Wilderness Watch

10/20/2026

"Do we not want rivers to flow into oceans? Do we not want trees to grow wildly in forests? Do we not want wildfires to burn across these fire-dependent landscapes in a sweeping canvas of renewal?

If not, then it seems we are at odds with the balance of life itself. I fear for a world in which everything is dominated by human will and managed according to our desires. I look at what we’ve created and destroyed with our intelligence, our tools, our 'abundant' resources, and I can hardly stomach the idea of a planet robbed of its wildness, in which everything is manufactured entirely in our vision. Looking out from the top of Mitchell Peak, you do not see something that needs to be fixed. Rather, you bear witness to the staggering beauty of lands largely unscathed by human interference and wonder how we think we can improve upon this."

– Mason Parker, Wilderness Watch

“What goes too long unchanged destroys itself. The forest is forever because it dies and dies and so lives.” -Ursula K. Le Guin

10/20/2026

Wilderness Watch is America’s leading organization dedicated to defending the nation’s 112-million-acre National Wilderness Preservation System and keeping it wild. Our work is guided by the visionary 1964 Wilderness Act.

📸 Desolation Wilderness by René Voss, Wilderness Watch board member

10/15/2026

Cumberland Island National Seashore and Wilderness in southern Georgia is the largest undeveloped barrier island on the eastern seaboard.

Take action by Friday, October 16 to stop land exchanges on Cumberland Island that would clearly benefit private interests far more than the public interest, and would undermine Congress’ intent when the seashore and Wilderness were established—that Cumberland Island would be allowed to rewild over time.

Speak up by October 16 to protect Cumberland Island National Seashore and Wilderness.

10/15/2026

Wilderness is not a tree farm—speak up to keep Wilderness and giant sequoias wild!

Please call your two senators at 202-224-3121 and urge them to oppose the so-called "Save Our Sequoias Act" (S. 4103).

Details >>> https://wildernesswatch.salsalabs.org/s4103/index.html

10/14/2026

"While the thought of dying bighorn lambs and mass extinction is unbearably depressing, some of our ecological problems have straight-forward solutions. Protecting the bighorn sheep of the High Uintas is one such problem, and the solution is clear: end domestic sheep grazing in this alpine Wilderness. Yet land managers seem fanatical in their desire to appease those who exploit the Wilderness to line their pockets." – Mason Park, Wilderness Watch

Stumbling over the rugged alpine landscape of the High Uintas Wilderness, a bighorn lamb is coughing and struggling, afflicted with pneumonia as the cold skies of winter set in. Here in northeastern Utah, a battle between domestication and wildness has been raging for three decades, while the West.....

10/14/2026

Happy National Wildlife Refuge Week!

Congressionally designated Wilderness areas can be found on 63 national wildlife refuges in 26 states, with about 90% of the Refuge System’s Wilderness in Alaska.

📸 Innoko Wilderness in the Innoko National Wildlife Refuge, Alaska by USFWS

10/14/2026

Sadly, this quote never goes out of style.

However, we are grateful for everything our members and supporters do to help us Keep Wilderness Wild!

10/13/2026

Effective wilderness stewardship takes the long view, and “leaving it alone”—such as limiting direct human control and deliberate manipulation of the ecology of Wilderness areas—is foundational to the long-term preservation of Wilderness. Quoting directly from the Wilderness Act, “A wilderness, in contrast with those areas where man and his works dominate the landscape, is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man.” Key concepts of this statement are “in contrast” and “untrammeled by man.” Wilderness must be allowed to be in contrast with other areas of earth that are dominated by humans and free from direct human ecological intervention.

Manipulation of Wilderness to achieve a condition based on a point in the long arc of ecological time to achieve human interests is the antithesis of humility and restraint, hallmarks of wilderness stewardship.

— Suzanne Cable, who serves on the Wilderness Watch Board of Directors. Suzanne retired in January 2024 after a 30-year career with the Forest Service, finishing her career as the forest-wide program manager for Recreation, Trails, and Wilderness on the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest

By Suzanne Cable

10/13/2026

TUNE IN NOW FOR WOLVES!!!

>>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFUJrpU91EI

Heads up!

A trio of high-profile wolf hearings will be happening in federal court in Missoula, Montana on Tuesday, October 13.

If you live in the Missoula area, please consider helping us "pack" the courtroom with pro-wolf people!

If you can't make it in person, you can tune in to a livestream here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFUJrpU91EI

WHEN: Tuesday, October 13 starting at 9:30am MDT
WHERE: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit; Russell E. Smith Federal Courthouse; Donald W. Molloy Courtroom, room 300; 201 E. Broadway St, Suite 310, Missoula, MT

Wilderness Watch is a plaintiff in the following:

Northern Rocky Mountains wolf-listing petition: On Aug. 5, 2025, conservationists, including Wilderness Watch, won a case in federal district court in Missoula finding the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service violated the Endangered Species Act (ESA) when it determined that gray wolves in the western U.S.—including wolves in the Northern Rocky Mountains—do not warrant federal protections, despite their role as the “headwaters” of the greater U.S. gray wolf population. The ruling vacated the Service’s decision and remanded the matter back to the agency for a new finding, consistent with the ESA and best available science. The Service, three states, and trophy hunters appealed the decision, and this is the hearing for that appeal. Interesting angle: After a legislative, state-specific delisting in 2011, the states of Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho have been in charge of managing wolves there. These states have proven hostile to wolves, as exemplified by declining populations in Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho, largely due to aggressive, state-set hunting quotas.

More details about all three hearings is here: https://wildernesswatch.substack.com/p/trio-of-high-profile-wolf-hearings