Following Lewis and Clark: Marin outdoorsman displays on canoe journey – Marin Independent Journal

The paddle struck a carcass floating within the silty water — a useless beaver. Finally, wildlife.

This was day two of a 120-mile canoe journey with a small group of buddies on the Upper Missouri River in Montana. Our three canoes, sliding beneath towering cliffs, carried us on the route of Lewis and Clark.

The Lewis and Clark expedition encountered greater than dramatic surroundings. The explorers met a residing world. The subsequent century, from 1804 to 1904, would see the virtually full destruction of America’s wildlife. Another hundred years would go earlier than the animals they noticed may as soon as once more be seen even in very restricted numbers.

The Indigenous civilizations they encountered within the Upper Missouri space — the Arikara, Mandan, Hidatsa, Blackfeet/Piegan and Lemhi Shoshone — imbedded within the seasonal rhythms of the excessive plains and attuned to the animal migrations, had been nonetheless intact in 1804. Soon, that too would go.

The concept for our canoe journey was to expertise an space of the nation comparatively faraway from trendy city life.

Visitation to Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument is mild. Canoe journey is scheduled in such a approach that encountering different teams may be very unlikely. We sought wilderness. We discovered one thing in need of that.

The level of this text is to offer an image of a small however magnificent place on the North American continent as it’s immediately as contrasted with the way it appeared 222 years in the past. From there, one can ask the questions why and the way.

So far, I had counted one beaver — a useless one at that.

In former instances, the flanking cliffs, badlands and bottoms had been the house of nice numbers of untamed animals.

Today, the eroded banks had been thronged by 10,000 black Angus cattle. (I did a tough depend). Big, historic cottonwoods lined elements of the riverbanks. But there have been no younger timber. New development didn’t stand an opportunity underneath the strain from the cattle. Soon, the outdated timber would fall, by no means to get replaced.

We have the Nineteenth-century work of Karl Bodmer and Alfred Jacob Miller, which give a way of the native cultures and wildlife of that pre-settlement period. The artists painted landmarks, that are unchanged immediately. But the huge bison herds and the proud individuals depicted, now absent, go away the land and one’s personal emotions hollowed out.

On the third day of our canoeing the Upper Missouri, immediately, standing sentinel on the elevated proper financial institution, a totem appeared! Almost too astonishing to be true, a Rocky Mountain bighorn ram loomed solely 40 ft from us. The perfection of this second was past phrases.

Later that afternoon, seven bighorn ewes and lambs descended a left financial institution gully to drink from the river. These animals descend from Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep transplanted by Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks from their native haunts additional west.

The former subspecies of bighorn of the Upper Missouri nation was often known as Audubon’s bighorn, now extinct. The state, in an effort at restoration, was doing what it may.

Reading the land and the river within the few days throughout the Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument reveals a story particular to that place. But variants of its story are repeated in river valleys, mountains and plains throughout the nation.

The American panorama has been made secure for industrial-scale agriculture. One of the methods this has been completed is thru the actions of a subsidiary of the Department of Agriculture referred to as Wildlife Services. This company erases wildlife from the land within the identify of agricultural effectivity.

In 2024, this rogue company killed almost 2 million wild animals, greater than 400,000 of whom had been native species. In 2025, the quantity was about the identical. Since 2004, it has killed greater than 56 million wild animals. The company routinely traps, shoots, explodes and poisons 1000’s of mountain lions, bobcats, lynx, wolves, bears, coyotes, foxes, badgers, beavers, raccoons, prairie canine and birds. Additionally, almost 3,000 had been unintentional deaths, together with river otters, muskrats, snapping turtles, skunks, peccaries, porcupines, opossums, horses, canine, eagles, hawks and owls.

Ostensibly, this company’s mandate is to cut back wildlife-human battle. In truth, its scorched earth marketing campaign is controversial and sometimes unlawful.

The company serves ranchers who run cattle and sheep all through nationwide forests and Bureau of Land Management lands on government-subsidized grazing rights. Most hardworking ranchers really feel the lack of every cow or calf to predation as a severe financial blow. It is sensible that they’d need a predator-free panorama. The lands on which the cattle graze, nonetheless, are sometimes the final habitats of a few of our most emblematic wildlife.

Unless one visits Yellowstone National Park, it’s uncommon to see a big wild animal within the United States. Given what wildlife is up in opposition to on this nation, is it any surprise that animals stay as secretive as attainable? Formerly diurnal species are now not overseas throughout sunlight hours. They have switched to nocturnal habits.

A tiny fraction of the North American continent has been put aside in order that pure programs can proceed there. But these public lands are at perpetual danger of being opened to exploitation.

At the Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument in Montana, cattle nonetheless rule the land. The effort to revive free-ranging bison to the monument and adjoining lands is led by the group American Prairie. Livestock pursuits are against the plan. In 2026, the Bureau of Land Management revoked American Prairie’s federal bison grazing allotments. Citing bison’s position as a keystone species of the Great Plains, American Prairie is interesting the ruling.

According to the eminent biologist E. O. Wilson, to ensure that life and human society to proceed, absolutely half the planet’s land have to be maintained and restored in a very pure wilderness state.

The nice diminishment of the pure world occurring immediately is met with pushback from actions to revive and rewild degraded landscapes, waters and wildlife.

We are even making restricted amends to beavers.

There are many alternatives to pitch in, a few of them native. These organizations, depending on volunteers and donations, are essential saviors of the area wildlife requires.

• The Western Environmental Law Center defends wildlands and wildlife.

• CalWild is a statewide group devoted solely to defending and restoring the state’s wildest pure landscapes and watersheds on public lands.

• The National Wildlife Federation conserves wildlife and spearheads the nation’s largest wildlife crossing close to Los Angeles.

• The Center for Biological Diversity’s mission is saving life on Earth.

•  The Natural Resources Defense Council defends wildlife and public lands.

• Nonprofit public curiosity environmental legislation group Earthjustice’s tagline is “because the Earth needs a good lawyer.”

•  Save the Redwoods League has protected greater than 220,000 acres of redwood forest.

•  River Partners has restored round 20,000 acres and planted greater than 4.5 million native timber.

•  Marin Audubon Society has protected greater than 1,000 acres of habitat within the county.

•  Wildlands Network is explicitly a “rewilding”-oriented group.

• Save the Bay helps defend and restore the San Francisco Bay.

• Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy is nice for hands-on native habitat restoration.

• Marin Conservation League has been preserving open area and public lands since 1934.

• Greenbelt Alliance educates, advocates and collaborates to make sure the Bay Area’s lands and communities are resilient to a altering local weather.

• Marin Open Space Trust focuses on preserving Marin’s at-risk open area by land purchases and conservation easements.

An artist whose work are held in lots of museum collections, Marin resident Jeffrey Long has backpacked the mountains of the West and hosts the weblog Konocti Post. His artwork could be seen at Jeffreylongstudio.com. He could be reached at jefflong@jefflong.com.