{"id":6227,"date":"2010-08-27T10:43:40","date_gmt":"2010-08-27T17:43:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.survival-spot.com\/survival-blog\/?p=6227"},"modified":"2013-11-27T11:28:27","modified_gmt":"2013-11-27T18:28:27","slug":"wolves-lurking-in-shadows-provide-exceptional-defense-for-the-united-states","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.survival-spot.com\/survival-blog\/wolves-lurking-in-shadows-provide-exceptional-defense-for-the-united-states\/","title":{"rendered":"Wolves lurking in the shadows provide an exceptional line of defense for the United States"},"content":{"rendered":"

While thought to be rather uninhabitable by some, the desert contains what is probably one of the greatest lines of defense to the national security of the United States. A group of Native American trackers, known as the Shadow Wolves<\/a>, are now a part of the U. S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement<\/a> (ICE). They protect a 76-mile stretch of the Tohono O\u2019odham Nation<\/a>. This 2.8 million acre territory is found in the state of Arizona, running along the US\/Mexico border, and compares in size to the state of Connecticut.
\n\"shadow
\nCreated by an Act of Congress in 1972, the Shadow Wolves satisfy the demands of the Tohono O\u2019odham Nation which stated a minimum of 25% of the law enforcement unit must be comprised of Native Americans. The unit includes members from the Yaqui, Blackfoot, Sioux, Omaha, Lakota<\/a>, Navajo and Tohono O\u2019odham tribes. In 2003, the Shadow Wolves joined the Department of Homeland Security with ICE\u2019s merger into the group. Congress is now considering creating a second group in Montana to patrol the Blackfoot<\/a> reservation near the US\/Canadian border.<\/p>\n

The lands of the American Southwest<\/a> have been the home of these tribes for many generations. As a result, the Native American agents know the land they patrol like the back of their hand and subtle differences the majority of people would overlook shout out loud to the Shadow Wolves. The special tracking skills passed down through generations of Native Americans enable this elite force to apprehend a far larger number of drug smugglers than would be captured otherwise.<\/p>\n

The term Shadow Wolves <\/em>is used to describe the way they hunt as a pack. What they lack when it comes to a wolf\u2019s sense of smell, they make up for in their intense powers of observation as they are \u2018cutting for sign\u2019. A \u2018sign\u2019 is any sort of physical evidence left behind by a smuggler \u2013 clothing, foot prints, trampled plants, tire tracks. \u2018Cutting\u2019 is the search process used to find these signs. Their skill level is so acute, they are known to be able to recognize something as simple as an overturned pebble and can read a dusty footprint well enough to know how long ago it was made, as well as tell whether or not the one who made it was carrying a backpack and how heavy. Though the Shadow Wolves have the latest high-tech equipment available to them, the traditional methods passed down through the generations prove to be far more efficient (and do not run on batteries). Since 2006 when the Shadow Wolves were transferred back to ICE, this fifteen-member unit has been responsible for seizing an average of 60,000 pounds of illegal drugs each year, in addition to apprehending more than 43 criminals and confiscating 16 vehicles.<\/p>\n

The skills of the Shadow Wolves are now being sought by customs agents and border guards around the world. Countries such as Kazakstan<\/a>, Uzbekistan, Latvia and Estonia have asked the Shadow Wolves to train their border guards. They also help train regional border guards in Pakistan and Afghanistan to hunt down and capture terrorists.<\/p>\n

Up until now, little has been known of the Shadow Wolves. In October 2009, a film about them was produced in an area of southern Arizona. Entitled Call of the Shadow Wolves<\/em>, the film\u2019s director, Brian Kosisky<\/a>, seeks to herald the true valor of these dynamic Native Americans and offer them the credit they are rightfully due and sorely lacking in their efforts to protect not only their homeland, but that of the entire United States.<\/p>\n

[Via Examiner.com<\/a>]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While thought to be rather uninhabitable by some, the desert contains what is probably one of the greatest lines of defense to the national security of the United States. A group of Native American trackers, known as the Shadow Wolves, are now a part of the U. S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). They protect […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[224],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-resources"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.survival-spot.com\/survival-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.survival-spot.com\/survival-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.survival-spot.com\/survival-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.survival-spot.com\/survival-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.survival-spot.com\/survival-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6227"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.survival-spot.com\/survival-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6227\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.survival-spot.com\/survival-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.survival-spot.com\/survival-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.survival-spot.com\/survival-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}