Meet our Guests: Susie Knezevich

Susie Knezevich

Interior designer and co-owner of Johnson Lakes Canyon property

Kanab, UT

9/30/21

     Recent rains have turned large portions of the road leading to Johnson Lakes Canyon outside of Kanab, UT, into soup, but this doesn’t stop Susie Knezevich from reaching the property that she has worked so hard to restore. Almost 20 years ago Susie and her husband Rick, who both reside in Aspen, CO, were looking for a parcel of land where they could hike and camp. In 2004 they purchased an 800-acre private inholding in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, a land dominated by sand, sage, and bluffs. Their land, however, was not in the best condition for hiking. Decades of cattle grazing had destroyed native vegetation and allowed prickly invasive plants such as Russian olive and bull thistle to proliferate.

     “We decided to take the cattle off the land because we noticed the damage and we needed to begin fixing that,” Susie said. The Knezevichs worked with the Grand Canyon Trust, a regional environmental group, to put their land under a conservation easement in 2015 to ensure that it will remain free from the beefy ungulates in perpetuity.

     The Johnson Lakes Canyon property now serves as a reference area for the surrounding National Monument which remains heavily grazed by cattle. Susie and her husband have worked with ecologist and SITW guest educator Mary O’Brien to bring in biologists, students, and volunteers to conduct research and restoration projects with the goal of showing how the land has rebounded since grazing has ceased. Susie excitedly shared that the native oaks, cottonwoods, and willows are reaching heights and numbers not noted for years. “We were unlikely characters to get involved in conservation treatments, but now we are really hooked!” says Susie.

By Ani Pham

Meet our Educators: Mary O'Brien

Mary O’Brien

Scientist, activist, stakeholder member of Monroe Mountain Working Group

Castle Valley, UT

9/16/21 - 10/3/21

Mary O’Brien has worn a lot of hats during her more than 30 years of work on environmental causes. She is a Ph.D. botanist and an activist who has been involved with kickstarting regulations for toxic chemicals in Oregon, preserving the Hells Canyon National Recreation area, and, most recently, pushing for responsible management of range areas. In the intermountain West this applies to a vast amount of land given that most public land in this country is open to livestock grazing. Mary has seen and documented the negative impacts cattle have on these places—trampled and incised streams, loss of riparian habitat, and reduced biodiversity in forest—and she believes there need to be fewer cows on public lands.

On Monroe Mountain in south-central Utah, the Forest Service is currently undergoing a restructuring of grazing allotments. They will decide how many cattle will be allowed in what areas, and what environmental standards will be enforced for the foreseeable future. Mary gathers scientific data such as the height of grasses in riparian areas, to hold organizations like the Forest Service accountable to commitments they have made to conserve habitat.

Mary explains that “the interesting thing about numbers and methods that anyone can repeat, is that you can’t deny that . . .if they think we’re making stuff up, they can go to that spot and rerun their own transects.” The Forest Service must take this undeniable proof (i.e. data collected in the National Forest) into account when they make decisions. She sees science as a way of taking the human perspective out of the picture, and letting other species speak through the data. She firmly believes the nonhuman members of the Utah ecosystem deserve a seat at the decision-making table.

     Mary works hard, walks fast, and holds herself and her work to a high standard of accuracy. She pushed the Westies to do what it takes to get accurate and precise data, hiking far over cacti and scrambling through juniper trees to set the tape measure in a straight line for a transect. When it came time to write up reports, she edited the work that 20 students produced almost as fast as it could be written. Multiple drafts later, reports were sent in to the Forest Service to be considered when planning the new grazing rules in Monroe Mountain.

By Reya Fore

Meet our Guests: Tom Page

Tom Page

Rancher and Policy Chair, Western Landowners Alliance

Challis, ID

9/12/2021

At the foot of the Lemhi Mountains in central Idaho, Tom Page stands beside a babbling creek. Tom is the Policy Chair for Western Landowners Alliance, an organization dedicated to supporting working landscapes and native ecosystems around the western U.S. He also manages Big Creek Ranch where he grazes cattle and implements restoration projects to support endangered species like Chinook and Steelhead. Tom owns 8,000 acres of the ranch outright, and holds the grazing permit for the remaining 112,000 acres of public land.

The creek Tom stands beside is a perfect example of his restoration efforts. Eight years ago, this land was a feedlot; the ground a foot-deep soup of mud and manure. Now the creek wanders through banks of willow and is surrounded by fields of grasses, all thanks to the water reallocation and stream restoration Tom has done since buying the property in 2014.

Not only does Tom labor tirelessly to restore habitat for critical species on his property, he is also intent on understanding and changing policies that govern land use so they will be more protective of functioning ecosystems. Tom is aware that much of the impressive restoration that he has done at Big Creek Ranch, from putting irrigation water back in streams to wildlife friendly fencing, could be easily undone under new ownership. Tom’s role at the Western Landowners Alliance allows him to advocate for change that will codify restoration of this land that he loves for generations to come.

By Morgan Sharp

Meet our Guests: John Rohrer

John Rohrer

U.S. Forest Service Program Manager

Methow Valley, Washington

8/28/21-8/30/21

     John Rohrer is the USFS Program Manager for Range, Weeds, Botany and Wildlife based in the Okanogan National Forest. John is a soft-spoken, thoughtful biologist who has numerous interests within the Methow valley and battles with a wide range of dilemmas in the ecological and political spheres.

     John’s wide-ranging job description means that he is involved with a variety of forest management decisions and the dilemmas that often accompany those decisions. For example, John has worked with fire rangers in an attempt to address the issue of overly dense forests that need thinning to prevent massive fires that have decimated the valley in recent years. However, thinning is difficult to begin because of the restrictions on cutting trees down due to the presence of the endangered spotted owl who resides in these forests. John also works on other projects such as his effort to reintroduce beavers to Black Pine Lake. Outside of his official job, John is a snake enthusiast who captures pesky rattlesnakes in the valley, monitors them and houses them on his property.

By Wes Johnston

Meet our Guests: Gabe Spence and Zoë Hanley

Gabe Spence and Zoë Hanley

Wolf Biologist, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife; and Northwest Representative, Defenders of Wildlife

Methow Valley, Washington

9/2/21

Crouched over a dusty road in the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest, Gabe Spence and Zoë Hanley point out aged prints of a wolf pack living in the area. Gabe is a wolf biologist with Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife and an expert tracker. Zoë Hanley is a wildlife ecologist with the conservation group Defenders of Wildlife. In many areas including this one, wolves naturally returned from surrounding regions after being hunted out of existence. This has caused significant conflict with livestock producers in rural communities, and Zoë and Gabe are right in the middle of this conflict.

Through the muddled dust, Gabe can tell that the wolf chased a coyote in full sprint down the road and then laid down, the prints exposing the movements and the size of the animal. He can use his tracking abilities and collars on the wolves to study them and keep track of how they are doing. Zoë primarily works to mitigate conflict between livestock producers and wolves. She explains the complicated relationship between cows and wolves and how the American public has let cattle graze in wolf territory, leading to the death of ranchers’ cows, especially calves. Ranchers cannot handle the economic loss. But it is also the rancher’s choice to have their cows in wolf territory and the wolves don’t see the difference between a deer and a cow, they just see dinner for their pack. Zoë believes that it is possible for humans to learn to coexist with wolves, but it is difficult to navigate the challenges of non-lethal forms of protection. Both Zoë and Gabe show a deep love for the animal they study as well as a hint of weariness in their eyes caused by the challenges they face in their work.

By Haley Post