Shadow Wolves: Native American Trackers
Step Up Border Roles
Tim Gaynor - Reuters News
Feb 4, 2007
Harold Thompson, an ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) Shadow
Wolves agent, guards bales of marijuana he discovered while tracking
undocumented immigrants in the Sonoran desert near Sells, Arizona, February
1, 2007. The Shadow Wolves, an elite group of Native American trackers
that use skills handed down from the ancestral hunt is being tapped
to play a larger role in securing the United States' borders. Picture
taken February 1, 2007. REUTERS/Jeff Topping (UNITED STATES)
Native American trackers to step up border role
SELLS, Arizona (Reuters) - An elite group of Native American trackers
that use skills handed down from the ancestral hunt is being tapped
to play a larger role in securing the United States' borders.
Little known outside law enforcement circles, the Shadow Wolves have
hunted drug and human traffickers on a lonely stretch of the Arizona-Mexico
border southwest of Tucson since the 1970s.
In an age of unmanned aerial surveillance drones, video cameras and
electronic sensors on the borders, the 14-member unit uses age-old "sign
cutting" techniques to follow foot, horse and vehicle trails for
miles across the cactus-studded wastes of the Tohono O'odham nation
for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
"These skills go back generations, but with all the high-technologies
they are still producing fantastic results," Alonzo Pena, the ICE
special agent in Arizona, said Thursday.
Now the U.S. immigration agency plans to train more American Indian
trackers to help secure part of the United States' porous border with
Canada. The 4,000-mile stretch crossed by marijuana and cigarette smugglers
has received less government attention than the southwest border with
Mexico.
The Shadow Wolves agents come from eight Native American nations, including
the Tohono O'odham, Navajo, Kiowa, Sioux and Omaha tribes.
The new tracking unit comes amid a drive by the Department of
Homeland Security to ratchet up security at the land and sea borders
and airports.
CARPET WALKERS
The Shadow Wolves were founded in 1972 to help the former U.S. Customs
Service track intruders over a 75-mile (120-km) stretch of border in
the Tohono O'odham nation, and swiftly gained fame for their stealth
and relentlessness.
Trackers have been known to handcuff their quarry while they sleep in
darkened camps on lonely backtrails and can even track smugglers who
bind carpet to their shoes to smudge out their tracks.
Earlier this week, a team of Navajo and O'odham agents pursued a group
of "carpet walkers" north of the Mexico border to a small
village near Sells, southwest of Tucson.
Working fast, they followed barely visible scuff marks across the damp,
loamy earth, and picked up on trail of tiny fibers snared from their
burlap rucksacks by spiny mesquite trees.
The hunt led them to a cinderblock ranch house 25 miles (40-km) from
the international line, where agents arrested four people and impounded
970 pounds of marijuana from a shed and nearby creek.
A Kiowa agent said it was evidence of the usefulness of ancient tribal
skills.
"Even though you have all the technology available to you, you
have to rely on these ancient techniques ... It's still relevant, and
this is the reason why," said Sloan Satepauhoodle, pointing to
25 reeking marijuana bales she was guarding in the remote desert wash.
Group members are also set to take their skills overseas to train border
police in the arts of tracking in the European nations of Croatia and
Macedonia in April and May, according to Pena.
Kevin Carlos, the supervisor of the group, is also keen for the members
to pass on their time-honored skills.
"It's a great thing that we are able to go and help other countries,"
Carlos said.
"They think the United States and the civilized world doesn't use
any of these ancient techniques, but we do ... and it makes us very
proud."
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