The Paria Canyon-Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness is a wilderness area located in northern Arizona and southern Utah, United States, within the arid Colorado Plateau region. The wilderness is composed of broad plateaus, tall escarpments, and deep canyons. The Paria River flows through the wilderness before joining the Colorado River at Lee's Ferry, Arizona. The U.S. Congress designated the wilderness area in 1984 and it was largely incorporated into the new Vermilion Cliffs National Monument proclaimed in 2000 by executive order of President Bill Clinton. Both the wilderness area and the National Monument are administered by the federal Bureau of Land Management. The Colorado Plateau and its river basins are of immense value in the Earth sciences, specifically chronostratigraphy, as the region contains multiple terrain features exposing miles-thick contiguous rock columns that geologists and paleobiologists use as reference strata of the geologic record. Human history Ancient petroglyphs, granaries, and campsites indicate that ancestral Puebloan people utilized the Wilderness between AD 200 and AD 1200. They hunted mule deer and bighorn sheep and grew corn, beans, and squash in the lower end of the canyon. Paiute people later occupied and traveled much of the area before Europeans arrived. Because no habitations or large villages have been found in the canyon, researchers believe the canyon was primarily used as a travel route. The first documented Europeans in the area were Fathers Francisco Atanasio Domínguez and Silvestre Vélez de Escalante of the Domínguez–Escalante expedition. The expedition stopped at the mouth of the Paria River in 1776 after they unsuccessfully attempted to establish a route from Santa Fe, New Mexico, to Monterey, California. The 19th century drew outlaws who hid out in the Wilderness and prospectors who mined gold, uranium, and other minerals. Wildlife A variety of wildlife makes its home in the Paria Canyon-Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness. Birds Many bird species are found in the Wilderness, including bald eagle, golden eagle, peregrine falcon, red-tailed hawk, great horned owl, and Cooper's hawk. Other birds seen in the Wilderness include white-throated swift, violet-green swallow, rock wren, canyon wren, killdeer, cliff swallow, black-throated sparrow, ruby-crowned kinglet, blue-gray gnatcatcher, black-chinned hummingbird, great blue heron, flycatchers and various species of duck. The Wilderness was the location of a 1996 release of captively-bred endangered California condors in an attempt to re-introduce them to the wild. Mammals Mammals found in the Wilderness include mule deer, bobcat, fox, mountain lion, porcupine, beaver, coyote, jack