wind 4 As it turns out, “Indians” is the label that North America’s indigenous people prefer. At least that’s the case when speaking inclusively of the continent’s first people. But assuming that all Indian nations are equivalent to one another is like saying that the British are like the French. Cherokee or Apache, their tribal affiliation is how most, at their core, still think of themselves. So what’s it like working with Indians? Better yet, what will it be like? That was my own question in 1978. As a transplant from western Michigan’s Euro-ethnic neighborhoods, Protestant churches, and ice hockey rinks, I knew little more about these earliest Americans than I did about the Indians of India. Now the assignment I had accepted would soon change all of that. Yet this rare opportunity just as easily might not have happened at all. i i i i i After a year in California, I was running on empty. Disenchantment magnified my yearning for the Rocky Mountains’ familiar embrace. Unexpectedly one evening I received a phone call. It was a familiar and much-welcomed voice. As if throwing me a lifeline, the caller redirected my career. “Hey, Bruce. How’s California’s cactus and lizards treatin’ ya?” It was Bob Phillips, a wildlife scientist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and my previous supervisor in Sheridan, Wyoming. Before accepting my first permanent appointment in Riverside, California, I shared my misgivings with Bob about how it might turn out. “Funny you should ask, Bob. It’s been pretty frustrating lately.” Stifling the urge to unload, I caught up on the latest life changes of my former co-workers in Wyoming. Then anticipating my next questions, Bob filled me in on my former charges. In a few sentences, he detailed how many deer, Gettin’ There 5 coyotes, grouse, eagles, and a menagerie of other wild critters remained “beeping” on the air. To me they were like far-off children and I missed tracking their radio transmitters and learning their whereabouts and fate amidst a burgeoning maze of coal strip mines and haul roads. “Deer seem to be adjusting, but sage-grouse, well not so much.” When he paused, my frustrations rolled out like water from a ruptured dam. “After almost a year, I’ve come to a roadblock trying to write a management plan for the Santa Rosa Mountains— trying to protect their desert bighorn sheep. So what if I’ve produced a nifty habitat map of the Santa Rosas. It’s just lots of pretty plant communities, with one big problem. It lacks integration of wildlife’s biological needs. It just seems academic.” “I hear you,” Bob said. “You know from your work up here that’s the linchpin. Needing to know what’s important to the animals and why.” “Yeah, and my supervisor’s response when I explained the shortcomings to him was, ‘Just write the plan with whatever you have.’” “Sounds like getting a final product’s more important than what’s in it.” “That’s right,” I emphatically agreed. “I can no...