Cultural significance of Ba'cho (gray wolf) to the Western Apache in Arizona

Background/Question/Methods

Gray wolves (Canis lupus) historically inhabited Arizona. Conflicts between wolves and Euro-Americans began to escalate in the 1800s as human settlement intensified in the region and wolf depredation of livestock increased. Gray wolves were considered extirpated by 1960 and were reintroduced back into Arizona in 1998. Wolves have killed cattle on both the Fort Apache and San Carlos Apache Reservations. In 2002, the San Carlos Apache Tribal Council reaffirmed their opposition to the wolf recovery program by passing resolution stating that the Council views the situation with the wolf as detrimental to the Apache people and land of the San Carlos Apache Tribe. While much has changed in the lives of Indian people, the emphasis on group benefits remains fundamental to their way of life. Resource managers commonly misunderstand this indigenous perspective. To most non-Native people, opposition to restoring a displaced species of wildlife by a Native American tribe would seem inconsistent with what they have come to believe about the Indian relationship to the environment.  My research investigated the cultural significance of the wolf within Western Apache culture taking into account both traditional and contemporary and gender perspectives. In addition, I investigated people associate with cattle and who were not associated with cattle. My objectives were to examine whether Apache consultants interviewed had a shared belief system about the wolf, whether people associated with cattle were opposed to having the wolf reintroduced back into the wild, and whether traditional ecological knowledge about the wolf exists within the Apache culture. I interviewed 32 Apache tribal members using semi-structured interview. I used cultural consensus analysis as a method to analyze the concurrence of the culture on the subject of the wolf.

Results/Conclusions

Results of the consensus analyses for all 32 tribal consultants was a large ratio between the larges eigenvalue and the second largest eigenvalue indicating the data adequately fit the consensus model. Thick descriptions of how Apache consultants described the wolf traditionally in their culture and how they view the wolf today provided valuable insight. Apache consultants also provided interesting unsolicited cultural information and ecological knowledge about the wolf that correlates well with Western scientific information.