Wildlife Refuges

Madeleine Pickens, wife of oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens, said she would create a refuge for wild horses after the Bureau of Land Management said it might have to kill some to control the herds and protect the range. About 33,000 wild horses and burros roam the open range in 10 Western states, half of those in Nevada. The BLM wants the population to be about 27,000, to protect the herd, the range and other foraging animals. Horses that are too old or unadoptable are sent to long-term holding facilities.

The parrot met an unfortunate end. Got loose, he did. Skittered across the floor, out the door and took flight, landing in a place where parrots ought not to land. "It's a bit embarrassing," said Ronel Smuts, manager of the Abu Dhabi Wildlife Center here, suppressing a smile at the curious ways of fate. "Someone left his cage door open, and he got out and flew toward Zulu, the lion. Zulu was startled when this colorful thing dropped into his pen. But he figured it out.

It's not the kind of early-bird weekend crowd you'd expect to see crashing the gates of the Naval Weapons Support Facility in Seal Beach. But here we are, about 40 latte-sipping civilians and me chatting beside a barbed wire fence with binoculars slung around our necks. We're gathered in a parking lot on the most uninviting-looking block of Seal Beach Boulevard, between the ocean and Interstate 405. Up the road is a Boeing plant. Across the street, a pair of oil derricks nods monotonously.

Eastbound on California 18, 100 miles out of L.A., I roll past the familiar strip malls and shopping plazas for several miles before the road tapers off in the stark, sun-baked landscape of the high desert. Fifteen more miles out, a sign featuring a baying wolf marks the end of a long, grueling driveway to the Wolf Mountain Sanctuary. But don't expect to see a pack of trotting wolves patrolling expansive grounds here.

Re "Tejon Ranch as a model," Opinion, May 19 Two official environmentalists soft-pedal the opening of a sensitive ecological habitat to negotiated development as a model for preserving what is left of the natural world in California's despoiled land and airscape. Years ago, Italian architect Paolo Soleri invented a concept of providing for increasing populations on decreasing land space while enhancing urban living and preserving natural habitats. He coined the word "arcology" for his vertical cities amid mountains, forest and wildlife refuges.

America's wildlife refuges are so short of money that one-third have no staff, boardwalks and buildings are in disrepair, and drug dealers are using them to grow marijuana and make methamphetamine, according to a group pushing for more funding. "Without adequate funding, we are jeopardizing some of the world's most spectacular wildlife and wild lands," said Evan Hirsche, president of the National Wildlife Refuge Assn. and chairman of the Cooperative Alliance for Refuge Enhancement, which released its report to Congress last week.

Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge, Ga. -- They are a brave and seasoned lot, these firefighters who have swarmed to the Georgia swamp to extinguish its raging wildfires. But even for them, the "dreaded Okefenokee" -- as an old B-movie poster put it -- presents novel sources of fear. The most obvious of them slither quietly through the bogs and bask on the parched peat, all teeth and fearful symmetry.

Under the rolling cloud-scape of the Klamath Basin, a curious rite of spring is underway. Migratory birds are flocking to the basin's necklace of federal wildlife refuges straddling Oregon and California -- one of the most important stops on the Pacific Flyway. As usual, the geese, mallards and terns are sharing the sanctuaries with tractors. Agriculture fields have elbowed onto what once were marshes and shallow inland seas, shrinking the basin's wetlands by nearly 80%.

The California Fish and Game Commission on Friday gave final approval to the largest network of marine reserves in the continental United States, banning or restricting fishing across about 200 square miles of waters off the state's Central Coast. The unanimous vote establishes a necklace of 29 protected marine areas from Santa Barbara to Santa Cruz counties in an effort to replenish depleted fish populations and other marine life.