VOICE ONE:
This is Steve Ember.
VOICE TWO:
And this is Shirley Griffith with the VOA Special English programEXPLORATIONS. Today we visit the desert of the American Southwest tolearn about a group of people called the Shadow Wolves.
((INDIAN MUSIC))
VOICE ONE:
A Shadow Wolf is hunting. He is not looking for animals. He ishunting people.
The Shadow Wolf walks slowlyacross the extremely hot desert sand. His eyes move slowly over theground. Most people would only see sand, dirt, rocks and some smallplants. The Shadow Wolf sees a story.
He looks closely at the ground. He can tell that five men passedthis way. Four of them carried heavy loads. He can also tell theyare moving quickly. They are not yet running, but they are moving asfast as their heavy loads permit. One is not carrying a heavy load.The Shadow Wolf knows this person is the group’s leader.
The Shadow Wolf increases his own speed across the dry, hotdesert. Soon, he can tell that the five men are running. They knowhe is following them.
Moments later, in the far distance, a group of birds suddenlyflies away from the ground. The five men have frightened the birds.The Shadow Wolf slowly pulls out his radio and calls for help.
The five men are captured within an hour. They are arrested fortrying to bring illegal drugs into the United States. Once again,the Shadow Wolf hunters of the United States Customs Service havebeen successful.
VOICE TWO
For thousands of years, people were hunter-gatherers. Theysurvived by hunting wild animals and gathering kinds of food thatwere not easily found. Their hunting skills were extremelyimportant. The ancient hunter-gatherers of the world learned tofollow the signs or marks left on the ground as animals moved alonga path.
This skill is called tracking. A good tracker would often spenddays following the signs of a group of animals until he could make asuccessful kill for food.
VOICE ONE:
These skills have disappeared in most of the modern world. Yet,special members of the United States Customs Service use them tofind and arrest people who try to sell illegal drugs. These CustomsService agents are Native Americans.
The group is called the Shadow Wolves. There are Eighteen men andone woman in the group. They belong to a number of different tribes,including Tohono O’Odham (tuh-HO-no ode-um), Navajo (NA-veh-ho),Lakota, Omaha, Pima(PEE-mah), Yorock (YORE-ock) and Sac&fox(sack n’ fox).
The Shadow Wolves live by a sayingthat tells a lot about them and their work. The saying is, “Inbrightest day, in darkest night, no evil shall escape my sight, forI am the Shadow Wolf.”
((INDIAN MUSIC))
VOICE TWO:
The Shadow Wolves have been members of the United States CustomService for about thirty years. They work on the second largest areaof American Indian land in the United States. It is called theTohono O’Odham Reservation. It is a few kilometers west of the cityof Tucson, in the southwestern state of Arizona.
The huge reservation shares a one-hundred-twenty-kilometer borderwith Mexico. People who want to sell illegal drugs in the UnitedStates carry the drugs on their backs across the desert land of theTohono O’odham Reservation. They try to move from the border to thenearest road, about forty kilometers away. Usually about three orfour people carry the drugs through the reservation at night. Theirshoes leave marks in the dirt.
The Shadow Wolves follow these shoe marks to find the drugdealers and arrest them. The Shadow Wolves have been very successfulat this.
VOICE ONE:
The Congress of the United States approved the idea of the ShadowWolves thirty years ago for several reasons. Police agencies inArizona and the United States Custom Service had all the moderntechnology needed to help catch people who tried to sell illegaldrugs. But they lacked the skills of the ancient hunter-gathererswho could follow the signs left by people as they passed through thedesert.
Customs Service officials knew drug dealers were coming acrossthe border and into the Tohono O’Odham Reservation. The governmentasked Indians who lived on the reservation to help in the fightagainst the drug dealers. The first members of the Shadow Wolveswere members of the Tohono O’Odham tribe.
A few years ago, the first members of the unusual group began toretire. The group asked if skilled trackers from other tribes wantedto become Shadow Wolves. The answer was yes.
VOICE TWO:
The Shadow Wolves do not use only their ancient tracking skills.They also use modern devices that help them see in the dark. Theyuse modern radios to communicate. They use airplanes, helicoptersand other methods of transportation in their work.
They have a very good record. In the first fifteen days of Marchtwo-thousand-one, the Shadow Wolves tracked and captured almostone-thousand-fifty kilograms of illegal drugs. In the following sixmonths, they captured more than eighteen-thousand kilograms ofillegal drugs. One day in April of this year, they seized dealerscarrying more than one-million-six-hundred-thousand dollars worth ofdrugs through the Tohono O’Odham Reservation.
((MUSIC BRIDGE))
VOICE ONE:
The Shadow Wolves main task is finding and stopping illegal drugdealers. Sometimes they are asked to help rescue people who becomelost in the desert.
Three of the Shadow Wolves are Gary Ortega, Jason Garcia andLambert Cross. Lambert Cross has been a tracker for almost thirtyyears. In two-thousand-one, the three Shadow Wolves saved the lifeof a little boy who had become lost in the desert.
The child and his dog left their home and walked into the desert.No one could find them. Search aircraft were used. Experts with dogswere called. The aircraft and the dog experts searched but could notfind the little boy.
The three Shadow Wolves then joined the search. They found verylittle evidence of the boy in the desert. But they found just enoughfor them to begin tracking the child. They continued to follow themarks left by the little boy until they found him and his dog. Theyreturned them to their home.
VOICE TWO:
The Shadow Wolves also share their skills with other lawagencies. Jason Garcia and two other members of the group traveledto Kosovo. They trained border guards there to track people who dealin stolen weapons. They also helped train police and border guardsin Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.
The police and border guards in those countries were oftensurprised when the Shadow Wolves began teaching them ancient methodsof tracking. The Shadow Wolves say the police and guards expected tolearn how to use some kind of modern electronic equipment. Insteadthey were taught ancient hunting skills.
VOICE ONE:
Bryan Nez is from the Navajo tribe. He has worked with the ShadowWolves group for twelve years. He learned to track as a child.
Mister Nez says he learned more by finding lost children andpeople on holiday who became lost in the desert.
Other Customs Officers say it is interesting to watch him work.Most people would not see anything unusual in an area. Yet, MisterNez sees a lot of evidence of people passing through. He says anyonecan be followed because they leave signs on the ground. He says hecan follow them even at night, or over rocks.
Sometimes, he says, the evidence he needs is something that hesees. Other times the evidence is something that he does not see.Sometimes it is just a feeling that he has.
VOICE TWO:
The work of the Shadow Wolves is dangerous. Sometimes the illegaldrug dealers carry weapons. Shots have been fired more than once.
Each of the Shadow Wolves wears a small gray colored feather onhis clothing. It reminds them that their work can be dangerous. Italso honors Shadow Wolf Glenn Miles. He was shot and killed byillegal drug dealers in nineteen-eighty-seven. The personresponsible for the crime was never caught.
Several of the Shadow Wolves followed the killer. The signs heleft on the ground crossed the Mexican border nine kilometers fromwhere the shooting took place.
VOICE ONE:
Each month, the Shadow Wolves find hundreds of kilograms ofillegal drugs and arrest those carrying the drugs. The group knowsit will never catch all the criminals who try to move illegal drugsthrough their area. However, the Shadow Wolves will continue toprove that ancient skills can be used to solve modern crimes.
((INDIAN MUSIC, FADES INTO THEME))
VOICE TWO:
This program was written by Paul Thompson. It was produced byCynthia Kirk. This is Shirley Griffith.
VOICE ONE:
And this is Steve Ember. Join us again next week for anotherEXPLORATIONS program in Special English on the Voice of America.