In 2017, I lived within 1 small evacuation zone away from the Tubbs Fire, one of the most destructive wildfires in California’s history. I watched firefighter videos of fire tornadoes ten stories high ripping through communities and ancient redwood trees. Just hours before the chaos, we all went to bed that night having felt the wind shift and didn’t know all of Santa Rosa, California would soon wake up to hellfire on earth. That shift we felt, was 90-100+ mph winds it turns out, hurricane-force winds in California.
When a climate disaster hits close to home, it comes too fast and grows too big for our already fragile and failing infrastructures to withstand. During the Tubbs Fire—a firefighter drove through a neighborhood engulfed in hurricane-force winds and walls of flame, tears in his eyes as he searched for anyone still alive. “There was no preparation that could’ve prevented this level of devastation,” he said, his voice cracking under the weight of what he'd seen. The fire spread so quickly, it overwhelmed all efforts to fight it. There was no time to contain it—only time to try and save who could still be saved. It stopped being about firefighting and became a desperate rescue mission the moment they arrived. Running door to door in deadly smoke, praying people inside hear your cries to evacuate, or have already escaped. That’s the sobering reality of climate collapse: once it’s at your doorstep, it’s already too late to plan.
As a Black and Indigenous animist, I already knew the land was speaking. Screaming, even. But few were listening. Especially not those in power. Unfortunately, the Tubbs fire was our baptismal by wildfire for a new apocalyptic normal. Pre-pandemic, even. Fire season became nearly all year, our community became pros at N-95 masks before the world knew what COVID was, and we saw multiple wildfires every year thereafter. The change seemingly took place overnight but culminated from decades of severe droughts, the tech boom, and the coinciding gentrification of the SF Bay Area. All that white-collar money fueled the booming wine, cannabis, tourism, and craft beer industries, while simultaneously extracting even more resources from the land that was already telling us to stop.
The result? California's deadliest fire burned down Paradise the following year in 2018. Even now in 2025, Los Angeles saw another one of the most destructive fires in our history. It's never stopped. The land is still screaming.
And people still scroll past devastation, numbly offering “thoughts and prayers” in comment sections. The disconnect is lethal. We’re conditioned to believe these tragedies are unfortunate exceptions—until it's our homes, our children, our lives. The truth is: we are all in the same tinderbox. And fire doesn’t discriminate.
We are all one “natural disaster” away from seeing the climate crisis face-to-face—if you haven’t already. But what hurts most is knowing that so many won’t take meaningful action until it’s too late. You can’t de-extinct species. You can’t bring back old-growth forests or lost loved ones. You can’t reverse mass extinction or unburn a watershed.
And yet—we could prevent so much, if we acted now.
Today is Endangered Species Day. And wolves, like so many others, are in danger—not just from bullets and traps, but from a larger, more insidious threat: colonial capitalism’s war on life itself.
Right now, the Endangered Species Act is endangered. In 2025, this once-powerful legal shield for vulnerable species is being gutted by politicians who serve profit, not people or the planet. These aren’t random policy shifts. They’re part of a systemic unraveling driven by corporate greed, white supremacy, and an extractive worldview that sees land, animals, and even people as resources to control.
Wolves are often the first to go when the ESA is weakened. They're scapegoated as predators, vilified in media, and massacred in state-sanctioned hunts to please livestock lobbyists and trophy hunters. This isn’t wildlife management—it’s colonial domination. And it never stopped.
But now it’s accelerating—and it threatens us all.
The same colonial mindset that enslaved people, stole land, and decimated Indigenous nations is the same "logic" torching forests, melting ice caps, and extinguishing species. The same greed that treats wolves as disposable is the same greed that’s fueling housing crises, medical debt, and food insecurity for millions of humans. We are ALL disposable under colonialism. Nothing matters to the market but profit.
Now people across the political spectrum are starting to panic. Why? Because they’re realizing billionaires never had our best interests at heart. You don’t become a billionaire by caring—you do it by extracting. From people. From Earth. From futures.
And while the ultra-rich are preparing elaborate bunkers and luxury space colonies, the rest of us are left here—on a wounded planet that still wants to live.
But colonialism isn’t just a system of power—it’s also a delusion. A spiritual sickness. One that tells its beneficiaries they can play god, erase consequences, and reanimate the dead. That’s why we’re now seeing serious scientific attempts to "de-extinct" species—mixing dire wolf DNA with wolfdog DNA in labs as if humans can patch up millions of years of evolution and ecosystem relationships like Frankenstein.
🚨The biggest threat to endangered species isn’t poachers—it’s Congress. DC politicians are pushing H.R. 845 & H.R. 1897 to delist wolves & gut the ESA. This is a political war on wildlife. The stakes? Extinction. Tell Congress: #NoHR845 #NoHR1897
This is not healing. This is hubris.
It is the colonial god-complex at work.
And it is a recipe for disaster.
We need to remember and face the truth: we are not above nature. We are a part of it.
And when you kill the wolves, the land dies too.
And when the land dies—we are next.
But here’s the truth they don’t want you to remember:
We are powerful when we act together. That's the real threat of wolves. The power of the pack.
The threat of pack solidarity, collective care, wild perseverance, and intuitive cunning... is enough to make empires shake in their colonizing boots.
We are not helpless. We are not alone.
We are part of a living, breathing web of kinship—and we can protect it.
As Dr. Lilla Watson so brilliantly said:
“If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.”
The survival of wolves, forests, rivers, and even human communities is bound up in the same struggle. Our fates are braided together like Redwood tree roots underground.
That’s why I’m asking you to turn toward your neighbors.
Turn toward the land.
Turn toward the animals.
Turn toward each other—not with fear, but with the fierce love of a pack willing to protect what cannot be replaced.
No one is coming to save us but each other.
So howl the truth. Fight for the sacred.
Don’t wait until the fire is at your door.
Take action today.
About the Author
Mētztli Wolf (they/them) is a Black and Indigenous animist, evolutionary astrologer, and trauma-informed psychic medium. They are the founder of Revolutionary Mystic and director of Black Moon Wolfdog Sanctuary, where they rescue urgent-need and red-tagged wolfdogs and advocate for predator protection through decolonial spiritual activism.
Mētztli’s work bridges spirit and strategy, honoring the sacred in all beings while calling for collective action against ecocide, white supremacy, and capitalist extraction. Their sanctuary exists as an act of resistance and love in a world that treats the wild as disposable.
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“No one is coming to save us but each other. So turn toward your neighbors—the land, the people, the animals—and let’s fight to protect what cannot be replaced.” ♥︎