What 'Footprints' will year-old monument leave?

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What 'Footprints' will year-old monument leave?

No new visitors center or developed campgrounds have opened on the Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni – Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument since President Joe Biden signed it into existence one year ago this month.

But the monument — Baaj Nwaavjo meaning "where Indigenous peoples roam" in Havasupai; I'tah Kukveni meaning "out ancestral footprints" in Hopi — has drawn attention in recent weeks for what it can do and for what it can't.

In creating the monument, Biden made permanent a moratorium — put in place in 2012 by President Barack Obama — on new hard-rock mining across about 1 million acres of public lands around the Grand Canyon. That meant an end to new uranium mines in the region, long a goal of tribes and environmental groups.

The large-scale mining operations of the last century contaminated land and water on the Navajo Nation and left thousands of people sick or dying from radiation poisoning.

But the monument designation couldn't stop existing claims or mines, which is why Energy Fuels Inc. started extracting uranium ore at its Pinyon Plain Mine late last year and tried shipping it across the Navajo Nation to a mill in Utah late last month.

“At the one-year mark, the Ancestral Footprints national monument shows it’s vital to protecting the Grand Canyon region’s Indigenous cultural heritage and unique biodiversity,” said Taylor McKinnon, Southwest director at the Center for Biological Diversity.

“But the very aquifers, springs and sacred sites that the monument sought to protect are now threatened by uranium mining that was grandfathered in. The Center stands with tribes, scientists and dozens of other groups calling on Gov. Hobbs and federal officials to shut that mine down.”

What comes next? The monument will be overseen by a unique collaboration of tribes , government agencies and non-government organizations, who will work to devise a management plan and a way to tell the stories of the people who lived on the lands and of the land itself, the canyons, plateaus, creeks and springs.

"It gives me comfort knowing the lands will be protected," said Carletta Tilousi , former Havasupai council member and activist who serves on the co-stewardship commission. She talked with The Republic's Debra Krol about the monument one year on.

"It's for future generations," she said, "so our children's children's children can enjoy these areas."

That's assuming it stays as is. Arizona legislators and a local rancher have filed separate lawsuits trying to undo Biden's actions, but the monument's future could depend on the results of the November elections.

In the first year after he was elected president, Donald Trump reduced the size of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase national monuments in Utah and changed the makeup of the Bears Ears tribal advisory commission working on a management plan.

Biden restored the boundaries for both monuments in 2021, but it's possible that opponents of "Footprints" would push a second Trump administration to reconsider Biden's actions here and perhaps in Utah. Republicans have insisted for years that presidents have overreached in using the federal Antiquities Act to set aside the monuments.

The other question out there now is if Biden will create any new monuments on his way out this fall. Both Obama and former President Bill Clinton did so as their time in the White House ended. (Clinton left five new monuments in Arizona: Ironwood Forest , Sonoran Desert , Agua Fria , Grand Canyon-Parashant and Vermilion Cliffs .) Rep. Raúl Grijalva, D-Ariz., has introduced a bill to create the Great Bend of the Gila National Monument in southern Arizona, and conservation advocates have long sought monument designation for lands surrounding Sedona.

So far there's no indication Biden will issue any new proclamations, but Clinton was signing them almost until the day he left Washington.

Tilousi says the "Footprints" monument is about protecting land and history, but also sharing those things with visitors.

"It's become very popular with lots of people camping and hiking there," she told Deb Krol. "They're very curious about the lands and they're enjoying them."

'Ancetral Footprints': Tribes, conservationists look to future as AZ monument marks its 1st year

Protesters rally behind wild wolves

Wildlife advocates rallied outside the Arizona Game and Fish Commission meeting Friday, supporting the department’s decision to allow two endangered Mexican gray wolves to continue roaming outside Flagstaff.

The protesters urged officials to allow the wolves to stay indefinitely and educate the public on how to differentiate wolves from coyotes and handle an encounter.

“There haven’t been any reports of conflict with people or livestock,” said Greta Anderson, deputy director for Western Watersheds Project. “The wolves are acting the way wolves should, which is wild, staying away from people and hunting native prey for food. They’re doing the right things, and that’s a sign they deserve to stay.”

In July, wolf managers captured and released a female wolf who wandered outside the Mexican Wolf Experimental Population Area, which encompasses parts of Arizona and New Mexico south of Interstate 40.

Previously, wildlife agencies relocated wolves who strayed from the population area, but they released the female wolf with a GPS collar in hopes of locating another wolf traversing the area.

The state wildlife agency said it will continue monitoring the wolves' movements and decide whether to remove them in the coming months. Managers said they relocated wolves in the past for their protection, as a male wolf, Anubis, was mistaken for a coyote and shot north of the recovery area in 2022. Another wolf, Asha, was captured and will remain in lock-up after failing to produce offspring.

Advocates believe having multiple subpopulations will improve genetic diversity and create a backup if one population declines due to disease or environmental stressors.

“I hope that the department sees it’s going to be inevitable that there’s going to be wolves in that part of the world,” Anderson said. “We might as well start figuring out how to make that work instead of trying to enforce an invisible, arbitrary boundary of Interstate 40.” — Hayleigh Evans

Endangered species: Fate of Mexican gray wolves is caught in a battle over their place in the landscape

Here kitty, kitty

Finally this week, we've written a lot lately about the endangered Mexican gray wolf, but there are some cool cats prowling Arizona's mountains, one more, it turns out, than we knew.

A Phoenix Zoo researcher was hiking through southern Arizona's Atascosa Highlands checking wildlife trail cameras and as she examined the images, she found an unexpected appearance by an ocelot. It was the first confirmed sighting in the area in more than 50 years. (You can watch a short video clip from the camera here .)

Kinley Ragan, a research project manager for the zoo's conservation center, told The Republic's Hayleigh Evans that the highlands offer good habitat for an ocelot, if only there were more of them.

“It’s always exciting to see any animal, but to see one that is of such a high status and is important to the region, really sat with us and it was very exciting,” Ragan said.

The small cat has almost vanished from Arizona — this one was just the seventh identified in 20 years — and its population has dwindled to around 100 in the U.S. So far, only males have been found in this country, so there's no breeding population.

“We’re excited to see if this was a one-off and what this means for the area,” Ragan said in our story . “Are there more? Now that we are formally surveying it, what else can we uncover in this beautiful landscape?”

Endangered cats: Ocelots try to survive in a world that barely knows they exist

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: What 'Footprints' will year-old monument leave?