1 00:00:01,680 --> 00:00:05,279 Speaker 1: Where the Rocky Mountains, the Great Plains, the Colorado Plateau, 2 00:00:05,440 --> 00:00:10,080 Speaker 1: and the southwestern deserts converged to create New Mexico. There 3 00:00:10,119 --> 00:00:14,640 Speaker 1: is more ecological variety than in any interior Western state. 4 00:00:15,480 --> 00:00:18,560 Speaker 2: I'm Dan Flores, and this is the American. 5 00:00:18,160 --> 00:00:44,880 Speaker 1: West, understanding nature in a southwestern state. In the first 6 00:00:45,000 --> 00:00:48,000 Speaker 1: fifteen years of the two thousands, I spent part of 7 00:00:48,040 --> 00:00:52,480 Speaker 1: my time in Montana, part in New Mexico. That experience 8 00:00:52,560 --> 00:00:58,000 Speaker 1: drove home a fact of modern Western life I'd never considered, namely, 9 00:00:58,520 --> 00:01:01,920 Speaker 1: how little inhabitants of any part of the West often 10 00:01:02,080 --> 00:01:05,679 Speaker 1: know about the rest of their region. And a West 11 00:01:05,840 --> 00:01:10,119 Speaker 1: settled relatively recently by Americans who came here from other places. 12 00:01:10,280 --> 00:01:13,240 Speaker 1: I know this has something to do with the Western 13 00:01:13,360 --> 00:01:18,600 Speaker 1: settlement patterns geographers have long studied. One of their insights 14 00:01:18,720 --> 00:01:21,520 Speaker 1: is that as the West was settled in the nineteenth 15 00:01:21,520 --> 00:01:26,800 Speaker 1: and twentieth centuries, settlers almost always moved west along the 16 00:01:26,920 --> 00:01:31,000 Speaker 1: same latitude lines where they had started. Texas and the 17 00:01:31,040 --> 00:01:34,959 Speaker 1: Southwest were largely settled by people moving westward from the South. 18 00:01:35,440 --> 00:01:40,319 Speaker 1: Colorado and Utah got peopled by Midwesterners from Missouri and Illinois, 19 00:01:40,640 --> 00:01:44,200 Speaker 1: and the northern West. The Dakotas across Montana on to 20 00:01:44,360 --> 00:01:48,120 Speaker 1: Oregon and Washington by people who started out in New 21 00:01:48,120 --> 00:01:51,600 Speaker 1: England or around the Great Lakes. When the dust Bowl 22 00:01:51,680 --> 00:01:56,360 Speaker 1: of the nineteen thirties launched millions of Oklahomas and Kansas 23 00:01:56,400 --> 00:02:02,800 Speaker 1: on their migration west, their primary destination, naturally enough, southern California. 24 00:02:03,560 --> 00:02:09,280 Speaker 1: Understanding the wider West obviously involves travel. It's a big place, 25 00:02:10,040 --> 00:02:15,600 Speaker 1: but even tourists travel often follows those same latitude lines. Today, 26 00:02:15,639 --> 00:02:19,680 Speaker 1: when Minnesota's travel west, they commonly go to Glacier National Park, 27 00:02:19,800 --> 00:02:25,040 Speaker 1: are onto Washington State. Chicagoans travel to Yellowstone. Texans go 28 00:02:25,120 --> 00:02:28,520 Speaker 1: to Santa Fe or Grand Canyon National Park, or they 29 00:02:28,639 --> 00:02:33,520 Speaker 1: golf in Arizona. Obviously, the snowbird phenomenon has changed at 30 00:02:33,639 --> 00:02:38,480 Speaker 1: migration patterns, some bringing Midwesterners south to states like Arizona 31 00:02:38,560 --> 00:02:42,840 Speaker 1: for the winters. But I think those classic latitudinal patterns 32 00:02:43,040 --> 00:02:46,720 Speaker 1: explain at least some of the strange lack of familiarity 33 00:02:46,919 --> 00:02:49,640 Speaker 1: with other parts of the West. I found among both 34 00:02:49,800 --> 00:02:54,160 Speaker 1: Southwesterners and residents of the Northern Rockies during my time 35 00:02:54,240 --> 00:02:55,560 Speaker 1: in those two places. 36 00:02:56,400 --> 00:02:57,480 Speaker 2: Told that I live. 37 00:02:57,440 --> 00:03:01,359 Speaker 1: Part of the year outside Missoula, Montana. For example, West 38 00:03:01,400 --> 00:03:05,280 Speaker 1: Texans and even New Mexicans were incredulous. How do you 39 00:03:05,360 --> 00:03:09,600 Speaker 1: stand living all winter at forty below zero? For Montanas? 40 00:03:09,639 --> 00:03:13,320 Speaker 1: That worked in perfect reverse. You go to Santa Fe 41 00:03:13,440 --> 00:03:16,240 Speaker 1: for the summers, how can you stand that one hundred 42 00:03:16,280 --> 00:03:19,280 Speaker 1: and twenty five degree heat. I never developed a good 43 00:03:19,320 --> 00:03:24,720 Speaker 1: comeback about Montana, except to observe lamely that other Montanas 44 00:03:24,800 --> 00:03:28,760 Speaker 1: often called Missoula and the Bitterroot Valley the Banana Belt. 45 00:03:29,400 --> 00:03:31,680 Speaker 1: Over time, I did work out a fair one about 46 00:03:31,680 --> 00:03:36,040 Speaker 1: Santa Fe. Though, so Denver is the mile high city 47 00:03:36,120 --> 00:03:39,880 Speaker 1: and it snows there, right Santa Fe sits even closer 48 00:03:39,920 --> 00:03:42,640 Speaker 1: to the rocky mountains than Denver does, and it's a 49 00:03:42,680 --> 00:03:44,320 Speaker 1: half mile higher up. 50 00:03:44,720 --> 00:03:45,600 Speaker 2: You figure it out. 51 00:03:46,200 --> 00:03:49,520 Speaker 1: The looks I got were still and comprehending, though like 52 00:03:49,600 --> 00:03:57,080 Speaker 1: I was arguing that the Sahara wasn't a desert. The 53 00:03:57,160 --> 00:04:00,840 Speaker 1: Southwest struck me then and still does as the part 54 00:04:00,840 --> 00:04:05,080 Speaker 1: of the West that seems most alien to Americans from elsewhere, 55 00:04:05,280 --> 00:04:10,080 Speaker 1: even other Westerners with reputations for their green forested mountains 56 00:04:10,120 --> 00:04:14,680 Speaker 1: and ski weather winter snows. Interior West states like Colorado 57 00:04:14,760 --> 00:04:19,880 Speaker 1: and Utah, Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho seem easy places to 58 00:04:19,960 --> 00:04:24,159 Speaker 1: picture in the mine for most Americans living outside the West, 59 00:04:24,880 --> 00:04:30,120 Speaker 1: but the Southwest, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada presents a different 60 00:04:30,160 --> 00:04:35,360 Speaker 1: world to the national consciousness. The irresistible proclivity for national 61 00:04:35,400 --> 00:04:39,200 Speaker 1: sports announcers to label any sporting event taking place in 62 00:04:39,320 --> 00:04:43,600 Speaker 1: Arizona as being played down in the desert conveys to 63 00:04:43,640 --> 00:04:48,160 Speaker 1: me at least a continuing national cinema that the imagined 64 00:04:48,360 --> 00:04:53,400 Speaker 1: Southwest still falls outside the American norm. So let me 65 00:04:53,440 --> 00:04:58,400 Speaker 1: take a stab at familiarizing the American West's audience with 66 00:04:58,600 --> 00:05:01,480 Speaker 1: the part of the Southwest I know best the state 67 00:05:01,520 --> 00:05:05,320 Speaker 1: of New Mexico and the story I've studied there, which 68 00:05:05,400 --> 00:05:09,000 Speaker 1: is the discovery of the state's wildlife ecology. 69 00:05:09,880 --> 00:05:12,000 Speaker 2: If you struggle to exactly place. 70 00:05:11,760 --> 00:05:15,080 Speaker 1: It, New Mexico is that slice of the West situated 71 00:05:15,200 --> 00:05:21,200 Speaker 1: directly below mountainous Colorado. It's the western state sandwich between 72 00:05:21,240 --> 00:05:25,640 Speaker 1: the flatlands of Texas and the arid Colorado Plateau and 73 00:05:25,839 --> 00:05:30,800 Speaker 1: Suaro deserts of Arizona. The Rocky Mountains extend down into 74 00:05:30,880 --> 00:05:34,120 Speaker 1: New Mexico, and so do the slick rock canyons of 75 00:05:34,160 --> 00:05:35,400 Speaker 1: the Colorado Plateau. 76 00:05:36,080 --> 00:05:37,440 Speaker 2: The whole eastern. 77 00:05:37,160 --> 00:05:40,160 Speaker 1: Third of New Mexico, though lies in the Great plains, 78 00:05:40,400 --> 00:05:44,320 Speaker 1: and the entire southwestern quadrant of it is true desert, 79 00:05:44,440 --> 00:05:48,480 Speaker 1: although a different desert the Chihuahuan than the ones found 80 00:05:48,560 --> 00:05:53,240 Speaker 1: in either Arizona or Nevada, and New Mexico happens to 81 00:05:53,279 --> 00:05:56,760 Speaker 1: be the part of the West with the oldest continuous 82 00:05:56,960 --> 00:06:02,000 Speaker 1: human history In Santa Fe, founded in sixteen ten, it 83 00:06:02,040 --> 00:06:07,039 Speaker 1: has the oldest European town anywhere in the West. Turns out, 84 00:06:07,200 --> 00:06:10,440 Speaker 1: it's an easy thing to pick out the human beginnings 85 00:06:10,480 --> 00:06:15,800 Speaker 1: of understanding nature in New Mexico. A great many millennia 86 00:06:16,200 --> 00:06:20,480 Speaker 1: before today's White Sands National Monument down in the southern 87 00:06:20,520 --> 00:06:24,000 Speaker 1: part of the state ever existed, a young woman who 88 00:06:24,040 --> 00:06:28,520 Speaker 1: sometimes carried a child on her hip, walked barefoot along 89 00:06:28,680 --> 00:06:32,440 Speaker 1: a muddy lake shore among the white sand dunes, and 90 00:06:32,680 --> 00:06:37,039 Speaker 1: encountered a giant ground sloth, which reared back in alarm. 91 00:06:38,000 --> 00:06:42,000 Speaker 1: We know this because the footprints from that ancient close encounter, 92 00:06:42,360 --> 00:06:46,080 Speaker 1: excavated by a park service employee in twenty nineteen, had 93 00:06:46,200 --> 00:06:50,960 Speaker 1: crushed grass seeds below them that radiocarbon dated to twenty 94 00:06:51,040 --> 00:06:55,560 Speaker 1: three thousand years ago. That date is prior to the 95 00:06:55,600 --> 00:07:00,040 Speaker 1: glacial maximum of the Wisconsin Ice Age, and it's the 96 00:07:00,080 --> 00:07:04,680 Speaker 1: oldest evidence for humans anywhere in North America. The human 97 00:07:04,880 --> 00:07:08,680 Speaker 1: and sloth prints weren't the extent of it either. Mammoths 98 00:07:08,800 --> 00:07:13,640 Speaker 1: and dire wolves also crossed the tracks this young woman left. 99 00:07:14,360 --> 00:07:19,120 Speaker 1: Ten thousand years after that, the hunting culture we've named 100 00:07:19,320 --> 00:07:23,920 Speaker 1: Clovis left their spear points in the remains of multiple 101 00:07:24,200 --> 00:07:28,520 Speaker 1: now to us vanished mammoths near what would become one 102 00:07:28,600 --> 00:07:33,400 Speaker 1: day New Mexico's High Plains town carrying the Clovis name. 103 00:07:34,200 --> 00:07:38,320 Speaker 1: There's believable evidence that the Clovis people had a significant 104 00:07:38,320 --> 00:07:41,520 Speaker 1: effect on the Africa like wildlife that covered the West 105 00:07:41,600 --> 00:07:44,480 Speaker 1: down to about ten thousand years ago, much of which 106 00:07:44,640 --> 00:07:50,640 Speaker 1: went extinct by that time. In contrast to these Paleolithic hunters, however, 107 00:07:51,040 --> 00:07:56,680 Speaker 1: subsequent native peoples in New Mexico affected a wildlife management 108 00:07:56,840 --> 00:08:01,120 Speaker 1: of the area that preserved its biological divers for ten 109 00:08:01,360 --> 00:08:06,760 Speaker 1: millennia down to the arrival of Old worlders. When Spaniards 110 00:08:06,760 --> 00:08:11,720 Speaker 1: and Americans did arrive, travelers like Francisco Coronado, Albert Pike, 111 00:08:12,000 --> 00:08:16,520 Speaker 1: George Ruxton, and Josiah Gregg, and especially William Emery of 112 00:08:16,560 --> 00:08:20,640 Speaker 1: the Mexican Boundary Survey left us accounts of New Mexico 113 00:08:20,840 --> 00:08:24,280 Speaker 1: when its mountains brimmed with flocks of big horned sheep 114 00:08:24,360 --> 00:08:27,320 Speaker 1: and beaver down pools, and its planes were a kind 115 00:08:27,360 --> 00:08:32,840 Speaker 1: of American version of the Serengetti or Massai Mara, with grizzlies, 116 00:08:33,240 --> 00:08:39,240 Speaker 1: wolf packs, spotted jaguars, and jackal like coyotes trailing vast 117 00:08:39,360 --> 00:08:45,280 Speaker 1: herds of bison, elk, and pronghorns. During New Mexico's brief 118 00:08:45,440 --> 00:08:49,679 Speaker 1: time as part of the Republic of Mexico, New Mexicans 119 00:08:49,760 --> 00:08:54,360 Speaker 1: even tried to halt the eradication of its beavers by 120 00:08:54,440 --> 00:09:01,360 Speaker 1: American fur traders. The first real chance for the scientific 121 00:09:01,440 --> 00:09:05,120 Speaker 1: study of the mammals, birds, and reptiles in New Mexico 122 00:09:05,240 --> 00:09:08,760 Speaker 1: and the Southwest came after the Mexican War, when the 123 00:09:08,840 --> 00:09:13,319 Speaker 1: far Southwest became part of the United States. There were 124 00:09:13,440 --> 00:09:17,320 Speaker 1: several expeditions led by explorers called the Army Corps of 125 00:09:17,400 --> 00:09:21,840 Speaker 1: Topographical Engineers, and there were also parties surveying routes for 126 00:09:21,920 --> 00:09:23,280 Speaker 1: a railroad line. 127 00:09:23,040 --> 00:09:24,160 Speaker 2: To the Pacific Coast. 128 00:09:25,000 --> 00:09:29,360 Speaker 1: Some of the topographical engineers like John Charles Fremont, for example, 129 00:09:29,480 --> 00:09:33,000 Speaker 1: who became such a celebrity that in eighteen fifty six 130 00:09:33,160 --> 00:09:36,240 Speaker 1: he got the New Republican Party's nomination to be its 131 00:09:36,280 --> 00:09:42,320 Speaker 1: first presidential candidate became cultural stars in America from these expeditions, 132 00:09:43,040 --> 00:09:46,280 Speaker 1: but as is the fate of most scientists, history has 133 00:09:46,280 --> 00:09:49,960 Speaker 1: forgotten most of the naturalists who wrote about America's animals 134 00:09:50,000 --> 00:09:54,040 Speaker 1: when they were novel to discovery. The most notable of 135 00:09:54,080 --> 00:09:58,720 Speaker 1: these many expeditions was the Mexican Boundary Survey, which laid 136 00:09:58,720 --> 00:10:02,600 Speaker 1: out a new un boundary. After the treaty ending the 137 00:10:02,640 --> 00:10:07,040 Speaker 1: war forced Mexico to seede its northern territories. 138 00:10:06,400 --> 00:10:07,440 Speaker 2: To the United States. 139 00:10:08,120 --> 00:10:11,600 Speaker 1: Exploring that line fell to William Emery, one of the 140 00:10:11,640 --> 00:10:15,199 Speaker 1: founders of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, 141 00:10:15,480 --> 00:10:20,440 Speaker 1: with a young New Yorker named Spencer Baird as his assistant. 142 00:10:20,920 --> 00:10:25,079 Speaker 1: Soon to be a nationalist of legendary proportion, Baird, as 143 00:10:25,120 --> 00:10:28,040 Speaker 1: a teen had wanted to go west with Autubon, but 144 00:10:28,160 --> 00:10:32,760 Speaker 1: his parents had demurred because of the dangers. Emory was 145 00:10:32,840 --> 00:10:37,040 Speaker 1: himself an excellent field nationalist to send to the Southwest 146 00:10:37,640 --> 00:10:41,440 Speaker 1: during the war. He accompanied the American Armies push from 147 00:10:41,440 --> 00:10:45,520 Speaker 1: New Mexico to California, and had already added several species 148 00:10:45,559 --> 00:10:50,480 Speaker 1: of desert cacti to science, including giant souaros, along with 149 00:10:50,679 --> 00:10:55,760 Speaker 1: visiting ruins like Shacko, whose antiquity he suspected went back 150 00:10:55,920 --> 00:10:57,520 Speaker 1: into America's deep past. 151 00:10:58,280 --> 00:11:00,679 Speaker 2: But this was the eighteen fifties. 152 00:11:01,160 --> 00:11:06,439 Speaker 1: Red Whiskered Emory was also a Maryland slaveholder whose closest 153 00:11:06,480 --> 00:11:10,880 Speaker 1: boyhood friend was Jefferson Davis, soon to be President of 154 00:11:10,960 --> 00:11:14,640 Speaker 1: the Confederacy. So when he got west this time, his 155 00:11:14,800 --> 00:11:18,120 Speaker 1: time and background led him to an odd lack of 156 00:11:18,160 --> 00:11:23,599 Speaker 1: appreciation about how Spanish settlers and local Indians had interacted 157 00:11:23,640 --> 00:11:28,760 Speaker 1: with Western wildlife. That wild animals were still abundant around 158 00:11:28,840 --> 00:11:32,439 Speaker 1: towns in the Southwest appeared certain proof to Emory of 159 00:11:32,720 --> 00:11:37,720 Speaker 1: Hispanic what he called indolence and incapacity evidently has said 160 00:11:37,760 --> 00:11:42,040 Speaker 1: something laudatory that back home Americans would never suffer animals 161 00:11:42,080 --> 00:11:50,800 Speaker 1: within reach to survive like that. A half century after 162 00:11:50,920 --> 00:11:55,000 Speaker 1: Jefferson had aimed his second major expiration at the Southwest, 163 00:11:55,160 --> 00:11:59,280 Speaker 1: Emory's survey from Texas to California at last got to 164 00:11:59,360 --> 00:12:03,520 Speaker 1: illuminate the animals and birds of the western deserts. This 165 00:12:03,720 --> 00:12:06,400 Speaker 1: was an exotic part of North America, with a mix 166 00:12:06,440 --> 00:12:11,240 Speaker 1: of familiar creatures in combination with several Central American species 167 00:12:11,320 --> 00:12:14,840 Speaker 1: at the northern limits of their ranges. White tailed deer 168 00:12:14,880 --> 00:12:18,160 Speaker 1: inhabited the southwest in vast numbers, and the mule deer 169 00:12:18,240 --> 00:12:22,600 Speaker 1: Lewis and Clark had found also ranged widely across this region. 170 00:12:23,000 --> 00:12:27,120 Speaker 1: Beavers yet dammed up the streams and shy and comparatively 171 00:12:27,360 --> 00:12:31,120 Speaker 1: rare desert. Big horn sheet looked down from the canyon rims. 172 00:12:31,679 --> 00:12:36,640 Speaker 1: Prairie dogs and pronghorns populated the flats, and coyotes Emory 173 00:12:36,720 --> 00:12:41,520 Speaker 1: had already borrowed the Southwestern name for them, became camp followers, 174 00:12:41,559 --> 00:12:46,440 Speaker 1: stealing food and snatching gear. Grizzlies were present, but Emory 175 00:12:46,480 --> 00:12:49,400 Speaker 1: couldn't decide if those in the interior were the same 176 00:12:49,559 --> 00:12:52,360 Speaker 1: as the bears on the coast, which were much larger. 177 00:12:53,040 --> 00:12:53,880 Speaker 2: There were two. 178 00:12:53,760 --> 00:12:58,440 Speaker 1: Different wolves, the red Texan wolf eastward and farther west, 179 00:12:58,559 --> 00:13:01,560 Speaker 1: a gray wolf. This this was a new animal, the 180 00:13:01,679 --> 00:13:06,160 Speaker 1: Mexican wolf, but scientists wouldn't recognize that for another fifty years. 181 00:13:06,840 --> 00:13:12,360 Speaker 1: The unfamiliar creatures were especially intriguing. Particularly impressive and numerous 182 00:13:12,400 --> 00:13:16,440 Speaker 1: were the big cats. As Bear described it. A vast 183 00:13:16,600 --> 00:13:20,880 Speaker 1: number of pumas and jaguars were preying on wildlife and 184 00:13:20,960 --> 00:13:23,680 Speaker 1: on the immense herds of wild horses and wild cattle, 185 00:13:24,400 --> 00:13:27,920 Speaker 1: known to Spanish settlers as l tigre and to most 186 00:13:27,960 --> 00:13:28,880 Speaker 1: Americans as. 187 00:13:28,960 --> 00:13:30,360 Speaker 2: Tigers or leopards. 188 00:13:30,720 --> 00:13:34,520 Speaker 1: Jaguars hunted the jungles of the Americas as far south 189 00:13:34,640 --> 00:13:39,440 Speaker 1: as Argentina, but their northern range clearly extended into open 190 00:13:39,520 --> 00:13:45,680 Speaker 1: country in North America. Francisco Carnado's early fifteen forties expiration 191 00:13:45,880 --> 00:13:49,840 Speaker 1: into the Southwest had mentioned leopards, and mountain man Rufus 192 00:13:49,960 --> 00:13:52,920 Speaker 1: Sage claimed to have seen such an animal on the 193 00:13:52,960 --> 00:13:58,400 Speaker 1: headwaters of the North Platte in today's Colorado, Jaguars apparently 194 00:13:58,440 --> 00:14:02,520 Speaker 1: were common predators of deer and wild horses, and comanches 195 00:14:02,559 --> 00:14:08,199 Speaker 1: and other tribes even used jaguar hides decoratively. In Emory's report, 196 00:14:08,559 --> 00:14:13,160 Speaker 1: jaguars were on the outskirts of Santa Fe at some point. 197 00:14:13,200 --> 00:14:14,280 Speaker 2: As he worked on his. 198 00:14:14,320 --> 00:14:19,160 Speaker 1: Survey, he discovered a literary source describing a frightening morning 199 00:14:19,240 --> 00:14:22,240 Speaker 1: in eighteen twenty five in what he assumed was New 200 00:14:22,280 --> 00:14:26,680 Speaker 1: Mexico's capital. A massive flood in the nearby Rio Bravo, 201 00:14:27,120 --> 00:14:29,720 Speaker 1: the name for the real Grand for many people had 202 00:14:29,840 --> 00:14:33,280 Speaker 1: driven out wildlife, and on opening the church, a lay 203 00:14:33,320 --> 00:14:37,240 Speaker 1: brother found himself face to face with a jaguar of 204 00:14:37,440 --> 00:14:42,040 Speaker 1: very extraordinary size. The big cat killed four clerics before 205 00:14:42,120 --> 00:14:45,520 Speaker 1: survivors drilled a hole through a church door large enough 206 00:14:45,560 --> 00:14:48,920 Speaker 1: for a rifle barrel. Jaguars would turn up in the 207 00:14:49,000 --> 00:14:52,480 Speaker 1: Southern Rockies for decades to come, no question, so their 208 00:14:52,520 --> 00:14:55,000 Speaker 1: presence in the area was not a miss, but the 209 00:14:55,080 --> 00:15:01,160 Speaker 1: story Emory included actually referred to an incident in Santa Fe, Argentina, 210 00:15:01,440 --> 00:15:09,880 Speaker 1: on the Rio Parana Bravo. Other creatures reflected a different 211 00:15:09,960 --> 00:15:15,000 Speaker 1: West than Montana or even California. Emery's people saw swine 212 00:15:15,280 --> 00:15:20,800 Speaker 1: like collared peckreas the southwestern Desert's native Halinas, another creature 213 00:15:20,840 --> 00:15:24,400 Speaker 1: of the southern latitudes. At the northern limits of its range, 214 00:15:24,640 --> 00:15:29,280 Speaker 1: they collected a bizarrely armored South American immigrant called the armadillo, 215 00:15:29,680 --> 00:15:33,720 Speaker 1: exclusive to the Americas and distantly related to anteaters and 216 00:15:33,800 --> 00:15:39,200 Speaker 1: ground slaws. They reported a remarkable variety of reptiles, particularly 217 00:15:39,280 --> 00:15:42,800 Speaker 1: snakes and lizards, of which the most impressive were chuck Wallace. 218 00:15:43,040 --> 00:15:44,400 Speaker 2: They acquired the first. 219 00:15:44,120 --> 00:15:47,360 Speaker 1: Specimen and included an illustration in the report of the 220 00:15:47,440 --> 00:15:52,600 Speaker 1: remarkable Heela monster, although taxonomists in Washington misidentified it and 221 00:15:52,720 --> 00:15:55,680 Speaker 1: didn't realize it had a venomous bite. 222 00:15:55,760 --> 00:15:56,920 Speaker 2: The bird life was. 223 00:15:57,000 --> 00:16:01,840 Speaker 1: Prodigious among the more intriguing were what they called chaparral cox, 224 00:16:02,120 --> 00:16:06,360 Speaker 1: the big cuckoos known as road runners. The fierce fleet 225 00:16:06,480 --> 00:16:10,440 Speaker 1: road runner was a great enemy of the rattlesnake, they said, 226 00:16:10,680 --> 00:16:14,840 Speaker 1: taking them in pitched battles, it usually won. And they 227 00:16:14,920 --> 00:16:19,200 Speaker 1: found the so called Mexican eagle, the outsized falcon known 228 00:16:19,240 --> 00:16:23,320 Speaker 1: as the carocera, extremely numerous, from the Rio Grande to 229 00:16:23,400 --> 00:16:27,120 Speaker 1: the Sierra Madre. By the time all the identifications were 230 00:16:27,120 --> 00:16:31,000 Speaker 1: in the Mexican Boundary Survey added a total of three 231 00:16:31,280 --> 00:16:36,280 Speaker 1: hundred eleven new mammals, birds, and reptiles to America's list 232 00:16:36,440 --> 00:16:41,240 Speaker 1: of native animal life. Another relatable time for early New 233 00:16:41,280 --> 00:16:45,800 Speaker 1: Mexico's wildlife story is probably a century ago, when Vernon 234 00:16:45,840 --> 00:16:50,160 Speaker 1: Bailey and his wife Laurence Miriam Bailey began to analyze 235 00:16:50,240 --> 00:16:54,800 Speaker 1: New Mexico's biological riches and ecologies. They were followed to 236 00:16:54,840 --> 00:16:58,600 Speaker 1: New Mexico a few years later by another scientist, Aldo Leopold, 237 00:16:58,800 --> 00:17:02,280 Speaker 1: who rearranged the furniture in all our heads with respect 238 00:17:02,280 --> 00:17:06,520 Speaker 1: to wildlife. Joining those three was the popular wildlife arthur 239 00:17:06,720 --> 00:17:12,480 Speaker 1: Ernest Thompson, seton writing from Santa Fe setan penned heartbrending 240 00:17:12,600 --> 00:17:17,640 Speaker 1: stories of New Mexico animals such as Tito, the female coyote, 241 00:17:17,680 --> 00:17:22,240 Speaker 1: who allegorically taught coyotes how to avoid extermination, and the 242 00:17:22,440 --> 00:17:28,400 Speaker 1: ratone area wolf Lobo, king of Corumpau, who possessed one 243 00:17:28,560 --> 00:17:32,480 Speaker 1: fatal flaw his fidelity to his mate. 244 00:17:32,880 --> 00:17:33,879 Speaker 2: It got him killed. 245 00:17:34,560 --> 00:17:39,399 Speaker 1: Setan's literary theme, we and the Beasts are kin no 246 00:17:39,560 --> 00:17:44,080 Speaker 1: doubt resonated with the native people of New Mexico. What 247 00:17:44,280 --> 00:17:48,560 Speaker 1: Vernon and Florence Bailey, Aldo Leopold and Ernest Thompson Setan 248 00:17:48,640 --> 00:17:51,439 Speaker 1: provided all of us living in the West since was 249 00:17:51,560 --> 00:17:56,040 Speaker 1: simple but crucial in effect, how to understand a state 250 00:17:56,160 --> 00:18:03,800 Speaker 1: like New Mexico and its wildlife story by virtue of 251 00:18:03,840 --> 00:18:07,200 Speaker 1: its location on the continent. New Mexico is a Western 252 00:18:07,240 --> 00:18:11,840 Speaker 1: state that possesses a riot of diverse ecologies, with more 253 00:18:12,080 --> 00:18:16,520 Speaker 1: native mammal species one hundred and fifty one than any 254 00:18:16,680 --> 00:18:22,199 Speaker 1: other state except California. But a century ago, it's diversity 255 00:18:22,320 --> 00:18:27,400 Speaker 1: struck many observers as almost chaotic. The Baileys were essential 256 00:18:27,520 --> 00:18:32,320 Speaker 1: in changing that perception. Vernon was a slight out eyed, 257 00:18:32,600 --> 00:18:36,480 Speaker 1: chinless farm boy from Minnesota with seven years of education 258 00:18:36,720 --> 00:18:39,880 Speaker 1: and churchy enough that until his twenties he had never even 259 00:18:40,000 --> 00:18:44,040 Speaker 1: heard of Charles Darwin. He was a teetotaler his entire life, 260 00:18:44,080 --> 00:18:47,400 Speaker 1: and a man as other scientists Marvel who never let 261 00:18:47,440 --> 00:18:50,600 Speaker 1: fly even a mild curse. But he was such a 262 00:18:50,640 --> 00:18:54,320 Speaker 1: whiz at catching animals and preserving them as specimens that 263 00:18:54,359 --> 00:18:57,920 Speaker 1: he became the right hand man to Clinton H. Merriam, who, 264 00:18:57,920 --> 00:19:01,920 Speaker 1: in the eighteen nineties was established the new federal agency 265 00:19:02,040 --> 00:19:06,359 Speaker 1: called the Biological Survey, which became the US Fish. 266 00:19:06,119 --> 00:19:07,080 Speaker 2: And Wildlife Service. 267 00:19:07,840 --> 00:19:14,520 Speaker 1: Miriam's younger sister, Florence, seemed the unlikeliest imaginable partner for Bailey. 268 00:19:15,000 --> 00:19:18,840 Speaker 1: She was a graduate of Smith College who'd originally planned 269 00:19:18,880 --> 00:19:22,719 Speaker 1: a thesis on Darwinian evolution. But one of the environmental 270 00:19:22,760 --> 00:19:26,160 Speaker 1: crises of a century ago was the destruction of birds 271 00:19:26,200 --> 00:19:30,240 Speaker 1: for hats and fashion, and that diverted Florence towards writing 272 00:19:30,400 --> 00:19:35,000 Speaker 1: about birds their steep decline and preservation. By the start 273 00:19:35,040 --> 00:19:38,840 Speaker 1: of the twentieth century, she had also discovered Arizona and 274 00:19:38,920 --> 00:19:43,119 Speaker 1: New Mexico, where as she said, the climate is wonderful. 275 00:19:43,800 --> 00:19:48,439 Speaker 1: Their pairing raised eyebrows, but Florence and Vernon Bailey married 276 00:19:48,520 --> 00:19:52,160 Speaker 1: in eighteen ninety nine and in nineteen hundred struck out 277 00:19:52,400 --> 00:19:56,080 Speaker 1: on a camping trip across Texas and New Mexico for 278 00:19:56,200 --> 00:19:59,800 Speaker 1: their honeymoon. It was a part of America that left 279 00:20:00,040 --> 00:20:05,600 Speaker 1: an altogether different impression than the East. We felt everywhere 280 00:20:05,640 --> 00:20:09,280 Speaker 1: in New Mexico that, while to us the country was new, 281 00:20:09,680 --> 00:20:14,359 Speaker 1: in fact this land of Poco t Info is an old, 282 00:20:14,720 --> 00:20:20,639 Speaker 1: old land. She wrote, very perceptive of Florence. What Vernon 283 00:20:20,800 --> 00:20:24,040 Speaker 1: was working on for New Mexico was a brand new 284 00:20:24,240 --> 00:20:28,920 Speaker 1: idea designed to make sense of wildlife distribution. Why were 285 00:20:28,960 --> 00:20:32,520 Speaker 1: animals found in some locations but not others? Bailey and 286 00:20:32,600 --> 00:20:36,520 Speaker 1: his boss Seehart Miriam believed they knew, and they pioneered 287 00:20:36,600 --> 00:20:41,240 Speaker 1: a model called life zones. While Bailey is often remembered 288 00:20:41,240 --> 00:20:44,880 Speaker 1: today for the role he played in designing and defending 289 00:20:45,160 --> 00:20:48,879 Speaker 1: wolf eradication in the West, he left New Mexico a 290 00:20:49,000 --> 00:20:54,720 Speaker 1: remarkable baseline record for wildlife in a territory where elevation 291 00:20:55,040 --> 00:20:58,879 Speaker 1: ranged from twenty eight hundred feet to more than thirteen 292 00:20:59,040 --> 00:21:03,320 Speaker 1: thousand feet atop its highest point, Wheeler Peak, near Taos, 293 00:21:03,720 --> 00:21:07,720 Speaker 1: Bailey mapped out six life zones for plants and animals. 294 00:21:08,240 --> 00:21:13,320 Speaker 1: He named them the Lower Sonoran, the Upper Sonoran, the Transition, 295 00:21:13,800 --> 00:21:18,879 Speaker 1: the Canadian, the Hudsonian and the Arctic Alpine. In a 296 00:21:19,000 --> 00:21:23,919 Speaker 1: nineteen thirteen monograph published in North American Fauna, he described 297 00:21:24,080 --> 00:21:28,120 Speaker 1: the existing species compositions of all six of those zones 298 00:21:28,200 --> 00:21:30,920 Speaker 1: in the brand new state of New Mexico and made 299 00:21:31,000 --> 00:21:36,720 Speaker 1: its wildlife distribution newly intelligible. Taxonomists also credit him with 300 00:21:36,880 --> 00:21:41,080 Speaker 1: realizing that our now endangered Mexican gray wolf was different 301 00:21:41,119 --> 00:21:45,160 Speaker 1: from other wolves, which is why its Latin binomial carries 302 00:21:45,280 --> 00:21:50,480 Speaker 1: Bailey's name. Florence Bailey's contribution was to fashion a similar 303 00:21:50,560 --> 00:21:54,360 Speaker 1: baseline for New Mexico's birds. Her Birds of New Mexico 304 00:21:54,640 --> 00:21:57,400 Speaker 1: was the first close study of the birds of an 305 00:21:57,440 --> 00:22:02,000 Speaker 1: interior American state. Along with writing the first ever field 306 00:22:02,000 --> 00:22:06,080 Speaker 1: guide for western birds in general, she added a whopping 307 00:22:06,359 --> 00:22:10,200 Speaker 1: ninety four new species of birds to the ornithological list 308 00:22:10,320 --> 00:22:30,359 Speaker 1: for New Mexico and the Southwest. Seton and the Baileys 309 00:22:30,480 --> 00:22:34,200 Speaker 1: were experiencing New Mexico at a time when market hunting 310 00:22:34,320 --> 00:22:39,600 Speaker 1: excesses were destroying numerous species that had anciently evolved in America. 311 00:22:39,920 --> 00:22:43,840 Speaker 1: An industrial hunt for high leather eradicated bison on the 312 00:22:43,880 --> 00:22:48,000 Speaker 1: southern plains in the eighteen seventies, sacrificing billions of animals 313 00:22:48,160 --> 00:22:50,880 Speaker 1: native peoples in New Mexico had depended on for ten 314 00:22:50,960 --> 00:22:55,840 Speaker 1: thousand years. Hispanic New Mexicans, called Sibal arrows, had long 315 00:22:55,960 --> 00:23:00,159 Speaker 1: made pilgrimages themselves to the planes from Santa Fe and towns, 316 00:23:00,200 --> 00:23:04,720 Speaker 1: and as expert horsemen had hunted bison with lances, hauling 317 00:23:04,800 --> 00:23:07,480 Speaker 1: the meat and pelts back to their real grand towns 318 00:23:07,520 --> 00:23:12,480 Speaker 1: and creaking two wheeled wooden carts. But by eighteen seventy five, 319 00:23:12,760 --> 00:23:17,760 Speaker 1: a decade before they disappeared from Montana, bison were extinguished 320 00:23:17,800 --> 00:23:22,560 Speaker 1: in plains New Mexico. Their destruction had barely taken ten years, 321 00:23:22,680 --> 00:23:26,160 Speaker 1: and that was just the beginning. Exploring the Pecos river 322 00:23:26,320 --> 00:23:29,800 Speaker 1: headwaters in the southern Rockies of New Mexico in eighteen 323 00:23:29,840 --> 00:23:33,919 Speaker 1: eighty two and eighty three, naturalists Lewis Disch found no 324 00:23:34,280 --> 00:23:38,280 Speaker 1: big horn sheep left, no elk in the country except 325 00:23:38,320 --> 00:23:41,640 Speaker 1: a rare and occasional straggler, he wrote, and he neither 326 00:23:41,800 --> 00:23:45,679 Speaker 1: saw wolves nor heard one. Howel he did see what 327 00:23:45,760 --> 00:23:50,520 Speaker 1: he called a herd of eleven grizzly bears traversing Hamilton 328 00:23:50,640 --> 00:23:54,720 Speaker 1: Mesa in the high rockies above Santa Fe, New Mexico, 329 00:23:55,040 --> 00:23:58,119 Speaker 1: made an effort to save some of these animals, but 330 00:23:58,359 --> 00:24:02,840 Speaker 1: following inherited fo traditions from the Old World, the state 331 00:24:02,960 --> 00:24:07,439 Speaker 1: concerned itself largely with the ones called game birds and 332 00:24:07,560 --> 00:24:11,800 Speaker 1: mammals people wanted to hunt. There was little appreciation for 333 00:24:12,000 --> 00:24:15,360 Speaker 1: non game or even for native species that had evolved 334 00:24:15,400 --> 00:24:19,240 Speaker 1: in the southwest. New Mexico Territory created its first bounty 335 00:24:19,240 --> 00:24:23,199 Speaker 1: system for predators in eighteen ninety three. That list of 336 00:24:23,320 --> 00:24:29,480 Speaker 1: money for scalps included wolves, coyotes, bears, lions, and bobcats. 337 00:24:30,080 --> 00:24:36,320 Speaker 1: State sponsored exotic species introductions of animals like ibex Oryx 338 00:24:36,560 --> 00:24:41,000 Speaker 1: and our dads particularly became a specialty of the New 339 00:24:41,040 --> 00:24:44,920 Speaker 1: Mexico Game Agency. At least the new National Forests and 340 00:24:45,000 --> 00:24:48,399 Speaker 1: other public lands the US federal government was setting aside 341 00:24:48,400 --> 00:24:51,160 Speaker 1: in New Mexico at the turn of the twentieth century 342 00:24:51,440 --> 00:24:56,720 Speaker 1: did continue to preserve wildlife habitat for future animal recoveries. 343 00:25:01,240 --> 00:25:06,000 Speaker 1: When America's giant step lions and saber toothed cats had 344 00:25:06,119 --> 00:25:10,919 Speaker 1: died out in the Pleistocene extinctions, jaguars had assumed the 345 00:25:10,960 --> 00:25:15,480 Speaker 1: mantle of North America's most imposing big cat, with a 346 00:25:15,600 --> 00:25:20,000 Speaker 1: range that stretched through most of South America. Jaguars were 347 00:25:20,000 --> 00:25:23,800 Speaker 1: at the northernmost limits of their range in the southern US. 348 00:25:24,520 --> 00:25:28,440 Speaker 1: Leopard like in appearance, but heavier and more muscular. Male 349 00:25:28,560 --> 00:25:32,119 Speaker 1: jaguars can weigh more than three hundred pounds. In the 350 00:25:32,240 --> 00:25:37,200 Speaker 1: early twentieth century, the great cats still had established territories 351 00:25:37,280 --> 00:25:41,080 Speaker 1: and were breeding in New Mexico and Arizona, so this 352 00:25:41,280 --> 00:25:45,159 Speaker 1: northern range was not merely a place the occasional male 353 00:25:45,320 --> 00:25:49,879 Speaker 1: jaguar roamed into. Among more than sixty historical records of 354 00:25:50,000 --> 00:25:54,160 Speaker 1: jaguars in the Southwest from eighteen eighty to nineteen ninety five, 355 00:25:54,560 --> 00:25:59,879 Speaker 1: females and kittens are well represented. North American jaguars den 356 00:26:00,200 --> 00:26:05,000 Speaker 1: and hunted in deserts, oak foothills, pinions, juniper and Ponderosa 357 00:26:05,080 --> 00:26:10,320 Speaker 1: pine forests countries, strikingly unlike their jungle habitats to the south. 358 00:26:10,840 --> 00:26:13,960 Speaker 1: Such open train made them vulnerable to human eyes, though 359 00:26:14,240 --> 00:26:17,399 Speaker 1: especially the eyes of stock raisers and the bounty and 360 00:26:17,480 --> 00:26:20,320 Speaker 1: government hunters employed to protect cows. 361 00:26:20,440 --> 00:26:21,840 Speaker 2: In the early twentieth. 362 00:26:21,520 --> 00:26:26,880 Speaker 1: Century, Aware that jaguars were declining, Vernon Bailey collected as 363 00:26:26,920 --> 00:26:29,399 Speaker 1: many accounts of jaguars as he could find. 364 00:26:30,119 --> 00:26:32,600 Speaker 2: From them, he concluded that the Black. 365 00:26:32,359 --> 00:26:35,120 Speaker 1: Range in the center of New Mexico had long been 366 00:26:35,280 --> 00:26:39,199 Speaker 1: jaguar territory. A bounty hunter had killed jaguars in that 367 00:26:39,320 --> 00:26:43,040 Speaker 1: range of choppy vertical ridges in nineteen hundred and again 368 00:26:43,080 --> 00:26:46,919 Speaker 1: in nineteen oh two, and Bailey collected several other accounts 369 00:26:46,960 --> 00:26:51,320 Speaker 1: from there. Other New Mexico ranges, the Sambre de Cristo's 370 00:26:51,640 --> 00:26:55,280 Speaker 1: the Southern Rockies, in other words, the Sacramentos and the 371 00:26:55,280 --> 00:26:59,640 Speaker 1: San Andres also held jaguars, and into the nineteen twenties 372 00:26:59,840 --> 00:27:04,359 Speaker 1: ranchers were still shooting them. There were accounts of jaguars 373 00:27:04,400 --> 00:27:08,960 Speaker 1: nearly to Colorado, as well as out on the Great Plans. Arizona, 374 00:27:09,000 --> 00:27:13,119 Speaker 1: where settlers reported jaguars from Saint Gray's Muggy owned Rim 375 00:27:13,160 --> 00:27:16,719 Speaker 1: Country to the Grand Canyon, had a similar jaguar record. 376 00:27:17,160 --> 00:27:22,000 Speaker 1: The Biological Survey's first recorded jaguar kill was there a 377 00:27:22,040 --> 00:27:26,399 Speaker 1: Federal hunter shot at jaguar in Arizona's Santa Rita Mountains 378 00:27:26,400 --> 00:27:31,160 Speaker 1: in nineteen eighteen. The Bureau's operatives in Arizona had few 379 00:27:31,320 --> 00:27:35,000 Speaker 1: doubts about the sources of the jaguar threat, as they 380 00:27:35,040 --> 00:27:39,720 Speaker 1: called it. Its position was this, and I'm quoting, all 381 00:27:39,880 --> 00:27:43,520 Speaker 1: lobo wolves and jaguars will be taken as fast as 382 00:27:43,560 --> 00:27:47,120 Speaker 1: they enter this state from Mexico and New Mexico, as 383 00:27:47,200 --> 00:27:50,240 Speaker 1: one hundred percent of them live on livestock and game. 384 00:27:51,680 --> 00:27:56,600 Speaker 1: The Bureau recorded five such renegades crossing into a supposedly 385 00:27:56,720 --> 00:28:00,840 Speaker 1: jaguar free Arizona from nineteen twenty four tonight ten twenty seven. 386 00:28:01,520 --> 00:28:06,800 Speaker 1: Two of those were females, all ended up killed. Jaguars 387 00:28:06,840 --> 00:28:09,800 Speaker 1: were still dying at human hands even on the Gulf 388 00:28:09,840 --> 00:28:19,639 Speaker 1: coast of Texas as late as the nineteen forties. In 389 00:28:19,720 --> 00:28:23,640 Speaker 1: the first half of the twentieth century, another legendary figure, 390 00:28:23,760 --> 00:28:27,720 Speaker 1: ecologist Aldo Leopold, spent enough time in New Mexico to 391 00:28:27,920 --> 00:28:33,520 Speaker 1: shape future wildlife policy, both there and more broadly. Stationed 392 00:28:33,600 --> 00:28:36,560 Speaker 1: in the territory first to manage one of its new 393 00:28:36,640 --> 00:28:41,440 Speaker 1: national forests, Leopold met his future wife, Estella Bergier in 394 00:28:41,600 --> 00:28:42,880 Speaker 1: Santa Fe. 395 00:28:42,960 --> 00:28:44,520 Speaker 2: He went on to study. 396 00:28:44,200 --> 00:28:49,400 Speaker 1: A new phenomenon called game eruptions, the unchecked growth then 397 00:28:49,560 --> 00:28:54,160 Speaker 1: spectacular crash of populations of mule, deer, elk, and other 398 00:28:54,280 --> 00:28:59,280 Speaker 1: ungulates that followed Americas and New Mexico's eradication of predators 399 00:28:59,360 --> 00:29:03,840 Speaker 1: on behalf of the livestock industry. Leopold found almost no 400 00:29:04,080 --> 00:29:07,720 Speaker 1: record of eruptions before nineteen hundred but he tracked a 401 00:29:07,800 --> 00:29:12,080 Speaker 1: whopping forty two of them between nineteen hundred and nineteen 402 00:29:12,160 --> 00:29:16,400 Speaker 1: forty five. His work and the growing significance of ecological 403 00:29:16,480 --> 00:29:20,720 Speaker 1: science slowly began to produce an appreciation for non game, 404 00:29:21,080 --> 00:29:26,080 Speaker 1: even for wolves, lions, and New Mexico's unofficial state animal, 405 00:29:26,240 --> 00:29:30,840 Speaker 1: the coyote. The nineteen seventy six listing of the Mexican 406 00:29:30,960 --> 00:29:34,000 Speaker 1: gray wolf and its later recovery plan under the New 407 00:29:34,080 --> 00:29:37,920 Speaker 1: Endangered Species Act was an extension of Leopold's work in 408 00:29:37,960 --> 00:29:42,560 Speaker 1: New Mexico. Ending coyote hunting contest on state lands in 409 00:29:42,600 --> 00:29:53,080 Speaker 1: New Mexico was another, while Vernon Bailey's century old life 410 00:29:53,280 --> 00:29:57,480 Speaker 1: zones model continues to have some relevance in understanding New 411 00:29:57,520 --> 00:30:01,640 Speaker 1: Mexico wildlife. The science of a cology, with its emphasis 412 00:30:01,680 --> 00:30:06,640 Speaker 1: today on interactive communities known as ecosystems, and subsequent work 413 00:30:06,800 --> 00:30:12,800 Speaker 1: in mapping ecoregions, has advanced our understanding of whyde diverse 414 00:30:12,960 --> 00:30:17,880 Speaker 1: New Mexico once seemed chaotic. In a state split by 415 00:30:17,920 --> 00:30:21,920 Speaker 1: the continental divide, and where the Great Plains, the Rocky Mountains, 416 00:30:22,120 --> 00:30:27,959 Speaker 1: the Colorado Plateau, and the Southwestern deserts all converge, ecological 417 00:30:28,040 --> 00:30:32,720 Speaker 1: diversity is enormous. At a fine grain level of mapping, 418 00:30:33,040 --> 00:30:39,920 Speaker 1: the state features eight principal ecoregions, such as the southwestern tablelands, 419 00:30:39,960 --> 00:30:46,120 Speaker 1: for example, divided into an absolutely astonishing fifty five ecological 420 00:30:46,280 --> 00:30:51,520 Speaker 1: subsets like the Pinon juniper woodlands. Add in, the deep 421 00:30:51,680 --> 00:30:55,600 Speaker 1: time historical dimension and the special qualities of a place 422 00:30:55,680 --> 00:31:00,920 Speaker 1: like New Mexico stand evident. Twenty thousand years ago, Wisconsin 423 00:31:01,080 --> 00:31:06,480 Speaker 1: ice age brought northern species like sheep and marmots far south. 424 00:31:07,200 --> 00:31:11,000 Speaker 1: Then massive heat events like the Alta thermal of eight 425 00:31:11,080 --> 00:31:15,520 Speaker 1: thousand to five thousand years ago expanded southern and desert 426 00:31:15,600 --> 00:31:20,360 Speaker 1: species northward. When Vernon Bailey was in New Mexico seeking 427 00:31:20,440 --> 00:31:24,720 Speaker 1: out remnant bighorn sheep, he discovered that in New Mexico, 428 00:31:25,120 --> 00:31:28,800 Speaker 1: jaguars at the extreme northern end of a range that 429 00:31:29,000 --> 00:31:33,320 Speaker 1: stretched down through the Americas, were hunting rocky Mountain bighorn 430 00:31:33,400 --> 00:31:37,560 Speaker 1: sheep at the southern end of an alpine habitat extending 431 00:31:37,760 --> 00:31:42,360 Speaker 1: far northward up the mountain chain to Alaska. Not many 432 00:31:42,440 --> 00:31:45,200 Speaker 1: places on the continent can make a claim like that. 433 00:31:54,120 --> 00:31:54,560 Speaker 2: Today. 434 00:31:54,880 --> 00:31:58,160 Speaker 1: Mexican wolves, which we reduce to such tiny numbers that 435 00:31:58,240 --> 00:32:02,040 Speaker 1: they now struggle with suffici. This genetic diversity to survive. 436 00:32:02,280 --> 00:32:06,320 Speaker 1: Are the southwest most famous endangered animals, but a state 437 00:32:06,400 --> 00:32:09,560 Speaker 1: is varied, as New Mexico has many more, sixty four 438 00:32:09,720 --> 00:32:12,920 Speaker 1: of them in all. If New Mexico hopes to preserve 439 00:32:13,000 --> 00:32:16,360 Speaker 1: the full suite of the animals that were originally here, 440 00:32:16,640 --> 00:32:21,920 Speaker 1: it will have to save Mexican spotted owls, northern applemato falcons, 441 00:32:22,240 --> 00:32:28,240 Speaker 1: Southwestern willow flycatchers, kila trout, blackfooted ferrets, meadow jumping mice, 442 00:32:28,640 --> 00:32:33,479 Speaker 1: and ridge nosed rattlesnakes, among many others. The state today 443 00:32:33,720 --> 00:32:37,720 Speaker 1: is working on all that. New Mexico's State Wildlife Action 444 00:32:37,880 --> 00:32:41,800 Speaker 1: Plan is designing strategies now to conserve what it calls 445 00:32:42,080 --> 00:32:46,880 Speaker 1: species of greatest conservation need, along with their habitats to 446 00:32:46,960 --> 00:32:50,560 Speaker 1: confront human cause climate change that threatens to make an 447 00:32:50,640 --> 00:32:54,640 Speaker 1: already arid state a drier and hotter version of itself. 448 00:32:55,160 --> 00:32:59,880 Speaker 1: Anticipating and protecting connectivity quarters so that species able to 449 00:33:00,080 --> 00:33:03,760 Speaker 1: relocate can to new habitats is part of that plan, 450 00:33:04,440 --> 00:33:07,560 Speaker 1: so is preserving as much genetic diversity as we can. 451 00:33:08,000 --> 00:33:11,239 Speaker 1: The state's fixed polestar is and it ought to be 452 00:33:11,480 --> 00:33:15,080 Speaker 1: a future where we return as many of those original 453 00:33:15,120 --> 00:33:18,600 Speaker 1: New Mexico species to the state as possible, and that 454 00:33:18,800 --> 00:33:24,240 Speaker 1: includes jaguars not officially listed as a US endangered species 455 00:33:24,320 --> 00:33:29,520 Speaker 1: until nineteen ninety seven. Jaguars only acquired a recovery plan 456 00:33:29,720 --> 00:33:33,840 Speaker 1: in the United States in twenty eighteen. As with gray wolves, 457 00:33:34,000 --> 00:33:38,360 Speaker 1: jaguar recovery depends on the nations bordering the US having 458 00:33:38,480 --> 00:33:42,600 Speaker 1: preserved the big animals better than we have. The truth 459 00:33:42,840 --> 00:33:46,600 Speaker 1: is that the Fish and Wildlife's twenty eighteen plan offers 460 00:33:46,800 --> 00:33:52,040 Speaker 1: pretty faint hope for the return of lt gray encourage 461 00:33:52,080 --> 00:33:55,720 Speaker 1: that seven male jaguars have ventured into the US since 462 00:33:55,840 --> 00:33:59,760 Speaker 1: nineteen ninety six. The architects of the recovery plan didn't 463 00:33:59,840 --> 00:34:04,120 Speaker 1: end vision a hard release of captive jaguars, as we have. 464 00:34:04,200 --> 00:34:05,840 Speaker 2: Done with gray wolves. 465 00:34:06,240 --> 00:34:09,919 Speaker 1: Their hope instead was that the cats will reoccupy their 466 00:34:09,960 --> 00:34:14,600 Speaker 1: former range via two different quarridors that could connect populations 467 00:34:14,600 --> 00:34:19,359 Speaker 1: in Mexico to Arizona and New Mexico. The problem is 468 00:34:19,360 --> 00:34:24,520 Speaker 1: that those jaguar migration corridors reached the US exactly where 469 00:34:24,600 --> 00:34:29,880 Speaker 1: our country has been erecting its border wall against human migrants. 470 00:34:30,360 --> 00:34:34,719 Speaker 1: The twenty eighteen jaguar recovery proposal is a forty year 471 00:34:34,800 --> 00:34:39,440 Speaker 1: proposition with delisting happening only in the event that our 472 00:34:39,440 --> 00:34:42,239 Speaker 1: breeding population of female. 473 00:34:41,800 --> 00:34:43,360 Speaker 2: Cats arrives here. 474 00:34:44,080 --> 00:34:46,919 Speaker 1: But if we really want to restore jaguars, we're going 475 00:34:46,960 --> 00:34:50,719 Speaker 1: to have to revisit that plan, and two prominent environmental 476 00:34:50,760 --> 00:34:54,759 Speaker 1: groups have already done so. The Center for Biological Diversity 477 00:34:54,920 --> 00:34:58,880 Speaker 1: and Defenders of Wildlife have counterproposed a three hundred and 478 00:34:58,880 --> 00:35:02,600 Speaker 1: twenty nine square mile recovery area in New Mexico and 479 00:35:02,680 --> 00:35:07,960 Speaker 1: Arizona that significantly overlaps the Mexican Wolf recovery zone. What 480 00:35:08,000 --> 00:35:11,520 Speaker 1: they call for is a hard release of a dozen jaguars, 481 00:35:11,640 --> 00:35:14,880 Speaker 1: as we've done with gray wolves and Yellowstone New Mexico 482 00:35:14,960 --> 00:35:18,960 Speaker 1: and Arizona and now Colorado, to began recovery in an 483 00:35:19,000 --> 00:35:22,040 Speaker 1: area that could eventually support one hundred to one hundred 484 00:35:22,040 --> 00:35:26,520 Speaker 1: and fifty of the southwest original big felines. As for me, 485 00:35:26,960 --> 00:35:31,360 Speaker 1: I'll admit I want to see muscular jaguars once again 486 00:35:31,760 --> 00:35:35,160 Speaker 1: pursuing big horn sheep in the New Mexico Rockies, and 487 00:35:35,200 --> 00:35:37,040 Speaker 1: if I don't get to see it, I at least 488 00:35:37,040 --> 00:35:39,279 Speaker 1: want to look up at the snowcap peaks out my 489 00:35:39,360 --> 00:35:42,520 Speaker 1: front door and imagine that such a spectacle will play 490 00:35:42,600 --> 00:35:46,600 Speaker 1: out in the future. Arizona accepted. No other Western state 491 00:35:46,800 --> 00:35:50,400 Speaker 1: than New Mexico is likely to see that kind of 492 00:35:50,560 --> 00:35:51,360 Speaker 1: natural marble. 493 00:36:01,560 --> 00:36:06,640 Speaker 3: All right, Dan, In this episode, I think that you 494 00:36:06,800 --> 00:36:11,800 Speaker 3: begin at some point by talking about how most Americans 495 00:36:11,880 --> 00:36:17,360 Speaker 3: imaginations sort of failed to fully comprehend the diversity of 496 00:36:17,520 --> 00:36:20,759 Speaker 3: landscape and culture that is New Mexico. Yeah, and I'm 497 00:36:20,760 --> 00:36:24,160 Speaker 3: wondering if that's a branding problem. We didn't go with 498 00:36:24,200 --> 00:36:29,120 Speaker 3: southern Colorado or eastern California. You know, people just for 499 00:36:29,160 --> 00:36:33,040 Speaker 3: whatever reason, people New Mexico. It just brings to mind 500 00:36:33,080 --> 00:36:35,799 Speaker 3: a certain image and that's it. This is obviously not 501 00:36:35,840 --> 00:36:37,160 Speaker 3: a serious question, but. 502 00:36:39,080 --> 00:36:42,200 Speaker 1: Well, yeah, I think there are parts of the West 503 00:36:42,320 --> 00:36:48,960 Speaker 1: that are readily accessible to people. I mean, Yellowstone comes 504 00:36:48,960 --> 00:36:54,320 Speaker 1: to mind, Yosemite National Park in California, you know, Glacier. 505 00:36:55,960 --> 00:36:59,359 Speaker 1: There are places that large numbers of people have been 506 00:37:00,239 --> 00:37:07,279 Speaker 1: appear in calendar photographs, that appear in documentaries that you 507 00:37:07,320 --> 00:37:12,080 Speaker 1: see on television, and so you know about those. I 508 00:37:12,160 --> 00:37:15,800 Speaker 1: think that there are very definitely places like you mentioned 509 00:37:15,800 --> 00:37:19,640 Speaker 1: eastern California. You know, hardly anybody knows much about that 510 00:37:19,680 --> 00:37:22,319 Speaker 1: part of the world unless you travel through it. I mean, 511 00:37:22,440 --> 00:37:28,279 Speaker 1: I would say eastern Washington and eastern Oregon, almost fall 512 00:37:28,360 --> 00:37:31,879 Speaker 1: into that same category, because what everybody knows about when 513 00:37:31,960 --> 00:37:35,799 Speaker 1: they imagine Oregon or Washington State, they always imagine the 514 00:37:35,880 --> 00:37:36,680 Speaker 1: coastal parks. 515 00:37:36,680 --> 00:37:38,520 Speaker 2: They imagine Seattle and Portland. 516 00:37:38,200 --> 00:37:42,440 Speaker 1: And Eugene and all the wetter, greener part that's closer 517 00:37:42,440 --> 00:37:47,359 Speaker 1: to the Pacific. I think New Mexico, and I sort 518 00:37:47,360 --> 00:37:52,880 Speaker 1: of feel this about the whole Southwest. It plays a 519 00:37:53,000 --> 00:37:58,560 Speaker 1: kind of an exotic role in American life because that 520 00:37:58,760 --> 00:38:03,080 Speaker 1: part of the country is so unlike much of the rest, 521 00:38:03,200 --> 00:38:04,120 Speaker 1: even of the West. 522 00:38:04,480 --> 00:38:07,240 Speaker 2: I think we can people who grew. 523 00:38:07,040 --> 00:38:10,560 Speaker 1: Up in New England or in the Great Lakes Country, 524 00:38:11,480 --> 00:38:18,000 Speaker 1: you know, you can imagine Yellowstone, the Montana Rockies, the 525 00:38:18,120 --> 00:38:22,120 Speaker 1: Grand Tetons, you can imagine all that, because it's not 526 00:38:22,600 --> 00:38:26,560 Speaker 1: hugely dissimilar from the green and better watered world that 527 00:38:26,600 --> 00:38:31,000 Speaker 1: you're familiar with. But that really arid, desert like country 528 00:38:31,000 --> 00:38:33,520 Speaker 1: in the Southwest, I think it is, you know, and 529 00:38:33,600 --> 00:38:36,640 Speaker 1: I'm one of the things I've laughed about a lot 530 00:38:36,680 --> 00:38:41,520 Speaker 1: and watching sports is the inevitable use of the term Okay, 531 00:38:41,600 --> 00:38:44,240 Speaker 1: this game is going to be played down in the desert, 532 00:38:44,560 --> 00:38:48,280 Speaker 1: and it's nobody ever says that we're going to be playing, 533 00:38:48,320 --> 00:38:51,800 Speaker 1: you know, up in the foothills of the Colorado Rockies. 534 00:38:52,200 --> 00:38:54,120 Speaker 1: We're not We're not going to do that with the 535 00:38:54,120 --> 00:38:57,720 Speaker 1: Denver Broncos because that's a more familiar place. But anything 536 00:38:57,760 --> 00:39:01,440 Speaker 1: that happens down in the Southwest is always prefaced by 537 00:39:01,880 --> 00:39:04,000 Speaker 1: this is going to take place down in the desert. 538 00:39:04,280 --> 00:39:06,720 Speaker 2: Yeah. 539 00:39:05,200 --> 00:39:10,520 Speaker 3: I think one of the big takeaways from this piece 540 00:39:12,040 --> 00:39:17,279 Speaker 3: is just how layered New Mexico's history and culture and 541 00:39:17,360 --> 00:39:18,080 Speaker 3: landscape are. 542 00:39:18,440 --> 00:39:19,840 Speaker 2: That's good And. 543 00:39:21,960 --> 00:39:25,719 Speaker 3: One of the things that I think became apparent to 544 00:39:25,800 --> 00:39:31,640 Speaker 3: me just thinking about the script is these are they're 545 00:39:31,680 --> 00:39:35,360 Speaker 3: all interrelated, and you think about how long people have 546 00:39:35,440 --> 00:39:37,520 Speaker 3: been on the ground in New Mexico. Some of our 547 00:39:37,719 --> 00:39:42,520 Speaker 3: oldest evidence of human occupation in the Americas is in 548 00:39:42,560 --> 00:39:46,880 Speaker 3: New Mexico, and it's a place where these different types 549 00:39:46,920 --> 00:39:51,040 Speaker 3: of landscapes come together. And for me, I was thinking 550 00:39:51,040 --> 00:39:54,560 Speaker 3: about sort of transitional habitats and how these places where 551 00:39:54,880 --> 00:39:59,280 Speaker 3: two different types of landscapes or biomes, they where they intersect. 552 00:39:59,320 --> 00:40:03,080 Speaker 3: That's a good place for animals to. 553 00:40:03,040 --> 00:40:05,840 Speaker 2: Be, right, Yeah, it is ecotones. 554 00:40:06,000 --> 00:40:09,040 Speaker 3: Yeah, And so I think about the thought was occurring 555 00:40:09,040 --> 00:40:10,680 Speaker 3: to me as I was reading this of just like 556 00:40:10,960 --> 00:40:14,759 Speaker 3: how interrelated its history and its landscape are and the 557 00:40:14,800 --> 00:40:16,520 Speaker 3: interplay between those two things. 558 00:40:17,320 --> 00:40:22,360 Speaker 1: I think it's that combination of all those are so 559 00:40:22,520 --> 00:40:27,400 Speaker 1: many of the big ecological zones of the West in 560 00:40:27,480 --> 00:40:31,320 Speaker 1: New Mexico. I mean, as I said in the script, 561 00:40:31,719 --> 00:40:35,920 Speaker 1: it's the place where the Rocky Mountains, the Great Plains, 562 00:40:36,080 --> 00:40:39,799 Speaker 1: the Colorado Plateau, Canyon Country, and the true deserts of 563 00:40:39,800 --> 00:40:42,760 Speaker 1: the Southwest all converge in that one spot. 564 00:40:42,800 --> 00:40:45,640 Speaker 2: And I have a sneaking feeling that one of the reasons. 565 00:40:45,239 --> 00:40:49,479 Speaker 1: We have so many early human sights from the North 566 00:40:49,520 --> 00:40:52,279 Speaker 1: American story in New Mexico. I mean it's not just 567 00:40:52,360 --> 00:40:55,719 Speaker 1: the Clovist site that's there and the Folesome site that's there, 568 00:40:55,760 --> 00:40:58,760 Speaker 1: the original of both of those are in New Mexico, 569 00:40:59,080 --> 00:41:02,800 Speaker 1: but also this recent discovery in twenty nineteen of twenty 570 00:41:02,840 --> 00:41:05,879 Speaker 1: three thousand year old footprints down in the southern part 571 00:41:05,880 --> 00:41:10,920 Speaker 1: of the state. Is that that combination of settings plains, 572 00:41:11,400 --> 00:41:16,000 Speaker 1: Rocky Mountains, Colorado Platzau canyons, and southwestern deserts I think 573 00:41:16,320 --> 00:41:20,440 Speaker 1: must have drawn people. I mean, the climate is amenable 574 00:41:20,520 --> 00:41:22,759 Speaker 1: for one thing, you get off the end of the 575 00:41:22,800 --> 00:41:25,560 Speaker 1: southern Rockies, and the climate is not one you have 576 00:41:25,640 --> 00:41:30,520 Speaker 1: to suffer through really to get through, especially say fifteen 577 00:41:30,600 --> 00:41:33,359 Speaker 1: thousand years or so ago, when it was colder than 578 00:41:33,440 --> 00:41:37,240 Speaker 1: it is now, and so that country probably attracted people 579 00:41:37,280 --> 00:41:39,919 Speaker 1: for that reason, but I think it was that diversity 580 00:41:39,960 --> 00:41:43,000 Speaker 1: of landscapes that also did it, and that's the reason 581 00:41:43,040 --> 00:41:46,440 Speaker 1: we have so many of these early sites for humans 582 00:41:46,440 --> 00:41:49,520 Speaker 1: in North America that occur in that particular part of 583 00:41:49,560 --> 00:41:50,480 Speaker 1: the west. 584 00:41:51,280 --> 00:41:55,719 Speaker 3: And you speaking of sort of this bleed over of 585 00:41:55,760 --> 00:41:58,920 Speaker 3: different regions, you talk in this article a lot. 586 00:41:58,760 --> 00:41:59,840 Speaker 2: About the jaguar. 587 00:42:00,560 --> 00:42:06,839 Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's sort of the embodiment of ecological connections 588 00:42:06,840 --> 00:42:12,799 Speaker 3: between North America, Central America, South America, and it comes 589 00:42:12,880 --> 00:42:16,520 Speaker 3: up into New Mexico. And there's something I don't know, 590 00:42:16,560 --> 00:42:19,640 Speaker 3: there's something about that. Not only are jaguars interesting to 591 00:42:19,680 --> 00:42:25,319 Speaker 3: me just as an animal, but sort of the what 592 00:42:25,360 --> 00:42:31,200 Speaker 3: that represents as far as the connection across continents is interesting. 593 00:42:31,400 --> 00:42:34,279 Speaker 1: Yeah, no kidding, because I mean the jaguar we think of, 594 00:42:34,400 --> 00:42:35,799 Speaker 1: you know, I mean, it's found all the way down 595 00:42:35,840 --> 00:42:39,920 Speaker 1: to Argentina and so up and down the South American 596 00:42:40,000 --> 00:42:43,120 Speaker 1: continent through Central America, and we think of jaguars as 597 00:42:43,200 --> 00:42:46,399 Speaker 1: being kind of jungle animals, sort of like tigers are. 598 00:42:48,360 --> 00:42:53,680 Speaker 1: And yet its northern range was in the American Southwest 599 00:42:53,719 --> 00:42:57,960 Speaker 1: and was now New Mexico and Arizona. And to me, 600 00:42:58,160 --> 00:43:01,719 Speaker 1: one of the exciting things when I was working on 601 00:43:02,040 --> 00:43:08,600 Speaker 1: this particular story in the beginning, was encountering this idea, 602 00:43:08,640 --> 00:43:10,439 Speaker 1: and it's an idea that I think that really still 603 00:43:10,520 --> 00:43:14,279 Speaker 1: resonates in my mind that as a result of the 604 00:43:14,320 --> 00:43:19,320 Speaker 1: climate history, you know, pulling these species up from South 605 00:43:19,360 --> 00:43:22,800 Speaker 1: America and Central America into what is now the United States, 606 00:43:23,120 --> 00:43:30,600 Speaker 1: like jaguars, like collared peckeras have Alina's, like armadillos, and 607 00:43:30,640 --> 00:43:38,000 Speaker 1: then from a different set of influences extending along the 608 00:43:38,040 --> 00:43:42,120 Speaker 1: crest of the Rocky Mountains from Alaska, these species that 609 00:43:42,440 --> 00:43:46,200 Speaker 1: like bighorn sheep that you think of as being very 610 00:43:46,360 --> 00:43:49,960 Speaker 1: northerly kind of animals all the way down into what 611 00:43:50,160 --> 00:43:54,040 Speaker 1: is now New Mexico, and having those two jaguars be 612 00:43:54,239 --> 00:43:57,440 Speaker 1: hunting big horn sheep. I mean, that's just to me 613 00:43:57,560 --> 00:44:01,920 Speaker 1: kind of a remarkable convergence of things that I still 614 00:44:02,080 --> 00:44:05,120 Speaker 1: like to play with in my mind. And what I'm 615 00:44:05,160 --> 00:44:10,200 Speaker 1: hoping for if we managed to recover jaguars, is having 616 00:44:10,280 --> 00:44:12,640 Speaker 1: something like that happen again, because that seems to be 617 00:44:12,760 --> 00:44:16,920 Speaker 1: a pretty magical kind of convergence of species across the 618 00:44:16,960 --> 00:44:19,440 Speaker 1: continents in the Americas, and. 619 00:44:21,160 --> 00:44:24,319 Speaker 3: Sort of along those same lines in terms of convergence, 620 00:44:24,880 --> 00:44:28,680 Speaker 3: we New Mexico is such a unique place for how 621 00:44:28,760 --> 00:44:33,799 Speaker 3: visible the Spanish and indigenous and not only I mean 622 00:44:33,880 --> 00:44:40,560 Speaker 3: to say indigenous is to oversimplify it, you know, very 623 00:44:40,560 --> 00:44:45,120 Speaker 3: different across the long span of time, Indigenous cultures, then 624 00:44:45,200 --> 00:44:49,040 Speaker 3: the Spanish, then sort of the Anglo influence from the 625 00:44:49,160 --> 00:44:53,560 Speaker 3: United States. I think of all the states in the West, 626 00:44:54,200 --> 00:44:59,040 Speaker 3: New Mexico probably maybe where's that most proudly I. 627 00:44:59,000 --> 00:45:01,319 Speaker 1: Think it does, and I I think you know, I mean, 628 00:45:01,680 --> 00:45:06,799 Speaker 1: and I quoted Florence Miriam Bailey in this particular script too, 629 00:45:07,280 --> 00:45:09,880 Speaker 1: when she was in New Mexico said, you know, unlike 630 00:45:09,920 --> 00:45:13,959 Speaker 1: anywhere else I've been, I mean to us, to her 631 00:45:14,000 --> 00:45:17,560 Speaker 1: and her husband Vernon Bailey on their honeymoon. This was 632 00:45:17,600 --> 00:45:20,000 Speaker 1: a brand new place, but it was clear that it 633 00:45:20,040 --> 00:45:21,920 Speaker 1: was a very old place. And that's one of the 634 00:45:21,920 --> 00:45:25,360 Speaker 1: things you can't miss in a place like New Mexico 635 00:45:25,520 --> 00:45:28,240 Speaker 1: that you often can in other parts of the West, 636 00:45:28,840 --> 00:45:33,399 Speaker 1: and that is the lingering presence on the landscape of 637 00:45:33,840 --> 00:45:39,080 Speaker 1: prior occupations, prior inhabitations. Chaco CanYa National Park for example, 638 00:45:40,080 --> 00:45:46,839 Speaker 1: which was going enterprise in the Southwest a thousand years ago, 639 00:45:47,120 --> 00:45:51,080 Speaker 1: has left ruins that. I mean, it's now National Park, 640 00:45:51,120 --> 00:45:55,000 Speaker 1: of course, and a visitor designation or destination for people from. 641 00:45:54,880 --> 00:45:55,439 Speaker 2: All the world. 642 00:45:55,840 --> 00:45:59,400 Speaker 1: But it kind of leaves you with the sense of, Wow, 643 00:46:00,760 --> 00:46:03,040 Speaker 1: we are late comers to this part of the world. 644 00:46:03,160 --> 00:46:06,400 Speaker 1: This thing has been playing out, this human story has 645 00:46:06,400 --> 00:46:08,239 Speaker 1: been playing out in this part of the world for 646 00:46:08,280 --> 00:46:13,799 Speaker 1: a long time. And those kind of physical that physical 647 00:46:13,960 --> 00:46:18,160 Speaker 1: evidence of occupation going way back into the past is 648 00:46:18,440 --> 00:46:23,880 Speaker 1: more present in the Southwest, in Arizona and New Mexico 649 00:46:23,920 --> 00:46:26,319 Speaker 1: than it is anywhere else in the West. So it 650 00:46:26,400 --> 00:46:28,840 Speaker 1: kind of drives home to you, Wow, this is we 651 00:46:28,880 --> 00:46:31,080 Speaker 1: didn't We're not starting something brand new here. 652 00:46:31,480 --> 00:46:34,560 Speaker 2: This is a very old place. Yet. 653 00:46:35,400 --> 00:46:38,200 Speaker 3: The phrase that kept popping into my mind as I 654 00:46:38,239 --> 00:46:40,880 Speaker 3: was thinking about this more and more was one that 655 00:46:40,920 --> 00:46:45,719 Speaker 3: I remember from elementary school history, which. 656 00:46:45,520 --> 00:46:46,839 Speaker 2: Is cradle of civilization. 657 00:46:47,160 --> 00:46:49,960 Speaker 3: Yeah, which is a term that's referred to used to 658 00:46:49,960 --> 00:46:52,160 Speaker 3: refer to certain parts of the globe that have that 659 00:46:52,200 --> 00:46:54,600 Speaker 3: sort of ancient gravitas. 660 00:46:54,880 --> 00:46:55,080 Speaker 2: Yeah. 661 00:46:56,120 --> 00:46:58,279 Speaker 3: And I wonder if you think of New Mexico and 662 00:46:58,360 --> 00:46:59,880 Speaker 3: those in those terms. 663 00:47:00,160 --> 00:47:04,879 Speaker 1: I particularly think of the Chaco area in northwestern New 664 00:47:04,880 --> 00:47:07,719 Speaker 1: Mexico as a kind of an American version of the 665 00:47:07,719 --> 00:47:11,120 Speaker 1: Tigris euphrase river valleys in the Middle East, which when 666 00:47:11,120 --> 00:47:13,839 Speaker 1: people talk about the cradle civilization, that's often what they're 667 00:47:13,880 --> 00:47:19,600 Speaker 1: referring to. And yeah, I think northwestern New Mexico really 668 00:47:19,640 --> 00:47:24,040 Speaker 1: gives you that sense. And if you're in Chaco Canyon 669 00:47:25,120 --> 00:47:29,200 Speaker 1: National Historic Park, all you have to do is walk 670 00:47:29,239 --> 00:47:33,640 Speaker 1: among those ruins and you get a powerful sense of 671 00:47:34,360 --> 00:47:38,200 Speaker 1: this is kind of where North America began, you know. 672 00:47:38,280 --> 00:47:42,279 Speaker 1: And there are certainly older places. I mean, we have 673 00:47:42,400 --> 00:47:45,759 Speaker 1: evidence of the Clovis and the fulsome people in New 674 00:47:45,800 --> 00:47:50,200 Speaker 1: Mexico as well, but boy, Chaco is really it really 675 00:47:50,320 --> 00:47:52,200 Speaker 1: raises the hair on the back of your neck when 676 00:47:52,200 --> 00:47:52,600 Speaker 1: you're there. 677 00:47:52,960 --> 00:47:55,960 Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I need to make it down at some point. Yeah, 678 00:47:56,000 --> 00:47:58,440 Speaker 3: you do, all right? Thanks Dan, you bet Randall. 679 00:47:58,480 --> 00:48:06,680 Speaker 1: Thanks U