Environmental and animal rights groups are seeking an injunction in U.S. District Court in Montana to stop the hunts. Judge Donald Molloy is seeing the case, and it’s uncertain how and when he will rule. Earthjustice attorney Doug Honnold sought an an “injunction to stall hunting in both Idaho and Montana as part of a lawsuit seeking to restore protection of the wolves under the Endangered Species Act.”

“Although the gray wolf has rebounded from virtual extinction in the region a mere twenty years ago, wolf populations in the northern Rockies are not yet stable enough to lose these critical protections” according to the Sierra Club.  “The management of the animals now falls to individual states to implement as they see fit, including hunting and aggressive agency management.”

“The population of gray wolves in the northern Rockies consists of three relatively isolated sub-populations, rather than one genetically connected group.  There are approximately 1,600 individuals and 100 breeding pairs in the region.  Many scientists maintain that this number is not high enough to ensure long-term population viability.” The Sierra Club Website continues,   “Instead, to have a sustainable population, wolves need to number between 2,000 and 5,000 individuals in the northern Rockies.  The state management plans tend to slide backwards, rather than allowing wolf populations to grow naturally.  Idaho, for example, plans to allow the number to be reduced to around 100 individuals, down from approximately 900.”

“In Idaho, the limit is 220 wolves, and in Montana, it would be 75. Members of the Nez Perce tribe in Idaho can kill up to 35 wolves” according to CNN.

Though from a different part of our country, and with an outdated script, here is a quick, timeless video, shot by videographer Michael Mauro, highlighting the Wolves of Alaska.

Technically, forbidden trees or dwindling trees, either way you look at it, we were evicted and subsequently began to figure on our own feet. From that point forward, our brains and minds reasoned on the run. We think at our best when our feet and hands get dirty.

“What other animal retires?” Michael Roberts is quoted on CNN. “If a lion retires today, tomorrow morning he becomes his brother’s breakfast.”

DNA is designed for deployment and discovery.

Exploration is just another word for Evolution.

Do you find it at all interesting that the first two pages of a Google search for Dwindling Habitats contained references to Rhinos, Polar Bears, Grizzly Bears, Bats, Scrub Jays, Tigers, Lions, Mountain Lions, Frogs, Owls, Grouse and even mice, yet no mentions of humans losing their habitat; not a single reference.

The habitats, jungles, forests, savannahs, mountains, the dynamic circumstances that our distant cousins faced, the natural surroundings that forged who we are, are dwindling fast. No longer do we search for food under the constant threat of becoming food. Instead of hunting for dinner we head to the grocery store, we needn’t chop wood because we have electric heat, why bother walking into a pharmacist’s counter to get your prescription medications for high blood pressure and cholesterol when you can just sit and hit the drive-up window? Finding water is easy, we just turn on the faucet!

The ubiquitous challenge and constant change that crafted us, one step at a time, is replaced with the status quo of comfort zones and its contraptions of convenience. We no longer scamper and scavenge and have long since forgotten how to fend for ourselves, in the wilderness abroad or within our very own minds. Our innate abilities to rally against unimaginable odds, lay dormant, withered and weakened. Without jungles to negotiate, hungry predators to protect against, mountains to climb and rivers to cross, our body and mind is slowly changing, atrophying actually.

We are at an evolutionary junction and it is up to each of us, individually, to choose our path through the fork in the road.

In the challenges that currently face us all, our best bet is to fall back on our inner-ability to struggle, survive and thrive. Our modern day  jungles, and the predators that prowell them, are made of sidewalks, business suits, briefcases and congressional bills. These forests are full of those prowling for prey.

A friend on FaceBook yesterday reminded me of the quote. “It is the North Wind that made the Vikings.” It instantly made me think of Frederick Douglas, “If there is no struggle, there is no progress” and most certainly of John Page’s question to Thomas Jefferson at the signing of the Declaration of Independence. “Do you not think an Angel rides in the Whirlwind and directs this Storm?”

Thankfully, the skills and logic needed to survive and thrive are buried within each of us; they’ve been there since we started The Walk.