Meet our Guests: Peter Sanzenbacher

Peter Sanzenbacher

Wildlife Biologist, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Shoshone, CA

11/16/21

     Wearing an out-of-place New England Patriots hat in the Mojave Desert near the town of Shoshone, California, Peter Sanzenbacher shares his main project for the past four years or so: conserving the California condor, an iconic species of the Western United States. He says that this species, which almost went extinct in the wild in the 1970s, faces difficulties surviving amidst a rapidly developing world. Today, the main cause of condor mortality on the landscape is lead poising, ingested from people shooting wildlife and condors scavenging the carcasses. However, another particular threat to the species has turned out to be the wind energy industry. As more and more turbines pop up, they become dangerous obstacles for birds that call breezy areas their home.

     As a wildlife biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Peter attempts to bridge the gap between condors and hunters and wind businesses alike. He makes sure to emphasize that he is working with industry in partnership, not fighting against it. In conversation, Peter shares a guiding question of his recent work: “how do we approach this in a way where we can protect condors and have a source of renewable energy on the landscape?” Peter hopes his work can be a model for other regions encountering the conflicts between species conservation and green energy.

By Ruthie Colburn

Meet our Guests: Brian Brown

Brian Brown

Owner of China Ranch

Tecopa, CA

11/18/21

     Brian Brown is the owner and operator of China Ranch, a date farm and desert oasis near Tecopa, California. In the arid Death Valley, the rarity of water makes China Ranch one of few riparian areas, bursting with cottonwoods, willows, and date trees. Rich with geology, botany, birds, and a long record of human activity, China Ranch preserves the history of the Old Spanish Trail, and the wildlife that rely on the abundant water source of Willow Creek.

     Brian and his late wife Bonnie bought the property and changed its course by planting many varieties of date trees and operating a business selling dates and date-related products. They made a commitment to the land and the species that rely on it through a conservation easement with the Nature Conservancy. The land is protected from further development and will be maintained into the future for a healthy ecosystem.

     After a morning of cleaning up fallen palm fronds from the date trees, Brian took the Westies on a tour of his property. He talked about the impacts of a recent fire that burned over 20 acres of riparian habitat. China Ranch and the Nature Conservancy have made a commitment to restoring the burnt habitat for the many species of wildlife that find solace in one of Death Valley’s few oases.

By Haley Post

Meet our Guests: Jon Christensen

Jon Christensen

Environmental Historian (UCLA), Journalist

Sand to Snow National Monument, CA

11/12/2021

As a long-time journalist covering the West, Jon Christensen has long reported on and taught about the West’s most archetypal quality: conflict. Whether it’s early settler conflicts, public lands extremism, the rural-urban divide, water wars, or recent megafires, the West has long appeared in media as the American region of crisis.

To challenge the historical conflict-mythos, Jon strives to forefront stories that upend it. To provide the Westies with an example, Jon played his feature-length documentary “Politics and the Environment of the New West,” a depiction of former Nevada Senator Harry Reid’s career. Harry Reid legislated numerous, often collaborative conservation decisions in Nevada, satisfying many, but not all, ranchers, hunters, environmentalists, farmers, and corporations. Portraying Senator Reid as a champion of grassroots representation and bipartisanship, Jon highlighted a rarely heard-of occurrence in today’s politically polarizing climate. He then encouraged Westies to do the same: dig into their collection of field experiences and help create a new, inspiring narrative of the West.

By Fielding Schaefer

Meet our Guests: Kerry Holcomb

Kerry Holcomb

Biologist, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Mojave Desert, CA

11/12/21

     Deep in the Mojave Desert, giant boulders are playfully stacked atop one another while Joshua trees tilt and dance in the mid-day sun. The scene fits better into a Dr. Seuss novel than a modern-day conservation story.

      Amidst the fantasia, Kerry Holcomb, a biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), proclaims, “you can’t do conservation if you ignore the human element.”

      After moving from Appalachia to the desert, Kerry turned his focus to the endangered desert tortoise. At one time, desert tortoises were the dominant herbivores on the landscape, sequestering carbon and changing the mosaic of plant communities. But now, Kerry explains, “we have functionally extinct populations [of desert tortoises] in parts of the Mojave.” And he believes ravens are to blame.

     Thanks to the advent of the air conditioner, non-native people started settling in the desert, and raven populations began to multiply rapidly. Ravens are generalists, meaning they can adapt to a wide range of ecological conditions. Ravens adapted well to their new food source at landfills and as their populations soared, they added the desert tortoise to their menu as well.

     Both ravens and tortoises are holy to the Mojave and Chemehuevi people, but Kerry explains, “the Tribes see the dichotomy of the tortoise being higher than the ravens.”

     In a desperate attempt to save the desert tortoise, the USFWS has resorted to oiling, which causes suffocation of raven eggs to diminish their population. But, with new houses popping up in the desert every day, Kerry recognizes that the desert tortoise has a human problem, not a raven problem.

By Josh Matz