Dedication Point

Herpetologist Kristina Parker discusses reptile surveys and rattlesnake research that she conducted in the Morley Nelson Snake River Birds of Prey NCA.

In this episode, we explore a restoration site in the Morley Nelson Snake River Birds of Prey NCA. Just a few weeks ago, the Birds of Prey NCA Partnership hosted a public planting day in celebration of National Public Lands Day. Listen in as Birds of Prey NCA Partnership president Steve Alsup explains the restoration process, and Charlie Baun from the Idaho Army National Guard helps volunteers get plants in the ground.This is our final episode of Season Four! We hope you enjoyed all of our restoration-focused interviews!

This week, we’re talking about growing native plants in a nursery setting. Lots of restoration projects include as one component, the planting of nursery grown seedlings. There are several plant nurseries in the region that specialize in growing native plants for restoration projects, and for this episode, we spoke with the owners and operators of Twin Peaks nursery in McCall, ID.

This week’s interview is focused on one crucial aspect of desert shrubland restoration efforts - the use of pre-emergent herbicides. These pre-emergent herbicides prevent seeds from germinating without causing significant harm to most established perennials, and they are used almost universally in restoration projects in sage-steppe ecosystems to reduce the cover of invasive annual grasses. Brynne Lazarus, biologist with USGS, will be guiding us through her research on the use of pre-emergent herbicides in desert shrubland restoration efforts.

This week’s interview is focused on the Soda Fire. This megafire burned nearly 280,000 acres in Southwest Idaho and Southeast Oregon - just adjacent to the the Morley Nelson Snake River Birds of Prey NCA - in 2015. This wildfire generated a historic response, with more resources put into restoration, emergency stabilization, and research than ever before. We’re most interested in the research that has been conducted in an effort to test the effectiveness of a variety of different restoration strategies, and our guest is USGS ecologist Cara Applestein. Cara has been conducting research on post-fire restoration at the Soda Fire site since 2015, and shares a wealth of knowledge on this topic in today’s interview.

This week’s interview is focused on the strategic challenges associated with restoring sage-steppe ecosystems in the Great Basin. Our guest is Chad Boyd, a Rangeland Scientist and Research Leader who has been based in Eastern Oregon and working on restoration projects since 1999. His work is focused on establishing strategic decision-making protocols for land managers looking to restore sage-steppe ecosystems across the Great Basin. Despite the enormity of the problem, Chad is optimistic about the future of these landscapes, and I hope this optimism rubs off on some of our listeners!

This is the first episode of Season 4 of Dedication Point! Season 4 will be focused on restoration in the Morley Nelson Snake River Birds of Prey NCA, and we're getting this conversation started with Matt Germino, supervisory research ecologist with USGS. Germino has been leading a research team focused on restoration strategies and techniques in the Intermountain West since 2011, and he shares his wealth of knowledge on this topic here in this episode!

A panel discussion featuring Brandon Flack and Zac Hulling from the Idaho Fish and Game Department and Aaron Utz from Idaho Power discussing management strategies and the population status of waterfowl and upland game species in the CJ Strike Wildlife Management Area (which is encompassed by the Snake River Birds of Prey NCA).

Rita Dixon, the State Wildlife Action Plan Coordinator for the Idaho Fish and Game Department, discusses the diverse array of bat species that one can see in the NCA, as well as the the looming threat of white-nose syndrome, a devastating disease affecting bats across North America.

Boise State University Professor Ian Robertson discusses the role of insects in the ecosystems of the NCA, as well as his research on insect-plant interactions.

In this episode we’re talking about Jackrabbits, and how improved survey methods designed to assess their populations in the NCA hold the potential to benefit wildlife survey efforts all across the globe.Guests for this episode are Dr. Jen Cruz, Assistant Professor at Boise State University, and her graduate student, Leticia Camacho.

Welcome to Season Three of Dedication Point! We're extremely excited to bring you a new season of episodes about the Morley Nelson Snake River Birds of Prey NCA. This season’s theme is prey. The Snake River canyon region was set aside as an National Conservation Area because of it’s uniquely high density of birds of prey - and while these raptors get a lot of attention - the prey species that the raptors rely on are often overlooked. We seek to amend this situation in Season 3 of this podcast - each episode will be focused on a different species, group or category of animals that serve as prey for the area’s raptors.We're starting with the Piute ground squirrel. This prey species lives in high abundance in the NCA and is a keystone species of this ecosystem. For this episode we spoke with Zoe Duran, a wildlife biologist who’s been involved with Piute ground squirrel research for close to ten years.

Danielle Murray and Andres Esparza from the Conservation Lands Foundation discuss their ongoing efforts to conserve public land through grassroots organizing, and how the new Climate Atlas mapping tool can help.

Former Utah State University graduate student Scott Zimmer discusses his research on climate models that predict vegetation and habitat changes in the Intermountain West. We discuss what these projections tell us about our rapidly changing landscapes, and how these findings can be used by land managers.

Dr. Jen Pierce is an Associate Professor in the Geoscience Department at Boise State University. She is an expert on the impact of Climate Change on Wildfire, and is currently engaged in research about carbon sequestration in desert ecosystems. Dr. Pierce spoke with Dedication Point co-hosts about what the future may hold for sagebrush steppe ecosystems in Southwest Idaho.

Patty Glick is the lead author of a new paper that lays out a framework for land management in our modern era of climate change. She explains how the framework was crafted and how it can help land managers adapt their practices to account for our rapidly changing climate.

A panel of raptor biologists discuss the current effort to survey the Snake River canyon’s Prairie falcon population. As you’ll hear in the discussion, the Snake River canyon is a very special place for prairie falcons, and the full canyon survey that’s currently underway is part of a monumental effort to assess the size and health of this unique population.

Our first interview is with the man who deserves the most credit for the creation of a national conservation area in the snake river canyon - Morley Nelson. Morley passed away in 2005 at the age of 88, but we uncovered this archival interview conducted in 1990 by the founder of the Archives of Falconry, Kent Carnie. The original interview was close to six hours long - we’ve edited it down to include the segments that we felt were relevant to the history of the Snake River canyon.

Amanda Hoffman is the current manager of the Morley Nelson Snake River Birds of Prey NCA. She took over this role in March of 2016, having previously served as the acting associate monument manager at Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument. We talked with Amanda about the challenges that she’s faced since becoming the manager of this NCA, and how she’s taken lessons from the unique history of the area.

Dr. Julie Heath is a professor in the department of Biological Sciences and the Raptor Research Center at Boise State University. Her research lab is focused on addressing questions about how birds respond to large scale environmental change. She has conducted numerous research projects within the Morley Nelson Snake River Birds of Prey NCA, working with a number of other researchers and graduate students. This research has documented how raptors are responding to some of the changes occurring within the NCA and the surrounding area.