Green Fire Trail, Mexican Wolves, and Aldo Leopold

If environmentalism had a hall of fame like baseball, Aldo Leopold would be its Babe Ruth. His writings, such as A Sand County Almanac, have inspired generations of conservationists, including many of us here at Defenders.

Aldo wasn’t always the wildlife hero we remember him as today. But his journey to enlightenment offers hope that one day we will all learn to better understand and respect the natural world.

To honor Leopold, Defenders’ Southwest representative Craig Miller, along with several of our conservation partners, dedicated the Green Fire Trail this past September in Arizona’s White Mountains, home to some of the last endangered Mexican wolves remaining in the wild.

Check out the video above to see the very place that inspired Leopold’s life and one of his most famous quotes.

Excerpt from Aldo’s essay, “Thinking Like a Mountain:”

“We were eating lunch on a high rimrock, at the foot of which a turbulent river elbowed its way. We saw what we thought was a doe fording the torrent, her breast awash in white water. When she climbed the bank toward us and shook out her tail, we realized our error: it was a wolf. A half-dozen others, evidently grown pups, sprang from the willows and all joined in a welcoming melee of wagging tails and playful maulings. What was literally a pile of wolves writhed and tumbled in the center of an open flat at the foot of our rimrock.

We reached the old wolf in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes. I realized then, and have known ever since, that there was something new to me in those eyes—something known only to her and to the mountain.

In those days we had never heard of passing up a chance to kill a wolf. In a second we were pumping lead into the pack, but with more excitement than accuracy; how to aim a steep downhill shot is always confusing. When our rifles were empty, the old wolf was down, and a pup was dragging a leg into impassable side-rocks.

We reached the old wolf in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes. I realized then, and have known ever since, that there was something new to me in those eyes—something known only to her and to the mountain. I was young then, and full of trigger-itch; I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer, that no wolves would mean hunters’ paradise. But after seeing the green fire die, I sensed that neither the wolf nor the mountain agreed with such a view.”

Learn more about Mexican wolves here.