Ladder Ranch

In New Mexico, Turner s 250,000-acre Ladder Ranch is a similar laboratory of competing interests. First he reintroduced the imperiled desert bighorn sheep to his lands. Then, after the sheep were well-established, wolf packs were re-wilded there, too, even though some of the very expensively re-wilded sheep would become wolf food. But that s what real nature is about—predator and prey, completing the cycle, according to Turner. 

The Ladder Ranch is a major connector in another arm of the Wildlands Project, the Sky Islands Wildlands Network, which straddles Arizona, New Mexico, and northern Mexico. Sky Islands is an attempt to link wildlife corridors, reserves, and islands of mountainous habitats spanning four diverse ecosystems the northern temperate Rocky Mountains region, the southern subtropical Sierra Madre, the Sonoran Desert, and the Chihuahuan Desert. The area is a major repository of biodiversity, including half the bird species in North America. Ladder Ranch also has a captive breeding facility for Mexican wolves destined for release on Turner s land and federal lands. Some of Turner s wolves have been reintroduced at Kieran Suckling s... 

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