Hawks Rest
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"Among the many pleasures of re–reading Gary Ferguson's Hawks Rest, is finding the prose even more accomplished than remembered, the wit more agile, the observations more revelatory, its stance in the world proved once again so precisely wise. Hawks Rest is a book I will return to again and again."—MARK SPRAGG, author of Where Rivers Change Direction and An Unfinished Life"Gary Ferguson is one of the preeminent historians of the American West, and of the place and value of wilderness within that history. Hawk's Rest is an intense journal of the politics and ecology of one of America's wildest cores, in Yellowstone National Park. In many ways, this book is an important portrait of one of the foundations of our country's democracy, and of the struggles to hold on to that idea."—RICK BASS, author of All the Land to Hold Us"Hawks Rest is a long step toward a user's guide to wilderness, and a reverential and beautifully said hymn to the wild."—TIM CAHILL, author of Hold the Enlightenment and Jaguars Ripped My Flesh"A lyrical and often tough–minded evocation of a summer spent in the Yellowstone backcountry, a place that is, unexpectedly, full of larger-than-life characters, some of whom are admirable and some of whom are not.”—WILLIAM KITTREDGE, author of Hole in the Sky and The Nature of Generosity"Dazzling…an Edward Abbey–esque book, full of snappy vignettes and chiseled writing."—SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE"A sharp and ironic sense of what it's like to live in the American outback, twenty–first–century style."—NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE"A well-written work…if you love Yellowstone, a great treat."—DESERET NEWS"Ferguson evoke(s) feelings of solitude, timelessness and aching beauty in the smallest details…"—THE OREGONIAN"Mournful and defiant as a wolf howl…an eloquent tribute to a threatened place and its lone protectors."—LOS ANGELES TIMESHawks Rest brings the wonder, politics, and wildness of one of America’s most vast and popular national parks to readers everywhere. With a new introduction by the author, this edition offers fresh insight into the condition of parks nationwide, while reintroducing readers to Ferguson's timeless tales and unique wisdom.Gary Ferguson is the author of twenty–two books including Through the Woods and, most recently, The Carry Home. He lives with his wife, Mary, in Montana's Beartooth Mountains, and in Portland, Oregon.
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Contents
Chapter 1
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Wolves have now met the target populations set forth by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in the reintroduction plan, which encompasses recovery zones in Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming. All that’s left before they can be removed from the endangered species list (other than making it through the inevitable lawsuits) is for each state to craft an appropriate management plan—a clear strategy for how both the animal and its habitat will be managed in order to keep populations from dwindling again in the future. Wyoming is only now stumbling through theirs, having taken time out to first tend to such important matters as making claims against the federal government to reimburse them roughly four thousand dollars for every elk taken by a wolf—a monetary amount equivalent, they say, to lost hunting revenues. It’s a move with about as much integrity as a Jerry Springer guest list, especially when you consider that, at the same time, the state’s been trying desperately to reduce elk numbers in the southern Yellowstone herds. Then again, this is the same legislature that seven years ago voted a five hundred dollar bounty on wolves, then passed a law requiring the state attorney general to defend anyone prosecuted for killing one.
Idaho and Montana are further along with their management plans, though Idaho did pause long enough in 2001 to dream up RS 11108, “calling for and demanding that wolf recovery efforts in Idaho be discontinued immediately and wolves be removed by whatever means necessary.” Still, some of us are naive enough to hope they’ve left behind the antics surrounding the initial reintroduction during the mid-90s—a kind of golden era of lunacy when Idaho’s governor asserted his right to call out the National Guard and state representative Bruce Newcomb stumped for secession from the Union. At roughly the same time, Montana was busy concocting Joint Resolution Number 8, which called for the reintroduction of wolves to “Central Park in New York City, the Presidio in San Francisco, and Washington, D.C.,” as it was only those damned liberal city dwellers who wanted the things in the first place. (Proving yet again, as a writer for The Atlantic suggested in 1898, that “the Montana legislature is probably the funniest governmental body in the world.”) Never mind that in a national poll conducted in 1996 by Colorado State University, seventy-five percent of Democrats, seventy-six percent of Republicans, and eighty-two percent of independent voters were in favor of the reintroduction; closer to home, in the northern Rockies, opinion was split roughly in half. And finally, there came that brilliant attempt at prescience by Montana U.S. Senator Conrad Burns, who told educator Pat Tucker, “Little lady, mark my words, if they put wolves in Yellowstone, there’ll be a dead child within a year.”
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