Sublime

We accept this responsibility with gratitude, cherish it, and protect it. Acknowledging with humility that it comes from beyond us. More important than us. And not just for us. We are in its service.

It wasn’t that Smith believed his wolves were sacred. In fact, almost every year since reintroduction, he had reluctantly approved the shooting of a handful of Yellowstone wolves who had attacked livestock grazing near the park. Such culling wouldn’t normally have been allowed under the Endangered Species Act, but a special concession had been made

The heart and life of individual agency has everything to do with broader systemic and ecological change.

an animal has its nature, and faith to that nature is righteous. They do not promise ease nor redemption. To the faithful, to those who heed their own selves, both stories carry only the promise of being recognized for whom you are and taken home.

Honnold had suggested in his brief for the judge. Projects like wolf recovery were about restoring ecosystems on a grand scale, not, as he now told the court, creating “postage stamp replicas of a world long gone.”