NATIVE SPECIES

SPACE ENOUGH FOR SILENCE, for sky, for yesterday, for tomorrow: Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni-Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument protects both cultural and natural worlds. In this place, they are the same.

Signed into existence by President Joe Biden in 2023, the 917,618-acre monument recognizes the tribal history forever interwoven with this land. It is as much a monument to the tribes’ stories, stewardship and histories as it is official recognition of a protected environment. Like any protected wild space, it is a celebration of all that is wild within its boundaries. The tribes’ connection with wildlife is contained in stories that are theirs to tell, but for those of us who cherish wild land, and the wildlife for which it is home, the new monument offers many possibilities for our own engagement.

PRESSED UP AGAINST Grand Canyon National Park’s boundaries, three separate segments form Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni. Sweeping plateaus, forests and riparian areas; canyons, grasslands and rock cliffs; meandering creeks and streams and seeps ultimately flowing into the Colorado River — all of it is land integral to the Canyon’s ecosystem. It also is land vital to the tribes. And to wildlife.

The 13 tribes forming the Grand Canyon Tribal Coalition led the effort to gain protection for the monument, which is now jointly managed by them, the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management. The land forms both a logical buffer for and an extension of the territory protected by the park.

The monument serves as a step toward acknowledging the displacement of the people who have always lived here. Specifically, it recognizes that while the Canyon is a monument to America’s wish to protect its immeasurable grandeur, that protection caused the dispossession of the Indigenous peoples of the area.

The monument’s three segments are territory for a range of mammals and birds. Once almost eradicated, California condors continue to be reintroduced to the world here. Golden and bald eagles, peregrine falcons, ferruginous hawks, other raptors, songbirds and other passerines all find their necessary habitats. Ungulates run the gamut from Rocky Mountain elk, which are not native, to mule deer, pronghorns and bighorn sheep, which are.

The large elk population inhabiting the South Rim of the Canyon is something of a misstep. Majestic interlopers through no fault of their own, they descend from 303 elk brought to the Canyon from Yellowstone National Park between 1913 and 1928 — a time when we thought large, wild animals, native or not, belonged in national parks. If they weren’t present, we just put them there.

The Canyon elk traveled by train, which isn’t really considered a natural migration method for wild animals. Not evolved for Arizona’s climate, they’ve adapted by sticking to the coolness of the ponderosa and piñon-juniper forests on the South Rim, where they compete with mule deer for food. Because they need more water than do mule deer, they wander into tourist areas to find it, which means they’ve acclimated to people. Unfortunately, many people think any large wild animal standing nearby needs to be petted. And the presence of elk can also interfere with mule deer migration routes through the monument to their summer pastures.

The House Rock Valley bison, on the North Rim, may or may not belong. There are questions about whether the vast herds of bison that once ran across America’s prairies actually made it this far south. But maybe. Mountain lions, black bears, coyotes and bobcats do belong. As does the memory of jaguars.

THE SOUTHERN SEGMENT OF THE MONUMENT extends from the border of Havasupai tribal land in the west to the Navajo Nation in the east. This area of creeks, forests and grasslands is also the segment where Red Butte rises out of the Coconino Plateau. Sacred to the Havasupai people and visible from all directions across miles of flat land, Red Butte seems the center of the Earth, the land itself announcing that this is a special place. There is no way to miss it on the drive from Williams to the South Rim. As a hiker, I saw it as an invitation from the Earth to “come on over.”

Fallen juniper berries, covering the ground beneath their trees, spilled onto the trail. Seeming like shimmering blue blankets in the early afternoon light, they rendered a kind of magic. As if I’d come to an enchanted place. About halfway to the top, a conspiracy of ravens began circling, crying, circling, crying. Was I not supposed to be there? Was I being welcomed? Or warned? (I do tend to take things personally.) If “conspiracy” seems an odd word for a flock of birds, it applies because in medieval times, ravens were associated with bad luck, with the supernatural. Groups of them are called a conspiracy — or an unkindness.

They should be called a brilliance, which is what they really are.

The only person I encountered was a Canyon visitor from New Jersey on his way down. He told me that up the trail he’d seen a large pile of scat, which he immediately interpreted as bear, but a ranger on top told him there are no bears in this area. No sooner had the man relaxed than the ranger suggested it could have been a mountain lion, a prime predator here. The man did not find that comforting. Nor did I. Seeing a lion in its world is a marvelous sighting, one I’ve experienced a few times. At a distance. The way I prefer seeing lions.

Shortly after passing the man, I arrived at the trail’s steepest part, where it winds around rock ledges, ideal spots for a lion to jump onto unsuspecting prey. Preferring not to be unsuspecting prey, I walked looking up at every rock until I noticed horse manure on the trail. But I truly understand translating any large pile on the trail as bear scat. Although it was a long time ago, I once did that, too.

Mountain lions find plentiful food in herds of mule deer and bighorn sheep — and perhaps pronghorns, although catching a pronghorn seems iffy. The second-fastest land animal on Earth (cheetahs are first), pronghorns run at speeds of up to 55 mph. Mountain lions are much slower, but I suppose they could jump an unsuspecting pronghorn. (Is there such a thing as an unsuspecting pronghorn?)

Besides the ravens, the only animal I saw on that walk was a very tiny, very dusty toad.

BORDERED BY THE KANAB CREEK DRAINAGE, the northwestern section of the monument supports a cottonwood-willow forest, a continually narrowing world for the endangered Southwestern willow flycatcher and the threatened Western yellow-billed cuckoo. The creek also provides habitat for sensitive amphibian species such as the northern leopard frog, currently considered a species of concern in Arizona — which means it is not on the threatened list, but not in great shape, either.

Threatened Mexican spotted owls nest within the Canyon, where their habitat of choice seems to be steep and rocky terrain in the upper reaches of large tributary canyons. Movement onto the monument doesn’t seem unlikely, according to Justin Schofer, wildlife biologist for the Kaibab National Forest. Because of that, the Kaibab manages for these owls on both sides of the Canyon.

The monument’s northeastern segment, extending west from Marble Canyon along the Colorado River to the edge of the Kaibab Plateau, includes House Rock Valley. And while many of us who wander in wild country have probably observed most of the animals and birds I’ve mentioned, sightings of House Rock Valley chisel-toothed kangaroo rats are rare. Because I’ve never seen one, I’ve obsessed about them for weeks.

Spending their days sleeping in multi-entranced burrows they build beneath desert shrubs — ostensibly safe from the bobcats, foxes, snakes and various others who would find them delicious — these are nocturnal animals, sometimes active at dusk or dawn. I will one day camp out in House Rock Valley, where Arizona Game and Fish Department biologist Luke Thompson tells me he has seen one of these rodents.

The House Rock Valley chisel-toothed kangaroo rat is most closely related to the pocket gopher. The “kangaroo” part of its name derives from its hopping on oversize hind feet like a kangaroo; the “chisel-toothed” part comes from the fact that its lower incisors are “anteriorly flat and broad, resembling chisels.” (I need to see one with its mouth open to understand that.) According to one description I read, the animal is about the size of a Brussels sprout; the writer, who I’m certain is a vegetarian, went on to say, “Packrats, which are not closely related, are about the size of a large orange or small grapefruit.”

Appropriately for a master of desert survival, the body of this kangaroo rat is adapted to reduce the amount of water needed. By not sweating, panting or rolling in mud like some other animals do, they also retain more water. Those chiseled teeth allow them to strip away the outer layers of saltbush leaves, gaining access to palatable and water-rich inner layers. They also get water from occasional seeds, which, according to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, are carried to their burrows in fur-lined pouches on the outsides of their cheeks. And their tufted tails, longer than their bodies, allow them to change directions in midair, a brilliant adaptation for escaping predators.

THIS GENERAL AREA OF THE MONUMENT backs up to the Vermilion Cliffs, where in 2013 I watched a California condor release. This yearly event seems a festival of wildness — a literally vital example of how wildness, almost lost, can be resurrected. In 1987, there were 22 condors, all in captivity. Today, more than 350 fly free. Watching the young condors in their cages at the top of the cliffs before the actual release, I was curious what they were thinking. That’s as anthropomorphic a thought as I could have, but how could anyone not wonder whether they anticipated how their world was about to change?

Hatched at The Peregrine Fund’s World Center for Birds of Prey in Boise, Idaho, the condors are first raised by their parents, then placed in a large flight pen with other young condors; there, they learn to fly and interact with each other. Finally, when ready for the wild, they are taken to the Vermilion Cliffs, where they are held in a large pen with other condors as they adjust to the sights and sounds of their new home. On release day, I watched some birds fly down to a lower rock and land, seeming to consider where they were. Others took off at once, flying into the freedom of their own wild hearts.

Visits to this region any time of year are likely to offer a sky with condors in it. They are much easier to see than my longed-for adorable rodent.