Beyond Yellowstone:
2023 SEJ Post-Conference Tour

April 23-26, Idaho

Roster of Participating Journalists

Itinerary

Saturday, April 22

2:30 - 4:30 p.m. - Boise State University, Barnwell Room - Connected Landscapes: The Ecological, Social and Cultural Considerations of Connectivity

Across the world, politicians, scientists and NGOs are dreaming big when it comes to conservation. With things like the 30 by 30 Initiative being touted as potential solutions to the climate crisis, large landscape conservation efforts are gaining steam. But what will it take to stitch fragmented wildlands back together? What concerns and conflicts arise when wildlife corridors and conservation easements intersect with industry, recreation and a multitude of existing human uses? And what have Indigenous communities identified as problematic or promising about efforts to reestablish relationships with places and organisms they’ve interacted with for millennia?

We will gather over coffee, tea and cookies for a conversation with three expert sources as we explore the ways in which ambitious international and federal conservation efforts are likely to play out on the ground,

Sunday, April 23

7 a.m. - Bus departs from the Hampton Inn in Boise, headed for Challis, Idaho

11 a.m. - Managing Expectations: Rural Communities Strive to Balance Conservation, Recreation and Public Access to Public Lands 

Sixty three percent of Idaho is federally managed public lands, making it one of the largest public landholders in the country. Here in Custer County, 90 percent is federally owned — nearly 3 million acres. In recent years, interest in outdoor recreation has exploded, the result of populations growing in Boise and Salt Lake City and a spike triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic. As people flock to wild spaces, much of the work of stewarding this land falls to the Bureau of Land Management — but the task of handling the human influx often belongs to small rural communities. We will take a short hike on the trails of the Challis Foothills Trail System as we talk with BLM staff, members of an area trails association and local elected officials about managing a shared resource for uses as varied as mountain biking, bighorn sheep lambing and ATV access. 

1:30 - Drive to Alderspring Ranch

2:15 - 4:15 p.m. - Home on the Range? Ranchers Work to Help Wolves and Cattle Coexist

In the iconography of the American West, little is as enduring as the image of humans on horseback herding cattle across the open range. Of course the term “open” is relative; when domesticated bovines replaced native bison, the landscape was fragmented — physically by thousands of miles of fencing and socially by a sustained campaign to eradicate threats to these new, docile protein sources. Decades of conflict between ranchers and predators often led to dark periods, like the wholesale slaughter of wolves that nearly wiped them out by the early 1900s. But times change and the West is now managed for multiple uses. One of those uses is still cattle production, but the campaign to eradicate wolves has been replaced by efforts to protect them. We’ll tour the Alderspring Ranch and hear from the Elzinga family about their progressive approach to pasture-raised beef, managing wolf conflicts and the lessons they’ve learned from trying to balance these two visions from their home on the range.

4:15 - 5:00 p.m. - Drive to Twin Peaks Guest Ranch

Overnight at Twin Peaks Guest Ranch

Monday, April 24

Breakfast at Twin Peaks

8:00 a.m. - Bus departs, headed for multiple stops between Salmon and Leadore.

Diminishing Returns: The Struggle to Keep Salmon in the Salmon River

Salmon, Idaho, is named for the strong-swimming fish that travel inland from the ocean. In fact the salmon that return here can claim to migrate the furthest inland and to the highest altitude than any other salmon in the world. For 14,000 years or more, humans have had a relationship with these intrepid fish — from tribes that call themselves the “salmon eaters” to the more recently arrived fly fishers wading the rivers. But over the last few decades, salmon and steelhead (a close relative) populations have declined, thanks mostly to downstream dams on the Snake River. While a push to remove those dams is gaining some steam, locals worry that it won’t be in time to save the fish of Salmon. We will hear about efforts to provide optimal habitat in this stretch of the river and visit a few restoration sites as we talk about the vision of keeping a viable population in the river long enough to take advantage of what they hope is a dam-free future.

Noon - 3:00 p.m. - Drive from Leadore to West Yellowstone; Lunch on the bus

3:30 - 6:00 p.m. - A Treasure Since Time Immemorial: Indigenous Histories in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem

Yellowstone National Park is a cornerstone of the U.S. national park system, drawing more than 3 million people annually to this remote corner of the world. But its 150 years of entrancing visitors is a tiny fraction of the time that humans have engaged with the landscape we now call the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. Some of the trails being hiked today are believed to be relics of paths Indigenous people made not long after the last Ice Age. In more recent centuries before the park’s creation, members of tribes like the Kiowa, Blackfeet, Cayuse, Coeur d'Alene, Shoshone and Nez Perce took advantage of the abundant resources and admired the profound beauty. However, the modern environmental movement was built upon the idea of places “untrammeled by man.” Not only was human occupation forbidden within the boundaries of our national parks, but the history of humans in these wild spaces was also often erased.  We will meet with an Apsáalooke teacher and scholar who is working to bring recognition to Indigenous histories in Yellowstone and build bridges between tribes’ ancient lifeways and modern relationships with these places.

6 p.m. - Dinner and Conservation Conversation

Overnight in West Yellowstone

Tuesday, April 25

8 - 11:30 a.m. - Bear Necessities: Yellowstone's Grizzlies Need Room to Roam

In 1975, when Yellowstone’s population of grizzly bears was listed as threatened with extinction under the Endangered Species Act, scientists estimated there were 136 bears left in the park. In 2021, that estimate topped 1,000. As the grizzly population in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem has grown, bears have expanded their range well outside of park boundaries. Where this threatened population was once tucked into the relative safety of a national park, they now must contend with new threats like highways, livestock and sprawling development. Earlier this year, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agreed to reassess the status of grizzly populations in Montana and Wyoming in response to petitions from those states to delist them. We will spend the morning with members of the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team to learn about everything the delisting assessment entails and the importance of connected habitat in keeping grizzly numbers up. We’ll also hear from state and NGO representatives to discuss efforts to improve wildlife crossings and how those efforts for grizzlies will benefit wildlife throughout the region. 

11:30 a.m. - Drive from Island Park to St. Anthony

1 - 2:30 p.m. - The Sand Creek Desert: Protecting the Sage Brush Sea for Large Mammals, Threatened Birds and Outdoor Enthusiasts

Every winter, the state of Idaho closes off a huge swath of land between Highway 20 and Interstate 15 to human use. While the Sand Creek Desert Wildlife Management Area is dotted with sand dunes, wetlands and stands of lodge-pole pine and Douglas fir, it is primarily dominated by arid sagebrush steppe. But don’t let that “desert” moniker fool you: This desert provides overwintering habitat for more than 3,500 elk, 2,500 mule deer and 500 moose that all migrate down from higher elevations in Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. It is also home to sage-grouse, trumpeter swans, badgers, beavers and more.  In 2018 the Grassy Ridge Fire burned 100,000 acres of this critically important habitat, underscoring the need to reduce dry “fuel” on the landscape and update management plans to ensure a resilient habitat. We will take a ride with employees of the BLM’s Upper Snake Field Office and a representative from the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership to see some of these efforts in the field.

2:30 - 3:30 p.m. - Drive to Fort Hall

3:30 - 5:30 p.m. - River of Return: The Shoshone Bannock Work to Keep Their Connection to Salmon

For the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes, salmon are sacred. In fact, northern Bannock communities were often referred to in their native language as “Agaidika” or “eaters of salmon.” It is a relationship between people and fish that dates back millennia and has resulted in a vast knowledge system about what is now called freshwater ecology and fish biology. We will visit one of the oldest continuously occupied places in Idaho — the Fort Hall Bottoms. The Bottoms are a wetland complex of more than 35,000 acres that the Shoshone-Bannock Fish and Wildlife Department is working to restore, using a combination of traditional knowledge and modern technologies. The tribes are hoping that improving habitat in the Bottoms can promote resilience in current salmon populations while efforts to address the main cause of their decline — dams along the Snake River — gain momentum. If and when the river runs free again, the Shoshone-Bannock Tribe is determined that salmon will still be around to enjoy it. After our time along the river, we will head to dinner with our hosts.

Overnight in Burley, Idaho

Wednesday, April 26

7:45 - 8:30 a.m. - Drive to Minidoka National Historic Landmark

8:30 - 11:00 a.m. - Wind Resistance: Local Opposition Meets Federal Energy Efforts in the Minidoka Desert

As part of its goal to cut U.S. emissions and achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, the Biden Administration is hoping to permit 25 gigawatts of renewable energy on federal lands. Just north of Twin Falls and south of the volcanic landscape of Craters of the Moon National Monument, a 76,000-acre parcel of land has become a test case of sorts for the feasibility of this vision. Magic Valley Energy, an affiliate of New York-based LS Power, has proposed building 400 turbines in the Minidoka desert and connecting them to transmission lines that will carry this Idaho-harvested energy to southern California. This proposal has accomplished something rare in Idaho — agreement across parties and ideologies that it is a bad idea. Local ranchers worry about their way of life. Non-profit organizations worry about wildlife impacts. And one group of opponents has lodged a less tangible concern: The wind farm would sit right up against the Minidoka National Historic Site, where 13,000 Japanese Americans were held as prisoners in the Minidoka internment camp during World War II. A giant wind farm, they contend, would negatively impact the experience of visiting this sobering memorial. The project is a test case for federal efforts to grow renewable energy. No one is arguing against the need for more domestically produced clean energy, but can anyone agree on where that power should be produced? 

12:30 - 2 p.m. - Lava and Lambs: Sheep Grazing and a Massive Success Story for Pronghorn Conservation

At the base of Idaho’s Wood River Valley, the foothills of the Pioneer Mountains and the western edge of the Craters of the Moon lava fields give way to grasslands and a patchwork of federal, state and private properties. In 2008, a coalition of sheep ranchers, nonprofit organizations and agencies led a study of pronghorn migration that found, to their surprise, that the pronghorn they saw each spring and summer in the Pioneer Mountains had migrated from parts of eastern Idaho 200 miles away. That migration corridor, however, was at risk from rapid growth outside of Hailey, Idaho and a large transmission line project. In these parts, pronghorn are an iconic species and keeping them on the landscape became a unifying goal between ranchers, environmentalists, private landowners and state and federal agencies. After years of work, this coalition has built up nearly 100,000 acres of conservation easements on private lands and management agreements on public lands that allow sheep ranching and pronghorn to coexist. Our first stop will be at Lava Lake Lamb to learn about their operation and pronghorn conservation efforts before heading into Carey, Idaho, to meet another ranching family and a representative from The Nature Conservancy to hear more. 

2 - 2:30 p.m. - Drive to Carey

2:30 - 4 p.m. - Lava and Lambs Part 2: Making Conservation Work in a "Working Landscape"

4:00 - 6:30 p.m. - Return to Boise

Tour Adjourns; Overnight in Boise