Large, intact, functioning ecosystems

• Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks in the Sierra Nevada only protected the giant sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum) incidentally. They were established to protect an important watershed providing irrigation water for farms in the Central Valley. Yellowstone and Yosemite were established largely because of the unique geological features of the first and the scenery of the second.

• To protect an intact functioning ecosystem, the area protected must be very large. Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks together have an area about the size of the state of Connecticut. An area of this size seems just large enough to contain a viable population of grizzly bears. According to the National Park Service, there were at 97 wolves in 11 packs (6 were loners) Yellowstone National Park at the end of 2010 (http://www.nps.gov/yell/naturescience/wolves.htm).²

• Protecting these vast expanses is the only hope we have for saving large-bodied mammalian carnivores, and there are few places in the world where this is possible. It's also pretty clear that there are large areas of the continental United States where it is no longer possible to set aside such areas (Figure 1)

  Figure 1: Conservation status of lands in the continental United States. Gap status 1 - areas with permanent protection. Gap status 2 - areas with permanent protection, but management that degrades natural communities is allowed. Gap status 3 - areas with permanent protection but subject to resource extraction. Gap status 4 - areas without known public or private mandates for protection. (From [1]).