Headwaters 2018

STAYING WILD CAN WE DO IT?

issue

three 2018

RAISING AN OUTDOOR CHILD // wildlife watching in focus A wildlife park that failed fast // Jackson Hole’s Water Woes

Jackson Hole, We Have a Water Quality Problem.

We are polluting our rivers, streams and groundwater. Excessive levels of nutrients from human wastewater, fertilizers and certain agricultural practices are clogging our streams with algae. E. coli concentrations in Fish Creek and Flat Creek exceed recreational use standards. Drinking water is being contaminated with Nitrates and E. coli. Runoff from streets and developed areas is degrading aquatic life.

There is a growing potential for harmful algae blooms, which can be toxic to humans, pets and livestock. JH Clean Water Coalition is enacting community-wide programs, like septic maintenance reimbursement and trout-friendly lawns, that will help reduce pollution from multiple sources and solve these issues. Our water quality problems are serious but preventable, and we have not yet reached crisis level. Let’s act now, before it’s too late.

BE A PART OF THE SOLUTION. L E A R N M O R E A N D G E T I N VO LV E D AT

jhcleanwater.org STORMWATER RUNOFF

ALGAE

AQUATIC INVASIVE SPECIES

E. COLI BACTERIA SEDIMENT

JA C K S O N H O L E

clean water coalition

LEARN MORE AND G E T I N V O LV E D AT

jhcleanwater.org

DRAIN. CLEAN. DRY

Help Prevent The Spread Of Invasive Plants And Animals.

• DRAIN water-related equipment before leaving a water access.

• CLEAN your gear before entering and leaving the recreation site.

• DRY gear thoroughly between recreation activities.

Learn more at: TCWEED.ORG

page

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features

Photograph by Bradly J. Boner

Our contents

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WATER WOES PLAGUE OUR VALLEY

OUR WILD PARADISE HAS A PEOPLE PROBLEM

Despite Jackson Hole’s professed commitment for protecting the environment, as time passes the water is becoming less pure.

Can the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem be a wildlife haven and a funhog heaven?

By Todd Wilkinson

what else is inside

By Mike Koshmrl

6 // WElcome to conservation

12// Looking back

Cache Creek: our window into the wild

Taming the wild

Near-town stream is a place for renewal and recreation

Seventy years ago Grand Teton National Park created a zoo-like wildlife park, but the critters didn’t cooperate.

By Susan Marsh

By Robert W. Righter

8// A KEY lesson

20/ Photo gallery

Nurture a love of nature with fun

Mother nature draws a crowd

Kids enjoy the outdoors more when they can do it their way.

People packing into the wild, in photos.

By Bradly J. Boner

By Rebecca Huntington

32/ Last words 12// Watching wildlife

Jackson Hole’s wondrous wildlife is in business

What’s the safari industry’s role in the valley’s conservation fabric?

By Elizabeth Chambers

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Rewilding up the Gros Ventre

Sometimes development moves in the opposite direction.

By Mike Koshmrl

s d n a l t e w y th l Hea

S ALL! U O T T N A T R ARE IMPO

IMPROVING WETLANDS for water storage and natural flood control MONITORING AND RESTORING iconic keystone species RELOCATING beaver to beneficial areas Rocky Mountain Trumpeter Swan BREEDING PROGRAM PLANTING of aquatic shrubs for natural air and water filtration PROVIDING ESSENTIAL HABITAT for native species (cutthroat trout), amphibians, mammals, nesting birds and young

We would like to thank our generous contributors for their many years of support in allowing us to accomplish this vital work for the benefit of future generations.

32 years p rotecting

and enhan cing

wetlands

and associ ated flora and fauna"

If you would like to be a hero for our wetlands, contact us at 307-203-2209, or info@wyomingwetlandssociety.org

Editor’s notes Seeing the Jackson Hole Travel and Tourism Board’s inaugural “Stay Wild” video ad for the first time last winter, I thought it was masterful.

The chill-inducing 92-second promotion features footage of dueling bull elk and a lumbering grizzly, skiers bombing through powder and river rafters cheesing on the Snake. These emblems of the wild are accompanied by excerpts from Charlie Chaplin’s rousing speech from 1940’s “The Great Dictator” — “Life can be free and beautiful,” he says, “but we have lost the way” — as the ad cuts to phone-scrolling city dwellers, an office worker burning midnight oil and overpacked sidewalks.

Plop me into a metro cinema and air “Stay Wild” on the big screen, and my inkling is that I’d be itching to go see Jackson Hole. And, critics were quick to point out, therein lies the problem with this successful advertising effort.

Drawing the masses to Jackson Hole with a compelling taxpayer-funded ad campaign is precisely what threatens to make this a less wild place, the contention goes.

The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem is a relatively pristine, expansive place, but it’s unclear if this wildland jewel will withstand the crush of people headed this way and retain a semblance of its current self. In the pages to follow, environmental journalist Todd Wilkinson makes the case that the trends aren’t pointing in promising directions.

“Wild” is defined as “living in a state of nature” and “not inhabited or cultivated.” Certainly, there are cases of Jackson Hole swinging in a more wild direction. Take the failure of the Jackson Hole Wildlife Park: The zoo-like enclosure near Oxbow Bend failed almost out of the gate. Grand Teton National Park’s pre-eminent historian, Robert Righter, tells the tale.

This edition of Headwaters, the Jackson Hole News&Guide’s annual conservation magazine insert, doesn’t set out to knock efforts to promote Jackson Hole. The intention, however, is to provide real talk about the realities of a growing community and more people-packed ecosystem, and to illuminate the successes and failures of Jackson Hole’s past. Here’s hoping the discussion “Stay Wild” sparks makes us that much more aware of the challenges we face — and, in doing so, enables us to indeed stay wild.

- Mike Koshmrl

worthy contributors

Rebecca Huntington

Susan Marsh

Robert Righter

Todd Wilkinson

Rebecca Huntington is managing editor of the Jackson Hole News&Guide. A multimedia journalist, she also contributes to Wyoming Public Radio and is creator and host of The Fine Line podcast about backcountry adventure, risk and rescue. She wrote the documentary film “Far Afield: A Conservation Love Story” about iconic News&Guide columnist Bert Raynes. Called Jackson Hole’s “Lorax,” Raynes has inspired citizens to observe and care about their wild neighbors for more than three decades.

Story on page 8.

Susan Marsh writes from Jackson, where she has lived since 1988.

She worked for the U.S. Forest Service for over thirty years, including in Montana’s Gallatin National Forest and Wyoming’s Bridger-Teton National Forest. Her books include “War Creek,” “A Hunger for High Country,” “Cache Creek: A Trailside Guide to Jackson Hole’s Backyard Wilderness” and “Saving Wyoming’s Hoback,” winner of the 2016-17 Wallace Stegner Prize in Environmental Humanities.

Story on page 6.

Robert Righter taught in the History Department at the University of Wyoming for many years. He became fascinated with the fight to establish Grand Teton National Park, eventually writing a book called “Crucible for Conservation” that detailed the long conflict. He has continued writing on the national parks, including the Hetch Hetchy fight in Yosemite National Park, and another Grand Teton book about more contemporatry issues, “Peaks, Politics, and Passion.” Righter lives in a cabin near Moose, where he and his wife enjoy the many moods of the Tetons every day.

Story on page 16.

A former Jackson Hole resident who lives in Bozeman, Montana, Todd Wilkinson has been an environmental journalist for 33 years. He writes regularly for National Geographic, his stories have appeared in a wide range of national newspapers and magazines, and he is author of several critically acclaimed books.

Recently he founded the nonprofit journalism site, MountainJournal. org, which is devoted to exploring the intersection between people and nature in the Greater Yellowstone and the West.

Story on page 28.

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Special supplement written and produced by the KEEPING OUR RIVER FREE-FLOWING FOR THE ENJOYMENT OF PRESENT AND FUTURE GENERATIONS. Publisher: Kevin Olson Associate Publisher: Adam Meyer Editor: Johanna Love managing Editor: Rebecca Huntington Headwaters Special Section Editor: Mike Koshmrl PHOTO EDITOR: Bradly J. Boner Graphic Design: Andy Edwards Photographers: Bradly J. Boner, Ryan Dorgan, Amber Baesler Contributors: Elizabeth Chambers, Rebecca Huntington, Mike

The Snake River headwaters is the nation’s largest single designation for Wild & Scenic Rivers. Less than 1/4 of 1% of rivers in the United States have this designation.

Celebrating 50 years of Wild & Scenic Rivers.

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Koshmrl, Susan Marsh, Robert Righter, Todd Wilkinson Advertising Sales: Karen Brennan, Chad Repinski, Tom Hall, Megan LaTorre, Oliver O’Connor Advertising Coordinator: Maggie Gabruk Creative DIRECTOR: Sarah Wilson Advertising Design: Lydia Redzich, Taylor-Ann Smith, Luis F. Ortiz Office Manager: Kathleen Godines Customer Service Managers: Lucia Perez, Rudy Perez Circulation: Kyra Griffin, Hank Smith, Jeff Young

©2018 Teton Media Works Jackson Hole News&Guide

Blue Spruce Cleaners is concerned with CONSERVING THE IMPORTANT THINGS IN THIS WORLD,

P.O. Box 7445, 1225 Maple Way Jackson, WY 83002

our planet and our health for generations to come.

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Welcome to conservation Susan Marsh, author of “Cache Creek: A Trailside Guide to Jackson Hole’s Backyard Wilderness,” poses for a portrait Aug. 17 along the trail near Cache Creek.

E

Cache Creek: Our Window into the wild

By Susan Marsh // Photograph by Amber Baesler

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very Western town has a river running through its heart, even towns that lie far from the streambank. It’s this river of the heart I speak of, and for most people in Jackson Hole that means the Snake. But if we zoom in on the town of Jackson itself, we might consider the little stream whose waters feed the Snake and whose trails are familiar to us all: Cache Creek.

This 17-square mile watershed is a microcosm of the greater Yellowstone region, nearly pristine in its wilderness headwaters and greatly altered after it hits town. The 700 block of Cache Creek Drive is about the last place its waters see daylight, other than the sweet remnant at Mike Yokel Park. Its former confluence with Flat Creek is essentially gone.

But within the national forest Cache Creek is wilder in some ways than it was in the early 20th century, when timber was cut for some of the first buildings in Jackson, an impoundment captured the creek for the town water supply and coal mines operated a few miles upstream. In those days only a handful of people from the local area spent any time in Cache Creek. How things have changed.

Cache Creek no longer supplies an isolated mountain town with timber, coal and drinking water. These days it supplies something as important: a place for rest, renewal and recreation.

We think of recreation as benign. What could be better than getting out and enjoying

our public land? But we know that with increasing use comes change. Backcountry becomes front-country, and impacts that were once unnoticeable become obvious. More effort is needed on the part of the U.S. Forest Service and its volunteer partners (thank you all) to maintain conditions that people seek.

People often refer to incremental change to our wild lands as “death by a thousand cuts,” each one minor and dismissible as no big deal. But taken together they might just add up to something we never intended.

Anyone who has encountered wildlife along the trail can see that our very presence, along with that of our canine companions, can create stress for them. What if our numbers and activities become seriously harmful? What are we prepared to do about it?

I hope our collective answer doesn’t echo that of a young man who was caught last winter with his untethered dog in a leash-only zone. When the Forest Service patroller explained to him that the reason was to protect wintering wildlife he whined, “Can’t the deer go somewhere else?”

So far the human footprint in Cache Creek has been light.

As part of a larger complex of backcountry and wilderness it has resilience not found in isolated, fragmented pockets of nature. Native plants can recolonize after a fire. Wildlife species that frequent Cache Creek also migrate deep into the Gros Ventre Wilderness, Grand Teton National Park, the National Elk Refuge and beyond.

Many of us migrate to Cache Creek as well, some on a daily basis. We exercise, botanize, watch birds and butterflies, teach our kids how to ski or ride a mountain bike or let them splash around in the water. It’s our window to the wild, and we are lucky to have such a place as part of our backyard. For people and wildlife, Cache Creek is an important gem in the emerald necklace surrounding Jackson Hole.

It’s easy to take our local gem for granted, but, like all wild areas proximate to human occupation, Cache Creek is not without threats. Weeds degrade wildlife forage and alter the plant communities they invade, and we’re seeing a significant increase in cheatgrass and yellow toadflax from the Nelson trailhead to Woods Canyon. Water quality remains high, but disturbance to the streamside from bare, trampled earth and informal trails adds sediment. If you think a few weeds and bare patches are insignificant, recall the places you may have traveled elsewhere in the West where acres of solid knapweed were once native grassland. Where warm, wide streams with brokendown, weedy banks were once blue-ribbon trout streams.

We ought to remember that we live in a land of superlatives, and a little creek among many wild and scenic rivers in the Snake Headwaters can seem ordinary. To someone seeing Cache Creek for the first time it’s paradise.

Years ago, an out-of-town visitor stopped me as we walked back toward the trailhead after a hike. We had crested the hill just short of Mile 1, with that great view across to Rendezvous Mountain. Fireweed and groundsel put on a show of magenta and bright gold. She had me take a photo of her in the wildflowers with forests and mountains and building cumulus beyond, before saying something that had not occurred to me before, but has stayed with me ever since.

“If this was anywhere besides Jackson Hole,” she said, “it would be a national park.”

Craighead Beringia South

20 Years of Wildlife Research and Education Visit www.beringiasouth.org for information on our current research projects

The TeTon ConservaTion DisTriCT works with district residents to encourage the management and conservation of natural resources.

Home Wildfire Risk Reduction Cost-Share Grants

Well Water Test Kits

Trout Friendly Lawns Program

visiT our websiTe To finD ouT more abouT our programs

420 W. Pearl Ave. | Jackson, WY 83001 (307) 733-2110 | tetonconservation.org

2018 Headwaters

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A KEY lesson

Nurture a love of nature

with fun Kids enjoy the outdoors more when they can do it their way.

By Rebecca Huntington “I hate hiking.”

T

he three words outdoorsy Jackson parents dread.

Scrawled in the 6-year-old handwriting of my son, this is all he chose to share about himself or his passions in his “bio” for a summer theater art camp.

Clad in his hand-painted, hand-crafted red-and-whitestriped dragon costume, “Scaley the dragon” (his character name) changed his fire-breathing tune as soon as he saw disappointment crest across Mom’s face.

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“It’s a joke,” the dragon blurted.

What’s not a joke is how desperately parents, especially in a mountain ski town, want their kids to embrace the outdoors.

Even with the outdoors all around us, it’s still easy to fret about screen time, chair-bound time in classrooms and the loss of that childhood opportunity to run wild.

I signed Scaley up for theater camp because of his penchant for costumes, his love of inventing characters and “episodes” (his frequent use of this term might point to too much screen time) and my desire to give him some balance from our woodsy lifestyle.

ENVIRONMENTALLY

Relaxing near a lakeshore Part of raising kids who love the and camping with other outdoors is letting them explore families conjures for me some the world, get wet and get dirty, of my most cherished childhood while keeping an eye out for their memories, especially the safety. BRADLY J. BONER family vacations to Montana’s Opposite: Reed Finlay carries two Flathead Lake, where I could diaper-clad toddlers into the wilds swim until my lips turned of Grand Teton National Park after purple and stare into the fire as canoeing across Jackson Lake. my father exhibited Yoda-like AMY HATCH concentration steadily turning a marshmallow on a spit until it was as golden as a graham cracker. No scorched sugar for Dad. For the record, Scaley prefers his marshmallows raw but has offered his fire-breathing talents to toast mine.

I push Scaley outside partly out of nostalgia for my own outdoor childhood and because I know it’s good for him.

I’m skeptical of children’s chewable vitamins (shouldn’t we just eat more fruits and vegetables), but I’m convinced he needs heavy, frequent doses of “Vitamin N” (for “nature”), as Richard Louv dubs it. Louv is the bestselling author of “Vitamin N: The Essential Guide to a Nature-Rich Life,” and he also penned the landmark 2005 book “Last Child in the Woods,” which brought national attention to what he termed “nature-deficit disorder.”

Living in a mountain town, it’s hard to worry too much that your kid might have a deficit in outdoor experiences. Although, truth be told, some parents are so diligent and consistent at getting their kids outside it’s easy to start feeling like an indoor parent even if you camp most weekends.

In a town of extreme sports and extreme pursuits it can be challenging to remember to calibrate your pace for a small person. Eager to show Scaley the joys of rock climbing, by the

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time he was 3 years old I took him to the City of Rocks National Reserve near Twin Falls, Idaho, for an introduction.

He loves scrambling on rocks, but the whole harness and rope thing was new. After his friend successfully climbed and descended I helped him put on a harness and tied him into the rope. He powered up “Practice Rocks” with blazing speed, and, when topped out, he found nirvana.

“I can see the whole view from up here,” he exclaimed with wide eyes and a big smile.

But when it came time to sit back and let us lower him with the rope, he thought we were nuts. He started crying and clinging desperately to the rope. Luckily, this was “Practice Rocks,” so I could free climb up the low-angle rock ramp and gently grab his harness and coach him down. He hated every second of it.

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We’ve since reintroduced Kershaw Finlay, aka Scaley the climbing, but now we let him go dragon, explores a cave-like up just a short distance and sit feature at City of Rocks National Reserve in Idaho. in his harness, suspended from REBECCA HUNTINGTON the rope like a swing, until he decides he wants to come down.

Maybe when our kids reject our outdoor pursuits, their protest is not of outdoors itself, but our approach or lack of preparation.

For her popular book “The Nature Fix: Why Nature Makes us Happier, Healthier, and More Creative,” Florence Williams traveled the world talking to researchers, practitioners and all kinds of people who thrive on nature. She’s even become part of experiments herself like the one where a researcher hooks up

a portable device that records brain waves to see exactly what brains do when exposed to nature.

After finishing her book, which makes science reading fun, all I wanted to do was run outside and stare at a tree. Seems that one thing you can’t overdose on is Vitamin N. Even low doses of the outdoors matter. Researchers have documented that just a 15-minute walk in the woods can cause a drop in the stress hormone cortisol, blood pressure and heart rate.

Williams’ message is catching on in Teton County. She spoke at Teton County Library’s 2018 Mountain Story literary festival and has guided the theme of this year’s SHIFT festival, “Public Lands. Public Health.”

Part of this year’s SHIFT conference examines what it means when the average American child spends seven hours a day in front of screens and just seven minutes in unstructured play outside.

In addition to art and theater camps, I signed Scaley up to tromp in the woods with Teton Science Schools, a compromise of structured and unstructured time outside. He loved it and learned about life cycles.

Teton Science Schools is also experimenting with a new “Forest Kindergarten,” a style of schooling that Williams explores in detail in “The Nature Fix.” Forest kindergartens typically operate in outdoor settings where children are encouraged to roam and

discover on their own. Adults assist, but the children take the lead in directing their own hands-on outdoor play.

But child-led learning can be scary — like the time my husband gave Scaley an axe and let him lead the way through the woods. The unstructured play lit Scaley’s imagination on fire as he pretended that a ghost controlled the axe and he alone could unleash its magic.

Sometimes what makes it hard to get our kids outside is the lack of novelty. One friend confided that when Dad says let’s go “do the whitewater,” her kids sometimes groan. That’s because they regularly float a local creek. To keep the kids engaged she’s discovered that it helps to let each child choose his or her mode of floating. One prefers a boogie board with flippers, another wants to master the sit-on-top kayak.

With all the research showing that Vitamin N should be taken in heavy doses, I’m ready to double down on making Scaley love the woods. I think I’ve found a solution.

First, as seasoned parents already know to do, I will stop using the “H” (hike) word.

Second, this fire-breather and his trusty sidekick are not heading into the deep, dark forest for anything as mundane as a walk. No, we’re off to the land of knights, castles and caves filled with gold. It just might take some walking to get there.

Researchers have documented that just a 15-minute walk in the woods can cause a drop in the stress hormone cortisol, blood pressure and heart rate.

1 Limit Fertilization

20 FT

2 Be Water Wise

3

Plant Natives and Maintain Streamside Buffers

Herbicides 4 Use and Pesticides Appropriately

3–4 IN

7 PM – 7AM

5 FT

Is your lawn Trout Friendly?

Lawn practices can contribute significantly to chemical pollution of water, leading to excessive algae in our waterways and replacing native habitats. The Trout Friendly Lawns Program seeks to engage the Jackson Hole community to become better stewards of the environment through changes in lawn care practices.

JA C K S O N H O L E

G E T YO U R L AW N C E RT I F I E D AT

clean water coalition

jhcleanwater.org/troutfriendly

1

Use slow release or organic fertilizer only if needed, not to exceed 2 pounds of nitrogen per 1,000 square feet of yard per year. Do not fertilize within 20 feet of water.

2

Do not overwater. Sprinkle at dawn and dusk every other day. Stop watering when it’s raining. Raise the mower blade to a mow height of 3 to 4 inches so less water and fertilizer is needed.

3

Maintain 5-foot buffers of unmanicured landscaping around water.

4

Only apply herbicide for state and county listed noxious weeds, using spot spraying or mechanical removal techniques where appropriate.

Certify your lawn before Nov. 1 and be entered to win from over $1,500

in raffle prizes from local

sponsors including: Verde Brand Communications, Rendezvous River Sports, Jack Dennis High County Outfitters, Lewis and Clark Expeditions, Mad River Boat Trips, Westbank Anglers, and Orvis/Worldcast Anglers.

2018 Headwaters

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WaTCHING wildlife

Jackson Hole’s wondrous wildlife is

in business What’s the safari industry’s role in the valley’s conservation fabric?

S

By Elizabeth Chambers // Photography by Amber Baesler

everal yards off Moose-Wilson Road two cow elk munch on undergrowth in the golden-hour morning light, and our guide slows the van and pulls off onto the narrow dirt shoulder opposite the tawny ungulates.

The seven rubber-necking passengers are intrigued as one of the elk raises her head and freezes, staring in our direction. Seconds later, Mike Vanian puts the vehicle in drive and slowly rolls away. “I don’t want to stress them out or anything,” he says to his clients.

“It’s breakfast time.”

Vanian guides for Jackson Hole Eco Tour Adventures, one of the throngs of wildlife tour companies operating in Jackson Hole. Most have the word “safari” in their 12

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name or marketing, a word that originates from Swahili for journey and before that the Arabic verb for travel.

The caricature is people in khakis and Jeeps venturing into the African bush for a chance to shoot — with a camera or a gun — some of the continent’s signature wildlife, like rhinos and giraffes, elephants and lions.

North American safaris are not associated with hunting, but still draw customers with the promise of seeing big game. In that sense, safari refers to an expedition to see wildlife in their natural habitat.

These expeditions are a booming business stateside, and especially here in this southern nook of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. “Industrywide, the wildlife component is a very sought-after

adventure for guests traveling through Jackson, Wyoming,” said Jason Smith, marketing manager at Scenic Safaris. “It’s a big reason for why people come here.

It’s an economic driver.” Jackson Hole’s commercial wildlife- watching industry is among the most robust in the continental U.S., thanks largely to Grand Teton and Yellowstone national parks. In the past decade the industry has grown fourfold, from about 10 outfits to over 40 companies offering tours. The leap has carved a lasting economic niche in the tourism industry but also illustrates increased public interest in wildlife. “The whole industry has really taken off,” said Jason Williams, owner of Jackson Hole Wildlife Safaris. “Commercial wildlife watching globally has grown explosively, especially with nonconsumptive activities like birdwatching and professional wildlife photography.”

The popularity of wildlife watching is evident at 7:30 on a Thursday summer morning along a Grand Teton National Park backroad. Vanian pulls over to the side of the dirt road and hops out with a pair of binoculars to scan the distant hillside for wildlife. Before the dust settles two other vans from other companies have pulled up. One is a rig full of customers we saw at the Blacktail Ponds pullout earlier while watching a moose weave between the willows. “Does anyone see any other animals?” Vanian asks. In the moment the only

ones visible to the naked eye Cathy Young, of Nashville, are is roadside herd of Homo Tennesee, gets a look at a bison sapiens. herd with Eco Tour Adventures near Antelope Flats.

How authentic is wildlife watching really when a tour Opposite: Wildlife biologist Mike can be such a zoo? Some Vanian pulls over during an Eco longtime wildlife watchers Tour Adventures expedition on and photographers lament the Gros Ventre Road. commercialization of Jackson Hole’s iconic critters and landscapes, but a run-of-the-mill tourist has only one other option to take it in — going at it alone. Traveling through the park with a vanload or busload of people is a different experience than exploring alone, but guides know what’s where when, and they have the know-how to avoid crowds.

Consolidating visitors on tours also reduces traffic in the park. Tour guides interact with tens of thousands of visitors each year, a boon to the understaffed and underfunded National Park Service. At times guides serve as backup for rangers, reminding visitors who aren’t their clients to keep their distance from the animals and to stay on Yellowstone boardwalks. Guides can be the “eyes and ears of the park,” in Williams’ words, reporting wildlife-tourist altercations or traffic accidents to park dispatch.

Although the industry has grown sharply, it’s not a complete wildlife-watching free-for-all. Commercial activities in national parks are regulated, and safari companies must 2018 Headwaters

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obtain “commercial use authorization” permits. They’re bound to the Park Service’s conservation mission and to follow park rules. Permitted companies must attend annual meetings, have liability insurance, meet U.S. Public Health standards for food and sanitation and ensure guides are trained in first aid and CPR. “It’s a lot more challenging of a business to get into than you would think,” Backcountry Safaris General Manager Rob Pitts said. “From a business standpoint, a lot of people think you can just get a vehicle, book some trips and drive people around, but you need that backend support.”

Road-based tour companies can pay a flat rate entrance fee each time they enter the park or an initial fee and a percentage of their gross receipts for a yearlong permit. Last year the U.S. Department of Interior proposed a steep hike in road-based commercial tour entrance fees and permit rates, which will take effect May 2019. Most revenue will fund much-needed infrastructure improvements in the park where the fees were collected. Many tour companies, particularly smaller outfits, worry the additional cost will have to be passed on to clients and will deter business.

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Eco Tour Adventures wildlife But other companies biologist Mike Vanian (right) second the need shows his guests some moose for infrastructure near Gros Ventre Road. funding and hope the fee hike will slow the industry’s frenetic growth. “I think that’s appropriate,” Matt Fagan, owner of Buffalo Roam Tours, said about the fee proposal. “Hopefully we’ll see a leveling off of growth.”

Scanning the hillside while his clients wait in the van, Vanian spots something. A pronghorn’s head, barely visible through binoculars, pokes from the grass. He hurries to set up a 50X-spotting scope so we can see the animal in greater detail. Everyone files out of the van to take a turn peering across the flats through the eyepiece. “He can see us just as well as we can see him,” Vanian says. “Pronghorn can see up to four miles.” The pronghorn turns his head toward us, huge black eyes staring. For a moment there’s the weight of a presence at the other end of the lens. It’s hard to say who is observing whom.

For most commercial wildlife tours companies, educating the public is part of the mission. Like

rangers, tour guides serve as interpreters, pointing out flora, fauna, geology, ecological processes and the role of each in the ecosystem. “We do promote a great transfer of knowledge,” said Taylor Phillips, owner of Jackson Hole Eco Tour Adventures. “When we leave the office we’re doing our best to connect our visitors to the natural world and parks. It’s a more meaningful experience when they understand the ins and outs.” To lighten up the pedagogy, each anecdote is delivered with a dose of humor. Watching a nesting osprey, Vanian tells us about their adaptations for fishing, like curved talons and double-jointed wings, and their migratory habits. “Osprey mate for life, but migrate separately,” he says, “so it’s like taking separate vacations to save the marriage.”

Without political pontificating, guides also teach their clients about conservation legacy and topical issues — the wolf reintroduction and hunting, chronic wasting disease and elk feeding, mule deer migration corridors crossing highways. The depth of the discussion depends on the outfit and clientele, but one thing is an industry standard: After bringing up each side of the issue, guides generally leave it to their guests to form their own opinions. “What we do educating the public in terms

of the need for conservation is apolitical,” Williams said.

“We’re talking about people having great experiences and walking away with this sense of wonder that makes them want to protect public land.”

As we drive back to town, Vanian launches into a spiel on the importance of environmental stewardship. Chatter in the back of the van falls quiet. “I’m grateful there were people here over a hundred years ago who saw the value in this place,” he says. “Rather than seek private profit they chose preservation and carried the torch of conservation.” I asked him later if he talks to all of his clients about the importance of conservation.

“That’s why I do what I do, to try to make a difference,” he said. “I show people something they can appreciate, so hopefully they will want to cherish it for future generations as well. Just driving people around to see the animals, where is the deeper meaning in that?” Instilling the environmental ethic doesn’t always stick. Back in the van, there’s a moment of silence once he finishes his speech. Then, a voice from the back.

“So, what can you share about eagles?”

Traveling with a vanload of people is a different experience than exploring alone.

Guides know what’s where when, and they have the know-how to avoid crowds.

wildlife in grand TeTon roam a landscape that has changed liTTle in io,ooo years.

Yet, a variety of pressures threaten the once self-sustaining environment. Grand Teton National Park Foundation’s

wild Treasures campaign will expand research, conservation, and education so the park’s wildlife can continue to thrive. learn more and donaTe Today—www.gtnpf.org/WildTreasures G r a n d T e To n naT i o n a l Pa r k Foundation

Photo: Henry Holdsworth

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LOOKING back

TAMING THE

WILD Seventy years ago Grand Teton National Park created a zoo-like wildlife park, but the critters didn’t cooperate.

By Robert W. Righter

W

hen it came to wildlife viewing in the old days, Yellowstone National Park had it all.

Tourists could visit the Lamar Valley’s Buffalo Ranch and see the great shaggy beasts up close or sit in the stands at the garbage dump and witness bears pawing and fighting over last night’s human dinner. If folks missed the nightly ursine show they could still catch the habituated roadway bears that pounded the pavement begging for food.

Compared with this Yellowstone wildlife “show,” Grand Teton National Park had nothing. Driving through the park could seem like a wildlife wasteland: It was possible to drive from the town of Jackson to Yellowstone’s south boundary with domestic cattle being the large-animal highlight. That situation bothered Wyoming Gov. Lester Hunt, who wanted people to see Wyoming wildlife on their trips through the Tetons. He reached out to Laurance Rockefeller in the hope of creating some sort of wildlife exhibit in northern Jackson Hole — and 16

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the philanthropic financier was receptive.

Returning to New York City, Rockefeller took up the topic with two other people: Henry Fairfield Osborn Jr., and Horace Albright.

Osborn, a conservationist, had just published “The Plundered Planet,” one of the first ecology-focused books. Furthermore, his interest in biology and wild animals led to an appointment on the New York Zoological Society board of trustees, which he eventually presided over. Albright, the National Park Service’s second director, was no longer employed by the agency at the time but was still influential and shaped its policy. He believed wildlife visibility should be encouraged, for they attracted visitation to the national parks. So Albright and Osborn endorsed the exhibit idea, and Rockefeller was willing to fund the project.

By 1947 the “Jackson Hole Wildlife Park” was on its way.

The founders located the park at Oxbow Bend, just a little south of the Jackson Lake dam. It consisted of 1,600 acres of mainly grassland, including a 400-acre fenced enclosure. The

park exhibited live bison, elk, antelope, moose and deer in their “natural surroundings.” Bison were furnished from the Yellowstone herd, and the Wyoming Game and Fish Department contributed most of the other wildlife. The project also included a research arm, where scientists received grants to study animals or birds indigenous to the area. Researchers received housing in small cabins located at the Jackson Lake dam. The expectation was that the exhibit and research center would enhance tourists’ education and appreciation of wild animals, thus indirectly supporting the Park Service mission.

From the beginning, there were critics. Richard Winger, a prominent Jackson Hole Realtor who worked with Grand Teton National Park, faulted the fence design and had concerns with the plan to release the animals in the fall, care for them in the winter and round them up in the spring. Winger thought the whole thing was misguided — physically, biologically, ecologically and politically. Another forceful opponent was Olaus Murie, who

spent his entire career tracking, Visitors to Grand Teton National sketching, and observing wild Park in 1958 view bison and elk near Oxbow Bend in the former animals for the U.S. Biological wildlife park enclosure.

Survey. The wildlife park PHOTO COURTESY GRAND TETON violated everything he knew NATIONAL PARK about free-roaming wildlife. To see a moose behind a fence was not comparable to the surprise and possible danger of coming upon one in a wilderness setting, Murie contended. He thought only the latter was truly memorable and capable of inspiring wonder about wildlife. Murie’s critique went beyond the wildlife park, extending to American culture and the people it produced, who he feared were becoming lazy. Instead of participants we were becoming spectators, and worse, many did not know the difference. He called for the Park Service to stop advancing such spectacles as the Wildlife Park and get back to the mission of interpreting nature and wilderness. Osborn fired back, branding 2018 Headwaters

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Murie an elitist who represented a tiny minority out of touch with reality. The wildlife park would be for the tourist in a hurry, “for the many and not the few,” he retorted. Murie held firm to his convictions, but he also believed in compromise and cooperation, and he assured Osborn that he would refrain from “actively opposing” the Wildlife Park after it was a done deal.

On a warm July day 70 years ago a small group of people, few of whom were locals, assembled to hear dedication speeches. Laurance Rockefeller was the main attraction, and four friends and employees carefully crafted and vetted his speech. Why such care? Always careful and formal, he knew the park remained controversial.

To justify its contribution he resorted to a lighthearted analogy: “Like most men who have spent too much of their lives around a metropolis, [I] like to be assured that the country still contains bigger game than French poodles.” Elk and bison brought in for the ceremony did not cooperate, though a horseman was detailed to keep them visible in the background. The Jackson’s Hole Courier mentioned the occasion with a brief paragraph beneath the headline announcing “Wildlife Park Ready for its Inmates.”

Like in a prison, many of the “inmates” preferred freedom.

The fences caused considerable frustration for man and beast.

Depending on the design, elk and deer jumped over the fence, pronghorn went under the fence, and buffalo, when provoked, went through the fence. In the months to follow, the wildlife park rarely fulfilled its stated purpose. It was supposed to educate visitors by providing close-range views of the mega18

Headwaters issue #3

fauna of Jackson Hole, minus, Feeding operations at the Jackson Hole Wildlife Park in 1948, Grand of course, the predators. But as Teton National Park.

Rockefeller said in his address, “People are far more interested in wild animals than wild animals are in people.” Few of the animals ventured near the fence unless lured by food, and the herds often preferred wooded areas, out of sight. For good views, folks needed binoculars or a spotting scope.

State wildlife officials provided the elk, deer and pronghorn, sometimes with great difficulty. Game and Fish Commissioner Lester Bagley shipped five white-tailed deer to the park, but three died in transit while trying to escape. Bagley had no better luck with antelope: He transported a truckload of them, but when released they went right over the cattle guard and were never found again. By 1951 Governor Lester Hunt had become annoyed and “disappointed by the lack of wild animals on public display.”

By 1952 — four years into its existence — the fate of the wildlife park was clear. Osborn and the New York Zoological Society’s vision proved untenable, wasn’t working, and they were anxious to end the experiment. Osborn offered the park to Game and Fish, the University of Wyoming and the National Park Service, but no one wanted responsibility for this problem child. At Rockefeller’s behest, members of the Zoological Society’s local board voted 9-0 to distance themselves from the venture. In the meantime, in 1950, the enlarged Grand Teton National Park legislation

passed Congress — an enlargement that swallowed the enclosure, landing it in the Park Service’s lap.

There was little enthusiasm for the wildlife park among Park Service personnel, many of who had been opposed from the start.

The taming and displaying of wild animals offended almost all naturalists.

However, there was another significant factor: Rockefeller had been such a great friend to the Park Service that the agency felt obliged to continue the unsuccessful project he financially supported. So for 15 years, Grand Teton staff managed the wildlife park much like a unwanted stepchild. Most animals released did not return. At Oxbow Bend, visitors often were treated to a serene meadow with no wildlife. Park employees did round up a few bison each year for viewing. In 1968, however, the fence broke down, the bison wandered out and the experiment ended. The newly freed “inmates” became the founders of the Jackson Bison Herd, commonly seen on Antelope and Elk Ranch flats today. The wildlife park experiment was over, and today no remnants of it exist.

What is the Jackson Hole Wildlife Park’s mark on history?

Its research arm, unlike the animal display, was more successful

Laurance Rockefeller speaks at the dedication of the Jackson Hole Wildlife Park in 1948 in Grand Teton National Park. at accomplishing its purpose, expanding what was known about large fauna indigenous to Jackson Hole. By 1954 the University of Wyoming assumed responsibility for research funding and maintenance of the facility.

Today the research center is known as the AMK Ranch, and it’s still thriving and fulfilling its mission at a new Jackson Lake location. The failed park also helped the Park Service clarify its management of wildlife: Wild means wild, and no attempt to tame native fauna should be tolerated in a national park. Furthermore, no visitor has a right to see wildlife. The chances are aided by taking a “safari adventure,” but still, there are no guarantees.

National parks like Yellowstone and Grand Teton are areas where animal needs are now respected and prioritized.

While visitors can hope to see wildlife, they should have no expectations. Sometimes the animals do come around to see us, but nowadays it’s their choice.

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Photo gallery

Mother nature draws a crowd A

By Bradly J. Boner // Photography by Bradly J. Boner and Ryan Dorgan

lmost a year after the establishment of Yellowstone National Park, Nathaniel Langford, the park’s first superintendent, made a prediction that today seems prophetic: “Nothing has been, nothing can be said, to magnify the wonders of this national pleasuring-ground,” he wrote to Congress in 1873. “It should be sustained. Our Government, having adopted it, should foster it and render it accessible to the people of all lands, who in future time will come in crowds to visit it.”

That year only a handful of curious explorers ventured into the remote, mysterious “wonderland” of Yellowstone. Today, almost 150 years later, the park is breaking visitor records almost every year and could soon experience a staggering 5 million people annually.

This collection of images illustrates a pressing question for Yellowstone, Grand Teton and other national parks: How much is too much? As the National Park Service moves into its second century the agency is grappling with how to balance visitor enjoyment with protecting nature. The best way to experience these treasures is obviously firsthand, but their survival hinges on our restraint.

Traffic builds up at the South Gate of Yellowstone National Park in early July.

National parks throughout the country have experienced steady increases in visitor numbers, breaking records almost annually. BRADLY J. BONER 20

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Hundreds of tourists gather to watch an eruption of Old Faithful at the Upper Geyser Basin in Yellowstone National Park in August 2016, the centennial year of the National Park Service. As the NPS moves into its second century, officials are considering strategies to mitigate the effect of hosting millions of visitors every year. BRADLY J. BONER 2018 Headwaters

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Swimmers crowd the shores of String Lake. Visitation to the area increased by nearly 30 percent between 2014 and 2016, and in 2017 the park enlisted a team of social scientists for a two-year study of the area to understand visitor use and behavior and their impact on the scenic area. RYAN DORGAN

Hikers take in the view from Inspiration Point in Grand Teton National Park. The park, in a partnership with the Grand Teton National Park Foundation, is wrapping up a yearslong project to rehabilitate Inspiration Point and other trails along the southern shore of the lake — among the most popular in the park — to limit the harm of heavy use.

BRADLY J. BONER

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A throng of wildlife watchers crowd the shoulder of a road in the northern part of Grand Teton National Park to watch a sow grizzly bear and her cubs. As the number of bruins and tourists steadily increase, park managers must constantly adjust how they allow visitors to experience the species to protect both the bears and people.

BRADLY J. BONER

What Makes a Bank a “Local Bank”?

Ask the Jackson Hole Wildlife Foundation.

JHWF Volunteers from left to right: Gretchen Plender, Carol Schneebeck, Chuck Schneebeck, Randy Reedy, Debbie Kopp, Dennis McCracken, Shirley Cheramy, Bob Kopp, Doug Sobey

Live your Jackson Hole Lifestyle, Leave the Banking to Us As private land uses have shifted in the valley requiring less fencing, many land owners have turned to the Jackson Hole Wildlife Foundation to modify or remove fencing to better accommodate the wildlife migration. Founded in 1993, JHWF works to promote ways for people to live compatibly with wildlife; be it “Give them a Brake” signs on roads to help reduce deadly vehicle-wildlife collisions or more than 200 miles of fence removed by local volunteers. Bank of Jackson Hole shares this same vision of removing unnecessary barriers to its banking products, services and staff so as not to fence in our customers.

Live your Jackson Hole Lifestyle, Leave the Banking to Us www.bojh.com

307-732-BOJH

Headquartered in Jackson Locally Owned and Managed 10 Branches 14 ATMs Commercial Loans Real Estate Loans Mortgage Loans Main Branch 990 West Broadway 733-8064

Town Square Branch 10 East Pearl Ave. 733-8067

Wilson Branch 5590 Highway 22 733-8066

Smith’s Food & Drug Branch 1425 Highway 89 732-7676

Hillside Branch 975 West Broadway 734-8111

Teton Village Branch 3300 Village Dr. 734-9037

Aspens Branch 4010 N. Lake Creek Dr. 733-8065

EQUAL HOUSING LENDER

UNDER THE surface

Water woes plague our valley Despite Jackson Hole’s professed commitment for protecting the environment, as time passes the water is becoming less pure.

By Mike Koshmrl

T

o trace how mankind has altered and polluted Jackson Hole’s water, let’s follow one of the valley’s most beloved sources: Cache Creek.

The unsullied stream that flows out of the Gros Ventre Wilderness is tamed and stolen by a tube almost immediately once it reaches Jackson, disappearing underground at Cache Creek Drive. The subterranean conveyance system splays off in different directions, but most of Cache Creek’s contents reunite with the open air in Karns Meadow. Here Cache enters another treasured waterway, Flat Creek, along a stretch of stream that’s been regarded as “impaired” by environmental regulators for over 15 years because of stormwater sediment that’s degraded its purity.

After Cache and Flat creek’s united waters slosh their way out of town through South Park they are joined by outflow from the town of Jackson’s wastewater plant. And in this area the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality is considering slapping Flat Creek with a second impairment — one for hazardous levels of E. coli bacteria.

At the Snake River, downstream dilution diminishes the rate of deterioration. But on its way towards Palisades the Snake (having swallowed Flat and Cache creeks) courses by dozens of septic systems that feed the underlying aquifer. Near where the dispersed remnants of Cache Creek are joined by the Hoback River, some residents are advised not to drink their tap water because of a scary pollutant that has persistently worsened.

That is just one sampling of the water quality woes that are a reality in Jackson Hole.

“I think it’s time to draw a line in the sand,” said Carlin Girard, the water resources specialist for the Teton Conservation District. “Can we as a community collectively agree that we don’t want stormwater runoff going into our streams and creeks to get any worse? Can we agree that we don’t want our surface and groundwater to receive a higher contaminant load than they do today?

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Headwaters issue #3

“We can do a better job,” he said.

The image of Snake River headwaters as pristine — think crystal clear water, healthy native fish and the still-steady snowpack sustaining both — is not a fabrication. The abundance of wildernessquality federal lands and high country and the relative dearth of people and industrial activity give Jackson Hole’s water quality a good head start over much of the rest of the United States and the world. Clean, free-flowing streams and rivers and flush aquifers are abundant and figure to remain so into the foreseeable future.

A snapshot of recent history, however, suggests there are plenty of exceptions.

Pollution problems tend to materialize in and around streams and rivers that flow along the valley floor, which are disproportionately private property full of people. When issues do arise, they’re noticeable.

“The thing about a headwater system is the water doesn’t have a lot of ability to buffer pollutants,” said Brian Remlinger, an environmental scientist who has worked on Jackson Hole water issues for 20 years. “When you add a little bit of nitrate or a little bit of sediment the water will react pretty strongly to those minor changes.” That purity-derived sensitivity, combined with the growing population’s ever-increasing imprint on the land, has created a scenario in which degradation has become inevitable, and more evident.

In some cases it’s taken crises to force recognition of a problem.

Just outside of the Snake River watershed, at Brooks Lake, historical seasonal algae blooms that at their worst have triggered widespread fish kills didn’t draw the attention of state investigators until a few years ago. The cause was never identified definitively, but an

antiquated Brooks Lake Flat Creek finds its origins high in the Gros Lodge sewage lagoon Ventre Range before it meanders through system that discharged the National Elk Refuge. Once the stream directly into its namesake reaches and flows through the town of lake was considered a Jackson the quality of its water diminishes major culprit. The owner significantly due runoff and pollutants. of the lodge, Jackson BRADLY J. BONER businessman Max C. Chapman Jr., took the initiative to spend a half-million dollars to revamp the system, but not before environmental regulators stepped in and added Brooks Lake to Wyoming’s “impaired water” list for excess nutrients.

The aquifers under Grand Teton National Park haven’t been immune to foul water. Four years back a U.S. Geological Survey 2018 Headwaters

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Scientists survey water and streambed quality in 2016 on Fish Creek near Wilson.

RYAN DORGAN hydrologist announced he had found traces of an unregulated and poorly understood compound, benzotriazoles, that had likely seeped into the ground from the Jackson Hole Airport’s deicing fluid. The airport has since installed a system to capture the glycol-based deicer, but the detection of chemicals in the groundwater was enough to alarm well water-dependent neighbors just west of the runway.

Other corners of the community have scrambled more recently to protect their drinking water. Sixteen homeowners who hang their hats at Hoback Junction’s J-W Subdivision had to invest more than $100,000 this summer to scrub noncompliant levels of nitrates out of their tap water. Inaction wasn’t an option — high nitrates can have catastrophic consequences for infants and pregnant women, threatening fatal blue baby syndrome and birth defects. Hoback Junction residents and businesses that have struggled with water quality for decades weren’t exactly shocked. “The water sucks,” Hoback Market owner Larry Huhn told the News&Guide at the time. “My water comes from a 2.5-gallon-a-minute well, and then you got to treat it in a $200,000 room.”

Water degradation due to accumulation isn’t confined underground. The spring-fed waters of Fish Creek, which flow through Teton Village and Wilson, illustrate a case of conditions gradually worsening over time. Five years ago another USGS study affirmed what backyard biologists and fishermen had long suspected: that algae in the prized West Bank stream was blooming at unnatural rates because of nutrient pollution. Subsequent research pinpointed how it was getting into the 71-square-mile watershed. Atmospheric

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Headwaters issue #3

Conservation for the Common Good

and ignoring Jackson Hole’s polluted waterways just has to dawn on deposition, livestock manure, golf courses, septic systems and people, at some point. There’s probably more talk now than there’s sewage treatment plants were all contributors, and the nonprofit been, but so far there’s really no more action.” organization Friends of Fish Creek formed to devise a collaborative, Making that change, of course, will take time and money. If fixing nonregulatory solution. With Fish Creek the maturation of the long-known problems, like Flat Creek’s problem with sediments, science helped to get everybody on the same page. is proving out of reach, it doesn’t bode well for dealing with “Over the last 20 years folks have realized and the data longer-term environmental stressors that may some day has shown that we all have an impact,” Remlinger said. worsen Jackson Hole’s water woes. “It’s global warming “And back then there were certain players in the game that and climate change that’s not in the conversation,” didn’t really want to be involved and weren’t accepting of Remlinger said. “It’s the bull in the room that no one is the fact that they had an impact. Now they’re asking how addressing. We may not be seeing it now in terms of water, can we participate in this and how can we resolve this but we will see it.” issue in reducing our pollutant load.”

The man whose professional task Another new initiative, the Jackson is to uphold water quality — Girard Hole Clean Water Coalition, has formed — said he’s patient, and knows that to pick away at water quality issues. The working on water issues is slow-going Conservation District-, Friends of Fish and incremental. But he believes there’s Creek- and Trout Unlimited-backed unlimited room for improvement. effort is predicated on education and When it comes to issues like wastewater encouraging homeowners to abide by management in Jackson Hole, there has best practices, like trout-friendly lawn been little foresight. care. But some residents who like to Paul Hansen “I feel very strongly that it has not weigh in on water issues think these been done in a sophisticated, welltypes of campaigns fall short, and that planned, prioritized manner,” Girard better regulation is badly needed. said. Resolutions to turn that tide would be a start. “I would love to “In the state of Minnesota, there’s a 50-foot no-mowing see the town and county agree to a plan that essentially says, ‘Let’s buffer by all streams,” said Paul Hansen, a retired professional not increase our wastewater contamination a milligram-per-liter conservationist who’s lobbied for better stormwater systems. “We more than it is today,’” Girard said. “I would like to see a community can do that in Teton County. Maybe it’s not 50 feet, but something. commitment say, ‘We don’t want these problems to get any worse.’”

The cognitive dissonance between caring about the environment

“In the state of Minnesota, there’s a 50-foot no-mowing buffer by all streams. we can do that in Teton County.”

OUR PUBLIC LANDS UNITE US.

Join us. www.wyomingoutdoorcouncil.org

Image: Julena Campbell

Protecting public lands in Wyoming is what the Outdoor Council does every day.

DAVID STUBBS

2018 Headwaters

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Peering ahead

OUR wild paradise

has a people problem Can the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem be a wildlife haven and a funhog heaven?

By Todd Wilkinson

W

hen it comes to the intersection between human economic prosperity and the health of nature, can we really have it all in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem?

Can our region escape the patterns of failure established everywhere else? Is it possible to simultaneously accommodate booming population growth, expanding development and an unbridled hunger for adventure while still maintaining a fabric of interwoven, still-wild landscapes that are anomalies in the world?

It’s a controversial premise, based on an age-old assumption, that was again advanced boldly in autumn 2017 when the Jackson Hole Travel and Tourism Board unveiled its slick new “Stay Wild” advertising campaign. The inaugural spot turned heads and won plaudits from marketing mavens, yet it also attracted a backlash from those devoted to nature conservation.

The punchy ad delivered an idyllic message, featuring excerpts of a famous inspirational speech by actor Charlie Chaplin about escaping the rat race and pursuing one’s bliss unshackled. Half of the video showed views of sublime scenery and sensitive species like grizzly bears, moose and elk. Those, in turn, were matched with high-adrenaline footage of gung-ho snowmobilers throttling through the forest, mountain bikers barreling down a trail, rafters whooping in whitewater and skiers shredding fresh untracked powder.

In other words, the very picture of funhog heaven. “In this world, there’s room for everyone, and the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful— but we have lost the way,” were Chaplin’s words. The redemptive message, made loud and clear in the ad, is that in Jackson Hole there are no limits to blood-pumping adventure, and the undertone was that wildlife — the natural amenity that most sets Greater Yellowstone apart globally — doesn’t seem to mind.

But any reputable conservation biologist will tell you the two 28

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biggest threats to the long-term ecological integrity of Jackson Hole and larger Greater Yellowstone are the expanding footprint of humanity and the deepening effects of climate change. That countervailing message was emphasized in a recent peer-reviewed analysis in the scientific journal EcoSphere that established 35 biological vital signs in Greater Yellowstone. Nearly all came with warnings that areas of the ecosystem with high-volume tourism are facing overload.

Greater Yellowstone encompasses close to 23 million acres, about 15 million of which are federal public land. Even though Teton County is famously 97 percent public land, it is a poster child within the ecosystem for how important private river valleys are in connecting one giant sweep of public land with another. Jackson Hole also illustrates how the effects of major growth don’t stay within defined borders, but ripple outward in every direction.

In all of American history there’s been a prevailing, almost unchallenged attitude about growth: It powers the economy, creates jobs and is the foundation for prosperity. Growth is inevitable, experts say, and cannot be stopped. The premise is that growth is always good, but within the context of Greater Yellowstone it’s now coming under unprecedented scrutiny. Thirty percent of Greater Yellowstone was considered “developed” by 2013, and some wildlife migration pathways today are classified as imperiled due to a variety of threats. Moreover, traditional land use is undergoing a radical transformation. What’s the big deal? Wyoming’s Teton and Park counties and Montana’s Gallatin are the only ones left in the Lower 48 where you can find the full complement of large wildlife species that were on the landscape 500 years ago. Without habitat there is no wildlife, which is itself a major economic engine for the region.

Estimates are that up to 40 percent of Greater Yellowstone’s most biologically rich habitats, many of them located in river valleys, will undergo conversion from ranch and farmland to exurban development over the next decade. A flood of this development is occurring in the wildfire-prone “wildland-urban interface,” where it’s costly to battle blazes and deliver services to residents, and critical habitat transition zones for mammals and birds are disappearing.

On top of that, much of Greater Yellowstone’s public lands, including Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks plus marquee national forests like the Bridger-Teton, the CusterGallatin, the Caribou-Targhee and the Shoshone, are being inundated by recreationists whose adventuring, aided by new technology, is penetrating deeper into the backcountry. Former Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest District Ranger Mark Petroni says he’s astounded at the breakneck pace of development occurring in Jackson Hole and in Bozeman and Big Sky in Montana near his home putting pressure on front and backcountry alike.

“Technology has shrunken the size of Greater Yellowstone by enabling more people to swarm it and move across it faster,” he said. “And among those who come, more are trying to stake their own piece of paradise.”

In 45 years the number of homes in Greater Yellowstone has tripled from 79,000 to 228,000. By 2050 that number will surpass half a million homes and their corresponding footprints — such footprints being more significant ecologically (and costlier for the public to service economically) the farther they creep from urban boundaries. The EcoSphere report noted that in 30 years, at current trends (which many demographers say are conservative) Greater Yellowstone will have around 850,000 permanent residents (double what exists today). A significant number, not factored in, may also be living at the ecosystem’s periphery.

In 2017 I wrote an investigative story for MountainJournal.org about growth trends in Greater Yellowstone. In that piece professional planner Randy Carpenter, of the Bozeman think-tank FutureWest, laid out scenarios based on growth rates. Shortly after the story was

LEFT: An aerial photograph of High School published a Jackson Hole Butte from 1983 shows sparce development on resident contacted me the west and south ends of the town of Jackson. and asked, “how can you RICHARD MURPHY claim that in 30 years there will be a population RIGHT: An image from the summer of 2015 the size of Salt Lake City shows how development has filled in and proper stretching from expanded on the western and southern edges of Idaho Falls through town. The Brown Ranch, visible on the left side Jackson and down to of this photograph, has been protected by a conservation easement. BRADLY J. BONER Star Valley? I just don’t see it happening.”

We sat down over coffee in Jackson and connected the dots using census data. In fact, as he discovered, there is already a population the size of Salt Lake City existing between Idaho Falls, Star Valley and nearby population centers. It looks like this: Idaho Falls/Bonneville County, Idaho (currently 110,000 people), plus Rexburg/Madison County, Idaho (40,000), plus Teton Valley/ Teton County, Idaho (10,000), plus Jackson Hole/Teton County (24,000) plus Star Valley/Lincoln County (20,000), plus Pinedale/ Sublette County (10,000). That equals 214,000 people. “It’s usually an epiphany for most people,” Carpenter said. “When explosive growth happens it can become like a wildfire that feeds on itself and becomes more intense.” The issue isn’t the nearly quarter-million people already established in these areas, it’s what the land will look like when that doubles in coming decades and infill rapidly occurs between those communities.

Take Teton Valley, Idaho, where farmland is steadily becoming real estate developments — a conversion that climate change could speed up. “For better or for worse, Jackson Hole is the economic engine for Teton Valley, Idaho,” said Shawn Hill, executive director of Valley Advocates for Responsible Development in Driggs, Idaho.

“When Jackson overheats, we’re the release valve — especially when it comes to housing. However, over half of the housing units in Teton Valley now sell to second-homeowners or investors, which soaks up much of the already limited housing inventory here.”

FutureWest, VARD, the Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance 2018 Headwaters

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and High Divide Collaborative are three of the few conservation organizations in Greater Yellowstone aggressively working on private land growth issues. A number of excellent land trusts are protecting land by brokering conservation easements in Greater Yellowstone. The High Divide Collaborative is collaborating with ranchers and farmers to protect agrarian land, but in a region with dozens of conservation groups, barely a handful are in the trenches shaping public policy through planning and zoning.

Moreover, the pace of private land development is far outstripping the scope of protection being achieved by land trusts alone. The High Divide, named for its path along the Continental Divide, represents the western flank of Greater Yellowstone.

Growth in High Divide counties a microcosm of the big picture. In the past 50 years, according to Headwaters Economics, 51 percent of new homes were built outside of town centers in unincorporated portions of High Divide counties. Since 2010 the trend has increased, and 63 percent of new homes were built outside of towns. “This trend of an increasing amount of development occurring outside of town centers will impact and compromise the future of important working lands, scenery, and wildlife habitat for many of the iconic wildlife species associated with the High Divide, including elk, pronghorn antelope, grizzly bears, and wolverine,” Headwaters stated in a report.

In the next 10 years nearly 150 square miles of undeveloped private land on the west side of Greater Yellowstone is forecasted to experience low-density creeping “exurban” development. “Teton Valley, Idaho, will not only be challenged by growth pressure, but also by correcting the mistakes of the past,” Hill said. “When it comes to managing growth the Teton Valley community is often characterized by its divisions, but the vast majority of its residents want to protect its quiet, rural atmosphere. My biggest fear is that we’ll make the same mistakes again because we’ve lost sight of why we all choose to live here.”

Just recently, thanks to the Wyoming Migration Initiative, we learned that one mule deer (and likely many more) makes a 500mile round trip commute between Wyoming’s Red Desert near Interstate Highway 80 and Island Park, Idaho. The deer skirted Jackson Hole’s eastern edge, crossing into Idaho north of Jackson Lake. Given development trends, will that deer be able to navigate the gauntlet in another decade? What about the pronghorn that move between Grand Teton National Park and the Green River valley or thousands of elk in nearly a dozen major Greater Yellowstone herds that make similar long-distance journeys across public and private land necessary to their survival? If wildlife confronts clogged migration routes, how does that affect the allure of the region? Nature tourism in Yellowstone and Grand Teton parks alone generates well in excess of $1 billion annually for the regional economy, with wildlife watching being a main attraction. Outside the parks, healthy wild ungulate herds offer superb hunting opportunities.

A variety of landscape-level thinkers, from public land managers to scientists and planners, say it’s traditional to ponder the effects of growth linearly, as through the lens of obvious causes and effects, such as: If this piece of property is developed, it causes that reaction.

But it’s not that simple, particularly when there are converging forces, be they pressure from development, recreation, resource extraction or climate change. Cumulatively they can set off chain reactions of unintended consequences. It might mean that creating a subdivision 30

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or gas drilling field in one place results in wildlife displacement and more animal-vehicle collisions miles away. Or lower reproduction in wildlife populations because animals are displaced from optimal habitat.

Charles Schwartz, former head of the U.S. Geological Survey’s Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team, says development densities as low as a house and related infrastructure on 640 acres — an entire section of land — can cause bears to avoid areas. And so the pattern of scattershot ranchette development exacerbates the harm, creating habitat that becomes a black hole or population sink for grizzlies — places where bears wander into rural subdivisions but don’t emerge alive. To varying degrees the disruption to bears can also be applied to elk, mule deer and even sensitive songbird populations.

Biologist Brent Brock, of HoloScene Wildlife Services, a consulting company, points to another phenomenon in which the fundamental essence of wildlife is changed by human intrusion. “The effects are insidious because impacts might seem minor in the beginning, but they can escalate,” he said. “Traffic volumes can cause animals to avoid moving through areas and they increase the probability of conflict. With development occurring in wildlife habitat or recreationists flooding into an area it’s the same thing. Either you are taking habitat directly away from wildlife or indirectly because the infrastructure [of trails] brings in more people and it diminishes the carrying capacity and creates population sinks.”

Ironically, Teton County’s comprehensive land-use plan, decades in its evolution, is considered one of the most forward-thinking planning documents in the rural West.

But the vision of the plan isn’t stopping the steady erosion of habitat so crucial to sustaining Jackson Hole’s wildlife. Wildlifevehicle collisions are a serious problem; so are conflicts between recreationists and wildlife on popular trails rimming the valley. As fodder for discussion the Teton County Board of Commissioners added up the value of all the remaining undeveloped land in the county to arrive a figure for what it would cost to buy it up and protect it for wildlife. The total figure, courtesy of the Wyoming State Assessor’s Office: $15 billion.

People also desperately need habitat to live. One obvious, seemingly intractable paradox is that the more that private land is conserved and protected for the good of the ecosystem, the higher the likelihood that working-class people cannot afford to live in the community, feeding the notion that conservation benefits only the rich and pushes people over Teton Pass and down the Snake River canyon.

Adding more housing will not resolve Jackson Hole’s crisis, County Commissioner and economist Mark Newcomb says. “What would a free-market ramping up of supply do to our overall buildout? How could it possibly fit our town-as-heart, community-firstresort-second vision? It can’t.” Markets deliver critical information via price signals, he noted. “But free-market policies need to live in

a practical, real-world context,” Newcomb said. “In Teton County a free-market solution to our housing and community health challenges would lead to growth for growth’s sake at the expense of our core values. Out of concern for those core values, we’ve put the brakes on growth.”

Recently implemented land development regulations eliminated about 2,400 potential units from rural parts of the county. Even if only half those units would have ever been built — higher-end homes — the county is still well-below build-out numbers set during the drafting of the 2012 Comprehensive Plan. Yet there is also a constant push to add more motel rooms to accommodate the masses coming to Jackson Hole, partly because of campaigns like “Stay Wild.”

Fix one problem, cause another. Neither Teton County nor any other booming county in Greater Yellowstone is going to grow its way out of growth-related problems, experts say. So, how does the message of “Stay Wild,” pushing the idea of unbounded recreational opportunity to millions of people coming to Greater Yellowstone, square the problems of growth?

Of “Stay Wild” it should be noted: In devising the campaign the Jackson Hole Travel and Tourism Board was only doing its job, trying to fill hotel rooms, to make sure ski slopes are bustling and cash registers are ringing around Jackson’s Town Square. But these days more and more people are asking an existential question as they navigate traffic jams and encounter blighted landscapes and see more

roadkill, a contrast to the portrayal Construction of the Skyline Trail high on a ridge dividing the Cache of paradise in “Stay Wild.” Should and Game creek drainages just local chambers of commerce and east of Jackson was controversial tourism businesses continue to because it bisects wildlife migration promote Greater Yellowstone as a corridors. BRADLY J. BONER destination using tax dollars when warning bells are ringing in alarm about growth-related problems?

Last spring the Greater Yellowstone Coalition held an unprecedented conference on recreation trends in the ecosystem.

The message was that despite record numbers of different kinds of user groups descending on public lands, the management agencies — namely the U.S. Forest Service, which stewards the lion’s share of Greater Yellowstone — has no meaningful sense of what the effects are on wildlife, other than that the agency knows they are likely to be bad.

“I’m concerned with how our culture increasingly equates the wild as only about human needs and adventure. Wildness is just as much about having the humility to restrain ourselves, including prioritizing other species’ needs over our own desires,” said Peter Aengst, Northern Rockies regional director for The Wilderness Society. “While I’m not in the marketing business, I’d like to think that the town would want to encourage visitors to come and ‘stay wild’ in more than just an adrenaline-thrills context.”

2018 Headwaters

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Last words The 990-acre Upper Gros Ventre River Ranch sits at the end of the Gros Ventre Road. Now Bridger-Teton National Forest land, various organizations have taken care to restore the character of the land to pre-agricultural days.

Rewilding up the

Gros Ventre

By Mike Koshmrl // Photograph by Ryan Dorgan

O

ne plump, native cutthroat trout after another tore into dry flies that skated with the surface of the Gros Ventre River.

It was one of those perfect days recreating in the wild web of land encompassing Jackson Hole that makes valley newcomers like me ponder if they’ll ever manage to leave this place. Diffuse columns of light-bending smoke shot up from the north and south, the product of large wildfires that were burning in the Hoback and on Togwotee Pass. Where we fished, somehow the air was crisp. My pops at my side, we plied the on-fire river running off the Gros Ventre Range’s granite so hard and for so long that time got away from us. Light faded while we trekked two muddy miles across relic pasture and bogs back to the end of the Gros Ventre Road.

I’ll never forget that day adventuring on what’s now land we all own, just a strut-stressing two-hour drive from Jackson Town Square. But for much of the 20th century it wouldn’t have been possible — at least without permission.

The trout-happy honey hole I hesitate to reveal is located on the Bridger-Teton National Forest’s latest addition: a nearly 1,000acre swath of ranchland that unfurls in a long valley cut by a coiled creek-sized river. This fresh slice of federal turf didn’t materialize by happenstance. The acquisition began with the philanthropy of a longtime U.S. senator for Wisconsin, Herb Kohl, whose love of the land prompted him to preserve it, instead of maximizing the value, which could have entailed ranchettes on 35-acre plots.

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Two land stewardship groups played pivotal roles.

The Trust for Public Land orchestrated the donation and held the title for three years, until $3 million in federal Land and Water Conservation Fund dollars conveyed the land to the Bridger-Teton. The Jackson Hole Land Trust — of which Kohl was a founding member — also helped pull the deal together and invested in it.

Afterward, the fallow acreage of the former Upper Gros Ventre River Ranch wasn’t just left as it was. Trout Unlimited’s Snake River Headwaters Project stepped in to reverse one gash from its agricultural past, the 4-mile-plus “Common Sense Ditch.” The earthen structure still stands, but where it once severed four Gros Ventre headwaters tributaries the streams now connect — potential new habitat for juvenile cutthroat.

As I cover the conservation community as the Jackson Hole News&Guide’s enviro reporter, sometimes cynicism gets the best of me. The movement’s forebears in Jackson Hole scored remarkable achievements: the Rockefellers’ foresight in conspiring to gobble up the valley’s ranches for the longterm good of the land and people; the sprawling complexes of wilderness that were created in 1960s and ‘80s, reintroducing wolves and recovering grizzly bears during my lifetime.

Nowaways the accomplishments often seem less grand — crumbs of conservation, comparatively. In a sense it’s true, because the biggest fights in this neck of the Northern Rockies have been fought. The relatively pristine state of the rightly revered Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem is testament to the outcome: Preservation won the day.

For those rooting for the Earth, it’s heartening to know that, in places, the degradation human development has wrought to so much of our planet is losing. Count the Upper Gros Ventre as among those places. A century ago, when the Gros Ventre was the main drag connecting Jackson Hole to Pinedale, there were many working ranches along the corridor, only a few of which hang on. There were restaurants over the years, and even a post office. I once heard someone liken the upper valley’s flatlands near the Bridger-Teton’s new acreage to a modern day Hoback Junction — the last stop for services during homestead era.

Clearly, that’s no longer the case. But this rewilding doesn’t just happen willy-nilly. And for that, the aforementioned groups and people whose work and altruism helped preserve a piece of this place for perpetuity earn a much-deserved tip of my ball cap.

WYOMING’S WILDLIFE NUMBERS ARE RAPIDLY DECLINING

The causes are obvious: during the brutal winter of 2016/17, approx. 40% of the Wy. Range deer herd perished! (15,000 head) and as many antelope. The Wy Game and Fish Department made no effort to provide feed for the starving animals. Vehicle/wildlife collisions are also taking a heavy toll – between 2011 and 2016, 23,377 carcasses were picked up along Wyoming roadsides by WY DOT maintenance crews.

Traditional migration routes are being disrupted by housing and energy development. Predation continues: wolves are now devastating the Dubois Bighorn Sheep, and wolves have changed elk distribution, causing severe problems.

Moose used to number over 1,100 – now less

than 200; grizzlies are increasing in population and territory (they eat the newborn ungulates).

Regardless of these losses, the Wyoming Game & Fish Dept. say they are increasing hunting opportunities this year by offering more cow/ calf and doe/fawn permits! This doesn’t make any sense, as these populations are all below objectives and cannot be increased while overharvesting females!

It is so sad to lose our precious wildlife, at such an alarming rate. They have historically been the main attraction here, but evidently are no longer a priority.

ALERT! Finally, very recent good news! U.S. Interior Dept. Secretary has directed the B.L.M. to defer nearly 5,000 acres of oil and gas leases that overlap the mule deer and antelope migration route between Jackson Hole and the Red Desert. Hopefully more will follow, as another 15,000 acres are slated for auction.

Concerned Citizens for the Elk is a non profit organization dedicated to the preservation of Wyoming’s native wildlife. Donations are tax-deductible and are much appreciated.

SaveTheElk.org

Don’t be indifferent.

We envision a future where inhumane trapping is unimaginable.

Join us to make trapping reform a reality.

WyomingUntrapped.org

WILD WYOMING BOBCAT — PHOTO BY JAMES L. YULE