The LongRoad Home

by Stephen Capra, Executive Director, Bold Visions Conservation

As the clocks go backward, the symbolism cannot be lost on the two states we work to protect. Wolves are being slaughtered, and bison will soon meet the same fate, yet our voice is considered radical. Like other times in human history, we are witness to the many who ignore the pain and suffering of, in this case, wildlife, to an old-school prejudice based on ignorance.

I often wonder how so many people can be so incurious? People seem to want to kill that, which reflects wonder, and what I do not understand is why so many simply do not want to relate to a wild animal but instead want to dictate fate with a dead one. They want to track and bait, to wait in a tree or chase with hounds rather than observe and take a photo and enjoy the magic of an encounter, rather than pose with a previously beautiful, now dead, animal that is a statement in their minds of their power and control. This is the brainwave of a fool.

Perhaps my biggest frustration is the wise and beautiful wolf meeting its demise on a cold winter day, caught in a trap, its freedom cut down by those whose lives are void of control but exert their defiant act of control on another living being; this one full of beauty and hope.

I know these are but musings.

Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument

Bold Visions Conservation continues to work for all wildlife, to work on what are tough goals, and do so because we must think big. Our campaigns are neither simple nor easy, but if achieved, they can break the anti-conservation and wildlife measures that dominate both states. It's not because we are arrogant; it comes back to one basic fact: our love and experience in wilderness across the West and our passion for wildlife. Those encounters in the wild define the heart and soul of an organization. We do not want a one-gallon bowl to have fish in; we want a large, vast area for them to thrive; such is the principle of protecting lands not just for land but for wildlife.

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The signs are everywhere of Climate Change, as are the changes to the earth, yet oil companies are merging so they can frack more and destroy more of what sustains our planet. They remain focused and arrogant; we can only respond with boldness and determination, keeping them off our public lands. Hunters continue to kill for trophy in the American West and across the globe. Trappers control the Idaho and Montana legislatures, and we have no time to conform or sit and collaborate; we must break the suicide cycle of grabbing our share of what is left. We must work and act as though, in unison, we can stop the madness and preserve for generations to come the wonders we have been blessed with. It's not a mission nor a pep talk; it is a responsibility. Our National Monument campaign moves forward south of Bozeman, one that would protect 1.6 million acres, the only portion of lands coming out of Yellowstone that lack protection. We are now beginning to sign up businesses in Bozeman and Livingston that support this goal. We are talking to Tribes and working with Garrick Dutcher of Living with Wolves on this and our efforts to make 500,000 acres off-limits to trapping and wolf hunting in Idaho. Again, these are not easy campaigns, but they need to be fought if we are to break the cycle of violence being waged not just against wildlife but our public lands. Our sportsmen group is up and running and, as I mentioned last week, is named Hunters in Defense of Predators, defenseofpredators.org. We are working across the board to bring change to an entrenched system, one which requires complete reconstruction. From rebuilding state wildlife agencies to protecting public lands, there is serious work to be done. We can only do so with your support.

Please consider a donation to Bold Visions Conservation. Every donation will be matched 100% by a supportive donor. Thank you for being so supportive, and let's work to make changes in Idaho and Montana because we love and want the best both for the wildlife and the stunning lands that define the Northern Rockies. It's a long road to hope, a place of co-existence and perhaps a transcendence in our relationship to the land and wildlife. Good things never come easy, but working together gives us all the courage for success.

The Season of Discontent

by Stephen Capra, Executive Director, Bold Visions Conservation

So, it has begun in earnest, this thing we call hunting season. The traffic on our highways is one trailer being pulled by a truck with at least one off-road vehicle. It seems fewer hunters hike or ride a horse to hunt anymore.

What was once a means of putting food on the table has become a time for many to try out their new toys, which now include rifles that can kill from ranges one could never have imagined. Some use bows and arrows that can cut through steel. For hunters today, there is a fleet of calling devices, drones, cameras, GPS, scents, and traps with bait in some states, all designed to make killing easier. What is lost in this noise is the destruction of a Leopoldian ideal of hunting that made one clean shot a must.

No, today, there is truly no fair chase. Perhaps some hunters employ such an ethic, some who we know demand such a standard, but for the masses, there is a need for an easy route to kill, take a photo, and ethics be dammed. Major sportsmen's groups do not uphold such standards but rather support slob hunting. They push for the killing of predators, and they lobby for the longest possible hunting seasons, which in Montana and Idaho are enough to leave any animal full of stress and unable to move with any sense of security. They control the actions of our state Fish, Wildlife and Parks despite the overwhelming number of people that show up and push back against their turn of the last century racialism against wildlife.

We often talk these days about mental health; imagine living for more than six months a year under the stress of being hunted. Hunters like to talk about all the money they bring in by "paying their way," but the reality is far different. The people who hike, bike, backpack, and view wildlife have far more skin in the game than hunters; our tax base is far greater and does more to fund the government since non-hunters represent 94% of Americans.

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This time of year, images of dead wildlife fill the pages of Facebook and other social media pages, and the focus is often on encouraging young men and women to learn to kill wildlife. Fall breaks are given in some states so kids can be out of school to hunt. God forbid they are let out to work at a wildlife sanctuary or other such noble means. The push to grow hunting appears relentless, though the numbers continue to slip as people come to terms with the reality that wildlife suffer and feel pain, that the deer, elk, or bear you kill may have young offspring that is now left alone. Also, fewer people desire meat in their diets. Hiking in the fall is now filled with danger; hunter's control what can be the most pleasant time of year to recreate. Going down to Council Grove State Park in Missoula, I have constantly confronted hunters running down the banks of the river wildly shooting at ducks. This while trying to walk my dogs. The sounds of gunshots are a consistent part of the fall and remind me more of war than recreation. Most hunters I speak to tell me of the fresh meat and how they save money. But most economists who have looked into this say when you factor in guns, travel, ammo, food, booze, and gear, the cost is far higher than a steak you purchase in a store. Hunting is not going to end anytime soon, and Bold Visions Conservation is not calling for it to end. It just it seems that once again, a minority of people have complete control over the fate of wildlife, in this case, 6% of the American population. The agencies of most states do all they can to ignore those of us who want some sanity in this process. The legislature and our Governor do all they can to extend seasons and push for the killing of mountain lions, bears, wolves, and any predators. Also, why is it that hunters can never use bear spray? It needs to be law, for they shoot at every bear they see, and there is no real investigation, just another bear that found itself in the wrong place at the wrong time. They seemingly lack the courage to use a simple, proven, non-lethal solution. We continue to lose far too many bears to this and a railroad that ignores the killing.

The push to delist grizzlies will allow yet another species to live in fear and stress. It must be stopped. The real question to me is when does the moment come when you kill an otherwise innocent animal that you as a person begin to question: why am I doing this? Many before you have stopped placing traps or sold their guns, but today, there appears to be pressure to keep killing wildlife and to not stop with deer and elk but to expand into species many would have never considered before. Game and Fish is making it that much easier with multiple tags.

Such pressure is at the heart of groups like the Foundation for Wildlife Management in Idaho that wow people with the idea that killing wolves is a responsibility and positive. Groups like this and so many major hunting groups profit off the killing of species that most people simply want to co-exist with and share the land. They also lead the charge to destroy grizzly bears.

I mention this because we at Bold Visions have launched a new sportsmen's organization. Our goal is to make a change in the ranks of those who continue to hunt with these concepts in mind. I will not talk about it again, but we encourage you to look at our new group and site, it is designed to make hunters think about to perhaps not desire to kill wolves or bears. To take a hard look at Fish, Wildlife, and Parks and how they continue to mismanage wildlife. To look at Pittman-Robinson funding and the North American Wildlife Model. To ask sportsmen- why do you feel there is a need to kill predator species?

Dave Stalling is one of the finest writers on these issues, and you are encouraged to read his thoughts and experience as a hunter on these critical issues and how it can be done so much better. The organization is Hunters in Defense of Predators; the website is defenseofpredators.org. Please take a moment and see that Bold Visions Conservation is working and developing new ways to protect wildlife and doing all it can to change perceptions and keep precious wolves and bears in the wild!

April Christofferson

Stephen Capra, Executive Director, Bold Visions Conservation

Every now and again, you are lucky enough to meet a great person in your conservation efforts. One of those, for me, was April Christofferson. I met April some years ago while working in New Mexico. When I decided to move to Montana, she greeted me with open arms.

April was beautiful and dedicated to ending trapping and making a difference in this world. With her family background, something out of a Western novel, her life was full and magical. Having graduated with a Veterinary science degree from the University of Illinois, her house was a menagerie of animals that needed rescue or help. On any given call, there was talk of grandchildren, pride in her son, and the wonders of her daughter. But she always had time to talk about wolves, trapping, grizzlies, and her love for all living beings.

Her writing started on her 40th birthday and was designed to educate and grab people through their thriller approach because she hated those who trap or harm wildlife. They often became the hunted or trapped in her novels. We often discussed ideas for her book, and she encouraged my writing after every sermon.

She always made me feel welcome; her books are part of my home.

She died way too soon, and we are all losers when such a powerful spirit leaves us before their time.

April was a friend who shared a call with me and gave me not just guidance but the will to keep going forward in some of the most challenging times in this conservation world we face in Montana and Idaho. Her love of wolves had no bounds, and her disgust with trapping and any harm to animals was part of her dedication to a life of helping.

She was a superstar who only knew love, and my heart breaks for her husband, children, and grandchildren, whom she loved with the same spirit she gave to life. They were blessed to share in her extraordinary life.

At Bold Visions Conservation, we want to start the April Christofferson Scholarship Fund for deserving students for their efforts and writing skills. It will focus on a student who writes the finest essay on wolves in the wild. We will reach out to schools in Montana and Idaho and give one $500 grant to deserving students in tenth grade in each state. We will also share those essays with you. Please let your friends know and have the students email me at Stephen@bvconservation.org for more information.

APRIL CHRISTOFFERSON

“I love the process of writing,” says April Christofferson, BS’73, “but I write because I’m trying to make a difference.”

The difference this Illinois native is talking about includes many of the most complex and conflicted issues of her adopted home in the American West, including wildlife and public lands management, tribal rights, and development. Most recently, her passion as a writer has turned to the issue of more than 6,000 missing and endangered indigenous women in the country, many of them in the West.

April grew up in Chicago, but the West is rooted in her genes. She attributes her love of animals, nature and the West to time spent as a child visiting Yellowstone National Park and her grandfather's Wyoming ranch. Floyd "Doc" Carroll, a beloved Wyoming state veterinarian and cowboy, was inducted into the Cowboy Hall of Fame as one of this country's "Great Westerners."

The road April traveled to become a successful writer has been a winding one. After receiving her undergraduate degree in biology from the University of Utah, she studied veterinary medicine at the University of Illinois and then earned a law degree from Gonzaga University. April and her family lived in Seattle for 14 years where she worked as an attorney first in the entertainment industry, then in the biotech industry.

At age 40 she wrote her first book, After the Dance, which explored a family dealing with the death of a son from AIDS. After the Dance became a regional bestseller. After its release, April quit practicing law to write full time; however, just as she finished her second book, Edgewater (April had entitled it "Wild Turkey Moon" after seeing her first wild turkeys at their cabin in North Idaho), she was contacted about a "short-term" position helping a biotech company draft contracts. The short-term gig turned into five years of working in the biotech world. April had also worked as a pharmaceutical rep to get through law school. The two experiences stirred April to write about practices in the pharmaceutical industry that she believed to be dangerous—and motivated more by the desire for profit than the desire to benefit mankind. The result was her next three novels—The Protocol, Clinical Trial, and Patent to Kill—all medical thrillers favorably compared by reviewers to the work of Michael Crichton and Robin Cook. These novels have been selected for inclusion in the Kennedy Institute of Ethics/Georgetown University Library of Bioethics Literature, a collection that highlights ethical issues in medicine and biomedical research.

Trapped ©2012

This year, the reissue of the first two books of her Judge Annie Peacock Series, Alpha Female and Trapped, by Burns & Lea Books–along with its shopping of them by publisher/agent Story Merchant for a television miniseries based on the characters’ adventures in Yellowstone National Park and beyond—speak to the enduring interest of her literary creations, characterized by deep-dive storytelling that started more than a quarter-century ago.

Growing up in Chicago, Christofferson came to love the West during summers visiting Yellowstone and her grandfather’s ranch in Wyoming, where both parents had been raised, and later her paternal grandparents’ homes in Salt Lake City and Richmond, Utah. But the road she traveled to become a successful writer is a long and winding story in itself.

Alpha Female ©2009

Now a resident of Bozeman, Montana, where her son and one of her two granddaughters live, Christofferson has a full life. It includes regular visits to the Blackfeet Reservation, where her daughter and other granddaughter live, writing daily in a small but cozy outbuilding, hanging out with her kids/granddaughters and husband, and, of course, entertaining a herd of furry friends, currently featuring five cats and four dogs, including an “all heart” black lab. Always, there are animals nearby, a tribute to her original impulse to be a veterinarian, now turned to animal rescue with her husband, the executive director of an animal shelter in the town of Livingston, north of Yellowstone in the Absaroka Mountains.

Grizzly Justice ©2019

Christofferson’s most recent book Grizzly Justice is about a recently fired ranger who disappears into the backcountry, hell-bent on saving a wounded grizzly bear whose fate is all but certain: euthanasia. Her current project Wolf Killer is more than timely; it feels ripped from the headlines after Montana Governor Greg Gianforte was reported to have trapped and killed a collared Yellowstone wolf who had wandered 10 miles out of the protected space of the park. (Gianforte was given a written warning for failing to take the required trapping course).

Even though she had started drafting the manuscript before the incident, the wolf, who was named “Max,” became a cause celebre. The issue of wolf hunting in Montana and the American West is classic Christofferson fodder for the kinds of stories she excels at rendering.

Generously, she attributes the beginning of those stories in part to her undergraduate years in Salt Lake City. “I’m a big fan of the University of Utah,” says Christofferson, recalling the extra semester she spent after graduation working on the University Health campus, and her senior project in biology, when she had been studying the molting of snakes.

“I was obsessed with snakes,” she says. “I had 20 of them [Coluber constrictor foxii, commonly known as “blue racers”] in an aquarium in the greenhouse. I would go up there, weigh them, record my observations.” One day when she arrived, someone had left the aquarium open, “and there I was lying on the floor of the greenhouse, trying to catch snakes, with my husband helping me,” she says with a laugh.