Headwaters 2019

issue

four 2019

Coexistence An elusive, noble goal read about WILDLIFE CROSSINGS booming Carbon emissions PROTECTING DARK SKIES CLIMATE CHANGE AND PLANTS

NUTRIENT POLLUTION Nutrient pollution occurs when there is an excess of nitrogen and phosphorus in water. It is one of Teton County’s most serious water pollution issues today.

Limiting nutrient pollution will protect people’s health, support the economy, and keep our water safe for drinking, fishing and swimming.

Nutrient pollution is widespread:

50 OUT OF 50 STATES are impacted by nutrient pollution

Where does nutrient pollution come from?

WAS TEWATE R Sewer and septic systems are treating increasingly large quantities of waste as our residential and tourist populations grow. They do not always operate properly or remove enough nitrogen and phosphorus before discharging into waterways.

LA N DS CA P E F E RTIL IZ E RS When too much fertilizer is applied on lawns, any nutrients not used by the turf infiltrates to groundwater or is carried in runoff to the nearest body of water.

The excess nutrients contribute to prolific and problematic algae blooms.

LI V E S TO C K , H O RS E S , A N D P E TS When the nitrogen and phosphorus in animal waste are not fully utilized by plants, the excess can infiltrate into groundwater or runoff into surface waters.

S TO R MWAT E R R UN O F F When precipitation falls on urban areas, it runs across impermeable surfaces— like rooftops, sidewalks, and roads—and carries nitrogen, phosphorus and other pollutants into local waterways.

What are the effects of nutrient pollution?

HE A LT H Ingestion of drinking water with elevated nitrate levels is a human health concern in Teton County. It has been associated with Blue baby syndrome in infants, as well as increased risks of some types of cancer and birth defects.

Excess nutrients can cause toxic algae blooms. Exposure to this algae can cause rashes, stomach and liver illnesses, respiratory problems, and neurological effects (and can be fatal to pets).

EN V IR O N ME N T Harmful algal blooms can be toxic to fish and degrade habitat for aquatic insects, negatively impacting aquatic ecosystems.

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features

Photograph by Bradly J. Boner

OUR contents

8 // PLANNING ahead

12 // A KEY lesson

Bridging a future for wildlife

Coexisting with our constellations

A movement is afoot to retrofit Jackson Hole roadways to better suit our native inhabitants, but there’s a long way to go to eliminate perilous passages.

Compared to similar communities, Jackson Hole loses a big part of outer space to light pollution.

By Kylie Mohr

By Allie Gross

24 // CLEANING up

28 // TREADING carefully

As economy blooms, carbon emissions boom

Out in the wild, our impacts are real

By Thomas Dewell

By Mike Koshmrl

6 //WELCOME TO conservation

16 // STEPPING up

Big vision and bold action are needed.

An upstart rehabilitation center looks to an established one for inspiration.

WHAT ELSE IS INSIDE

In the 10 years since Jackson Hole last assessed its carbon footprint, the economy has boomed — as has our impact on the planet’s ever-warming temperature.

Time for a conservation ‘moonshot’

By Jon Mobeck

Helping hurt wildlife: clinics grow and learn

By Mike Koshmrl

20 // A BIOLOGIST’S take

Imperfect pasture: The way forward for the good of our elk herd Refuge feeding isn’t good for the animals.

By Bruce Smith

4

Ecologist and educator says people recreating are “remarkably unaware” of how they’re affecting the environment around them, impacts that managers are trying to get a grip on.

Headwaters issue #4

31 // PEERING forward

Ecological adaptability

A Jackson Hole scientist is following up on Craighead’s “phenology” research, with an eye to the future.

By Trevor Bloom

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Learn more at WWW.PROTECTOURWATERJH.ORG Algae bloom in Fish Creek

EDITOR’S notes What’s coexistence?

I was sitting in on a Wyoming Public Lands Initiative meeting last year when a veteran Jackson Hole biologist remarked how the scientific literature indicates mountain biking has a significant impact on wildlife. Those meetings attracted a diverse bunch of folks, including many fellow residents who had made it clear that they weren’t enthused about reclassifying lands because that might limit their favorite outdoor activities, be it mountain biking, snowmobiling or whatever.

The biologist who spoke has always struck me as a salt-ofthe-earth Wyoming guy and not exactly an agenda-driven radical.

He prefaced his statement with, “I know some of you don’t want to hear this.” And they didn’t. When he uttered that statement a mountain biker sitting near me nudged his buddy, turned his head and whispered, “Bullshit.” “Why dismiss him so readily?” I asked myself. The closed-minded, knee-jerk reaction made me angry.

This edition of Headwaters, the News&Guide’s conservationthemed magazine now in its fourth year, coalesces around the idea of coexisting with the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. The concept is simple: Live in harmony with the landscape and its spectacular flora and fauna. Execution is another story.

Achieving “coexistence” is inherently difficult when our community is growing and our footprint constantly expanding.

There will be more of us in the future, and in time those people will have more tools to get us deeper into wild places that are facing new pressures.

Restraint and heeding science are, and will continue to be, keys to successful conservation, and central tenets of our aspirational coexistence.

In the pages to follow, Headwaters’ writers explore some of the most pressing environmental issues that routinely make Jackson Hole headlines, like wildlife-vehicle collisions and elk feeding. Other topics covered probably don’t get enough attention. Turn the pages to learn how the community’s overall carbon footprint is growing — and at a rate that outpaces population growth. Value our starry skies? Educate yourself about light pollution, a real problem even in this remote place.

While researching one of these stories I learned that being off-trail with a dog in seldom-visited wild places has about as big an impact as an outdoor activity can have. It reminded me of one of my favorite fall pursuits: blue grouse hunting, a hobby I owe to my obsessed pudelpointer, Sota, and love of the delicious chickenlike wild meat.

Every time we go out, I realized, our fun sends wildlife scampering from hundreds of yards away, even if I don’t see it (not to mention the grouse whose lives are ending).

We all have impacts. It would behoove each of us to consider what those are, accept them and, if the goal is to coexist, change our behavior accordingly. I’m not sure how, or if, I’ll change my grouse hunting routine, but compiling this magazine has me thinking about it.

Later in the same meeting, the biker who muttered “bullshit” gave a heartfelt account of why he loved mountain biking. He’s a thoughtful person. Maybe he, too, will start rethinking his routine.

- Mike Koshmrl

WORTHY contributors

Kylie Mohr

Bruce Smith

Thomas Dewell

Jon Mobeck

Kylie Mohr grew up in Washington, went to college in Washington D.C., and loves the mountains in the middle. Formerly the News&Guide health and education reporter, Mohr is a recent Missoula transplant earning her master’s degree in environmental journalism at the University of Montana. When she’s not writing, you can find her skiing, hiking, camping and attempting to fly-fish. She currently hooks more logs than hogs.

Story on page 12.

Bruce Smith is a wildlife biologist who spent most of his career with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the last 22 as the National Elk Refuge biologist.

He’s an award-winning author of five books of natural history, science and outdoor adventure, most recently “Stories from Afield: Adventures with Wild Things in Wild Places.” He lives in Bozeman, Montana, and writes and lectures to promote conservation of wildlife and wildlands.

Story on page 20.

Thomas Dewell first reported on the valley’s carbon emissions in 2009 when he served as co-editor of the Jackson Hole News&Guide, a job he held though 2012. He lives in Wilson with his wife, children and pets and operates DewellDigital.com.

He assuages his carbon guilt by driving a 2008 Toyota Prius hybrid.

Story on page 24.

Jon Mobeck is executive director of the Jackson Hole Wildlife Foundation, where he combines on-the-ground work with creating science-based policy recommendations. He has lived in Jackson for most of the past two decades. He’s directed the Murie Center in Grand Teton National Park and spent a year in Boulder, Colorado, as director of partnerships and development with the international WILD Foundation.

Story on page 6.

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Headwaters issue #4

Special supplement written and produced by the

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

PHOTO: CINDY GOEDDEL

PROTECT WHAT YOU LOVE.

Photographers: Bradly J. Boner, Ryan Dorgan,

THAT’S WHY WE’RE PUSHING FOR WILDLIFE CROSSINGS IN TETON COUNTY TO CONSERVE WILDLIFE AND CREATE SAFE HIGHWAYS.

Amber Baesler, Rebecca Noble, Price Chambers, Rugile Kaladyte

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Graphic Design: Andy Edwards

Contributors: Kylie Mohr, Allie Gross, Bruce Smith, Mike Koshmrl, Thomas Dewell, Jon Mobeck, Trevor Bloom Advertising Sales: Karen Brennan, Tom Hall, Megan LaTorre, Oliver O’Connor, David Szugyi Advertising Coordinator: Tatum Biciolis Creative DIRECTOR: Sarah Wilson Advertising Design: Lydia Redzich, Luis F. Ortiz, Heather Haseltine Office Manager: Kathleen Godines Customer Service Managers: Lucia Perez, Rudy Perez Circulation: Jeff Young

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7

WELCOME TO conservation

Jon Mobeck, executive director of the Jackson Hole Wildlife Foundation

Time for a conservation ‘moonshot’

also a pretty good place for wildlife.

Or is it? There has never been a time when more people lived here, when more people visited here and when more traffic lined our highways. We will probably say that again next year, and the year after.

As the late Jackson Hole-based biologist Olaus Murie asked, “Can we demonstrate our willingness to accept restraint and limit our effect on the larger community of life?” We feel changes occurring. We notice trends. We know quite a lot about this place, thanks to incredible scientific endeavors spanning generations. Yet we admit that we also know very little. The system is complex. Relationships between parts of the ecosystem evolve.

By Jon Mobeck // Photograph by Bradly J. Boner

I

t’s 9:15 on a summer evening in Jackson Hole. A common nighthawk zips above the cottonwoods, its white wing bars giving it away in the twilight. PEEENT! Hear it? Nearby, a great horned owl perches, eyes fixed on a skunk. People in cars are driving home after a satisfying dinner. Others are just now heading to work. The owl swiftly dives, sending the skunk into a scamper. It scurries up an embankment, then waddles onto asphalt. There’s a collision!

The owl is clobbered by a car. One of its wings flaps wildly. The other, broken, hangs low. It is an end or a beginning.

In this amazing place, we enjoy protected national parks buffered by a rare intact ecosystem of international importance.

We love it here, and so does everyone else. Life is good! So far, it is 8

Headwaters issue #4

Figuring out how to fulfill our needs and consider nature’s needs is hard work. It’s difficult to comprehend at once all of the impacts our existence has on the wild community of which we are a part. We easily understand some of the large problems, such as wildlife-vehicle collisions. We know that a dam has changed a river, and a plain. We have a busy airport that shares habitat with sage grouse. The impacts of climate change may not be obvious in the moment – unless you are a pika – yet we see ominous signs. We have concerns about elk feeding and, likewise, misgivings about the effects of eliminating the practice. We know that habitat loss and migration corridor degradation are major problems, yet we seldom discuss actions that consider all of these things at once, at scale. While we remain focused on individual projects and the environmental impacts and concessions that enable each of them,

the larger system degrades incrementally in our peripheral view.

Beyond these big issues, wildlife are hit with a deluge of humancaused impacts daily in Jackson Hole. A mule deer is entangled in the top wires of a barbed wire fence. A red-tailed hawk dies after eating a mouse poisoned by rodenticide. A grizzly bear is euthanized after too many conflicts with livestock. A western tanager smashes fatally into a living room window. An eagle is poisoned by ingesting lead from bullet shards in a carcass. Pesticides, fertilizers and other pollutants wash into Flat Creek, Fish Creek and the Snake River.

An osprey is suspended upside down from a nest, caught in baling twine, while another is electrocuted on a power line. A black bear is put down because it grew fond of Jenny Lake picnic table leftovers.

A woodpecker is hung up in a hammock. A house cat swats down a yellow warbler. A dog chases a bounding white-tailed deer. An invasive species is introduced to a backcountry lake, setting off a new series of effects. The list is long, so we’ll stop there for now.

What do we need to do to reduce these conflicts and “preserve and protect the area’s ecosystem,” as Teton County’s Comprehensive Plan rightfully demands? How will we ensure that humans and wildlife live compatibly here for generations hence?

“If we are to do all this, and do it right ... then we must be bold.”

That quote came from President John F. Kennedy in 1962, when he set a goal — made a promise, really — that by the end of the decade, the United States would send people to the moon

and return them safely to Earth. Kennedy implored that we should chase such a bold vision “not because it was easy, but because it was hard.”

It’s time for a conservation moonshot. What ambitious goals and actions could this gifted community realize by 2030 — roughly by the end of the next decade — that would ensure a future in which we thrive within a wild and intact natural system?

Three years after Kennedy’s proclamation, Olaus Murie’s brother, Adolph, made an impassioned plea to the conservation community: “Let us not have puny thoughts,” the legendary Jackson Hole biologist said. “Let us think on a greater scale. Let us not have those of the future decry our smallness of concept and lack of foresight.” We might rally around the words of our valley’s 20th-century visionaries, without whom we would not know the wildness we enjoy today.

Can we restrain ourselves from overrunning this landscape?

Have we done everything we can to prevent injuries and deaths to wildlife? The great horned owl described in the opening paragraph is hypothetical, but it’s a scenario that unfolds routinely. And that owl might survive, because this community has a world-class institution dedicated to rehabilitating injured raptors. We respond well and quickly to threats. We care about wildlife. But will we anticipate and act as well as we react?

The pressures are many and growing. The opportunity is great.

The time is now.

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9

PLANNING ahead

Bridging a future

for wildlife A movement is afoot to retrofit Jackson Hole roadways to better suit our native inhabitants, but there’s a long way to go to eliminate perilous passages.

By Allie Gross

A

fter a shift at the Blackrock Ranger Station in fall 1996, Steve Deutsch was driving his Ford Ranger on Highway 26/89/191 near Moran when he swerved to avoid a moose on the road.

The next thing he knew, he was in a hospital in Miami, having woken from a 10-day coma, paralyzed on his left side with extensive brain damage. Lurching the truck to avoid the quarter-ton ungulate rolled the vehicle over, changing the course of his life. “From my personal experience, I realize that the cost of one accident to our society as a whole is monumental,” Deutsch said.

He’s been receiving Social Security in the 23 years since and has had an array of related health challenges that Medicare and the taxpayer have been paying for. It’s why Deutsch likes to say that wildlife-crossings pay for themselves, despite some initial sticker shock.

“Wildlife crossings protect people,” he said, “as much as the wildlife.”

After the accident, Deutsch went on to become one of dozens in the 10

Headwaters issue #4

Jackson Hole community who have advocated for structures to allow animals to cross over and under the area’s highways. A movement that began as banter on a West Gros Ventre Butte couch has united conservation nonprofits, galvanized popular support and landed a $10 million tax measure for crossings on the November ballot.

“It felt like a smaller number of people turned into a mass public movement for structures,” said Jon Mobeck, executive director of the Jackson Hole Wildlife Foundation. The new and longtime Jackson Hole residents pushing for more wildlife-friendly roads still have work to do. They must convince the community that crossings really work, keep building the momentum and secure funds to actually get some crossings in the ground.

Anyone commuting in the summer to Wilson or over Teton Pass to Teton Valley, Idaho, can tell you: Jackson Hole traffic is increasing.

It’s not just anecdotal. According to a town and county report, in 2017 motor vehicles traveled more than 592 million miles within the

RIGHT:Joel Pintius and his wife, Laura, of Goshen, Indiana, talk to their kids, Emmy, 7, and Evelyn, 3, in June about a moose that was killed the night before at the intersection of Highways 22 and 390, the second killed at the intersection in less than a week. After the moose deaths, wildlife advocates heavily lobbied town and county officials to place funding for wildlife crossings near the intersection on the next SPET ballot. BRADLY J. BONER OPPOSITE: Pronghorn cross the wildlife overpass near Daniel during their mid-October migration to winter range in 2012. Many miles of fence were installed along Highway 191 to funnel wildlife to the overpasses to facilitate a safe crossing over the highway. BRADLY J. BONER county, surpassing the community’s 2035 goal of 560 million miles. Our roads are busy and growing busier 20 years ahead of the projections.

Herds of the valley’s megafauna — specifically elk, deer and moose — have shifted where they call home on the landscape, concentrating on developed and semideveloped habitats. Simultaneously, those lands are being ever more chopped up and populated by people, roads and cars.

The “wall of cars” from growing volumes of traffic on Teton County highways bisects important wildlife habitat, Wyoming Game

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and Fish biologist Aly Courtemanch said. That “wall” functionally severs migration routes to seasonal ranges and creates perilous passages for animals that need to cross roads in their daily lives.

Every added barrier like fences, homes and roads is a new obstacle to wildlife’s ability to travel in their search for something to eat, Mobeck said. “They can’t survive without moving from one food source to another,” he said. “Therefore, in the long term, if we don’t maintain these corridors then we don’t maintain these wildlife populations.”

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With the recent expansion of More vehicles on South Highway 89 between the road means animals Jackson and Hoback, a are being hit, too. The wildlife underpass was roadkill metrics are added to give animals safer increasing, according access to the lowlands near to data from the the South Park feedground.

Jackson Hole Wildlife RYAN DORGAN Foundation.

That nonprofit has tallied 5,064 collisions in the county since 1990 — and that number doesn’t include Grand Teton National Park.

The highest year yet was 2016-17, when a historic winter pushed ungulates downhill toward highways.

Courtemanch, her colleagues and police officers see it firsthand: When a large ungulate like a moose or elk is struck by a vehicle and doesn’t die immediately, they receive the call in the middle of the night to run out and end its misery.

“Every animal that gets hit,” Courtemanch said, “obviously that’s sad, and we don’t want that to happen.” But vehicle strikes are also reaching a point, she said, where they could be having a populationlevel effect on some species. The Jackson Moose Herd population is estimated to number 450, and around 20 of those animals are hit and killed annually.

Building infrastructure National parks in the Canadian Rockies have decades of history building wildlife crossing structures and have carefully researched their effectiveness. One study that monitored 44 of those crossings found that wildlife strikes were slashed by an average of 80% despite increasing traffic volumes. There was a corresponding increase in ungulate survival. “They work remarkably well when they’re well-planned and well-placed,” Parks Canada road ecologist Trevor Kinley said. “You can expect significant reductions in wildlife-vehicle collisions and improvements in wildlife connectivity.”

The success stories also exist closer to home, said Wyoming Department of Transportation District Engineer Keith Compton. Seven underpasses added to Nugget Canyon between Kemmerer and Cokeville were 81% effective at reducing mule deer strikes on Highway 30 by the structures’ third year. At the Trapper’s Point overpass and underpass network near Pinedale, collisions with pronghorn were essentially eliminated and mule deer collisions reduced 79%. “They are 80% to 90% effective in reducing wildlife-vehicle collisions,” Compton said. “That is an incredible statistic in my mind. In places where they’re warranted and really needed, they are definitely effective.

They’re expensive but effective.”

Those are about the results that Western Transportation Institute employee Rob Ament would expect. Ament helped author the Teton County Wildlife Crossings Master Plan, adopted in June 2018. That plan found that other less costly additions to roads, like warning signs, can reduce collisions by 9% to 50%. In order to work effectively, crossings must be carefully sited, Ament said. GPS location information from tracked animals, roadkill data and other field observations are all used to fine-tune the location. The type and size of a crossing must fit the target species, and some animals are fussier than others: Elk and 12

Headwaters issue #4

moose prefer overpasses, while a bobcat or a coyote will cross just about anything. Strategic fencing is another ingredient. For a crossing to work, high fences must (ideally) extend a few miles on either side of a crossing to funnel animals to the safe juncture.

Limitations Even in the ideal location, actually getting a crossing in the ground can be challenging. The land on either side has to suit an under- or overpass, for example. Ownership and the need for easements is another potential barrier, Compton said.

Some locations are far from perfect. The Highway 22/390 intersection is the No. 1 priority hot spot in the county’s wildlife crossings master plan. While Banff and WYDOT’s Trapper’s Point crossings are built on long stretches of rural highway, this busy intersection is more complex, with a major river, driveways, parking lots, a stoplight, and other obstacles. Fencing, cattle guards and potentially tools like electrified mats will be needed to supplement the actual structures. It’s such a busy, complex area, Mobeck said, that building a wildlife crossing there will be “almost experimental.”

Wildlife will need time to learn to use the crossings, and success won’t come instantaneously.

As WYDOT plans to replace the intersection in 2023, the state has included $2.5 million in the budget to cover two crossings. If voters approve the specific purpose excise tax in November, Teton County may fund an additional two at the site. Hefty price tags are another obstacle to building the crossings. The Trapper’s Point network of overpasses and underpasses cost $9.7 million.

But experts say it’s worth it. The Western Transportation Institute has estimated the average cost of a deer-vehicle collision at $8,190, factoring in human injury, insurance claims, the value of the animal, etc. A moose-vehicle collision costs $44,546. When those factors are multiplied by tens and then hundreds, the cost to society adds up quickly.

Prospects Some of the first murmurs about Jackson Hole wildlife crossings were made on Vance Carruth’s living room couch about a decade ago. Carruth, a retired photographer, had been a tour director in the Canadian Rockies and knew the success of the extensive network of crossings there. He sensed that worsening traffic posed a threat to

Tetons wildlife — and perceived an opportunity. “I thought at the time,” Carruth said, “that’s what we need here in Jackson Hole.”

Seeking to unite conservationists around crossings, Carruth convened the gathering at his West Gros Ventre Butte home for a discussion, and Safe Wildlife Crossings for Jackson Hole was born.

Progress has come slowly. When the highway over Togwotee Pass was rebuilt, a few crossings were added, though fencing is lacking.

WYDOT is in the process of building and retrofitting six underpasses on South Highway 89 as well, investing more than $8 million in the structures, simultaneous with the project to widen that road.

Now, voters have a chance to approve $10 million for crossings in November through a SPET ballot measure. The Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance rallied crossings advocates to send hundreds of postcards to elected officials asking for support. The 40-year-old advocacy group has mobilized Jackson Hole’s transient, younger generation to show up to public meetings wearing antlers and make impassioned please for wildlife. They’ve phone-banked, canvassed and held art exhibitions. They’ve already dispatched canvassers to rally support for the SPET ballot measure.

“This is a very large investment,” Conservation Alliance organizer Ryan Nourai said, “but in the long run … there is a return to the individual for millions of dollars.”

Wildlife crossings largely have the public’s support, which is perhaps why they’ve become such a focal point for the local

conservation community: It’s a bipartisan issue that appeals to all age groups. In a valley where so much of planning for growth is divisive — zoning, widening roads, redevelopment, housing projects — it’s something people can unite around.

Partly, it’s because it’s familiar. A 2013 Conservation Alliance poll found that 96% of Teton County residents have seen roadkill on our roads, and 84% had collided with a critter or knew someone who had. Overall, 82% of people polled supported wildlife crossings. “It’s like mom and apple pie,” former Conservation Alliance Director Craig Benjamin said. “It’s incredibly well supported.” Hitting and killing or crippling an animal is intensely personal, and visceral. Social media has amplified the reach of animals being hit, Mobeck said, exposing more people to photos of accidents and stirring more support for a solution. “Every moose that gets hit is a story,” he said, “[and] every moose goes viral.”

Those emblems of the wild and the vast array of large ungulates that still thrive in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem are partly why people live and work here. In the years until more Jackson Hole crossings are built, there are short-term solutions available to safeguard the moose, elk, deer, pronghorn and other species that call this place home, Teton County engineer Amy Ramage said. Among the options are strategic lighting, electrified mats that steer animals away from the roads, and animal detection systems that warn drivers of animals on or near highways. “The traffic — it’s not going to go away,” Ramage said. “I think people are starting to realize we have to do something rather than just let it keep happening unchecked.”

2019 Headwaters

13

A KEY lesson

Coexisting with our

constellations Compared to similar communities, Jackson Hole loses a big part of outer space to light pollution.

By Kylie Mohr // Photography by Bradly J. Boner

14

Headwaters issue #4

O

ut in the middle of the Kelly hayfields, a family of five Nebraskans, clustered around a Dobsonian telescope, looked up and couldn’t contain their excitement.

Their choice word for the evening of stargazing was “crazy.” The darkness of the sky, the plethora of constellations overhead, the incredible quiet — it was spectacular. Samuel Singer of Wyoming Stargazing first focused his tour group’s attention on the planet Jupiter. “Oh boy,” Singer said. “It looks nice tonight. Tonight is a gem.”

Only a sliver of the moon hung in the western sky.

By 10 p.m. the Midwestern family and a woman from Chicago cemented their status as part of the 20% of the U.S. population who will see the central band of our galaxy, the Milky Way, during their lifetime. Thanks to light pollution that’s worsening, a whopping 80% of Americans and just over 30% of people worldwide never will, Singer said. (Or, maybe, didn’t know what they were looking at.)

Locals and visitors are amazed by Jackson’s starry night sky, especially when it comes on the heels of a sunset over the Tetons. But what they might not know is how much clearer the constellations and planets could be, here and elsewhere, without light pollution. Jackson looks the same as Flagstaff, Arizona — population 72,000, from space. “For a town of 10,000 people,” Singer said, “we have a lot of light pollution.”

The Bortle scale, which goes from zero to nine, measures the night sky’s brightness. As the interference of light pollution grows, the number climbs and the observability of celestial objects falls. In Jackson light pollution clocks in at a five on the scale; in Grand Teton National Park it’s a three.

Singer hasn’t collected new measurements for a couple of years, but he thinks light pollution has increased due to ineffective outdoor lighting ordinances. The trend counters goals to lower measurements on the Bortle scale by one point in the park and in Jackson by 2025. Compared to other mountain resort towns “we’re behind,” Singer said. Breckenridge, Colorado, has a stronger lighting ordinance, and so does Whitefish, Montana.

“Dark night skies are the national parks above our heads,” Singer said. “Once we start thinking about it as part of the national park, I think people will start caring and changing their behavior. We don’t have any protection for the skies like we do the ground. And that’s what I’m trying to change.”

Singer started Wyoming Stargazing, a nonprofit,

The Milky Way spreads over Jackson Lake in Grand Teton National Park on a clear summer evening. The glows on the horizon at bottom left are the towns of Jackson and Wilson, almost 35 miles to the south.

2019 Headwaters

15

with the goal of making astronomy accessible to everyone. His own interest is longstanding: He built telescopes while studying physics and astronomy in college — the first of many degrees that led to a doctorate in science education.

Singer recalls seeing Saturn’s rings through the first telescope he ever constructed. “I flipped out and jumped up and down,” he said. “That’s when I knew I’d be doing this for a long time.”

Jackson Hole at night bats, insects, plants, fish, from Teton Pass primates and even marine invertebrates like corals.

Light pollution disrupts the circadian rhythms and disorients migratory birds during flight, causing collisions with buildings and ultimately death, a 2018 study in Scientific Reports found.

And artificial light can even prevent trees from adjusting to the seasons.

He can rattle off why you should care about light pollution. One argument is philosophical: It says something about people if they allow their night sky, and the wonder it provides, to die. “If you look at all cultures across the globe,” Singer said, “they have myths about the sky, and it’s because we’ve been mesmerized by it for 2 million years.” There are also scientific reasons for keeping the stars in sight. And for communities, dark sky protection in action can save money.

Light pollution wastes an estimated $3 billion a year in the United States.

There’s also research suggesting human health could be compromised by nighttime light. The American Medical Association and the Council on Science and Public Health have warned that breast cancer risk could increase and that there could be affects on obesity, diabetes, depression, mood disorders and reproductive health.

Then there’s wildlife that depends on darkness.

According to National Geographic, researchers have found artificial light to be harmful to 16

Headwaters issue #4

Turning off all lights at night isn’t the answer, and Singer isn’t advocating a blackout.

He’d like to see more responsible lighting.

There was progress in 2015 when the town of Jackson rewrote the outdoor lighting regulations with dark skies in mind. The ordinance states that lights, except for decorative winter holiday lights, can’t be directed upward. Teton County

code compliance offi cer Miranda Adams said new building permitting is the chief means of ensuring compliance with lighting standards. Lighting plans and site inspections accompany developments and can catch violations.

She also responds to complaints, though she noted that compliance is high. But fi xtures predating the ordinance are grandfathered, and outdoor public lighting is exempted.

downward and by switching from LED lights to warmer, yellow-orange bulbs. Fully shielded lighting fixtures are tough to find in town but are available online. Obstinacy in the face of environmental regulation can be strong in Wyoming, but reducing light pollution, in Singer’s mind, is a “win-win for everyone and everything — nobody loses.”

Back in Kelly, Singer taught his stargazers about the evolution of a star. It began from a planetary nursery with baby stars formed from gas, matured for eons and fi nally became a dead star, he explained. His clients were bundled in cozy blankets and sipping hot cider. They learned how to fi nd Polaris, the North Star, using the Big Dipper’s bucket as a guide, and listened eagerly as Singer pointed out features like globular clusters, Samuel Singer the bright star Vega and the giant interstellar cloud of the Lagoon Nebula in the constellation Sagittarius. They were all visible in Jackson Hole’s night sky — still relatively intact, for now.

“Whenever I’m talking, don’t look at me,” Singer told the In the meantime, people can take steps to reduce their group. “Look up. It’s much more interesting up there.” light pollution by buying shielding fixtures that direct light Singer knows elected officials have “bigger fish to fry,” like determining how to house workers who have no place to live today. Longerterm, there are benchmarks to strive for. The town could become what’s called “dark sky certified” by the International Dark Sky Association, joining the ranks of places like Ketchum, Idaho. “It’s just another feather in your cap for a community to say, ‘Hey, we care about our night sky, and we’ve done something about it, come and check it out,’” Singer said.

“Once we start thinking about it as part of the national park, I think people will start caring and changing their behavior. We don’t have any protection for the skies like we do the ground.

And that’s what I’m trying to change.”

Conserving, protecting, and restoring coldwater fisheries in the Snake River Headwaters

4 on-the-ground projects to be completed in 2019

Photo: Eric Seymour

50+ agency and nonprofit partners 225+ students in our Adopt-a-Trout program jacksonhole.tu.org

Jackson Hole Trout Unlimited encourages “Trout Friendly” lawn care practices to protect our water quality, streams, and native trout.

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2019 Headwaters

17

STEPPING up

Helping hurt wildlife: clinics grow and learn An upstart rehabilitation center looks to an established one for inspiration.

By Mike Koshmrl

T

he five plump marmot pups weren’t having it.

Captured out of an unappreciated nest made in the engine block of an Idaho Falls pickup truck at just a few days old, the defenseless rodents had been reared in captivity. They were clearly much more familiar with the dog crate and crook-necked pipe they clung to than the wild Caribou-Targhee National Forest mountainside they were about to call home. Although the crate door was wide open on a Saturday morning in mid-June and their rescuers watched from afar, the furry fellas had no interest in leaving — a reluctance that persisted for hours.

The wildlife rehabilitators on the scene, who were the reason the marmots were alive, eventually tired of waiting. “We got really 18

Headwaters issue #4

aggressive and dumped them out of the pipe,” Teton Wildlife Rehabilitation Center co-founder Lindsay Jones said. As the group of volunteers and professionals on Pine Creek Pass packed up their things — which included celebratory Champagne — one of the pups scampered up the hill toward a talus field. Running for cover was promising behavior in Jones’ mind, about the best thing she could hope for.

Now in its fourth year of existence, the Teton Wildlife Rehabilitation Center is still trying to get off the ground. The Driggs, Idaho, nonprofit’s mission is to provide a sanctuary to enable the recovery of terrestrial wildlife that have been injured or orphaned by mankind, be it from a vehicle strike, fence entanglement or domestic dog attack.

Getting the organization and its facility in operation has been slow going, co-founder Renee Seidler said. All but a handful of the 160-plus rehabilitation requests that have trickled in over the phone have been turned down out of necessity. There’s a 3-acre plot of Driggs land that has been acquired, but a brick-and-mortar facility, which will cost around $200,000, still hasn’t materialized. For now, Jones, Seidler and their board and volunteers scrape together rehabilitation quarters and read up on species-specific best practices when they’ve opted to take in critters like the marmots, raccoon kits or an injured fox.

For inspiration and direction the fledgling center’s founders sometimes go to their avian-expert counterparts on the other side of Teton Pass. There, on the fringes of Wilson, is a world-class raptor rehabilitation facility that also had a slow start. “Teton Raptor Center has been a huge role model,” Jones said. “They’ve reminded us frequently that it’s a slow process, and it’s tough, but you’ll get there.” Teton Raptor Center’s story traces back 25 years, when founder Roger Smith started helping raptors recuperate at his home.

For most of its history it stayed a small makeshift operation that depended on Smith’s love of do-gooding, said Amy McCarthy, the current executive director. “It did formalize as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, but they literally had $600 in a bank account through the Community Foundation to buy some mice and pay for some vet visits,” McCarthy said. “And they did it out of their house. That is the story of Teton Raptor Center. Owly in the bathtub. Owly in the hallway. Owly in the garage. And that’s the way so many rehabilitation centers start.”

“Owly” was a young OPPOSITE: With a crowd of spectators great horned owl Smith watching, former Teton Raptor Center program director Jason Jones, left, and nursed back to health after veterinarian Dan Forman release an she was struck by a vehicle adult bald eagle to the wild in 2014. and broke a wing in 2004.

The bird from Dubois was one of three The bird’s wrist was busted brought to the center for rehabilitation in a way that left her joint after suffering from lead poisoning. beyond repair, and so she PRICE CHAMBERS was retained for education.

Now famous locally, Owly Rehabilitated young marmots peer out from a crate and a tube, reluctant to the great horned owl is one leave what they know behind. The of the only constants in release took place in the the history of the growing Caribou-Targhee National Forest. organization.

Today, REBECCA NOBLE Teton Raptor Center runs a large and high-profile environmental organization on its 27-acre lot just shy of Fish Creek.

It’s the community’s fascination with its valley raptors, perhaps, that enabled Teton Raptor Center’s growth. There are nine fulltime employees, though just a fraction of them are devoted to rehabilitation. Filling in the many gaps is a fleet volunteers who collectively gave up 7,790 hours of their time last fiscal year, and frequently it was to assist in the caregiving process and get hands-on exposure to the majestic birds. That was nearly $200,000 worth of manpower, figuring the IRS-recognized value, and in terms of time it increased the size of the center’s paid staff by about a third.

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Unfortunately, it’s a steady stream of human-caused raptor injuries that create the need for all those volunteer hours.

Raptors are hit by cars, fly into power lines and are illegally shot and crippled.

The rehabilitation arm of the center now takes in a significant volume of avian patients: last fiscal year it handled 117 individual injured raptors spanning 21 different species. The care and recovery protocols are meticulous and tailored to each type of hawk, owl, eagle and falcon that’s admitted.

“We’ve seen up to 30 species in one year,” McCarthy said, “and each of those species needs such individualized care and treatment, because raptors have such unique adaptations in order to have that kind of diversity in a place like Jackson Hole.”

A patient, on average, takes $1,400 to whip back into shape.

Looking at the rehab routine of a lead-poisoned bald eagle as an example, it’s easy to see why. For five days on, three days off and then another five days on, the incapacitated bird is given twice-daily “chelation” therapy to draw the lead out of its digestive system and bloodstream, said interim rehabilitation director Sarah Ramirez. The eagle receives intravenous fluids to cope with the dehydrating process and must then recover in an oxygen chamber. If held in captivity for a while, the avian patients are too atrophied for immediate release, so there have to be flight training sessions before that happens. “They need to 20

Headwaters issue #4

be marathon ready, and they’ve been on bed rest.” Ramirez said. “Two weeks of bed rest and they lose almost all their endurance.”

David Lemons of Lemons House Moving directs a steel beam beneath the historic Hardeman Barn in July as part of an expansion plan at the Teton Raptor Center in Wilson. The structure was being temporarily moved a few dozen feet to the west so that a new foundation could be built. The barn was later moved back into its original position.

RYAN DORGAN

Even with a highly trained staff and significant resources, death and permanent injury are unavoidable in raptor rehabilitation. Just shy of 60% of admitted raptors pull through. Around 35%, Ramirez said, rebound to the point where they’re suitable for release into the wild. All released birds are banded, and the center is starting to experiment with monitoring survival technologically. A wind turbine-wounded golden eagle sporting a GPS backpack that’s out in the wild right now is one of the first pieces to that puzzle.

A natural extension of Teton Raptor Center’s caregiving is education. Through outreach programs in classrooms, onsite and at public events, Owly and a dozen other debilitated resident raptors have taught hundreds of thousands of people about raptors. Since 2015 there’s been a Teton Raptor Center

research department led by biologist Bryan Bedrosian, whose team investigates regional and local populations of great gray and flammulated owls, northern goshawks, bald and golden eagles and even sage grouse.

To make room for its growing departments, the center is expanding its facilities. Plans were recently approved by Teton County and withstood a legal challenge from neighbors.

Headlining Teton Raptor Center’s redevelopment, which will total nearly 20,000 square feet, is a new administration building, employee housing, raptor mews and a 4,000-square-foot indoor fl ight chamber. The historic Hardeman barn is staying put, though it was moved temporarily to receive a new foundation.

At the Teton Wildlife Rehabilitation Center there’s sure to be trying times and trial and error to come. McCarthy, for one, is pulling for her friends over the Tetons to fi nish their facility, and get to the point where they can start routinely taking in the much broader variety of wildlife they intend to.

“I’d tell them, ‘Don’t let go of that passion,’” McCarthy said.

“There truly is a need out there. We know it. We get the calls about the crows and the ravens.” Teton Raptor Center, she said, lacks permits for non-raptor birds but does have authorization to take in species like ravens for up to 48 hours. After that they’re either transferred to an accredited facility or, more often, euthanized.

That’s an outcome Seidler and Jones aim to avoid as often as possible. Ideally, Seidler said, their future facility will prioritize

threatened, endangered and state species of “conservation need,” but all species that permits can be acquired for will be considered.

The five-year plan includes adding internship and education programs and bringing on more employees to complement Jones. “Once that hospital is built, we can move forward with everything,” Seidler said. “We’ll have organizations working hard in both of the Teton counties on this.”

It’s tough to say what became of the marmots. During their 11 weeks in captivity the pups grew from hairless bottle-fed rodents with their eyes closed to testy animals it wouldn’t be wise to pet.

“They bit the crap out of us today,” Jones said the day of the release.

Getting the animals to maturity took $900 worth of vegetables and the willingness of several volunteers to house the litter’s transportable wire cage. Along the way there were some predictable missteps for the first-time marmot caregivers. One of the pups, with no good explanation, went missing. The survival of the youngsters that did make it until the June release day is also an open question.

Jones went back to the scene within a week but didn’t hear or see anything. Game cameras left behind didn’t pick up any marmot action, either. Both Teton Wildlife Rehabilitation Center cofounders were hopeful. “Hopefully they’ve separated and moved along,” Jones said. Seidler, whose day job is as a biologist for the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, pointed out that the pups could technically persist even if they stuck together and failed to find another marmot colony. “They can start to have incestuous relationships,” Seidler said, “and create their own colony with just that family. It would be interesting to know if they all survived.”

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2019 Headwaters

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A BIOLOGIST’S take

Imperfect T pasture: The way forward for the good of our elk herd

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Headwaters issue #4

By Bruce Smith // Photography by Bradly J. Boner o the casual observer the National Elk Refuge’s setting looks idyllic.

Verdant grasslands bisected by a gliding stream sprawl beneath the Sleeping Indian. As autumn’s snows dust the meadows, throngs of tawny, 500-pound beasts — many sporting regal headgear — gather for the next six months.

With Jackson Hole’s ski season in full swing, diesel-powered yellow behemoths deliver daily rations of alfalfa to the elk. This kindness — the National Elk Refuge’s most visible program — began a century ago as excessive killing snuffed out western Wyoming’s elk migrations to distant winter ranges in the Little Colorado and Red Desert ranges and nearly exterminated the country’s large mammals from coast to coast.

The refuge was thus established in 1912 to help rescue a natural treasure. Mission accomplished. Now it’s one of 560 National Wildlife Refuge System sanctuaries dedicated to maintaining the “biological integrity, diversity and environmental health … for the benefit of present and future generations of Americans.” That’s its federal mandate.

Although elk is the featured species, 175 bird and 47 mammal species plus other wildlife benefit from the refuge.

The practice of feeding elk in winter became tradition and part of Jackson’s culture. Rather than the elk ranging across prairies and foothills, a century of habituation to meals on wheels produced a sedentary herd, a veritable outdoor zoo at Jackson’s doorstep. Idyllic, right?

But this human intervention has stuffed too many hungry mouths on too little habitat, compromising the refuge’s conservation mandate. Habitats have suffered.

Just 5% of tall willow that once grew along Flat Creek’s banks remain. This does no favor for moose and beaver, songbirds, spotted frogs and cutthroat trout. The cost of cultivating overabundant elk numbers is diminished biodiversity. But who speaks for the absent MacGillivray’s warbler?

Some consider this a small price to pay for Jackson’s elk abundance. But those who’ve followed years of controversy and legal challenges recognize the refuge’s veiled liabilities. Jackson Hole’s elk are likely the most diseased wild herd on the continent, chronically afflicted

Elk congregate during by scabies, foot rot, hemorrhagic feeding on the septicemia and brucellosis. On the National Elk Refuge. horizon looms an illness far worse: chronic wasting disease, and last fall a mule deer found dead a stone’s throw from the refuge turned up positive. It was the first known case in Teton County. An infectious neurodegenerative disease shared

by North America’s deer, elk and moose, it’s caused by aberrant proteins called prions. Infection is always fatal.

This is a disease to be taken seriously. It’s relentless.

CW D persists, fueled by nearly indestructible prions. Shed in the saliva, urine, feces and carcasses of infected animals, they accumulate and contaminate the environment.

Infected animals survive for months, even years, while shedding the pathogen like Typhoid Mary. There’s no way to “treat” and no vaccine to prevent CW D. Almost everywhere that CWD exists in cervid populations (25 states and three Canadian provinces), it is spreading and its prevalence is climbing. Witness Wyoming. Every county except Uinta now has infected herds of wild deer. CWD infection rates of mule deer in some areas have reached 25% to 50%, with consequent population declines of some herds.

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It’s the same as with other diseases: Crowding of animals speeds transmission and amplifies infection rates.

More animals die.

A recently published analysis forecasts declining Jackson elk numbers when CWD infection rates reach 7% to 23%. That’s without any hunting. A plan promised a decade ago detailing how the refuge will confront CWD is still not done. In 2011 a federal appellate court ruled on a complaint that challenged the refuge feeding program.

The three-judge panel noted the refuge cannot provide sanctuary for healthy elk “if, every winter, elk and bison are drawn by the siren song of human-provided food to what becomes, through the act of gathering, a miasmic zone of life-threatening diseases.”

Where national forests, parks and refuges are clustered and linked, as in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, each unit plays an essential role in the function of the whole.

The pieces serve the year-round needs of resident and local migratory species that spread across the landscape.

Under the National Wildlife Refuge System Improvement Act of 1997, sustaining higher than natural densities of any wildlife population on a refuge is acceptable only if it doesn’t degrade habitats or compromise biodiversity and wildlife health. The refuge can best contribute to the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem and fulfill its purpose as a sustainable, healthy haven for wildlife by adhering to those conservation precepts set forth in this federal law.

Why should you care? Because CWD has the potential to significantly damage not just cervid populations but the food chains they support, and therefore the region’s ecology and economy.

During my 22 years as a National Elk Refuge staff biologist, I often heard, “You’re exaggerating the threat,” and usually in more colorful language. Maybe CWD prevalence in western Wyoming won’t reach the destructive levels experienced on elk game farms, the closest analogy to elk feedgrounds. Perhaps CWD will never become a risk to humans, as some other prion diseases are. But CWD is just one among a number of newly emerging diseases. The next disease to exploit overcrowded hosts may prove more pathogenic. We just can’t know.

You should care because wildlife are a public resource.

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Headwaters issue #4

Elk congregate on the feed Stat e and federal agencies are line during supplemental merely entrusted with conserving feeding on the refuge, a them for all of us. Feeding elk at the practice that biologists say refuge and state elk feedgrounds can spread illnesses such is a discretionary practice, not as chronic wasting disease. required by law. In fact, University of Wyoming law professor Debra Donahue has written that the practice undermines the agencies’ conservation missions.

Instead, this taxpayer- and sportsmen-funded practice is designed to protect private property and to maintain larger numbers of animals for hunting than available winter range can support. Neither objective is specifically authorized, much less required, by state or federal law.

You should care because time is of the essence. When the fi rst sick and dying animals are seen on the refuge, many more will already be infected. To avert the disease’s worst effects requires managing elk numbers in concert with carrying capacities of natural habitats while phasing out winter feeding.

Can this be done? If we can restore bald eagles and peregrine falcons nationwide and recover wolves and grizzly bears to the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, then we certainly can wean Jackson Hole’s elk off handouts.

Jackson could have all its elk (and eat them too) by restoring ancient migrations to southwestern Wyoming winter ranges. A more pragmatic alternative prescribes reducing numbers to winter range capacity within the herd’s current distribution. (See a discussion of both alternatives in my 2011 book, “Where Elk Roam.” ) Will this ensure that CWD will not infect the herd? No. But a smaller, free-ranging herd will prove more resilient than the status quo. In the long-term interest of the elk, other wildlife, and the ecosystem, it’s an easy choice.

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CLEANING up

As economy blooms,

carbon emissions boom In the 10 years since Jackson Hole last assessed its carbon footprint, the economy has boomed — as has our impact on the planet’s ever-rising temperature.

By Thomas Dewell // Graphics by Andy Edwards

The warming is raising sea levels, eroding coastlines, creating human climate refugees and causing ecological consequences that humanity will have to grapple with for centuries, according the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Jackson Hole, a center for land conservation and ecological protection, has added to the problem — at an accelerated rate. In the 10 years since area residents first began to examine their greenhouse gas footprint, valleywide generation of carbon emissions jumped from 409,562 tons in 2008 to 478,868 tons last year, according to a 2018 report, Jackson Hole Inventory of Greenhouse Gas Emission. The nearly 17% surge in carbon emissions has outpaced Jackson Hole population growth, which swelled just less than 10% in the same period — meaning per-capita numbers are also up. Emissions stood at 19.8 tons of greenhouse gasses per Jackson Hole resident in 2008 but rose to 21.2 tons 10 years later, an increase of nearly 7%.

“I’m not surprised by the results,” said Alicia Cox, executive director of Yellowstone-Teton Clean Cities, whose organization funded the emissions inventory along with the town of Jackson.

“This report is coming out when climate change is front and center.

I hope it will help the general public become more engaged.”

While Jackson Hole’s greenhouse gas emissions have been increasing, the country as a whole has turned a corner on emissions, the result of climate policies, market forces that have made the electric grid less dependent on fossil fuels, and the relocation of 26

Headwaters issue #4

some American manufacturing to other nations. The federal Energy Information Administration calculated national carbon emissions at 5,271 million metric tons in 2018, a 9% decrease from the 5,812 million metric tons emitted in 2008.

At least one other Rocky Mountain resort community has waged a somewhat successful battle to curb its carbon footprint in recent decades. Aspen, Colorado, has been able to check the growth of its greenhouse gas emissions, reducing them by 7.4% from 2004 to 2014 despite population and economic growth, according to an inventory prepared by the Aspen city government. In the 10 years examined, Aspen’s taxable sales increased 22% and population increased 5.5%, according to the report. The Aspen community, report authors wrote, appeared to have “decoupled growth in emissions” from population growth and 30,000,000 commerce — a testament to the success of greenhousegas reduction efforts such 25,000,000 as public transportation and its municipal utility transitioning to renewable 20,000,000 electric power. “Without these programs,” the report states, “community150,00,000 wide emissions would have likely followed the upward trend of these other 10,000,000 community indicators.”

Growth

Therms

T

eton County has enjoyed an incredible economic recovery following the Great Recession of 2008, a vibrancy accompanied by one particularly glaring and seldom-discussed environmental consequence: greenhouse gas emissions. Over the past decade the number of people flying into Jackson Hole Airport is up by a quarter, and commerce in the county and visitation to Grand Teton National Park both jumped 40%. The median list price of a Jackson Hole home has more than doubled. While valley residents can feel the effects of the boom as they creep along in Highway 22 traffic or wait in swollen lift lines at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, they cannot see or smell the carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and ozone rising into the atmosphere and weaving into the blanket of gas warming the planet.

While Jackson Hole’s carbon discharge has charted contrary to Aspen’s and the United States’ emissions, valley residents and officials actually have been working cooperatively

5,000,000

0

1992

1993

1994

1995

Town of Jackson - Electricity

and across government jurisdictions to decrease greenhouse gas generation. The town of Jackson, Teton County and Lower Valley Energy by themselves and through the joint powers board they created — Energy Conservation Works — have erected several photovoltaic solar arrays. They’ve also helped pay for projects such as solar collectors at the valley’s newest elementary school. Advocacy efforts and government initiatives have funded more efficient public transportation options and provided no- and low-interest loans to Lower Valley ratepayers to pay for energy-efficiency retrofits of homes and businesses.

Groups like Cox’s Yellowstone-Teton Clean Cities have found funds to install electric vehicle charging stations around the valley. Even voters have helped, approving a $3.8 million ballot measure in 2010 to help pay for energy initiatives.

Without these measures, Teton County’s impact on the planet’s

LEFT: Bumper-to-bumper traffic is common warming atmosphere on Highway 22 between Jackson and would be even worse.

Highway 390 during evening commuter The valley’s public hours in the summer months. solar arrays together BRADLY J. BONER generate roughly 1.6 million kilowatt-hours ABOVE: Jackson’s South Park solar farm of electricity annually, uses virtual net metering, allowing users to enough energy to power buy shares of energy produced. The shared roughly 80 Jackson farm saves users the sometimes prohibitive Hole homes, according costs of installing and maintaining their own to Energy Conservation solar panels. RYAN DORGAN Works Director Phil Cameron. Lower Valley Energy has worked with ratepayers to complete 1,676 energy conservation projects since 2012, as far back as records go for such efforts, noted Amy Walton, conservation specialist at the utility. Altogether, those utility projects save another

in county electricity & gas consumption: 1992-2018

1996

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Town of Jackson - Natural Gas

2000

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Rest of Teton County - Electricity

2005

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Rest of Teton County - Natural Gas

2010

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Valleywide - Propane

2014

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Lower Valley Energy “Green Energy” Source: Lower Valley Energy

2019 Headwaters

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Electron sources 2006 vs. 2018 2006

Winter (January)

Hydro

Wind

2018 Hydro

Coal

Wind

Coal

2.5 million Therms

2.4 million Therms

Spring (April) Coal Wind

Wind

Hydro

Hydro

1.8 million Therms

1.6 million Therms

Summer (July) Wind

Wind

Hydro

Hydro

1.2 million Therms

1.1 million Therms

Fall (October)

Wind Hydro

Hydro Coal Coal

1.2 million Therms

Wind

1.2 million Therms Source: Lower Valley Energy

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Headwaters issue #4

30.2 million kilowatt-hours annually. Many of these savings come from users taking simple steps such as using LED bulbs, a change that reduced electric consumption by nearly 16.6 million kilowatthours.

Lower Valley’s Green Power program is another success story. Wyoming, which stuffs its coffers with royalties from extractive industries, is at the back of the pack in requiring electric utilities to mix in renewable sources of power, according to the Database of State Incentives for Renewables and Efficiency. But northwest Wyoming’s cooperative utility has taken it upon itself to offer its customers the opportunity to pay a premium, with the extra 1.2 cents per kilowatthour going toward new infrastructure, like commercial wind turbines near Idaho Falls or hydro-electrical generators on existing dams. In 2018 the utility sold nearly 51 million kilowatt-hours of green power, Walton reported. Improving the efficiency of the vehicles used by local government with efforts such as replacing START buses with more efficient vehicles and getting more riders on buses has kept 3,231 tons of greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere, Cox said.

Yet on some fronts there is a clear disconnect between the aspirational community and local government goals of reducing emissions and the way many people want to live in the valley. Fines levied through Teton County’s Energy Mitigation Program, which applies to new construction, are one example. Through the program, the county charges $10 per square foot of heated sidewalks and driveways. In 2018 property owners built 24,030 square feet of these heated surfaces, yielding $240,305 for the program, according to records from the building department. One project alone featured 6,532 square feet of “heated hardscape,” which is more than double the floor area of a typical single-family home. Funds from the program are then directed to paying for energy conservation projects, such as new solar arrays on schools.

Another disconnect between Jackson Hole aspirations and the actual workings of the economy arises from the fact that valley tourism is founded on the attraction of protected wildlands but the actual means of getting people here relies on petroleum-powered cars, trucks, RVs and jets. Former Jackson Mayor Mark Barron, now a county commissioner, said he admires Aspen’s successful effort to decrease carbon emissions, but he pointed out that Aspen doesn’t have Jackson Hole’s automobile-based summer economy. Ground transportation accounts for almost 65% of Jackson Hole’s carbon emissions, according to the 2018 energy and emissions inventory prepared by Richard Heede of Climate Mitigation Services. In Aspen ground transportation accounts for just 19% of emissions, according to that community’s report.

Unfortunately, there’s probably little town and county officials can do to alter the habits of people powering their trips to Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks with internal combustion engines. “We’re not going to change that,” Barron said. Policymakers likely will have to look instead to areas such as the valley’s workforce if they want to lower carbon emissions

from transportation. Increasingly, the people who make the valley work have to drive here for their shifts, commuting from places such as Teton Valley, Idaho, and Star Valley. In 2006 the county had 1.28 jobs per resident, but that number increased to 1.41 jobs per resident by 2017, said Jackson Town Councilor and economist Jonathan Schechter. Those numbers put Teton County on par with New York City, which had 1.87 jobs per capita in 2017. The great metropolis of the East Coast has the population density and geographic boundaries necessary to make public transit cost effective, whereas it will be much more of a challenge in Jackson Hole. Teton County has a relatively small, albeit growing, workforce distributed over a large area. “There’s no way we can make public transportation work on a cost-effective basis,” Schechter said.

That means valley officials may have to look at housing more workers in Jackson Hole if they want to decrease commuter traffic. More worker housing means more development and more investment of public money in affordable and attainable homes. For Barron, housing has to be a part of any solution to the valley’s emission problem. “If you don’t build it, you’ll just have more and more people driving the canyon and

the pass,” he said. “It’s all connected.”

Private jets at Jackson Hole Airport BRADLY J. BONER

Big picture: If Jackson Hole wants to reverse its greenhouse gas emissions, officials will have to employ a multipronged approach that includes public transportation, renewable power, energy efficiency, and even changing residents’ day-to-day habits. Barron sees a challenge ahead, and with the inventory of Jackson Hole’s carbon emissions just released, he has a renewed sense of just how much work will need to go into making progress. “Boy,” he said, “do we have a long way to go.”

come connect.

Visit the Murie Ranch of Teton Science Schools to connect with yourself, others and our public lands.

Take a daily docent tour (2:30-3:30 pm) until October 11 or stop by for a self-guided tour.

LEARN MORE AT TETONSCIENCE.ORG

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TREADING carefully

Out in the wild,

our impacts are real Ecologist and educator says people recreating are “remarkably unaware” of how they’re affecting the environment around them, impacts that managers are trying to get a grip on.

By Mike Koshmrl

O

n the tail end of an intensive effort to research how recreating people affect wildlife, Bruce Thompson threw himself into a funk.

“I was blown away,” Thompson said, “and I had to do some soul searching.”

A former Jackson Hole resident who now lives along the Wind River, he was examining what the scientific literature said about recreation and wildlife because the wheels were in motion to convert a landscape he cherished, the Dubois Badlands Wilderness Study Area, into a national conservation area. That’s still a relatively protected class of Bureau of Land Management property, but it’s a designation that would likely draw a lot more people on bikes, buggies and foot to what’s currently a relatively desolate area. As an ecologist and a lover of wild spaces and the animals that live there, the findings depressed him.

“I came a way from it thinking, ‘None of this is good,’” Thompson said. “And I had a distrust that any of it was going to change. It was just all negative.” Thompson was in a bad headspace, dejected about his and others’ roles in an intractable problem.

Amid the emotional turmoil, he was asked to start giving public presentations about his findings before groups like Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, the Northern Rockies Conservation Cooperative and the Jackson Hole Bird and Nature Club.

Digging into around 25 peer-reviewed studies, one conclusion that Thompson found is that no one type of recreation is blameless. “All human activity, no matter 30

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what it is, impacts wildlife,” he said.

“That’s the nature of the beast.” Trying to create a hierarchy of the worst recreation types is a fool’s errand, he said, but there were some common findings. Traveling off trail, for one, expands a person’s “area of influence” that causes wildlife to flee by two to three times compared to moving along a trail that animals are used to seeing people on. And when those animals are influenced, they get more freaked out. “It’s partly because they’re more surprised,” Thompson said. “The degree of fear that they experience compels them to move at a faster pace, burn more energy and not stop for a longer period of time. It’s terror, rather than modest fright.”

Traveling with a dog was another factor that moves the needle toward increased impact on wild environments, Thompson said. On-trail hiking without a canine companion causes responses from wildlife within around 150 feet, but the reach of disturbance about doubles when there’s a dog accompanying on a leash. Free roaming dogs increase the influence more yet.

Relative to other Rocky Mountain resort communities and more peopled parts of the American West, Jackson Hole’s land and wildlife decision-makers and planners have done a commendable job managing recreation in a way that prioritizes wildlife.

Vast swaths of Jackson Hole’s critical wildlife habitat close to humans entirely during the toughest five months a year. Trails have seasonal closures to protect calving cow elk.

Some 97% percent of the county is public land, much of which is highly protected, and this lack of fragmentation has enabled

the retention of an ecologically intact and connected landscape where close to the full suite of natives species still exists and, mostly, thrives.

But picturing a less-rosy future is easy. There are more people destined to carve out a life in the valley, and inevitably they will demand more trails and access in more places.

There are templates out there of rampant recreation crashing populations of wildlife that have lost their places of refuge.

Writing for High Country News, journalist Christine Peterson recently documented the sorry state of the resident elk herd nearest Vail, Colorado, where numbers have plummeted from over 1,000 to a low this past winter of 53 animals. She interviewed a retired Colorado State University wildlife professor whose research on the herd suggests recreation’s impacts on calving success was a driving factor in the decline. “About 30% of the elk calves died when their mothers were disturbed an average of seven times during calving,” Peterson wrote for High Country News. “Models showed that if each cow elk was bothered 10 times during calving, all their calves would die.”

Jackson Hole is not there yet. “There are signs of problems, I think,” Bridger-Teton National Forest wilderness and recreation manager Linda Merigliano said. “The Teton Range bighorn sheep issue is one of the most obvious signs.” Before taking a job as a Wyoming Game and Fish Department

wildlife biologist, Aly Courtemanch studied effects of backcountry skiing on the Teton’s native sheep for her University of Wyoming graduate research. The herd, whose historic migrations were severed by development and highways, now lives out winters on windswept Tetons ridgelines. And when those ridgelines double as popular backcountry skiing lines, the sheep abandon them completely. “In a nutshell, what we found is that the Teton bighorn sheep are extremely sensitive to human activity during the wintertime,” Courtemanch told a working group panel of bighorn experts last winter. “Due to this backountry skiing activity, the habitat is still there — but it’s in effect unusable for the bighorn sheep because they don’t want to go there because there’s so many people.”

Some Jackson Hole residents argue that these types of impacts are the exception.

Jesse Combs, who co-founded the prorecreation group Advocates for Multi Use of Public Lands, says that Jackson Hole and its land and wildlife managers have done a “really good job” at combatting and responding to overuse and preventing impacts by smart planning. One example, he said, was the Bridger-Teton National Forest’s recent decision to move a mountain biking trail that was proposed within a bottleneck portion of the Red Desert-toHoback mule deer migration corridor.

Instead, the trail proposal was moved a few miles away toward the White Pine Ski Area.

“They didn’t say no to recreation, but they said this is going to work better,” Combs said. “To me, that’s a win-win. Recreation isn’t going away. It’s an important part of human wellbeing, and mental health and fitness. Plus, it gives us that connection to the land — which turns us all into advocates for the environment and conservation.”

Skiers grab hold of their dogs in 2016 after seeing a bull moose on the road about 100 yards from the Cache Creek trailhead.

RUGILE KALADYTE At the Bridger-Teton, Merigliano is gearing up for a big planning effort to help forest managers take steps to diminish the effects of recreation. “If we are really serious about addressing this, we’ve got to be willing to sit down and take a deeper dive into the problem,” Merigliano said.

It’s human recreation’s impacts during the winter that the community really needs to get a grip on. If the National Elk Refuge lives up to its guiding management plan and weans its resident elk off feed, causing more animals to spend the season out on the broader landscape, it’s going to increase the need to give wintering wildlife space, she said. Solutions could possibly include setting more lands aside as off-limits winter range.

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The Skyline Trail between Snow King Mountain and the Cache/Game Divide was controversial for its bisection of critical wildlife habitat and migration routes. The trail is closed until July 1 to give space and quiet to calving elk.

BRADLY J. BONER Expanded leash laws for dogs could also be coming. The community will need to be understanding, and avoid finger pointing and fracturing along lines of different types of recreation, Merigliano said. “We need to get away from that,” she said.

For Thompson, who’s retired from his ecological consulting business, there’s been an internal struggle to grapple with the impacts of his use of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem’s wild landscapes. As an avid solo off-trail wilderness traveler, he knows that his brand of recreation is prone to surprising and temporarily displacing wildlife.

“You want to find sanctuary,” Thompson said. “I don’t want to see a lot of people. So we’re always trying to find the road less traveled … but the best solution would be to go on the trails that everybody goes to, like String Lake.”

Thompson doesn’t preach that people should cut out their favorite outdoor activities and places for recreation, but he is an advocate of people learning and being real with themselves. “Unawareness, ignorance, indifference, carelessness and just obstinacy — the don’ttell-me-what-to-do attitude — are root causes of our impacts to wildlife,” he said. “I think that soul searching needs to start with what each of us does, learning about that impact, and acting accordingly.”

BEARS CAN’T TALK, BUT YOU CAN. BE THEIR VOICE!

Tetonparksandrec.org 307-739-9025 Con

Join the fight: WyomingWildlifeAdvocates.org 32

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necting our Community to t h e o u t d o o r s

PEERING forward

Trevor Bloom surveys wildflowers while hiking in 2018 at Blacktail Butte in Grand Teton National Park.

Bloom is a Jackson ecologist who now works for the Nature Conservancy studying phenology, or plant life cycles, specifically how species in Jackson Hole are responding to climate change.

Ecological adaptability A Jackson Hole scientist is following up on Craighead’s ‘phenology’ research, with an eye to the future.

By Trevor Bloom // Photography by Amber Baesler

D

usk comes quickly in the mountains. The summer sun had just slipped behind the Tetons, the peaks painting a long, dark shadow on the valley floor below as I descended Blacktail Butte in Grand Teton National Park. I was alone as I stepped into an open meadow, and the grizzly bear less than 100 feet ahead captured my gaze. The lone bear’s thick front legs and characteristic humped shoulder were working hard to dig up pocket gophers from their shallow tunnels. He was close enough that I noticed his silver-tipped fur glistening in the twilight.

Moments before I had been completing another plant survey for my job with the The Nature Conservancy and Northern Rockies Conservation Cooperative. I was building on the legacy of famed grizzly biologist Frank Craighead, who started making twiceweekly observations at Blacktail Butte and nearby in the 1970s.

About a half-century later I was redoing it. Beginning in spring 2017 I’d been making routine observations of phenology, the science of the seasonal timing of ecological events. Craighead was especially interested in the first events of spring: quaking aspen’s first leaves, the first flower of the arrowleaf balsamroot or the first mountain bluebird sighting From 1973 to 1979 and again in 1988, Craighead rigorously recorded these occurrences on plants and animals in his field

notebook. In 1994 he compiled them in a book, “For Everything There is a Season.” As a public school student raised in Jackson Hole who attended Teton Science Schools programs, I was familiar with the book, which helped cue me in to the seasonal pulse of nature.

Nearly 50 years after Craighead began his observations, I was living my dream as an ecologist in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, retracing his legendary footsteps. Along with Nature Conservancy colleague Corinna Riginos, we hypothesized that wildflowers today would emerge earlier than in Craighead’s day due to warming temperatures.

This fieldwork is what brought me to the bear encounter. Up on Blacktail Butte the grizzly towered above me when he rose on his hind legs to get a better view. Even in evening twilight I could see the shine in his dark wild eyes. Our gazes locked. The bear shook his massive head side to side and in one fluid motion dropped to all fours and began to charge straight towards me. I readied bear spray, releasing the safety clip. My heart was beating out of my chest. But at the last moment the bear cut towards the aspens and crashed through the timber.

Besides Frank Craighead’s phenology studies he was a pioneer of grizzly bear research, alongside his twin brother John. When they began an 11-year study in the 1970s there were fewer than 150 2019 Headwaters

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Trevor Bloom observes mule’s ear in bloom while surveying wildflowers near Blacktail Butte in Grand Teton National Park. The project continues the phenology research started by the Craigheads in the same area. grizzlies in the region. Now their numbers have grown beyond 700, a true conservation success. In that moment of fear and exhilaration, I wondered if Craighead was ever charged by a grizzly during his fieldwork and if he felt that same sense of wild excitement 50 years ago. In a strange way, I felt more connected to this project than ever.

Although grizzly numbers have rebounded the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem and landscapes beyond face new challenges. Climate change, increased wildfire frequency and habitat fragmentation are among the largest ecological threats.

We are now seeing flowers emerging earlier than observed by Craighead. Early spring flowers are blooming nearly three weeks earlier now than in the 1970s. Climate change is here, and species must adapt or fall from existence. Will berry bushes produce fruit at the right time for bears to load up on vital calories before hibernation? Will there be enough nectar for hummingbirds when and where they need it? How will elk change their migrations to track spring green-up? How will humans and wildlife respond to more frequent, widespread drought and wildfire as summers stretch on longer and grow warmer?

Yet it’s not too late. There are actions we can take as individuals and as a community to help ensure that the next generation can also experience the wild Wyoming landscape we know today.

We can push for policies and funding that keep the habitat intact and functional for migrating wildlife. We can support the land conservation efforts of local and global organizations and vote with our wallet to curb industrial activities that contribute to climate change. It will take ingenuity, votes and lifestyle change to counter the threats posed by a warming planet.

Yet the most important step, in my opinion, is to continue to form personal connections with nature and share those experiences with others. Get outside, and get others outside, especially children.

Hit the trail, taste a huckleberry, smell a wild rose, feel the tug of trout on a fly line and experience the thrill of seeing a bear or moose in the wild. If we don’t know what we stand to lose, we won’t stand up in the fight to protect it.

Energy Conservation Works thanks Jackson Family Chiropractic New West KnifeWorks Inversion Yoga Integrity Chiropractic Skinny Skis Roadhouse Brewing Taproom Trio Community Foundation of JH 4JH Lodging Tax JH Chamber of Commerce 96.9 KMTN Jackson Hole Pet Place Plus Stio

CLB Architects The Blue Lion Healthy Being Juicery Local Restaurant & Bar Vibrant Events Jackson Hole Hideout Navigate Community Housing Solutions Beyond Efficiency Blue Spruce Cleaners Outpost Spirits & Spice Inn on the Creek

Jackson Hole Marketplace Forget Me Not Thrift Shop High Country Linen Service Snow King Mountain Resort Snake River Roasting Co. Farmer Payne Architects Jackson Hole Airport Flat Creek Ranch Energy 1 JH News & Guide Knobe’s Purple Orange Media Trail Creek Ranch

for making the switch to Green Power.

ENERGYCONSERVATIONWORKS.ORG | (307) 264-2355 34

Headwaters issue #4

BUY 100%

GREEN POWER

Wyoming's Wildlife Populations Continue to Decline

Yellowstone wildlife officials say 2019 is the second consecutive year they've counted fewer than 20 elk calves for every 100 cows, which is considered necessary to maintain a stable elk population!

The numbers are close to the same for Jackson Hole elk.

Last year we were encouraged that the U.S. Interior Dept. Secretary directed the B.L.M. to defer nearly 5,000 acres of oil and gas leases which overlap the mule deer migration route between Jackson Hole and the Red Desert - regardless, the leases were sold!

Once again environmental activists are suing the National Elk Refuge in another attempt to discontinue feeding, claiming an impending Chronic Wasting Disease disaster. These groups sued back in 2007. In a 2010 U.S. District Court ruling, Judge Richard Leon stated, "It makes little sense to avert population decline caused by disease, only to bring about population decline caused by starvation." He chastised them for bringing the lawsuit.

(P.S. Purposeful starvation is not a legal management tool! See “Conservation of Elk in Wyoming U.S.C. Title 16 Sec. 673�.)

Last year a road-killed mule deer near Kelly, Wyoming tested C.W.D.-positive, so these groups fear the disease will jump species (deer to elk). Early in 1985 the first Wyoming mule deer tested C.W.D. positive -- but in over 50 years it has not jumped species.

The latest reliable science indicated that not more than 6% of feedground elk will die of C.W.D. if infected; some elk are naturally immune! There is no C.W.D. on any feedground, and no evidence of a greater infection risk there than elsewhere.

In 1995 the U.S.G.S. identified a C.W.D. antidote -- why is this not being utilized?

The good news: recently, people finally demanded money be appropriated to construct safe wildlife highway passages. In the meantime, it would be helpful to lower the speed limit near the junction of Highway 22 and 390 to 20 m.p.h.

savetheelk@wyoming.com Paid for By Concerned Citizens for the Elk

climate change mitigation in progress

We value beavers as eco-engineers, not trophies.

Beavers are born to build wetlands that...

Fight wildfire, flooding, and drought by ensuring water sources on our public landscapes.

Prevent the extinction of critical species by ensuring a complete ecosystem.

We promote science-based progressive wildlife management with a focus on trapping reform — WyomingUntrapped.org NORTH AMERICAN BEAVER — PHOTO BY SUZI ESZTERHAS

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Headwaters issue #4

Support a wide range of wildlife inhabitants, including amphibians, fish, and songbirds.