This spring, John Mionczynski a local ethnobotanist, biologist, and historian, accompanied Citizens for the Red Desert into the landscape to help educate and inform tour participants about the natural wonders and uses of the desert ecosystem. Above, you can see him pointing out the geological anomalies of the Great Divide Basin as tour participants take in the dramatic expanse of badlands throughout the Honeycomb Buttes Wilderness Study Area. Off in the distance, stand the Oregon Buttes, another WSA. Part of Mionczynski’s knowledge includes the abundance of edible and medicinal foods that grow throughout the Red Desert. Pictured above, he digs up biscuit root for tour participants and explains how this root vegetable was a staple for an Indigenous diet, often ground into flour and made into bread. Later on the tour, near a bubbling spring, Mionczynski explained how water is a precious resource. This spring, and others like it, are scattered across the desert and attract wildlife from miles around and support a thriving habitat.
In late May, CfRD joined Southwest Wyoming Off-Road Trails on a tour to explore the motorized recreation potential of the area. This is one of many groups who add value to the desert and show that working together can simultaneously support the landscape, stimulate local economies, and empower our communities. Above, you can see the way these ORV enthusiasts spent their day in the desert, taking in the scenes near Oregon Buttes and the White Mountains.
On June 28, members of Citizens for the Red Desert spent another day in the desert, visiting three sacred petroglyph sites and the Boars Tusk. Yufna Soldier Wolf, the Tribal advocacy coordinator for the Indigenous Land Alliance of Wyoming, is pictured above, discussing ways in which we can better manage and protect these sites, especially within the context of the forthcoming Bureau of Land Management’s Rock Springs Resource Management Plan.
Join Michael and other photographers by submitting your own shot of Wyoming for the Outdoor Council’s 2023 Calendar Contest. You can enter your photos via Instagram or email. To submit your photo(s) via Instagram, you must have a public Instagram account so that we’re able to view your submission. Upload your photo(s) and add the hashtag #OurWyoming.
When Michael Lee told me the story behind the cover photo of last year’s calendar, he admitted that it sounded like a story that could have had an awful ending. We’re all glad it didn’t—and that, rather, it ended with a photograph that captured a sweeping vista of the valley below and the Little Bighorn River.
Lee, a professional photographer, and his wife, who live in a suburb north of Chicago, have been visiting Wyoming for years. This particular shot was taken in 2020, although the story started four years earlier in 2016.
That year, Lee and his wife were driving around the Bighorn National Forest in the fall, just before hunting season was to begin. “As a photographer, I’m always looking for things to photograph,” he says. “We had been driving down a dirt road quite a ways. It was late in the afternoon and we were just waiting for the light to change. We had pulled over at a spot in the road where there was a view of an elk herd in the valley below. My wife was making popcorn on our propane stove.”
That’s when a big pickup truck pulled up next to them and a father and son duo stepped out. The four got to chit chatting and the father and son introduced themselves as the Buchanan’s from Casper who were scouting for wildlife because they had drawn a tag to hunt there. That’s when the father turned to them and said, “Well, if you like this view, we’ll have to show you another one you’ll like even better.”
Without a second thought, or consulting his wife, Lee said yes. As Lee climbed into the back of the Buchanan’s cab first, at the insistence of his wife, the father turned around to reassure them that “the guns were in the backseat with them.”
The four drove down the dirt road for another 10 minutes before they pulled over again, adjacent to a dense forest. The father beckoned into the woods and said, “It’s this way.”
Lee laughs, “It sounds like the plot is thickening, doesn’t it? But we walked for about 100 yards, and emerged from the trees to the very view you see on the cover of the calendar.”
The four lingered for awhile at the vista, talking and getting to know one another, before they headed back to the pickup, unscathed.
The picture on the cover was taken two years ago when the Lee’s returned to Wyoming on their annual trip, and decided to try to find the spot again, even though neither of them had marked it on a map. There is a name for the place, Lee says, but he doesn’t know it. He calls it Buchanan’s Bluff.
The experience—”Just a couple of Wyomingites offering to show us something cool”—was more proof for Lee that Wyomingites are pretty trustworthy and friendly. He’s even stayed in touch with the Buchanan’s over the years, swapping emails every once and awhile.
“I’ve got a few Wyomingites in my rolodex,” he says. “You never know when you want to stop in and have a good meal.”
“I’ve got a few Wyomingites in my rolodex,” he says. “You never know when you want to stop in and have a good meal.”
— Michael Lee
The Lee’s return to Wyoming, or at least the West, every year. Lee’s been to Wyoming more than any other place, and has probably been to more places in Wyoming than in his own state, he admits. Although he loves the people that he encounters when he travels in Wyoming, he admits that Wyoming is special for its lack of people—which is a sharp contrast to his day-to-day life in Chicago.
He also loves the diversity of the Wyoming landscape. How in many parts of it appears so empty, yet those places are so rich with life and beauty. From the rugged mountains to the dry windy desert, to the warm welcoming people. Wyoming is a place that has not seen the kind of dense industrial development that he is used to in Chicago and his home state of Wisconsin.
He first fell in love with the West as a kid when his dad took him on a road trip in 1978. But he fell in love all over again, more recently, in 2001, when he took a few months off following a stint in New York City. He visited a friend in Dallas and then continued west with a tent and a camera. “I had no idea what I was doing,” he says, as he traveled through New Mexico, Utah, Colorado, and Wyoming for two and a half months, just driving, taking pictures, being really dirty. “I loved every second of it.”
He hasn’t let go of that feeling. He and his wife even backpacked in Wyoming for their honeymoon. When I asked him why he doesn’t just live here, he said the realities of life keep him in Chicago. It is there that he has the closeness of family and a community and more professional opportunities as a photographer. The jobs he is able to take there are consistent, interesting, and fun. This work and life in Chicago, affords him the ability to make a special visit to Wyoming once a year and completely shut his phone off.
He doesn’t, however, shut his camera off, rather, he likes to use it as a way to give back to the places that he frequently visits and wants to support. “All of these places need all the help they can get,” he says. “And anyone who visits should, and could, do a little extra to take care of the place, like donating. But anyone can do that, and what I can do is a little different—provide photographs that organizations can use to raise awareness or get more people to open their checkbooks. That’s something these organizations don’t usually have a budget for.” He’s happy to be able to contribute to these causes in a special way. “It doesn’t cost me anything, and if my photograph can help raise awareness or convince a politician to vote a certain way or support a certain action, well, that’s just icing on the cake.”
The Wyoming Outdoor Council’s mission is to protect Wyoming’s environment and quality of life now and for future generations. I’ll admit that sometimes those two words, “future generations,” feel far off to me. They refer to my newly-born niece, yes, but also grandchildren and great grandchildren who I may never meet. Although none of us has a crystal ball to predict the future, we each have the present moment to make decisions that will have ripple effects into the future. That’s how we can all make an impact.
I recently talked to two Outdoor Council members who might be characterized as “the next generation.” One, Ted Rittle, is 18 years old and just enrolled at the University of Wyoming. The other, Nicole Gautier, is in her early thirties and works for UW as a research scientist. They both have chosen to donate to the Outdoor Council, and we wanted to find out why.
Their reasons are layered, but there was a similar thread of seeing their parents and others committed to a cause, be it conservation, or botany, or the outdoors, and supporting the things they loved. It was these real-life experiences that played a role in their own decisions to become Outdoor Council members. The actions they’re taking as young adults ensure a better future for Wyoming and for those who come after them.
THE FIRST YEAR COLLEGE STUDENT
Ted Rittle was born and raised in Laramie, Wyoming, where he currently lives and studies math education at UW. Talking to him, he has a prolific sense of place that I wish I had had when I was his age. He’s a self-taught fly fisherman who has developed his own favorite spots in the nearby mountains and rivers in just a few years. Although the rest of his family doesn’t fish as often, Rittle said his parents took him outdoors frequently growing up, where they would hike, camp, and Nordic ski. It was there that he learned to appreciate nature, especially wildlife.
When it came to acting on this value, Rittle also had his parents to look up to. His father, Keith, served on the Outdoor Council board for many years and both his parents talked about the importance of donating 10 percent of one’s income to causes you support.
“I came to really love the wildlife and want to support it,” he said. “There are certainly some special places in Wyoming that helped instill this in me — the Platte River Wilderness, for example. We’ve gone there since I was young. It’s so neat how much wildlife there was there. That really emphasized the importance of preserving the wilderness. I guess that helped me see the value of protected open spaces, too.”
Wanting to go along with this idea and only just having started working, Rittle joined the Outdoor Council in 2021 and became one of our youngest members. (You may remember a story we did last year about our youngest, Jules Goldwarg, who was just six.)
“Protecting wildlife in Wyoming’s open spaces is one of the reasons I chose to donate to the Outdoor Council,” he said of the decision. He said he’s seen WOC’s work on migration corridors and wildlife habitat, and donating felt in line with his values of promoting wildlife habitat.
“To me, it’s so neat to see other species out there, just going about their lives. I want to make sure they’re able to keep being here.”
He plans to donate every year, he says, as well as stay involved in other conservation efforts such as citizen science efforts led by the local branch of the Audubon Society and Rocky Mountain Amphibian Project.
THE YOUNG PROFESSIONAL
Nicole Gautier, too, had a childhood steeped in the outdoors. She grew up in Oregon, with parents who had botany backgrounds. She remembers many hikes where her parents would eagerly identify the plants along their route. She remembers, too, that they were active in their state’s Native Plant Society. What she remembers most was always being outside — a value that’s remained a throughline in her life.
Gautier moved to Wyoming six years ago as a student in the Teton Science Schools’ graduate program, which has a focus on place-based, natural science education. Prior to that, she had led outdoor education programs at a variety of small organizations in the West but had found that the science component was lacking. When she found the Science Schools’ program, and its partnership with the Haub School of Environment and Natural Resources at UW, she applied enthusiastically. After finishing the program, she was offered a position at the Haub School and, again, eagerly accepted.
“I wanted to stay in Wyoming and I was excited to stay in Laramie because of its access to public lands. Being an avid recreationist, climbing and running is how I like to spend my time. The variety of landscapes in Wyoming, from mountains to desert, still leaves me feeling that there’s so much to explore here,” she said.
Her first introduction to the Outdoor Council was through Run the Red in 2017, where she ran and the Outdoor Council was a sponsor. She had never been to the Red Desert before and was impressed — both by the rugged beauty of the area as well as the work of the conservation groups advocating its protection.
It was 2020 when she decided she wanted to give back and chose the Outdoor Council based on the good, recognizable work she saw, through our communications and events, as well as her own network of friends and colleagues.
“The projects [WOC is] working on are very tangible. I’ve been to the Red Desert and seen how special that place is,” she said. “That personal connection was part of it, too.”
She encourages other people to engage with their values in the same way.
“Consider the landscapes you’ve spent time in in Wyoming,” she said, “and then ask yourself, how might I give back?’ Giving $20 can be an easy way to feel a small part of this organization that has similar values,” she said.
THE RIPPLE EFFECT
I write this at that time of year when many of us get reflective — looking back and making plans, seeing where we can improve, and setting goals to do so. There are many ways to engage in this practice, and many involve asking thoughtful questions of yourself. It can be framed as simply as Gautier’s: “What do I have to give?” Perhaps your answer is 15 minutes to write an email to your local legislator, or $20 to become a member supporting a cause you value, or a weekend to do volunteer trail work.
Or the question could be as big as, “What’s the legacy I want to leave behind for future generations, and that I could start now?” The answer could be the same. You don’t know who is watching even your smallest action.
We commend and thank Rittle and Gautier for their support. Along with them, and countless others, we look forward to creating a strong, more connected community of members, this and every year.
Advocating for conservation in Wyoming is demanding work, both for the Wyoming Outdoor Council’s staff and for passionate members like you. Not only are there more issues than we can possibly address as a small organization in a geographically large state, but for people with big hearts and a love for the wild, open spaces of Wyoming, the outcomes are personal.
We don’t always win. When we do find success, as frequent as it may be, it’s often in the form of a quiet victory or incremental change. The forces working against us — whether it’s government inertia or downright hostile opposition from other stakeholders — can often feel overwhelming.
But we aren’t in this alone. After all, we have each other.
Poll after poll shows that the vast majority of our fellow Wyomingites — even if they don’t consider themselves “conservationists” — value public lands, wide open spaces, wildlife, clean air, and clean water. Our challenge is to meet people where they are and attempt to find common ground. The more we make these connections, value multiple perspectives, and seek input from a diversity of people outside of our organization in Wyoming and beyond, the more likely we are to succeed in our mission.
However difficult it may be, an honest and respectful conversation with a person who disagrees with our position does more good than assuming we have all the answers.
Everything we hope to accomplish depends on relationships. Wyoming is a state where a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can seek creative solutions to tough problems and make a difference. And, as you’ll read in the coming pages, positive things can happen when a group of people with diverse perspectives put their heads together around an issue of mutual concern instead of staying in their own camps.
Everything we hope to accomplish depends on relationships. Wyoming is a state where a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can seek creative solutions to tough problems and make a difference.
Thank you for being part of the Outdoor Council community in 2022. I take comfort in knowing, despite the obstacles and the slow pace of change, we’re all in this together. I hope you’ll remember that as well.
Join Brandon and other photographers by submitting your own shot of Wyoming for the Outdoor Council’s 2022 Calendar Contest. You can enter your photos via Instagram or email. To submit your photo(s) via Instagram, you must have a public Instagram account so that we’re able to view your submission. Upload your photo(s) and add the hashtag #OurWyoming.
In the 2021 Wyoming Outdoor Council calendar, Brandon Ward’s three sons and their dog make two appearances within the pages: once perched at the smoky summit of Continental Peak, and later aboard pack rafts on the Sweetwater River. If anyone follows Brandon on Instagram (@wyoutside), you’ll see more appearances of his sons, Henry, Tucker, and Sawyer, and their dog, Shep. Brandon, of course, is there behind the lens.
True to his username, there is only one picture of recent, or within reasonable scrolling distance, on his page that’s taken inside. And his images look rugged, but only because Wyoming is rugged — there are wide sweeping vistas of undulating striated badlands, and clouds forming unique bulges and deep pockets in the dense blue sky. There are steep canyons, and gushing rivers, and granite mountain summits, sure, but there are also his boys, down low and up close, exploring and discovering nature. A reminder that there’s plenty of easy, accessible, kid-sized adventures to be had in this state, too.
In August, Brandon’s wife Karly goes back to work as a principal in Riverton, earlier than their sons return to school in Lander where the Wards live. Which leaves Brandon as the sole parent during the day for the rest of the month. It’s those few weeks where Brandon gets to spend quality time with his growing boys, which always, always involves the outdoors.
“We get after it pretty hard, me and the boys,” he said with a laugh. “And while it would be really fun to stomp up into the Winds, it’s really equipment heavy.” And so he often takes them out into the Northern Red Desert, a quick drive from Lander, because the recreation out there is easier. “You can have an epic day hike, come back to your car for some car camping, and still see a lot of country.” The photo of his kids up on Continental Peak is something they do together once or twice a year because it’s a hike with “no bugs, no heavy packs, kid-friendly.”
Personally, Brandon likes the Red Desert for numerous other reasons, too. With a big honest grin, he told me that he doesn’t “like a lot of people around.” It’s the reason he moved to Wyoming in the first place after growing up in rural South Carolina and living in places like Georgia, Tennessee, and Colorado. “I’ve lived in big cities. I value low populations. There’s something to me about the lack of people. Even in the Red Desert, although it’s checkerboard with private and public lands, you can still generally pick a cardinal direction and go that way.”
When he takes his kids out, he tries to teach them to appreciate that fact.
“I think all kids in Wyoming sometimes are oblivious to the fact of how good they have it, if their interest is in outdoor recreation and public lands. Everything else in other states seems to be permit- or reservation-based or costs money to see. We have none of that here. Things are the way they are, unaltered by man. And that’s pretty precious and these places are becoming less and less. So I try to tell them to just appreciate it, because who knows what it will look like in 20 years.”
“I don’t know if they get it,” he follows with a laugh, “but at least I try.”
Brandon also has an affinity for the rivers in Wyoming, so another annual Ward family trip includes floating down the Sweetwater. It’s an adventure Brandon has gone on by himself, with friends, and with his family over 20 times, he estimates. Locally, he’s come to be known as the “Sweetwater Whisperer” for the knowledge he’s built over the years.
“I’ve been a river boater in one way or another my whole life,” he said. “From my earliest outings on rivers with my father in my home state to now passing that passion on to my kids here locally on the rivers in my backyard. I hope that they find the joy I have out there on this special river.”
He described the Sweetwater as mostly a gentle gradient, with grass- and willow-lined banks, and never-ending meanders that makes it great for a family adventure. His boys learned to paddle there. And its remoteness contributes to how special he finds it: “It feels like we are completely alone out there and exploring it for the first time.”
He’s been saddened by its degradation and continued levels of pollution, however. And over the years, he’s felt that he’s become more and more conservation-minded in proportion to the time he spends outdoors.
“It’s hard not to care about these places when you’re within them so much. I’ve come to the realization that I’ve only ever been a recreationalist. I rationalize it as I’ve been a taker, not a giver, and for a rash of reasons this suddenly doesn’t sit well with me. My passion for the outdoors has taken me to many wonderful places and helped mold me into the person I am today. Many of those places are in danger from various threats, including the good-intentioned recreationalist.”
As he’s gotten older and more mature, he’s shifted his focus beyond recreation and has tried to learn about the environment he’s in as well as the current threats to that environment, even if that means grappling with his own impact as a recreationist. He began asking himself, “What can I do to lessen or remove my impacts?” and he’s found interest in sharing what he’s learned, especially with his kids and also as a photographer.
“I like to think that sharing these scenes that I photograph helps people to appreciate wild places they may have never heard of or will never get to go to or do it in the way I often do,” he said. “We are spoiled here in Wyoming with our scenery and remoteness. As a photographer, it’s hard to beat. Around every corner is a place worth appreciating and sharing.”
A change in federal administrations — and the policies that follow — is cause for either excitement or anxiety depending on how you voted. And for good reason: Elections have consequences. National policies affect our health, our economy, and our environment. And in Wyoming, where nearly half of the land is managed by the federal government, national policies have a disproportionate impact.
Members of the Wyoming Outdoor Council fall all along the political spectrum. We agree to disagree on many issues, but find common ground when it comes to conservation. Conservation is not — and should not be — a partisan issue.
From the standpoint of conservation and environmental justice, the legacy of the outgoing administration is dire. From climate change denial and the loosening of air and water quality safeguards to oil and gas leasing in areas important to Indigenous people and in crucial wildlife habitats, there have been more than 100 documented rollbacks to existing protections or short-sighted policies that threaten public health and our air, water, wildlife, and lands.
Many of the administrative wins we celebrated over the last decade were among those rolled back. The fate of others — like the Bureau of Land Management’s methane waste prevention rule — remains uncertain as challenges are still working their way through the courts. And while there are some rules that the incoming administration will be able to restore and it will certainly abandon some public land policies like “energy dominance,” we’ve lost important ground.
To be sure, the Outdoor Council looks forward to an incoming administration that is less hostile to our mission. At the same time, we are wary of ambitious campaign goals that don’t take Wyoming values into account. For example, in the urgency to transition away from fossil fuels, proposals for industrial-scale wind and solar development on public lands in Wyoming shouldn’t be rushed. Development should be encouraged in already disturbed areas so that, in our effort to mitigate climate impacts, we don’t harm intact habitat and our most cherished open spaces and public lands.
And we’ll be careful not to rely too heavily on federal policy for solutions to the specific challenges we face in Wyoming. We don’t relish what has come to feel like a game of administrative ping-pong.
Instead, what we strive for — regardless of who occupies the White House — are common-sense conservation initiatives and environmental policies that endure. Although incremental progress isn’t as newsworthy as sweeping change, we’re playing a long game. We’d much rather build on measured steps forward than have fleeting successes that can’t withstand the next election.
What we strive for — regardless of who occupies the White House — are common-sense conservation initiatives and environmental policies that endure.
Assuming they work as promised, we support state-level initiatives. Past examples include rules for detecting and fixing methane leaks in new and modified oil and gas fields and requiring baseline water testing before oil and gas drilling. We’ve also supported executive orders for sage-grouse conservation and big game migration corridors, although we continue to scrutinize their implementation.
And when we advocate for big policy solutions with the power to deliver conservation wins, we also champion strong public processes. We’re dedicated to empowering citizens in local communities to help craft lasting solutions. In the coming year we’ll build on the groundwork we laid in 2020 to seek consensus recommendations for large-scale renewable energy siting, support community-led climate change resolutions like the one recently adopted in Lander, and work with Tribal partners and other citizens toward permanent protection for parts of the incredible Northern Red Desert.
Our approach to conservation keeps us grounded in Wyoming. This doesn’t mean that we are always successful. There are frequent setbacks, but it’s this approach that accounts for the conservation gains we’ve celebrated over the last 54 years. With your support, I’m confident we’ll continue this progress — not just in the coming year or coming four years, but for the long haul.
You may not know it, but the image featured for the month of July in our 2020 calendar is a well-known view in these parts. The mule and two horses graze in the foreground of the most iconic views in Wyoming — Deer Creek Pass in the Thorofare, one of the truly last wild places in the lower 48. A few miles away from this point, at the southeastern edge of Yellowstone National Park, is the furthest you can get from any road, 20 miles.
And this is the place that Karinthia Harrison feels most at peace, a place where “you can look out and just see endless country,” she said.
“And then,” she laughed, “I have to get to the other side.”
And she has, many, many times in some of the other wild, remote corners Wyoming has to offer — Buttercup Basin, Nipple Mesa, the top of Dead Indian Peak. Growing up on a ranch with her parents in Powell, Wyoming, Karinthia’s childhood was full of adventure — thanks to a father, Rick, who appreciated taking his children out into the mountains.
“Even just growing up on a farm,” Karinthia said, “you’re already connected to the land, the sunrises and sunsets. You work with your hands and you get used to manual labor. And then my dad always took us to do these rather extreme activities — we’d climb mountains, play in the rivers, we were always out hiking.”
And it stuck. Now, working as a nurse in the ER and ICU at West Park Hospital in Cody, Karinthia tries to do at least a long day trip into the wilderness every weekend, if not an overnighter.
These trips are often, if not always, aided by and shared with the quick-witted, strong company of mules and horses. After a lifetime of riding, she has a strong connection to them, even if “you sometimes need to cuss at them,” she admitted.
“But then you just have to laugh at them,” she followed. “They are my companions out there. They take care of me on the ride, and then when we get to camp, you take care of them. That was something I was taught by my dad: ‘You don’t get to eat or drink a beer until they’re taken care of.’”
She also loves the personality they bring to the trail, watching them figure out their way, whether that’s the route they take or the order they’ll stand in. And what they make possible. “I love that I can go out for six or seven days, and I can eat steak and salmon, and drink wine and beer. I am in the mountains, yes, but sometimes it’s nice to have a little luxury out there.”
On the particular trip when Karinthia snapped the photo on her exit from the Thorofare, she, her then-fiancee, now-husband Phil and four friends packed up a collection of 13 horses and mules and started on the trail at Ishawooa Creek, which lies up the South Fork near Cody and in the Shoshone National Forest. They traveled over 60 miles in six days, swam in rivers, spent a layover day in Silvertip, crossed mountain passes and descended dramatic creek basins, spotted cranes and wolves and a host of other wildlife, and came back out through the Washakie Wilderness on Deer Creek Trail.
Along with mules and horses, Karinthia also loves to share the mountain experience with friends and was grateful for the opportunity to bring the group back into this awe-inspiring landscape. “I want them to experience what I love experiencing, to get that appreciation,” she says. “But, I always let them know how hard it’s going to be, that we’re going to get very sore in the saddle, we’re going to have to walk, that we’ll take our only baths in rivers, that we’ll need to wake up and prep our animals every morning.”
“But, it’s so rewarding. It’s like what my dad used to tell me on the top of a mountain, he’d say, ‘You know what Tink [his nickname for her], just think, you’ve been to places, to mountaintops, that other people have never experienced.’”
She loves that wildness about Wyoming, and always has. That’s why she moved back to Cody after living and working for a couple of years in Alaska — which, while beautiful and rugged, was too inaccessible for her, requiring a plane or a boat to get to some locations.
“And I think Wyoming is the most beautiful state,” she said. “Really. You have such a diversity of ecosystems — the desert, the mountains, the wilderness.”
And she’s recently become more involved in helping to keep Wyoming this way.
“My dad, with his farming schedule, didn’t have time to be a part of committees or conversation groups, but now, I see these groups as being so important to Wyoming and keeping the state rooted in this way of life. And just because of how I was raised, and what we did, I can’t help but want to try to protect it, to keep it pure, natural, and full of wildlife.”
Karinthia said she contributes to the Wyoming Wilderness Association (where her sister Shaleas formerly worked as a community organizer), Wyoming Wildlife Federation, Wyoming Wild Sheep Foundation, and Wyoming Outdoor Council. She was also part of the Wyoming Public Lands Initiative, representing Park County on behalf of the local citizens, was recently elected to be on the Wyoming Game and Fish Commission’s chronic wasting disease working group, and has applied to be a part of the Cody conservation district. It’s hard to fit it all in with her full-time nursing schedule, but she recognizes how important it is.
“I might not have had a choice in it when I was younger and with my dad,” she laughed, “but now, it’s just become part of who I am and what I love.”
Join Karinthia and other photographers by submitting your own shot of Wyoming for the Outdoor Council’s 2021 Calendar Contest. You can enter your photos via Instagram or email. To submit your photo(s) via Instagram, you must have a public Instagram account so that we’re able to view your submission. Upload your photo(s) and add the hashtag #OurWyoming.
Wyoming is changing, faster now than any of us could have predicted even six months ago. In our last issue of Frontline, we addressed the reality of climate change and what it means for Wyoming’s future. Climate change is not a separate issue, but one that is deeply intertwined with all aspects of our work — from protecting our state’s big game populations to reducing harmful air emissions, to safeguarding our clean water, public lands, and ultimately our way of life. And if we are to succeed in our mission, we must advocate for policies that directly confront the real and growing threat of human-caused climate change.
Wildlife and migration
As you know, the Wyoming Outdoor Council’s wildlife work over the last several years has focused on protecting Wyoming’s big game migration corridors — and for good reason. The science is clear about the crucial role these corridors play in maintaining ungulate populations that in turn support our state’s recreation economy and outdoor heritage. Yet, a changing climate could easily undermine many of these hard-fought efforts. For one, changing precipitation patterns and drought increasingly threaten the ability of animals to “surf the green waves” that connect their seasonal habitats. Wyoming has seen warming temperatures and drought intensify over the last 20 years and most experts agree that, at least for our state, this trend only gets worse. If we are to ensure that our state’s wildlife remain protected for the long term, we must also consider how these populations stay resilient and capable of adapting to these changes, while taking responsibility to mitigate the most damaging forecasted climate scenarios.
Clean air
It’s hard to talk about clean air and the policies necessary to maintain it without acknowledging the relationship between climate change and the greenhouse gases at the heart of Wyoming’s air quality problems. We often think of natural gas as a cleaner fuel than coal — and it is, if we minimize the amount of fugitive emissions that leak into the atmosphere as it is produced and processed. The Outdoor Council has repeatedly called on Wyoming’s Department of Environmental Quality and the oil and gas industry to address air quality concerns, by advocating improved Leak Detection and Repair requirements for oil and gas infrastructure and opposing rollbacks of critical methane capture rules. With natural gas expected to play a major role in energy production for years to come, Wyoming must keep on raising the bar for air quality standards not only to protect our health, but to reduce our greenhouse gas footprint and stay competitive in energy markets that are favoring cleaner energy.
Clean water
One of the most alarming aspects of climate change in Wyoming is its impacts on our arid state’s already limited water resources. If current projections for warming hold, Wyoming could see significant loss of coldwater fisheries and native trout habitat by the end of this century due to increased water temperatures and loss of instream flows as our snowfields and glaciers shrink. These conditions exacerbate water quality concerns the Outdoor Council has been working hard to address, such as reducing harmful E. coli concentrations in our waterways. Warming temperatures are also projected to increase the amount of rainfall as opposed to snow, which reduces the amount of stored water potential available in the summer and fall. This spells increasing challenges and conflicts for ranchers, farmers, cities, recreators, and, again, our wildlife.
Our public lands
Advocating responsible energy development has been at the heart of the Outdoor Council’s public lands policy work — whether that’s fighting back against efforts to privatize public lands, urging the protection of special landscapes, or watchdogging development in crucial wildlife areas. We’ve recently reported on the rampant and largely speculative oil and gas leasing taking place across large swaths of the state. Not only do these lease sales come at the expense of other uses of our public lands, for those that are developed, they come at the expense of the quality of the environment that future generations will inherit. Remarkably, nearly one quarter of all greenhouse gas emissions produced in the United States originate from public lands — lands that are supposed to be managed with both current and future generations in mind. This is not sustainable. To the greatest extent possible, our public lands should be managed in ways that mitigate climate change and help surrounding communities be more resilient into the future.
Confronting climate change also means addressing our economy
Climate change is a reality that ripples through the conservation issues the Outdoor Council has been engaged in for decades. It is something that our founder, Tom Bell, understood early on and urged us to address directly.
If we cannot find ways to address and mitigate this looming crisis and do our part as a state, our conservation work in all of our traditional program areas will fall short.
Tackling climate issues in Wyoming will require hard and honest conversations about the dependency of our state’s economy on fossil fuels, and it will require creativity and investment into bold new ideas. The new front line for conservation means wading into policy issues that, at least on the surface, seem less directly tied to it — like helping communities transition from fossil fuels, promoting economic diversification, and supporting new sources of state revenue. As daunting and intimidating as this might feel, we believe it’s critical. Our state’s economy and conservation policies are interconnected. Wyoming’s outsized influence on climate change means that the policies and actions we take in our communities can have national — even global — impacts.
One day in mid-March, all of us on the Wyoming Outdoor Council staff found ourselves sitting at home. The safest thing to do was to stop all work-related travel and work remotely rather from the Lander office. Our office remained open a few hours a day for our administrative staff (thank you Maureen and Misti) to process mail, pay bills, and acknowledge new and renewing memberships, but things had changed.
Like you, we stayed awake at night worrying about the health of our vulnerable family members and friends. We tried to make sense of a rapidly evolving global pandemic while facing new, everyday challenges, like kids who could no longer go to school or how to safely get groceries. Overall, we did our best to stay positive.
Fortunately, most of our work continued from home offices, but other aspects — holding public events, attending legislative and state agency meetings, getting together with members and partners — evaporated overnight, and we were left wondering how to fill that gap. It quickly became apparent this situation wasn’t going to resolve itself anytime soon, and after just a few days of self-isolation our staff was eager to connect with one another and our members.
The first step was the easiest.
Even in normal times, the Outdoor Council offers a variety of trainings and resources for citizens who want to be better informed about conservation issues in Wyoming and empowered to participate in public processes that affect our public lands, wildlife, and environmental quality. We’d already planned to bring our citizen outreach and engagement work under a single banner, and took the opportunity this spring to launch FIELD: Fostering Impact through Environmental Leadership Development.
We dove in headfirst with a brand-new offering: a continuing series of video lessons for kids and teenagers that we dubbed Live from the FIELD. In each installment, students had the opportunity to learn from a Wyoming expert, then participate in a live Q&A session over Zoom. We heard about mule deer, big game migration, and wildlife ecology from University of Wyoming research scientists Samantha Dwinell and Rhiannon Jakopak, wildlife disease from Hank Edwards of Wyoming’s Wildlife Health Laboratory, the sagebrush ecosystem from Gina Clingerman of the Bureau of Land Management, and healthy streams from fly fishing guide and longtime member George Hunker. When we noticed many adults were tuning in as well, we took a bigger creative risk and put together a live, online variety show about the National Environmental Policy Act.
Was there an occasional technical difficulty? Of course. Was using a fireside monologue, game show-style trivia, and puppets to explain federal environmental law a bit corny? Maybe. But the response these events elicited showed us that people in Wyoming are eager to learn and excited to engage in new ways. If you missed the sessions, you can find recordings on our YouTube channel.
The next step was slightly more daunting.
What was to become of our flagship conservation leadership program — the newly renamed FIELD Training — if we couldn’t assemble the eight weeks of class meetings in person? As was so often the case during the first months of the pandemic, taking the program online was the solution. This proved to be as much of a benefit as it was a hurdle. Nothing compares to a face-to-face conversation, but delving into remote learning allowed many people from around the state to participate. How else could a dozen passionate citizens from communities as far-flung as Lusk, St. Stephens, Alpine, and Wapiti all get together for twice-weekly workshops?
It was evident from the start that the value of engaging with people through these online platforms went far beyond a temporary workaround. It’s not a perfect solution, but in this big, sparsely populated, mostly rural state, it’s a step toward bringing us all a little closer together. It’s our intention that these online offerings will continue and expand.
The past months have shown us new opportunities to reach people in Wyoming who care about conservation, and strengthen the type of community building we’ve always done. We’re proud to have a resourceful and energetic staff that can adapt and react quickly. And none of this would be possible without the unwavering support of members like you who took a chance with us and tuned in, demonstrating your commitment to protect Wyoming’s environment and quality of life. Thank you. When the next unexpected challenge arises, as it inevitably will, we’ll rise up to meet it together.
“I’m done,” said Sean McKinley with an honest laugh. “I’ve found myself. I’m tired of cities and people.”
When he says done, he means living anywhere but Wyoming. And when he says he’s found himself, he means behind a lens. And when he says he’s tired of cities and people, that does not include animals.
“I have a huge soft spot for animals,” Sean said as he described his childhood growing up on a ranch in Buffalo — where peacocks, rabbits, sheep, pigs, bison, and a younger Sean roamed. He said his father was instrumental in helping nurture this appreciation for the creatures that humans share the world with. As an adult, his persistent adoration for wildlife has translated into a rewarding personal photography business, Hidden Wilderness Photography, which he runs on the side while also working full-timeas a computer programmer.
Two images Sean captured — and that we chose for the Wyoming Outdoor Council’s 2020 calendar — hint, too, at Sean’s incredible patience with and ceaseless fascination for the animal world. They also point to his ability to reverse the common idiom and see a single tree in the forest, to his benefit.
Take his shot of a Lincoln’s sparrow perched amidst the textured, muted mauve of a willow thicket. It had been an early morning for Sean and his fiance as they awoke in Yellowstone National Park and set out to find the wildlife that also tends to wander about at dawn. Near Barronett’s Peak, Sean sighted two black bears on a distant hill playfully chasing each other and he set up his camera. And waited. And waited.
“I was hoping the bears would come closer, but they just continued to move in and out of the treeline. At a certain distance, you just can’t get a reasonably artistic photo. Then, because other people had started to gather after seeing my big lens, the bears eventually noticed and wandered off,” he recalls. “And I was about to pack up my camera, but decided to look around in the willows in front of me. And there, not feet from me, was this little Lincoln’s sparrow in the willows, and he looked right at me, and I pressed the shutter.”
He was surprisingly pleased with the photo of the little guy. “A happy happenstance,” he would call it. He particularly loved the cold blue feel, caused by the early sunlight and the overcast sky, of this photo we selected for February in the calendar.
A photo of a male marmot, which we included in November, was a similar story of patience and attention to detail. Sean and his fiance had again ventured off into Yellowstone behind Pebble Creek Campground at the far end of Lamar Valley — this time with their hopes set on finding a rumored fox den hidden among the granite boulder outcroppings. But instead, they came upon a colony of marmots. (Sean and his fiance, admittedly, have an affinity for rodents.) They decided to hang out and watch to see if any baby marmots would come out since they had never seen one before. The only marmot who made his presence known was a large male, though, who they assumed was tending to and protecting his brood. For minutes, they sat and watched this male dart in and out of the series of tunnels the marmots had built behind the rock. Frequently, the male would pause and stare them down, and that’s when Sean captured this shot. “There’s some personality there, for sure,” he chuckled. Sean and his fiance left soon after that, following the principles that Sean upholds when taking his photographs.
“I like to keep a respectable distance, and I like to think that I have an ethical approach. I never like to think that I’m invading an animal’s personal space just to get ‘the shot.’” he said. “And that’s why I pay way too much money for really large lenses.”
Sean started photographing his wild surroundings when he was about 14 and his family took their first trip to Yellowstone. Animals abounded, he remembers, and he was so disappointed he didn’t have his own camera to document all the creatures he saw. On the way home, his family stopped in Billings and bought him his first camera. The rest is history, with a little break in his late teens and early twenties. What sparked him to pick the camera back up again was another trip to Yellowstone and the wildlife within. Again, he returned to his then home in Portland, Oregon, and immediately purchased a new camera and a big lens.
Sean now lives in Worland and has been back in Wyoming for about four years after living “all over” in the Pacific Northwest. He decided to come back when he was “done” and wanted to reacquaint himself with the depth of the outdoors that he grew up with. “I think Wyoming is the most beautiful state in the union, and it’s accessible. And it’s appreciated. And it’s not overpopulated.”
Beyond his photography, he does what he can to support conservation efforts in the state, too, donating to nonprofits like Yellowstone Forever. He said it’s really important for him to see the state’s public lands remain public and accessible, and not become carved up by private interests. And he hopes his wildlife photography does a little of that work, too, showing people that this isn’t just a human world but that there’s much more out there. That there are animals, too, who depend upon the land.
“I hope my photos help cultivate a sense of respect and the idea that this is something we need to protect,” he said.
Join Sean and other photographers by submitting your own shot of Wyoming for the Outdoor Council’s 2021 Calendar Contest. You can enter your photos via Instagram or email. To submit your photo(s) via Instagram, you must have a public Instagram account so that we’re able to view your submission. Upload your photo(s) and add the hashtag #OurWyoming.
