Highlander Magazine | 2024

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

The satellite imagery of Utah found within these pages is a testament of how far humanity has come in our quest for knowledge — we are now able to look back at ourselves and our progress from space. Satellite images, like the one of Bear Lake featured on the cover, are constructed from data captured by remote sensing, which provides a wealth of information beyond what we can see. Remote sensing data is used to track changes in climate, gauge water levels in lakes and rivers, measure atmospheric pollution and compare human development across time. It is important that we respect the resources around us and study them with honorable intent. I hope this issue of Highlander helps us realize the importance of innovation and research — making a full circle to protect and understand the complex resources that protect us.

— Avery Truman

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USU STUDENT MEDIA

0165 OLD MAIN HILL LOGAN, UTAH 84322-0165

HIGHLANDER EDITOR AND DESIGNER

AVERY TRUMAN

COPY EDITOR

MAREN ARCHIBALD

PHOTO EDITOR

HEIDI BINGHAM

WRITERS

ELLA STOTT, AVERY TRUMAN, LACEY CINTRON, ASHLEY DORIUS, CAITLIN KEITH, AUBREY HOLDAWAY, ESSENCE BARNES, SYDNEY LYMAN, SAM GOODMAN, LAYLA ALNADAR

PHOTOGRAPHERS

HEIDI BINGHAM, JACK BURTON, AUBREY HOLDAWAY, CLAIRE OTT, TANNER UNSWORTH, MAREN ARCHIBALD

SATELLITE IMAGERY COURTESY OF USU REMOTE SENSING AND GIS LABORATORY

IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE: BEAR LAKE, UTAH LAKE, BEARS EARS, ZION CANYON, FLAMING

GORGE, CAPITOL REEF, CANYONLANDS, UINTA MOUNTAINS, SAN RAFAEL SWELL

Predator Research Facility studies coyote

ELLA STOTT

For people who want to learn about coyotes, wolves, ravens or other predators and how they affect Utah ecology, the National Wildlife Research Center in Millville, Utah is the place to look.

The National Wildlife Research Center is a country-wide facility that focuses on research done in the United States Department of Agriculture, Animal & Plant Health Inspection Service. The Utah center started in 1972, specializing in researching predators’ ecology and behavior.

Dustin Ranglack, predator research facility field station leader who got his Ph.D. from USU, said the facility got their 165 acres of land leased from USU.

“We have similar goals: We want to educate the public, educate students, do research, resolve conflicts,” Ranglack said.

One of the predators the research facility focuses on is coyotes. Coyotes are the only predators they always house in their facility, splitting them up between 54 pens of different sizes.

“Right now it’s breeding season,” Ranglack said. “We have animals that we want to breed, but then we have animals that we don’t want to breed, and we have to separate them during this time.”

Each coyote has an ID number to identify what year and litter they were born in. This way, the staff can ensure they never put littermates together during breeding season, and they can identify which coyotes do better alone or in pairs.

In order to avoid any inbreeding, the center brings in wild coyote puppies every five years to add to the genetic pool.

“We bring in a litter of puppies from the wild where their mother and father have been killed,” Ranglack said. “We basically go in and rescue the puppies, raise them up here and then they become part of our colony.”

The team works to keep the situation for the coyotes wild.

“We want them to represent as closely as possible what a wild coyote would behave like when we’re doing our research,” Ranglack said.

Alexandra Turano, animal care biologist, recently finished her research on the monogamous relationships of coyotes.

“We were trying to understand what is the nature of the monogamous pair bond between a male and a female coyote when it’s housed here at this captive facility,” Turano said.

According to Turano, there were multiple factors when considering how closely bonded a pair of coyotes are.

First, the coyotes spent a lot more time together during the breeding season. Second, how long the pair had been a couple was influential. Couples who had been paired for one to two years spent more time together than recently paired coyotes or ones that had been in longer relationships. Finally, the hormonal status played a part in how much time the coyotes spent together.

“What was interesting is we saw that in pairs where the female had really high progesterone levels, the pairs spent more time together relative to those that had lower progesterone levels,” Turano said.

Turano resubmitted the paper in February, and she estimated it would be published around August.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF PREDATOR RESEARCH FACILITY

coyote puppies, wolf eyes, sage grouse

“I guess in the simplest way, we were looking to see what factors influenced how much they love each other,” Turano said. “That was kind of our first stab at it.”

Jeffrey Schultz, wildlife biologist, is testing a coyote repellent device that uses realistic wolf eyes to potentially scare them.

“I would go at nine o’clock, turn them on to test and then, before it got light again, turn them off,” Schultz said. “I’m in the middle of kind of looking at that data, which doesn’t look like there’s too much of an effect between that behavior.”

According to Schultz, the facility is always working on multiple predator repellent devices. The research facility doesn’t develop the devices themselves, but tests those sent to them from other parts of the country.

Along with the replicated wolf eyes, they are working on a remote device that use flashing lights to scare predators away.

Schultz said other teams are working on developing devices that use AI to detect coyotes that the Predator Research Facility will eventually be able to test.

“I feel like our tech has been motion activated, or radio at first,” Schultz said. “But this tech is using AI, with the progress and developments.”

Another predator the facility has done recent research around is wolves, although they aren’t housed on the facility like the coyotes.

Ranglack is involved in a project testing hazing devices for wolves to prevent them from killing livestock. They’re testing these drones on wolves in Southeast Oregon.

“In this particular area in 2020, over a three week period, 11 cows were killed by wolves. So every other night,” Ranglack said.

The team found that the drone alone made the wolves want to play, but when combined with shouting, the wolves would get scared and leave the livestock alone.

The animals went from killing cows once every two nights to

once every six weeks with the hazing device.

“It’s really exciting,” Ranglack said. “We’re able to use this to stop wolves from killing livestock before it happens.”

Sierra Pederson, a USU grad student, is studying raven removal for sage grouse protection.

“It was just one of the projects that really caught my eye,” Pederson said. “It’s going to be used immediately to help inform better ways for us to project sage grouse and control Raven populations.”

According to Pederson, the facility is very important to the Cache Valley community.

“There are various agricultural and livestock practices that are taking it out on these species that are just doing what they know to do,” Pederson said. “That’s what I find, to be really cool about this research facility, they’re just constantly working to find better ways to manage the species.”

The Predator Research Facility is open to new volunteers, especially students in wildlife programs.

“We are often relying on Utah State students to come in and just give us those couple extra bodies that we need to make things happen,” Ranglack said. “We’re always happy to try to give students those experiences as well.”

Remote Sensing and GIS Laboratory keeps a bird’s-eye view on Utah

USU’s Remote Sensing and GIS Laboratory has an aerial perspective on the changes happening to Utah’s physical terrain, from the state’s mountainous peaks to the Great Salt Lake.

Remote sensing is the process of detecting the features of the ground without making contact. This is typically accomplished through the use of drones or satellites. Geographic information systems, or GIS, are the tools used to analyze and present geospatial data.

Doug Ramsey, director of the laboratory and professor for wildland resources, founded the lab and began using it to provide assistance to other faculty who didn’t have a geospatial background.

Ramsey is an expert in remote sensing technologies and said they have been evolving for decades.

“It really started in World War I when we started taking aerial photographs,” Ramsey said. “Ever since World War II, they’ve been taking aerial photographs of the whole country every 10 to 20 years. Now they take aerial imagery of the whole country every two years.”

Satellites in orbit can take an image of the country twice a day. Technology like this has allowed Ramsey and his team to take on large-scale projects.

“The biggest thing we’ve done was map land cover across the whole state,” Ramsey said. “We have such a fairly long history — 40 to 50 years — we can get a pretty good idea of how landscapes are shifting from one cover type to another cover type.”

Remote sensing imagery is commonly used to compare certain areas of land over different periods of time to track water level changes, city growth, deforestation and more.

An example Ramsey worked on was how the amount of cheatgrass, an invasive weed, fluctuates between seasons.

Christopher McGinty is a graduate student who works as the manager of the lab.

“We’ve had a ton of opportunities to do invasive species mapping,” McGinty said. “It’s been so gratifying to be able to take some of this technology and translate it into something that anyone can go and use.”

According to McGinty, he works on projects with senior citizens to teach them about remote sensing.

“We’ve been able to teach them how to fly drones. We were able to talk to them about remote sensing, and they absolutely love it,” McGinty said. “Geospatial technologies can get anyone excited.”

Satellites, drones and manned aircraft are utilized in remote sensing for different needs. There are currently hundreds of satellites orbiting the planet, and many of them, such as the Landsat satellites, are used for Earth observation.

“Satellites are good for large landscape studies,” Ramsey said. “Drones are good for small landscape studies. Piloted aircraft are good for medium-scale studies.”

Over the years, Ramsey has taught dozens of graduate students in his lab, many of whom went on to use their skills professionally.

“We work on federal contracts, we’ve worked on state agency contracts,” McGinty said. “We had the opportunity to work on so many different projects, and I think that’s what I really loved about it, was we had the opportunity to dabble in urban growth and development, rangeland resources, forestry.”

McGinty said he has recently

focused on water mapping, which has given him the chance to work with Salt Lake City Public Utilities to help with their conservation plan of the Great Salt Lake.

“People just want to have green grass,” McGinty said. “We live in a desert, so that doesn’t make a lot of sense. But if we can help them see what they should be using on their landscapes versus what they are, we can put it in a couple of different frames. We can frame it as being environmentally conscious and saving water, but you can also frame it as saving money.”

Chris Garrard, a programming analyst at USU, builds GIS tools to help analyze data. She worked for the Forest Service to write a program that could analyze carbon sequestration.

“I’m looking at everything like, ‘How can we automate this function, or how can we build some cool app for it,’” Garrard said. “I’m learning new stuff every day, which is why I like this job.”

While teaching graduate students, Garrard said she enjoyed helping them how to automate things for research.

“I’d have students saying, ‘You just saved me a year’s worth of work by what I just learned in one hour in class today,’” Garrard said.

Programming and coding are a large factor in GIS, and they can make the experience easier to understand.

“If you want to get into remote sensing and GIS, learn some coding,” Garrard said. “I think anyone who wants to get into that stuff and do well at it has to know some of the tech side of it.”

Remote sensing is a relatively new field, and the tools change frequently.

“This thing changes on a yearly basis,” Ramsey said. “It’s a dynamic thing. You got to keep up, or else you kind of fall behind pretty quick.”

According to Ramsey, remote sensing technologies affect most people daily, whether they realize it or not.

“It’s basically driving everything,” Ramsey said. “Everything you do in life is somehow linked to GIS, which uses remote sensing as a primary data input. So even if you’re just using Google Maps to tell your car to go from point A to point B, you’re using a GIS.”

GIS commonly uses data collected by remote sensing.

“We see photos from drones, we see photos from spy satellites that they put on the news, and that’s all remote sensing,” McGinty said. “Remote sensing, GIS and geospatial technology is becoming ubiquitous across our culture.”

McGinty said when he taught GIS, he barely had to fail any students because it was so easy for them to apply the data to hiking, skiing or other activities they enjoy in their personal lives.

“From that data, you can extract roads, extract rivers — you can extract a lot of different features,” Ramsey said.

These technologies have allowed Ramsey to observe changes in the Great Salt Lake over time, which is important information in making policy decisions about environmental protection.

SageSTEP protects ‘the spot where the sagebrush grows’

LACEY CINTRON PHOTOS BY AUBREY HOLDAWAY

Atop the sprawling slopes and rocky foothills of the Great Basin grows sagebrush, one of the largest plant species in North America. Sprawling over 170 million acres in the western U.S., this spindly shrub hosts over 350 plant and animal species and plays a vital role in the ecosystems it inhabits.

A study published in 2022 by the U.S. Geological Survey indicates that 1.3 million acres of sagebrush are dying off every year — half have already vanished from the Great Basin alone. By 2050, what’s left of healthy sagebrush could be lost to the abiotic and biotic factors plaguing the species.

The Sagebrush Steppe Treatment Evaluation Project, dubbed SageSTEP, is actively working to find the most effective methods of preserving and restoring sagebrush to the Great Basin. For 20 years, the project has been collecting data on what land management strategies will best maintain sagebrush according to the location.

Geno Schupp, USU professor and plant ecologist, was one of the original designers for the project. Schupp now helps manage data collection for SageSTEP.

“It’s all focused on threats to sagebrush ecosystems,”

Schupp said. “It can be easily argued that this is one of the most threatened ecosystems in North America.”

Mark Brunson, USU professor and social scientist, was on the original research team in 2003. Twenty years later, Brunson now heads the outreach program for SageSTEP.

When the project first began in 2005, Brunson managed the social aspect of the land alteration.

“My original role was to focus on people,” Brunson said. “If we’re making significant changes in what the landscape looks like, it’s useful to find out whether people can accept the changes.”

Within the first five years of the project’s start, Brunson conducted numerous studies on the sociological and economic impacts of different land management strategies.

After securing $13 million worth of funding from federal programs, SageSTEP was set to conduct full scale research at 21 different sites in seven states.

“We have sites in Washington, Oregon, California, Idaho, Utah and Nevada,” Brunson said.

Schupp identified the two biggest threats to sagebrush as cheatgrass in lower elevations and woodland encroachment at higher elevations.

According to the Bureau of Land Management, not only is cheatgrass a highly invasive species, but its high flammability greatly increases the risk of wildfires, which can wipe out sagebrush.

Cheatgrass can be found in every state of the U.S. including Alaska and Hawaii. This invasive weed represents a huge problem for native plant species in the U.S., covering over 50 million acres of land and growing.

“At higher elevations, sagebrush is pinched out by woodlands,” Schupp said. “It’s definitely degrading with respect to the quality of habitats for things like sage grouse, which is a concern for a lot of people.”

According to research from University of Nevada, Reno Extension, woodland encroachment from pinyon-

juniper species completely alters shrublands. In competition with pinyon-juniper for resources, sagebrush is quickly eliminated, and the biodiversity of the area greatly suffers.

Sagebrush also acts as a safeguard against erosion.

“When these systems degrade, we lose the ability to hold onto water, and we get a lot more erosion because we don’t have that permanent perennial vegetation,” Schupp said.

According to Schupp, loss of sagebrush contributes to an uptick in wind erosion, scattering dust and pollutants in the air that trigger health problems such as asthma.

“Wind erosion has taken dust to the Wasatch Front,” Schupp said. “It’s sending people to the emergency room with respiratory issues.”

To prevent the loss of sagebrush, SageSTEP has split research into two experiments based on these threats. The first experiment is the cheatgrass network, with sites located in lower elevation areas most threatened by cheatgrass.

According to the SageSTEP website, the first experiment tests four land management options on these designated sites: “control (no management action), prescribed fire, mechanical thinning of sagebrush by mowing, and herbicide application.”

The second experiment is the woodland network, located in higher elevation areas. The woodland network follows the structure of the cheatgrass network, with the addition of thinning via chainsaw and without herbicide application. Wildfire resilience is a specific focus of SageSTEP’s research.

“We’re not trying to stop the fire,” Schupp said. “That’s not going to happen. We have to learn to live with the fire. We work to make these endangered ecosystems more resilient so when a fire does come through, they will recover to natural functioning.”

According to Schupp, a healthy understory — a layer of vegetation beneath a plant or ecosystem of plants — is key to wildlife resilience.

“It’s that healthy understory more than the sagebrush that helps keep exotic weeds at bay after a fire,” Schupp said. “If we don’t have a healthy understory,

it just converts to cheatgrass.”

SageSTEP’s primary goal is to understand how commonly used treatments are affecting the plant and wildlife, then providing local resource managers with this knowledge.

“When looking at the ways land managers try to reduce fuel and wildfire hazard we asked, ‘What are the effects on the plants?’” Brunson said. “You don’t only care about the plants, you care about the wildlife and the pollinators.”

Sagebrush provides food, water and a home for a variety of well known species, the most popular being the fan-tailed, white-chested sage grouse.

“Sagebrush is a system that not only supports sage grouse, but nine other dependent species,” Schupp said. “The sagebrush sparrow and pygmy rabbits for example depend on sagebrush habitat.”

SageSTEP has found that there are no clear cut answers when it comes to treating sagebrush. What treatment is most effective is dependent on the location and the problem.

“I wish we could just tell people from the federal and state governments what to do,” Brunson said. “It depends. For example, sagebrush higher up in mountains recovers faster than sagebrush west of the Great Salt Lake. What we’ve been able to do is describe that variability to land managers.”

One general finding that has come from SageSTEP’s research is the vitality of cheatgrass.

“Where we have any sort of manipulation, we have more cheatgrass,” Brunson said. “We’re also seeing more cheatgrass in the control sites. This means that cheatgrass is a hugely successful species that has proven more hardy than anything that we’ve tried in this experiment.”

When it comes to pinyon-juniper encroachment, SageSTEP has found timing to be a crucial element in reducing sagebrush loss.

“You really shouldn’t wait till it has become a forest with a closed canopy,” Brunson said. “When that happens, fire burns through it faster and you lose all the plants that would’ve been underneath.”

Scott Shaff is an ecologist with USGS and the program coordinator for SageSTEP. Shaff started at SageSTEP in 2006 as a site manager, overseeing site selection and coordinating with federal land managers.

Shaff has spent many days in the field, traveling across the west coast and working with field crews at some of SageSTEP’s different networks.

“Every year in the fall, I go on a 7,000 mile road trip,” Shaff said. “It’s about 7,000 miles leaving from Corvallis, Oregon to hit all 18 sites and drive back. I see a lot of country on those trips.”

SageSTEP annually hires 10 to 12 recent graduates with a background in biology to make up the field crews collecting data at sites.

“You get some great experience doing different field protocols and see a lot of really cool country,” Shaff said. “We’re the only ones that really get to go out and see this beautiful country because it’s so far off the beaten path.”

In 2024, SageSTEP completed 15 years of posttreatment data collection, adding heaps of new knowledge and implications to existing research around sagebrush restoration.

“What’s unusual about the project is that nobody gets to do research for 20 years straight,” Brunson said. “The

Bureau of Land Management has been astonishingly helpful in keeping this going.”

With no ending planned for the near future, SageSTEP aims to keep adding upon this data.

“We hope to continue the project for another 10 years to get to that 25 years post-treatment,” Shaff said. “The most important part of this project is our longevity. This is the longest running and largest replicated data set on field treatments in the intermountain west.”

According to Shaff, long-term data provides a complete understanding of the treatment’s effects rather than a glimpse.

“If you do a treatment and only have two or three years with the data, that really just gives you a picture instead of a video of what’s really happening,” Shaff said.

According to Schupp, sagebrush acts as a source of recreation for hunting, camping and hiking as well as underappreciated natural beauty. SageSTEP seeks to preserve the beauty of where the sagebrush grows for generations to come.

“Some people don’t necessarily think so, but it’s a beautiful place,” Schupp said. “There’s an awful lot of recreation that takes place in sagebrush habitat. It’s a lot more of an enjoyable experience with healthy sagebrush than monotonous, brown grass and dust.”

PHOTOS BY HEIDI BINGHAM

Campus safari: The wild side of college

ASHLEY DORIUS

PHOTOS BY JACK BURTON

With a canyon in its backyard, Utah State University is home to thousands of living, breathing non-student beings. Deer, squirrels, cats, birds, bees and the occasional mountain lion can wander the campus, searching for a snack or a place to rest like any other Aggie.

These animals are here to stay, and many factors are at play to ensure a peaceful coexistence.

Shane Richards, a USU alum who studied horticulture and park management, is USU’s Landscape Operations and Management manager.

“A lot of people don’t realize there’s wildlife around on campus,” Richards said. “Part of planning is where can we afford to have the wildlife in the campus landscaping. We create an environment that fosters both groups.”

Richards explained one of the most prominent

wildlife groups LOAM has to account for is the large deer population. He estimates there are about 20 to 100 deer per season on campus, ranging from young fawns to intimidating bucks.

Some spots have resident deer herds, but the LOAM team tries to keep them safe and away from most residents. Their solution is to keep the deer in an area fondly known as “the pit” on the other side of 400 N.

“One of our biggest challenges is deer,” Richards said. “They’re pretty smart. We’re conscientious to keep the deer on the other side of the road to keep them happy. We provide good feed and a good habitat.”

However, the animals still find a way onto campus, affecting how flower beds and other landscaping features are designed.

“When we plant tulips, they’re like a candy treat to deer and other animals,” Richards said.

“There are some tulips that are deerresistant, but they’re limited in color, scope and size.”

Tulips aren’t the only plants that require a shift in plans when the paws come out. The campus squirrels must also be considered during garden and yard work.

“We’re in the thousands of squirrels,” Richards said. “The animals are smart; we have to be conscious of where we put trees that produce fruit or nuts.”

Insects and pollinators are also essential aspects of the environment that LOAM preserves. Marci Stevens, a LOAM employee, helped spearhead the work that led to USU receiving a Bee Campus USA designation, given to universities who make commitments to preserve native pollinators.

Stevens works to promote sustainable gardening practices and the preservation of pollinators.

“We’re specifically interested in protecting bees, but it also includes other invertebrates,” Stevens said. “We provide a habitat for them by planting flowers and keeping everything pretty cool.”

Stevens said campus is home to several types of bees.

“We actually have a honeybee hive that is a wild hive on campus, and they’re kind of tucked into a hollow tree log,” Stevens said. “They don’t bother anybody. They can just handle life on their own, and we just made sure that we stay clear of them and let them live their lives. We also have native sweat bees in a couple of different places on campus. We have three or four different varieties of bumblebees on campus as well.”

Stevens’s goal is to limit the pesticides used on campus by introducing natural predators to the environment to limit the bugs.

“We have certain areas on campus that we’re going to make completely pesticide-free so we can keep those bad chemicals out of our ecosystem,” Stevens said.

Stevens isn’t just a bee-lover. She also aims to have USU registered as a Monarch Waystation, and she’s a fan of spiders because they naturally keep the pests at bay.

“We do also have a pretty good ecosystem of spiders on campus,” Stevens said. “We have some great big yellow-banded garden spiders. They’re huge, and they are very startling when you go into a flower bed and ‘Spider!’, but are also a good one to kind of keep the pests down.”

Even though Stevens specializes in creepy crawlies, she also knows the secret lives of animals on campus. One example is the outdoor cats.

“We have a cat population on campus, and they have a couple of feeding stations,” Stevens said. “Those cats helped keep our mice population down, which is nice, and they also keep the squirrel population in check.”

In regards to the safety concerns of having wildlife on campus, the Utah Department of Wildlife Resources handles emergency cases and safety precautions.

One unique example was on Feb. 13, when a mountain lion was spotted on campus.

Faith Heaton Jolley, public information officer for DWR, said the DWR team sedated, cared for and safely released the 2-year-old female puma.

Jolley said DWR’s role is to keep animals and people safe. With the rising population in Utah, their work of helping the local fauna find a safe place to roam is gaining importance.

Jolley said what matters most when encountering wild animals is to let them be.

“One kind of issue that we see is people not keeping wildlife wild,” Jolley said. “Make sure you are not doing things to draw

wildlife to an urban area. Make sure you know how to react when around wildlife.”

Jolley recommended visiting wildawareutah.org for further information about wildlife safety.

When it comes to having a balanced, sustainable campus, Richards said wildlife is a crucial piece of the environmental puzzle of northern Utah.

“If we have wildlife, we know the landscape is feeling natural,” Richards said. “When it’s too industrial, the animals aren’t there. We want us to co-exist; it helps us gauge the health of our ecosystem.”

Richards said his goal is sustainability for USU. He has pushed for composting and lessening pesticides.

“As I’ve professionally grown, I’ve seen how the ecosystem works together,” Richards said. “The key is to balance. I think it would be really boring to have an environment where animals don’t feel as comfortable as people do. We do it strategically so it’s not uncomfortable or causes conflict.”

Richards said getting to follow his passions at his alma mater was the cherry on top of a great deal. He loves that he gets variety in his job, and gets to be a part of keeping USU beautiful.

“What I like best is LOAM keeps me involved with people, animals and plants and dirt and water,” Richards said. “I find a lot of satisfaction in that. I get to go prune trees and tend flowers or talk to classes and help students.”

PHOTO BY HEIDI BINGHAM

Symposium on economic growth, sustainability launches difficult conversations

CAITLIN KEITH

PHOTO BY JACK BURTON

Meant to stimulate “hard conversations” on two essential topics, the Dialogues on Economic Growth and Sustainability held on Utah State University’s Logan campus was an interdepartmental effort.

The symposium was co-organized by Patrick Belmont, department head of watershed sciences; Frank Caliendo, senior associate dean and professor of economics and finance; and Ben Blau, department head and professor of economics and finance. Taking place over three days in February, the symposium was held in the Russell-Wanlass Performance Hall.

The event brought together speakers and panelists from a variety of disciplines in order to have a wide spectrum of perspectives.

According to Belmont, the symposium focused on economic growth and sustainability because those are seen as two conflicting forces. Many things that contribute to environmental issues, such as cutting down forests or the use and consumption of energy sources, are driven by economic growth.

“For decades, we’ve recognized that there’s a conflict there of economic growth and sustainability,” Belmont said. “We’ve been kind of saying, ‘Well, let’s just keep growing and it should work out, and there’s ways we can do it a little bit better.’ But we’re really beating around the bush.”

The symposium was meant to encourage hard conversations, help people think deeply about the issues presented and explore potential solutions.

Jada Staker, a first-year student pursuing environmental studies, attended the last day of the symposium because she wanted to learn more about how the two topics connect and affect each other.

“There’s a lot of perspectives,” Staker said. “I feel like I kind of hear one perspective a lot, being in

certain classes and things. But it’s really interesting to hear an economics perspective and a physicist’s perspective, and just go beyond my own ideas.”

Jakob Bell is an art student who painted three different pieces of art representing the conversations and topics covered during each session.

Belmont said they are working on a plan to display the pieces Bell created.

Each day of the symposium had a different focus and purpose.

The first session, held on Feb. 2, was composed mostly of speakers, but most notable were the two keynote speakers who purposefully gave conflicting presentations.

Craig Palsson went first with a presentation titled “Economic Growth Must Continue or We Can’t.” He was followed by Rob Davies with “Economic Growth Will End. Soon. Done Well This Will Be a Good Thing.”

“There wasn’t bickering back and forth,” Blau said. “It was just basically stating a position, right, and I thought that was great. Anyway, I thought that there was a lot of passion in the presentations about these things.”

Palsson is an assistant professor of economics at USU and Davies an associate professor of physics.

“It’s important for students to be able to hear those two sides,” Palsson said. “Also important for us to try and wrestle with that and say, like, ‘OK, this seems like pretty contradicting arguments.’ Is there a synthesis that says like, ‘This is the path that we’re going to be able to achieve?’”

The second session of the symposium, held on Feb. 9, was meant to build off the ideas presented during the first.

“The second day was the hardest of the three to

manage,” Belmont said. “We were trying to present some case studies that were relevant, that were building on some of the points that were from the first week.”

Those who presented case studies that day include Kat Bilicka, an associate professor of economics and statistics, and Ken Snyder, the executive director of the Shingo Institute and a senior lecturer at USU.

The last session of the symposium, held on Feb. 16, was focused on wrapping up the conversations had earlier, then looking forward and asking “What now?”

After a few individual presentations given by Jeannie Johnson, an associate professor of political science; Jeff Reece, a social entrepreneur; and Darren Parry, Shoshone Nation tribe leader and visiting professor at the University of Utah, there was a panel to conclude the symposium.

The concluding panel included Courtney Flint, professor of environment and society, and Caitlin McLennan, USU’s sustainability coordinator. The other members of the panel were Davies, Palsson, Reece, Johnson and Parry.

One question asked to the panel was “If you could choose and highlight one value that society should hold on to, no matter what the future holds, what do you think that one of those values should be?”

The values listed by the panel were the natural environment, healing, empathy, charity, community and collaboration, collectivism and complexity.

“This was a launching pad,” Blau said. “Going forward, we can start talking more about maybe ways to solve these really hard problems.”

A new course will be taught at USU focused on climate change solution pathways. The class will be cotaught by Davies and Bilicka.

“She’ll come at it from a very, very well-prepared mainstream economic perspective,” Davies said. “And I will come at it from a biophysical perspective; I’m a physicist by training. So we’re going to come at

it from different perspectives. I think we’re going to learn a lot from each other.”

The new course still has to be approved, but the plan is to have it start in spring 2025.

“There’s this question of whether or not one can decouple economic growth from energy and material resource growth,” Davies said. “Can you continue to grow the economy without continuing to grow your use of energy and material resources?”

Davies said the mainstream economic world believes decoupling is possible, but from his perspective, the data doesn’t show evidence of it.

There were conversations throughout the sessions about the Great Salt Lake, including a presentation from Great Salt Lake commissioner Brian Steed. The symposium also addressed economic growth in Cache Valley and its impact on the environment with a presentation from Cache County executive David Zook.

Belmont said he is excited to move forward from the symposium and see what happens now, what conversations will be had and what solutions can be found. He hopes those who attended learned that there can be constructive conversations had with a wide variety of opinions and perspectives involved.

“I worry about binary thinking,” Blau said. “I worry that we’re bifurcating into tribes and allowing those tribes to think for us, and I don’t think that it’s beneficial. We have to do better at making sure that we understand all sides of every argument before we start making policy recommendations.”

T.W. Daniels Experimental Forest: USU’s slice of nature

AUBREY HOLDAWAY PHOTOS COURTESY OF LEVI SIM

A45-minute drive from Utah State University is a patch of national forest known as the T.W. Daniel Experimental Forest. It is located on Sinks Road, south of Bear River Summit. The forest can also be found via a short trail up Little Bear Canyon.

Ryan Jess is the manager for the forest’s dendrochronology laboratory, which tracks and dates tree rings.

“The first time I went to the School Forest I was surprised by how close the forest is to campus, and by how large the School Forest feels,” Jess wrote in an email to The Utah Statesman.

Known colloquially as the School Forest, this foursquare-mile piece of land is a significant part of USU’s history.

Before it became Utah State University, the Utah State Agricultural College purchased a square mile of Cache National Forest in 1936. At some point

between then and the ‘40s, the college developed a memorandum of understanding with the U.S. Forest Service to operate within that section, plus three more adjacent sections, for educational use.

Over the decades, this living laboratory has undergone transformational phases, from its origins as the School Forest to a hub for research, ecological conservation and forestry education through the S.J. & Jessie E. Quinney College of Natural Resources.

In 1946, Ted Daniel was hired by Utah State Agricultural College to work as a silviculturist, or someone who works to establish forest health, and the next year, started a summer camp for forestry students.

“They started measuring cones, tracking wildlife, quantifying how much timber was on the plot,” said Justin DeRose, assistant professor of wildland resources.

Many of the forest’s research endeavors gained momentum in the late 1990s, with a project led by Fred Baker and Jim Long demonstrating ecosystem management approaches that mimicked natural disturbance.

The forest continued to be a focal point for scientific exploration with projects addressing topics such as goshawk habitat, landscape-scale disturbance processes, aspen decline and lynx habitat.

DeRose has been involved with the forest since his undergraduate in the late ‘90s.

“Since then, I’ve spent a lot of time in the forest doing the same thing: teaching students, demonstrating forestry and working on research projects,” DeRose said.

The forest witnessed a diverse range of projects in the early 2000s, from addressing drought and water resources to uneven-aged silviculture for Engelmann spruce. The installation of monitoring equipment, data loggers and towers marked a technological leap, enhancing the forest’s capabilities for long-term data collection.

“Because it’s an experimental forest, it gives leeway to do management activity under categorical exclusion in the NEPA [National Environmental Policy Act] process,” DeRose said.

The forest has continued its evolution in recent years. DeRose installed several large, fixed-area monitoring plots in 2019, and in 2022, biology professor Robert Schaeffer began a pollinator habitat study, extending the forest’s reach outside of QCNR.

Demonstrations and outreach on subjects such as silviculture and ecosystem management occur every year during the summer months in the form of field trips.

Ellen Orlemann, a forestry major, spent time in the School Forest with the Forestry Club. The club has a fundraiser each fall where they harvest firewood to sell.

“It can be a really good experience for people to try their hand using a chainsaw for the first time, which is a super big resume booster,” Orlemann said.

Many natural resource students are required to take an intro-level class called WILD 2400, which includes field trips up to the forest. Orlemann said this has a direct effect on whether or not people stick with the program.

“Having fun doing things in the outdoors definitely makes people stick with it more,” Orlemann said.

Spending time in the forest and getting hands-on learning experience can be beneficial educationally.

“It makes what we’re doing real,” Orlemann said. “Being able to take people out in the forest and give them real-world experience brings a lot of people in.”

Opportunities to go on field trips to the forest help foster a sense of community among the students and faculty.

“You go up not really knowing any of the people you’re going up with, but then when you come back down, you’re good friends,” Orlemann said.

Jess has seen the way students benefit since he began working as the lab manager in 2017.

“I learn best by doing, and I think a lot of students appreciate being able to practice the skills and principles they have learned in a real-life setting,” Jess wrote. “The School Forest is a laboratory not only for research, but as a place to gain useful experience students can use later on in their careers.”

Although the forest exists as a learning vehicle for students studying natural resources, it’s accessible to anyone looking to hike, mountain bike, camp or stargaze.

“I would just encourage anyone who has the chance to go out there and to do it,” Orlemann said. “It’s really cool that USU owns a chunk of the Cache National Forest.”

The forest remains a testament to the enduring synergy between education, research and conservation, embodying a commitment to understanding and preserving the intricate balance of forest ecosystems.

“The forest is something that the chance to experience how principles you learn in the classroom really work in the complexity of a real ecosystem,” DeRose said.

Cache Valley agriculture causes air pollution, experts speak on solutions

ESSENCE BARNES

OBY HEIDI BINGHAM

n some days, someone looking over Cache Valley from above would see a gray cloud of smog covering the area — an inversion. More than just morning or evening fog, these polluted air masses significantly reduce air quality.

Randy Martin, an environmental professor at USU and an expert in air quality, has been researching levels of air pollution in the valley for years.

Inversion, the trapping of cooler air below warmer air, is a phenomenon that contributes heavily to air pollution, and one that Cache Valley falls victim to.

“It is a meteorological phenomenon that has absolutely nothing to do with air pollution by itself,” Martin said.

Martin says that when the warm air gets trapped, it prevents vertical mixing, which in turn traps the pollution near the Earth’s surface.

According to Martin, the amount of pollution that Cache Valley inversion captures and holds is due to the bathtub-like shape of the valley itself.

The valley has no open areas for the pollution to leak out of.

“The inversion is basically putting a cap on our bathtub that Cache Valley is,” Martin said. “All of those pollution sources that are then in the valley contribute to our air pollution problem.”

According to Martin, the main pollutant trapped is PM2.5, or fine particulate matter.

“PM2.5 by definition is a continuum of particle sizes less than or equal to 2.5 in diameter, and the reason that’s important is because that’s kind of the magic number that you can breathe into your respiratory system,” Martin said. “It is a very effective size at causing health problems.”

According to Martin, there is a specific kind of PM2.5 that Cache Valley tends to produce and trap the most of: ammonium nitrate.

“We are what we call ammonia rich,” Martin said. “We have more ammonia in our atmosphere than anywhere else in the country.”

This excess ammonia is not natural. According to Martin, Cache Valley’s fervent agricultural industry is one of the largest producers of ammonia.

PHOTOS

“It’s not that we have more ammonia being emitted, but because we live in this valley, we trap it here,” Martin said.

Kelsey Hall, a USU Extension specialist and associate professor of agricultural communications, has an extensive educational and professional background within the field of agriculture.

“For Cache County, I would focus on the ammonia based air pollution that often comes from the agriculture industry and from transportation.” Hall said.

According to Hall, ammonia is also produced naturally by the biological waste of animals.

“If you have ammonia in the atmosphere, and nitric acid in the atmosphere, they will grab onto each other and form ammonium nitrate,” Martin said. “If you’re gonna try to control your PM2.5 you have to look at the nitric acid side, so where does the nitric acid come from?”

According to Martin, nitric acid is a combination of oxides of nitrogen and hydrocarbons or volatile organic compounds. These chemicals are produced by combustion and transportation.

“That’s why we have inspection maintenance programs on your automobiles,” Martin said. “That’s why we have regulations on what kind of solvents auto body paint shops can use.”

Cache Valley has been working towards reducing ammonia, nitric acid and other pollutants by using forms of regulation and education, both on an industry level and an individual level. There are efforts happening in Cache Valley to control emissions from agricultural industries specifically.

“There’s things we can do on the management side of things, and there are things we can do on the feed side of things,” Martin said.

According to Martin, one thing agricultural producers can do to reduce their ammonia production is to reduce the amount of protein in their livestock’s diet and manage their manure.

According to Hall, USU Extension is working with and educating farmers in the area about good agricultural practices that reduce emissions. These practices include cover cropping, feed management for livestock and management and application of organic fertilizers.

“Thinking about nutrient conservation — reducing fertilizer use — we have better technology that’s helping to know how much to apply and where to apply it to our soil,” Hall said.

According to Hall, furthering education and understanding these alternative agricultural practices can reduce emissions.

Successful sustainable agriculture is happening elsewhere too, through the application of good agricultural practices.

Temis Taylor is an Americorps program coordinator with the Utah Conservation Corps, an organization that focuses on environmental education projects.

The UCC works with some organic farms within Cache Valley, such as the USU Student Organic Farm and the Urban Community Farm. They aim to run their farms using sustainable practices.

According to Taylor, cover cropping and integration of animals into farms to help reduce pests limits the need for fertilizer, another contributor to air pollution.

“We’re intercropping and we’re rotating things so that we don’t have to spray,” Taylor said.

There are other initiatives in Cache Valley that urge individuals to be aware of their own pollution emissions, especially relating to transportation.

“We have seen initiatives for improving bicycles in our valley and trying to have bicycle lanes, and also educating people about using bicycles for transportation,” Hall said.

Public transportation is an alternative to driving, and can also aid in reducing emissions.

“I know that we’ve made progress on our bus system, and that they’ve done a lot to improve the motors in the buses and try to bring down that air pollution,” Hall said.

According to Martin, the efforts have not been in vain.

“We know what we have to do, and we’ve done a pretty good job,” Martin said. “Here in Cache Valley, we don’t see nearly as high levels of emissions as we did in the early 2000s.”

Overall, the work towards improving Cache Valley’s air quality is a community effort.

“Everybody’s got to be a part of the solution,” Martin said.

PHOTO BY JACK BURTON

Rest stops blossom into buzzing through USU, UDOT collaboration

SYDNEY LYMAN PHOTOS BY AUBREY HOLDAWAY

When highway travelers take a break in Perry or Brigham City, they are greeted by not just convenient pit stops, but vibrant, blossoming pollinator habitats, turning roadside lots into encounters with nature’s busy bees.

These enhanced pollinator habitats come from a collaboration between Utah State University’s S.J. & Jessie E. Quinney College of Natural Resources and the Utah Department of Transportation.

Beyond acting as beautifiers to the sides of Utah’s highways, these habitats are a carefully planned conservation effort focused on

providing habitat for pollinators. Native flowers and plants are a vital part of this effort.

Mindy Wheeler, the QCNR native plant conservation project leader for the UDOT pollinator enhancement program, described herself as “the plant person” on the project.

“Native plants are really the ones that our insects have evolved with,” Wheeler said. “They know certain plants’ defenses and have evolved to work their way around them. For example, the monarch butterfly can lay their eggs and eat milkweed, even though milkweed is poisonous to many other insects.”

Native plants are becoming less common as urban areas expand, eliminating vital habitats pollinators need to live. Wheeler said nonnative plants don’t provide enough resources for pollinators to thrive.

“If you introduce something new — that is, in terms of horticultural plants or non-native plants — it either doesn’t provide the food that

they need or the shelter that they need, or it will take them a while to figure it out,” Wheeler said.

A USU study found North America’s bumblebee population had declined by 93% in the last decade. Cited reasons for this decline were habitat loss, improper airway management, climate change, pathogens and pests, competition and colony collapse.

The study, titled “Factors Contributing to Bee Decline,” encourages people to grow native plants to encourage the creation of bee habitats, the very thing the UDOT pollinator enhancement program is trying to do.

Wheeler said the pollinator decline is concerning because of the instrumental role bees, butterflies and other pollinators play in the ecosystem.

“Pollination is kind of the basis of everything,” Wheeler said. “I think one out of every three bites of food is provided by — something by an insect that has pollinated that food. Pollination is also really important to our economy. If you don’t get things pollinated, you don’t get seeds. You need those seeds for plants to keep going.”

The report about the UDOT project, titled “The Pilot Pollinator Habitat at Utah Rest Area in Perry, Utah,” details the necessity of bees.

“It is estimated that pollination is needed for 75 percent of the crop plants grown worldwide for food, fiber, beverages, condiments, spices, and medicines. Moreover, one out of every three to four mouthfuls of food

buzzing oases collaboration

we consume is delivered to us by insect pollinators,” the report said.

In Utah, there are over 1,000 species of bees.

Joseph Wilson, an associate professor of biology, said there are over 4,000 different kinds of bees in the U.S. For reference, there are about 1,000 different kinds of birds.

Though there are some commonalities, each bee and each pollinator require different things. For instance, Wilson found 282 different bee species that visit milkweed, but not every species in his research did this.

Wilson said there are some things all bees need, though.

“They all need food, which is flowers, and they all need nesting habitat, which for 70% of them is ground and then for the other 30% is kind of mixed resources,” Wilson said. “For food, there’s not one plant that supports all bees.”

Wilson said some bees aren’t as picky, and certain species are more than happy to nest in backyards as cities grow, but some will only nest in sunny, bare ground.

One of the transformations the Perry rest stop underwent was the removal of sod. The report details this removal process, along with the construction to put in a trail, which allows

viewers to see the habitat without disturbing it.

“For the general public, a pollinator habitat is best viewed and enjoyed from a wandering but distinct walking path,” the report said.

The project protects the habitats of 361 plants and seeded 13 species in the project area.

Wheeler said this work has paid off. Beyond raising awareness of the importance of Utah’s pollinators, many pollinators like bees and butterflies are using this area as a stopover habitat.

“We have seen a really quite sizable increase in the number of insects that have been found there,” Wheeler said.

“The conversion of the south end of the Perry Rest Area to a functional pollinator habitat has been an overall success,” the report said. “The establishment of dozens of native species at the site has brought an associated increase of pollinator abundance and diversity, including breeding monarch butterflies, as the repeated pollinator surveys show.”

Students wanting to encourage pollinators to come to their own yards don’t need acres of land to contribute. Wilson said leaving a small patch of bare ground can act as a bee habitat.

People can also get pollinator kits through the Utah Pollinator Habitat Program.

Utah Avalanche Center aims to educate and prepare

SAM GOODMAN

PHOTOS BY JACK BURTON

Utah experiences a rollercoaster of snowfall trends, with some years breaking records and others seeing extreme drought. Regardless, the dangers of avalanches remain present for Utahns and those who enjoy the “greatest snow on earth.”

Since 1951, Utah has had 131 deaths due to avalanches, which ranks as the fourth highest in the United States, according to skiingthebackcountry. com. In 1980, the Utah Avalanche Center was founded in an effort to keep Utahns ready for avalanches through forecasts, training and prevention.

Paige Pagnucco, program director and forecaster, has worked at the center for 20 years.

“I oversee all of our education and awareness programming throughout the state,” Pagnucco said. “We do classes for people both on skis and snowboards.”

Utah is home to 15 ski resorts, which brings in many snowsports enthusiasts from around the world who may experience the dangers of an avalanche.

Along with official classes, which run from early December to March, Pagnucco said the center tries to educate people on the mountains.

“We go to trailheads and try to meet people heading

up for the day, we make sure they’re aware of avalanche danger, conditions and just general information,” Pagnucco said.

The amount and type of snowfall received greatly impacts the avalanche danger throughout the state. When Utah has a deeper snowpack, it tends to make things more stable.

“We have cycles of instabilities and, based on the weather, it mostly comes in and what’s no longer bound at the time,” Pagnucco said. “There’s a lot of factors that go into it.”

The center is dedicated to providing training and safety tips to Utah residents, including students at USU.

Greg Davis, the assistant director of USU outdoor programs, works to prepare students for their adventures.

“We’ve been hosting courses for AIARE, which is the American Institute of Avalanche Research and Education, a nonprofit organization,” Davis said. “That organization develops a curriculum for avalanche education.”

Davis and his team work with AIARE to train people on avalanche safety.

“They have professional staff that develops curriculum,” Davis said. “We partner with that organization and so we are a provider, and then myself and other instructors are trained to deliver that curriculum.”

AIARE has online courses for those who are unable to attend in-person, which Outdoor Programs endorses.

“Before you go, they offer very basic awareness courses they can do online,” Davis said. “You learn about some of the elements they have and how to kind of start your education progression.

The very first thing is to recognize the potential for avalanches and then kind of educate yourself so that you know where you can and can’t go around mountainous terrain.”

Jeremy Collett, the awareness coordinator at the avalanche center, educates people on safety and awareness when traveling through the snow.

Collett and other members of the center also do rescue training and prepare people for worst-case scenarios.

“We do quite a few avalanche rescue practices,” Collett said. “The goal is to introduce people to the process of avalanche rescue and get handson experience with avalanche transceivers, but they also serve as a refresher for folks to take an avalanche course before or on their own time to get practice with professionals.”

Avalanche safety training also includes companion rescue.

“We’re teaching people how to perform a companion rescue of their partner being buried in an avalanche,” Collett said. “Any of the things you learn in that course would essentially keep you from getting caught in an avalanche.”

World-renowned skier and Utah resident Catherine “Kasha” Rigby was caught and killed in an avalanche on Feb. 13.

The accident occurred at a ski resort in Kosovo, a country in southeastern Europe. The Kosovo Mountain Search and Rescue Service said in a Facebook statement they “received a call for help from the resort personnel about two skiers who had gotten lost in foggy conditions.”

Rigby, 54, was found in an area dubbed the “Eagle’s Nest,” which is known for its avalanche risks. She did not survive, despite her career of skiing experience and her skiing partner administering immediate CPR, according to the AP.

Despite the unpredictability of the elements, avalanche safety training can save lives, and Davis urged snowsports enthusiasts to seek further knowledge.

The center website posts updates about forecasts and avalanche danger, and they host regular events open to the public to attend. They train as many as possible to be prepared as well as take action in the case of an avalanche, and encourage people to check the website and its forecasts to “know before you go.”

“People need to be aware of those things. Knowing when to go and where to be is probably the most important thing, and making sure you’re trained and not getting hurt,” Davis said. “There are lots of ways to develop your awareness and education. The avalanche center is probably one of the best places in the country.”

Climate Adaptation Program helps

LAYLA ALNADAR

PHOTO BY JACK BURTON

Utah State University offers the Climate Adaptation Science program, a ninecredit interdisciplinary specialization that aims to integrate science, research and policy to approach the changing climate.

Comprising ten departments, including biology, ecology, environment and society and wildland resources, the program spans over two years and provides graduate students with handson experience in their field through extensive research and an internship with a project.

During the first few weeks, students are grouped together based on strengths and potential research interests. Throughout the first semester, they decide on a project that fits their workload, schedule and academic background.

The program’s fall 2020 cohort was made up of a combination of degrees such as ecology, wildland resources, environment and society and watershed sciences. Their project focused on rethinking agricultural methods for the Great Salt Lake’s survival.

Patrick Kelly, a Ph.D. student and CAS graduate, completed his project on alternative crops.

“Our team was interested in alternative crops for our changing climate here in Cache Valley,” Kelly said. “We had seen some of the worst drought years on record and knew that with water restrictions, farmers were suffering. A lack of water directly translates to a lack of income for many of them.”

Kelly, along with a team of four other graduate students, helped develop research for farmers to use if they wanted to switch from the current water-intensive crops to a more suitable option.

The students ran climate projections for Cache Valley, accounting for temperature and precipitation. They used these growing conditions for current crops and potential crops.

“We found that many crops use less water and can be more profitable than some of the major crops that are grown in Cache Valley currently,” Kelly said.

According to Kelly, there is a connection between their research and changing conditions for agriculture in the valley.

“We presented our findings at USU’s farm school,” Kelly said. “We talked to farmers about alternative crops that are less waterintensive, more heat-tolerant and the market conditions that made certain crops economically viable over others. We want farming to continue, but to also be economically viable so that folks can make ends meet, especially in water-scarce years where supply is limited.”

Kelly said the nature of his group’s project was interdisciplinary in nature, and focused on several aspects.

“We didn’t have an economist in our group but economics is a major part of our project,” Kelly said. “We were given the opportunity to connect with multiple economists to refine our methods and get quality data and tools to help solve issues.”

helps Cache Valley adjust to change

Mitchell Parsons, a Ph.D. candidate from the Department of Wildland Resources, was also part of the fall 2020 cohort that developed research on alternative crops.

“We explored future climate predictions to understand what growing season conditions may look like in the future,” Parsons said. “We then compiled data on a suite of currently grown and alternative crops and explored how they may grow in the future, what changes and replacements could be feasible and how decisions may depend on future water availability.”

Along with farmers and crops, wildlife is another piece of the biological web adapting to a changing climate.

“Learning to work with climate data can be useful when thinking about how many animals may have to shift their ranges to stay in their desired climates,” Parsons said.

Another component of the program is an internship with a government agency, a nonprofit or one of the organizations CAS is partnered with. In Kelly’s case, he served with a private working bison ranch.

Kelly said the resiliency of the bison species has incredible potential to contribute to food security.

“Where cattle suffer and perish, bison are just fine,” Kelly said.

As temperatures rise and become more extreme, cattle struggle to tolerate it and survive.

“Bison don’t just survive, but thrive in the temperature we’re seeing and have predicted to intensify,” Kelly said. “Bison have a much lower negative impact on landscapes compared to cattle, increasing the biodiversity of multiple taxa, which then improves landscape resilience to climate change.”

Students gain a range of skills and experience even outside their field due to the program’s rich interdisciplinary coursework.

“The most valuable aspect was gaining experience working outside my typical field of wildlife biology,” Kelly said. “This gave me the opportunity to work with different data types, interact with different stakeholders and think about different challenges related to the broad field of ecology.”

An important pillar of the program is the interaction between science and policy. The CAS program integrates the two fields through both coursework and guest speakers.

Abby Bushman, the program coordinator, regularly assists students with project development, internship planning and navigating the program.

“The speakers vary for each cohort and are chosen to help them with their research and become better communicators,” Bushman said.

“Perhaps the conversations with state employees and representatives were the most tangible integration of science and policy,” Parsons said. “Throughout the program, we took courses on decision-making, met with speakers from science and policy backgrounds, and participated in panels that included scientists, state employees and state representatives.”

Climate change and adaptations bring on complex issues that take a collaborative effort to approach, and the program attracts an array of students from different disciplines.

“We had students from all across the sciences coming together, each bringing their expertise to solve real world problems,” Kelly said. “We had the freedom to learn as well.”

Following graduation, students go on to work at federal or state agencies, industry giants such as BioWest, nonprofits or universities.

“Sometimes in school, we learn to leave specialist information to specialists,” Kelly said. “In CAS, we were encouraged to be that bridge, gain new skills and knowledge sets, and integrate holistically how to solve these very real and very diverse problems.”