Absaroka Project

After a long layoff, this almost feels like my first post. I thought I'd share a little of what I've been working on, a project in the Cody, Wyoming area. The project is sponsored by the Greater Yellowstone Coalition: http://www.greateryellowstone.org and is part of a campaign to conserve the Absaroka-Beartooth Front and protect critical areas from unrestricted oil and gas development. It's an International League of Conservation Photographers (ILCP) "Tripods In The Mud" collaboration. ILCP supports the work with outreach, social media, multimedia, and a planned traveling photo exhibit to reach stakeholders across the country. Although most people don't know the A-B Front, everyone knows Yellowstone, and I'm working on BLM lands, Shoshone NF, private lands, and wilderness to protect migrations, a fully-functioning ecosystem, and recreation.

It's been a remarkable, eye-opening, and rewarding experience. We planned for 3 expeditions in August, September and November. I had one LightHawk flight over Carter Mountain, did a fair amount of hiking (solo hiking in grizzly country is freaky), and tons of driving. The idea is to tell a story and make images every day, regardless of the conditions. August and September were hot, dry, sometimes windy, with mostly bald blue skies. November was blustery, cold, wintery, and hunting season was still going on, so I did my best to try to give the story a heartbeat - but elk and deer were tough to find. I had 25 days in the field total and am optimistic that we'll make an impact when the 20-year plans are drafted by the BLM and USFS. GYC stepped up in a big way to sponsor the project and I'm proud to be their photographer. It's important to say that Yellowstone NP simply isn't big enough to support the wildlife that migrates in and out of the park. That's why maps of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem look like someone spilled ink on a map, creating a giant polygon. Our job is to conserve the polygon, including working landscapes.

Here's a link to the ILCP TIM site:http://www.ilcp.com/projects/absaroka-front
Here's my most recent photo essay:http://www.westernwild.org/absaroka-photo-essay/

You can follow along on the ILCP site and I'll post updates over the next few months. Thanks for your interest!

Excellent Dave!
You are doing great and very important work!!

Thanks for posting all this out here! I have heard of the ILCP and some of the work you all do, but I haven't followed as closely as of late. Thanks for the reminder and I'll head out there to check it out. Excellent work!

Dave, Thanks for working on this! Several years ago I took a backpack through the Absarokas and it is a wondferful area, though I also had some grizzly bear worries. It's neat to see photography being used for good causes like this!

Well, 16 years later the players have changed but the mission is the same. I'm very familiar with the GYC from my ecology field work in the GYE. Back in '95, they were fighting against the New World Gold Mine that Noranda wanted to build north of Cooke City, just outside of the Park. Stunning that it got as far along as it did before GYC and others got it shut down. What a remarkable opportunity to team up with them.

I enjoyed your photo essay, and look forward to seeing more from this effort. The Beartooths and Absarokas are very special to me and Jennifer. We met there, studied there for a summer, and eventually married there, at the base of Cathedral Cliffs on the K-Bar-Z ranch. I know what you mean about being solo out there. We've done a lot of hiking and backpacking there; even the most benign sounds come across as ominous when you know there are grizzlies nearby!

Keep up the great work!

Thanks for your comments Steve, Anne, Roger, Rick + a couple on my blog. The GYC plan is to steer development to areas where it's appropriate; in this case enhanced oil recovery in existing fields. I photographed one area bordering the Shoshone NF near Clark where a major blowout happened in 2006 (the Windsor 25-3 blowout) - the residents are still suffering from the toxic chemicals released - and in Pavillion, site of some of the footage from the movie Gasland. Two areas with major chemical and associated human health impacts in a relatively small area. It's not easy to make the ugly pictures at first, but it does get easier and it's essential. We're seeing the encroachment of fracking on the edges of our cities here along the Front Range and impacts to air and water supplies are inevitable. It was good news that CO just passed a law to require disclosure of fracking chemicals, so we at least know what's being pumped beneath our aquifers, but I'm concerned that big problems are ahead with this technology. It's our job to keep demanding that development occurs where it's appropriate, at least somewhat appropriate, and that special places are off-limits. Would we drill Lamar Valley? How is Carter Mountain, critical grizzly habitat and where elk migrate 60 miles to winter range any different?

Those are the questions we were studying in '95. Park boundaries have historically been defined based on geographical and topological features - inanimate, easily observed and defined, and more or less static. But, particularly with Yellowstone, when a major component of the conservation/preservation effort relates to living creatures, the boundaries are difficult to define and highly dynamic, dependent upon short-term weather influences, longer-term climate influences, food availability, human influences, etc.

Overlay on that the mineral and other resources associated with Yellowstone, and you have the makings of a very complex relationship between development and preservation. Part of the challenge in balancing those two objectives is the need to protect areas that may not be critical to wildlife preservation today, but could be in a few years when environmental and ecological factors shift the populations to new locations or create new migration corridors. It's easy to dismiss those efforts as over-reaching on the part of environmentalists, but there's a valid rationale behind that mindset - the mission of the national park system requires vigilance beyond the park boundaries.

Thanks, Rick for adding the background to the concept of so-called "buffer" lands. I hate the term because it makes them sound less important. The reality is that every mammal needs these critical winter ranges for survival. That's why I posted the bighorn juvenile on the post. Our national parks were our best idea... so far and new pressures on Western lands are really testing the national park concept as well as our complacency around the ideal.

Dave,

Thank you for this. I did some undergraduate geology research in the area in '94, actually staying with Louis and Shelly Cary at the K-bar-Z for four weeks. It was an amazing experience, and an amazing area. I was working on fracture spacing in the periglacial areas on top of the Beartooth plateau, but some of my classmates were working in Sunlight Basin and on the Hart Mountain fault up in the Absarokas. I haven't been up there recently, but I think that area is one of the very special places in the lower 48 states.

It wasn't until later when I started teaching environmental studies to high school students that I realized how incredible the whole Yellowstone area is. I'll admit that in '94 the wide open spaces didn't impress me as much as the rugged mountains of Yosemite and King's Canyon. But, in a very real sense, protected areas are the practical equivalents of "islands", and the ecological stability of the protected area increases rapidly with the size of the area. Yellowstone and the surrounding areas are one of (if not the) biggest protected area in the lower 48, and, as such, deserve a special place in the heart of anyone who likes wilderness. If we're to have any hope of restoring other areas, Yellowstone will likely provide the "seeds" of recovery for Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, northern Utah, and even northern New Mexico. Protected areas, large protected areas, are our best hope for ecological capital for the future.

Dave, thank you. We don't know each other, but I owe you a debt of gratitude.

Changing topics, I hope to move into this type of photography in the future. Locally, I'd like to do something with SUWA's "Canyonlands National Monument" initiative. Any suggestions? Bring a portfolio to their office and say "hi"?

Hey Dave,

Been wondering where you have been lately. Nice to hear about the good work you are doing out there. Also, very nice photo essay. I think you tell a nice story with the photos on your site.

Thanks Mark and Kurt - there will an opportunity to comment by writing letters to the Shoshone NF in the next month or so. I'll post something when we get to that point. Some of the thoughtful posts here are exactly the type of personal and ecological comments that carry a lot of weight. Conversely, petition signing does nothing in the eyes of land managers. Mark, I'll be happy to help with suggestions - could you give me a call to discuss?

Awesome, Dave--keep fighting the good fight!