Federal Land Management Research Articles

Pine woodland fire dynamics mirror industrial history at New River Gorge National Park and Preserve, West Virginia, USA

Fire is an important biophysical process in pine (Pinus) and mixed pine-oak (Quercus) forests and woodlands across the Central Appalachian Mountains. Decades of fire exclusion, however, particularly on public lands, have resulted in a well-documented homogenization of species composition and forest structure. Our objective was to inform management and restoration efforts by expanding on previous dendroecological research at New River Gorge National Park and Preserve and adjacent Babcock State Park in southern West Virginia. Specifically, we assessed pine woodland fire activity in the context of local industrial history, land management, and regional drought. Samples cut from 110 fire-scarred pine trees, distributed across four sites, were used to develop a fire-scar record that spans the period 1842–2010; however, sample depth diminishes rapidly before the 1860s. Fires occurred frequently and extensively in the early–mid 20th century, coinciding with peak coal production and population density. Eleven major fires, or years when at least two trees and 25 % of samples recorded a fire scar at an individual site, were documented in the tree-ring record, but none occurred during the federal land management era (1978–present). Synchronous fire events recorded at two or more sites were associated with drier than average September–May (‘dormant season’) climate conditions. Our results indicate that, since the late 19th century, fire activity in pine woodlands at the New River Gorge has been driven primarily by human ignitions associated with industrial activities, and that periods of drought have amplified landscape-scale fire occurrence. Land managers should consider these historical fire patterns when developing restoration strategies that may include prescribed fire, thinning treatments, and managed wildfires.

Expert assessment of illegal collecting impacts on Venus flytraps and priorities for research on illegal trade.

Illegal collecting of wild Venus flytraps (Dionaea muscipula) for the horticultural trade represents a persistent threat to populations of the species across their endemic range in the coastal plain of North and South Carolina (United States). Although wild collecting of Venus flytraps is not a novel threat, there has been very little research on the impacts of collecting on the species' conservation to date or why an illegal trade persists alongside a legal one. We drew on qualitative expert stakeholder elicitation to contextualize the threat of illegal collecting to the long-term conservation of Venus flytraps in relation to other anthropogenic threats. Expert elicitation included botanical and conservation researchers, cognizant state and federal agency staff, land managers, and conservation nonprofit actors. The workshop included mapping of supply chain structures and prioritization of social and environmental harms. Expert consensus determined illegal collecting is an ongoing problem for Venus flytrap conservation, but habitat destruction, degradation, and fire suppression are the most significant threats to flytrap conservation. Supply chain analysis showed that observable social and environmental harms of the trade are focused at the supply stage and that less is known about transit and demand stages. Key research gaps identified include a lack of understanding of plant laundering practices relevant to a range of desirable plant taxa; the role of commercial nurseries in illicit horticultural supply chains; motivations for engaging in Venus flytrap collecting; and the persistent demand for illegally harvested plants when cultivated, legally obtainable plants are readily available. Our findings and methodology are relevant to a range of ornamental plants affected by illegal trade for which robust social data on illegal collecting drivers are lacking.

Exploring drivers of success in partnerships that support federal trail management in the United States

The use of partnerships with external stakeholders to support federal land management objectives is a common practice amongst government agencies. At the US Forest Service and National Park Service, partnerships provide critical support to each agency’s recreation stewardship objectives. While partnerships help these agencies increase capacity and meet recreation objectives, literature on federal land management partnerships typically focuses on large-scale collaborations and single case studies. Little remains known about how inputs and processes relate to partnership success across multiple individual partnerships to support federal trail management objectives. This exploratory study examines the perceptions of agency and partner managers in a sample of 89 partnerships to support trail work at the US Forest Service and National Park Service. Using linear regression and relative importance analysis, results show that trust, capacity, and interdependence are the most salient factors to partnership success. Furthermore, our analysis reveals a secondary set of factors that should also be considered when attempting to improve partnership outcomes.

Southeast Alaskans Want Food Sovereignty and Reimagined Rural Futures

United States federal lands are managed for multiple conservation, social, and commercial goals shaped by the visions of diverse interest groups. The rural economic and food-security needs of local public-lands-based communities have important implications for sustainable natural-resource management but can be obscured by national-scale public comment processes. To better understand local concerns and aspirations for management of the nation’s largest national forest, the Tongass, we use thematic analysis of public testimonies provided by Southeast Alaska community members as part of the federally mandated Roadless Rulemaking Subsistence Hearings in 2019. The six themes we develop explore speakers’ views of an Alaska exemption from the 2001 Roadless Rule, Alaska Native and rural community connections to the forest ecosystem, visions for rural futures, and concerns with the rulemaking process. Explicit consideration of local economic, food sovereignty, and federal rulemaking concerns can inform a broader picture of federal land management.

Factors influencing wildfire management decisions after the 2009 US federal policy update

Background The decision making process undertaken during wildfire responses is complex and prone to uncertainty. In the US, decisions federal land managers make are influenced by numerous and often competing factors. Aims To assess and validate the presence of decision factors relevant to the wildfire decision making context that were previously known and to identify those that have emerged since the US federal wildfire policy was updated in 2009. Methods Interviews were conducted across the US while wildfires were actively burning to elucidate time-of-fire decision factors. Data were coded and thematically analysed. Key results Most previously known decision factors as well as numerous emergent factors were identified. Conclusions To contextualise decision factors within the decision making process, we offer a Wildfire Decision Framework that has value for policy makers seeking to improve decision making, managers improving their process and wildfire social science researchers. Implications Managers may gain a better understanding of their decision environment and use our framework as a tool to validate their deliberations. Researchers may use these data to help explain the various pressures and influences modern land and wildfire managers experience. Policy makers and agencies may take institutional steps to align the actions of their staff with desired wildfire outcomes.

Leaving traces: Fairy houses, kindness stones, and constructed heritage

AbstractThe National Park Service and many other federal, state, and local land managers in the US enjoin visitors to “leave no trace” when visiting parks and wilderness areas. At the same time, practices that involve leaving traces—painted rocks, rock cairns, and fairy houses—have become well established on some public lands. Public discussions reveal deep divides in how people view these traces in a time of increased pressures on public lands. This article develops an anthropological analysis of the practice of leaving traces at Mesa Verde National Park, in Colorado, and Machimoodus State Park, in Connecticut. Taking an approach that aligns with recent work on archaeologies of the contemporary, we interrogate the meaning of these material traces and consider how these practices of constructing cultural heritage in spaces perceived as “natural” provide a quasi‐archaeological experience and reenact colonialist processes.

Mechanical thinning restores ecological functions in a seasonally dry ponderosa pine forest in the inland Pacific Northwest, USA

An increasingly important goal of federal land managers in seasonally dry forests of the western US is restoring forest resilience. In this study, we quantified the degree to which a thinning treatment in a dry forest of eastern Oregon restored aspects of forest resilience by focusing on key functional attributes of our study system. First, we measured several physiological responses of overstory trees that are associated with resilience, including radial growth, resin production, abundance of non-structural carbohydrates (NSC), and leaf area. Second, we investigated understory vegetation responses including species diversity, composition, and cover by growth form that influence fire behavior and resilience to disturbance. We found that tree radial growth was greater in trees in thinned stands beginning three years post-treatment. The abundance of key chemical compounds found in trees, including resin, starch, total NSC and sucrose did not differ between treatments; however, abundance of glucose plus fructose was lower in treated stands, suggesting mobilization and use of carbon reserves for foliar and wood production following thinning. We observed an increase in species richness and diversity within thinned stands three to four years after thinning, primarily due to the release of forbs and reestablishment of graminoids following ground disturbance. Here, we demonstrate that elements of forest resilience can be restored in dry forest systems via selective thinning to promote historical forest structure. In forests where thinning reduces stand density, vigorous overstory trees and increased herbaceous cover can help facilitate the re-establishment of low intensity surface fire regimes that maintain stable and persistent vegetative states. Understanding the ecological effects of fuel reduction treatments allows land managers to assess potential forest resiliency and adapt future treatments based on the observed results of previous activities.

Evaluating the potential role of federal air quality standards in constraining applications of prescribed fire in the western United States

Prescribed fire is a useful tool for building resilient landscapes in fire-prone areas across the globe. In the western U.S., prescribed fire is employed by federal, state, and Tribal land managers and planned during particular meteorological and air quality conditions to manage air quality impacts. As agencies prepare to plan and permit more prescribed fire, an ongoing question will be whether existing air quality conditions constrain the potential for more prescribed fire. We performed a set of spatial and statistical analyses to evaluate how prescribed burns are potentially constrained by federal air quality standards. In doing so, we also examined if the answers to these questions differed when applied to different land management agencies that administer prescribed burns in the West. Analysis of the results shows that the geographic distribution of air quality conditions has not been constraining the implementation of prescribed fire plans, and climate change-driven changes to air quality, such as increasing ozone levels, may make prescribed burning more difficult under current air quality constraints. Furthermore, results demonstrated regional air quality issues for specific pollutants, suggesting an ongoing need for regional air quality assessments in the planning of prescribed burning across the western U.S.

Improving the Strategic Aspect of Federal Land Management

Federal land management is an integral part of land management. Improving the strategies within the Federal Land Commissioner’s office (FLC) would provide a more improved approach in federal land management. This research identified the current corporate and business-level strategies implored to address federal land management. The implementation of strategies differs vastly from the theories and the lack of continuous improvement steps within the organization has affected the organization to successfully evaluate the strategies and to exploit the strategic advantages that the FLC has. FLC could implement the recommendations provided to chart a more comprehensive strategic management objectives and goals in providing a better service delivery in the context of federal land management.

Assessing impacts of sulfur deposition on aquatic ecosystems: A decision support system for the Southern Appalachians

AbstractWith climate change and ongoing impacts from human development and resource extraction, US federal land management agencies are acutely concerned with managing for healthy aquatic ecosystems in the Southern Appalachian Mountain (SAM) Region. Here, we describe development of a spatial decision support application to assess the biological and ecological impacts of atmospheric S and N deposition on aquatic ecosystems of the region. We first summarize foundational published work to predict continuous maps of surface water acid neutralizing capacity (ANC) and soil base cation weathering (BCw). We use the predicted ANC and BCw maps to estimate steady‐state critical loads (CLs) of atmospheric S and N deposition. We included estimated CLs of atmospheric N to get a complete picture of CLs and potential exceedances. We then present a logic‐based decision support model for assessing effects of S and N deposition based on statistically modeled stream ANC and CL exceedance. The model is easily modified for continuous monitoring of CL exceedance patterns as new S and N deposition and ANC data become available. We present mapped model results for the SAM study area and an important subset of the region, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. ANC modeling results revealed that predicted acid sensitivity was spatially variable, with areas of relatively low stream ANC (<50 μeq · L−1) and soil BCw (<50 meq · m−2 · year−1) predominantly found in certain critical areas. Within the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, evidence for S CL exceedance based on an ANC criterion of 50 μeq · L−1 was strong at locations where ambient S deposition was at least two times the CL. We also predicted likely impacts of CL exceedances on aquatic insect species richness and native fish abundance. Responses for insect species richness and fish impact showed variability similar to CL exceedance, with increasing impact positively correlated with elevation. Finally, we discuss ways that the decision support system can be used to prioritize management across the region.

Cheatgrass: Fire and Forage on the Range. By James A. Young and Charlie D. Clements

James A. Young and Charlie D. Clements, two scientists from the Agricultural Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, invite readers to reflect on the history of cheatgrass and its management in the Great Basin. The authors state that the purpose of this book is to inform the public and other rangeland managers about the flaws of past cheatgrass management and to offer suggestions for handling the plant communities of the Great Basin. While the book has several glaring problems as both a history and a call-to-action for federal land agencies, this helpful narrative of federal weed management in the twentieth century can still be utilized by environmental and agricultural historians. Cheatgrass is both an attempt to explain the landscape history of the Great Basin region and the evolutionary and cultural history of cheatgrass. The book is organized into seventeen thematic chapters that cover a range and variety of topics from the phenotypic plasticity of the plant to cultural perceptions about it and its role in rangeland ecology. These chapters are not uniform in their intended audience or purpose, leaving the reader with a sense of stylistic and argumentative disjuncture. At times the authors address federal land managers and the overgrazing of the range in the Great Basin using scientific language. Other chapters take issue with environmentalists and the stigma against using widespread herbicides to convert cheatgrass-invaded areas to crested wheatgrass. Additionally, Young and Clements attempt to use anecdote and historical examples to support their arguments but fail to cite any serious scholarship in the fields of environmental or agricultural history. What this book lacks in argument is made up for in its knowledge of twentieth-century range and weed science.

Saints, Sinners, and Sovereign Citizens: The Endless War over the West's Public Lands

In this timely and compelling work, John L. Smith skillfully engages the numerous and diverse factors at play in what he appropriately refers to as the endless war over public lands in the American West. While his focus is ostensibly on Cliven Bundy and his family's contentious relationship with the federal government, Smith uses Bundy to expose how one case about grazing rights—albeit a dramatic and famous one—can represent the complex and often bitter interaction between westerners and Washington, DC over federal land management. In so doing, Smith tackles a bevy of issues, including the rise of conservatism in the West that manifested during the 1980s as the Sagebrush Rebellion, the growing impact that “an age of social-media celebrity, YouTube stardom, citizen journalism” has had in aggravating political divides, and the rise of militias and extremism that have militarized public discourse (xv).Smith knows the topic and his subjects well, which is a significant strength of the book. As a native Nevadan and journalist who covered the Bundy battle with the federal bureaucracy for several years and for various news outlets, Smith demonstrates command of the material and an intimacy with those most closely involved in the story. His familiarity with the Bundy clan presents an opportunity to cover not only the public but also the more personal side of Cliven and his sons, principally through use of interviews and personal testimonies the Bundys used to promote their side of the eventual conflict. Smith also paints vibrant portraits of other people involved in the standoff and in the larger frame of local and federal relations. For instance, he includes an insightful chapter on former Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid.Smith's biography of Reid is an example of the author at his best: he combines a detailed explanation of Reid's upbringing and a familiarity with his hometown with an appreciation for how the senator's early experiences in local politics and his close connection to the Nevada mining industry laid the groundwork for his approach to land use and environmental policy and his power in the Senate. Smith utilizes Reid's story to represent the complex web of negotiation and compromise that public lands management often produces. As the author notes, Reid's “efforts to protect the land would earn him two national awards from the Sierra Club and the Stewart Udall Conservation Award for his work to protect public lands, yet he was also celebrated with a lifetime-achievement award from the Nevada Mining Association and given a place of honor in the American Gaming Hall of Fame—two industries known for their lack of environmental sensibilities” (201). Rather than suggesting that this rather problematical juggling act is unique to Reid, Smith provides examples of others who have tried to navigate public lands issues through a more moderate path, beholden to neither the Bundy-style version of privatization and private use of public resources nor the management style applied by federal bureaucracies such as the Bureau of Land Management. Reid's seeming ambivalence represents the complexity of land use management in much of the West, but Bundy captures headlines and galvanizes those on the extreme end of the spectrum, which has only further muddied the situation and reinforced the sense that the radical right has identified public lands use as a principal arena of combat.Smith covers considerable ground in his mostly thematic chapters with attention to the religious, social, economic, and political histories of Nevada and the Mountain West. While this approach provides several distinct essays that serve as chapters, the work lacks cohesion and focus in spots, which leaves the reader connecting the dots. A more concerted effort to explain ties between the recent rise of militia movements in the West with the expansion of the radical right in the 1970s and 1980s, for example, would lend credence to the historical dynamics at play in the Bundy movement. Moreover, such an array of coverage means that some topics lack depth. The Sagebrush Rebellion, for example, garners several mentions in the book and understanding it is necessary to ground the Bundy resistance in the past, but the roots of the rebellion and its relation to Ronald Reagan only received some twenty pages.In total, though, this is a great introduction to the Bundys and the larger contest over public lands, the rise of radical conservatism, and the volatility of contemporary politics. Smith's familiarity with the subject and his ability to weave together so many different threads work well this readable work on public land use conflicts in the American West. Saints, Sinners, and Sovereign Citizens should enjoy a wide academic and public audience.

Using an Inventory of Unstable Slopes to Prioritize Probabilistic Rockfall Modeling and Acid-Base Accounting in Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Abstract An important first step in the geotechnical asset management of Great Smoky Mountains National Park (GRSM) is the creation of an unstable slope inventory along major transportation corridors. Slope-stability problems are frequent in GRSM, often initiated in highly weathered and fractured metasedimentary rocks. In this study, an unstable slope inventory was created using the Unstable Slope Management Program for Federal Land Management Agencies protocols. Hazards and risks were evaluated for 285 unstable slopes along 243.67 km of roadway. Kernel density estimation was used to identify unstable slope hotspots and establish 14 sites for site-specific investigations to evaluate potential impacts of discrete unstable slopes along major roadways. Two-dimensional probabilistic rockfall simulations and acid-base accounting tests were used to predict rockfall pathways and evaluate the acid-producing potential of rocks. Simulations indicated that rock material would likely enter the roadway at all 14 sites. Acid-base accounting test results indicated that slaty rocks of the Anakeesta Formation and graphitic schist of the Wehutty Formation are primary acid-producing rocks in rockfall-prone areas. This research illustrates an approach for prioritizing areas for site-specific investigations towards the goal of improving safety in GRSM, including developing mitigation strategies for rockfall by widening ditches, installing barriers, and encapsulating acidic rockfall material.

Comparing risk-based fuel treatment prioritization with alternative strategies for enhancing protection and resource management objectives

BackgroundAdvances in fire modeling help quantify and map various components and characterizations of wildfire risk and furthermore help evaluate the ability of fuel treatments to mitigate risk. However, a need remains for guidance in designing landscape-scale fuel treatments with protection objectives, resource management objectives, and wildfire response in mind. It is also important to consider how human factors related to risk tolerance may affect opportunities to manage fire. We build on these themes to illustrate an approach for examining whether, and how, fuel management can simultaneously minimize housing exposure while maximizing area suitable for expansion of beneficial wildfire. We generate multiple hypothetical post-treatment conditions according to distinct treatment prioritization schemes (Housing Protection, Federal Transmission, Random) and variable treatment extents and compare performance across strategies for a 8.5 million ha case study landscape in north-central New Mexico, USA.ResultsIn general, we find that treating near housing units can provide the greatest level of protection relative to treating more remote wildlands to reduce transmission potential. Treating on federal lands to reduce federal transmission was highly effective at reducing exposure from federal fires and at expanding opportunities for beneficial fire but contributed comparatively little to reducing housing exposure from all fires. We find that treatment extents as low as 2.5–5% can yield significant benefits with spatially optimized strategies, whereas the random strategy did not perform comparably until reaching a much larger treatment extent. Increasing risk tolerance for housing exposure expanded the area suitable for managed fire, while decreasing risk tolerance for beneficial fire opportunity and flame length probability shrunk the area suitable for managed fire.ConclusionsThis work provides a contribution in terms of explicitly framing risk analysis and fuel treatment design around federal land and resource management objectives and adds to the knowledge base for designing effective landscape fuel treatment strategies that can protect communities and expand beneficial wildfire on a fire-prone landscape. Successful integration of these themes requires embracing all pillars of the National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy, including coordinated management of fuels on various ownerships, home ignition zone mitigation, and cross-boundary fire response planning that can guide fire operations in reducing transmission and expand response options.

Fertility Control and the Welfare of Free-Roaming Horses and Burros on U.S. Public Lands: The Need for an Ethical Framing.

Simple SummaryBecause the ethical foundation for the management of free-roaming horses and burros is very muddled, debates over approaches to their management, including fertility control, focus almost exclusively on practicality. In the U.S., this tendency is reinforced by the federal laws that govern public lands management, which center decision-making processes on calculations about how to divide yield among users. Inevitably, outside market forces bias these decisions towards overuse, which ultimately harms the land. In our view, the land and all its inhabitants, including free-roaming horses and burros, wildlife, and people, will only thrive if the pressures of commercial use are removed, and if management is guided by ethics of care, which have rich and diverse cultural origins. Application of care ethics will specifically provide more clarity to horse and burro management, including the selection of appropriate fertility control agents. To be effective and publicly acceptable, management of free-roaming horses and burros in the United States and elsewhere needs a consistent ethical framing of the animals and the land they occupy. In the U.S., the two laws that largely govern wild horse and burro management, the 1971 Wild Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Act and the 1976 Federal Land Policy and Management Act (“FLPMA”), rest on conflicting foundations, the former based on an ethic of care and the latter on largely utilitarian principles. These conflicts specifically fuel debates over the selection of appropriate fertility control agents for horse and burro management. Because land-use and management decisions are largely controlled by the FLPMA, and because the ethical treatment of animals is typically considered under conditions established by their use, both the larger debate about equids and land management and the specific debate about fertility control are dominated by cost/benefit calculations and avoid broader ethical considerations. In our view, the long-term health and ethical treatment of free-roaming horses and burros, the lands they occupy, and the wildlife and people they share it with will require the replacement of the resource-use model with a more holistic, care-based approach.

The interaction between administrative jurisdiction and disturbance on public lands: Emerging socioecological feedbacks and dynamics.

Disturbance is one of the fundamental shapers of ecological communities, redistributing resources and resetting successional pathways. Human activities including resources management can influence disturbance regimes and trajectories by actively imposing or suppressing disturbance events or shaping ecosystem recovery via disturbance response. Furthermore, different management objectives may drive different disturbance responses. This suggests that the management jurisdiction to which a land parcel is assigned is likely to influence disturbance management and therefore ecological conditions within that parcel. Here, we combined two exploratory approaches to investigate this linkage. First, we used a systematic literature review to develop a typology of reported disturbance response types and strategies by federal land management agencies in the US. Second, we used Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) plot data in five multi-jurisdictional ecosystems containing national parks to investigate the relationship between land ownership and large disturbance occurrence and between disturbance and tree growth rate. We found that agencies vary in the diversity of disturbance response tactics they are reported to employ, and disturbance types vary in the diversity of responses reported in the literature. Disturbance occurrence varied by land ownership type across the FIA dataset, and the direction of tree growth rate was influenced by the interaction between ownership type and disturbance occurrence in two of five examined ecosystems. Although our mixed methods approach was purely exploratory and not mechanistic, our findings suggest that disturbance response is one possible route by which management regimes may influence ecological conditions. Efforts to understand and predict ecological heterogeneity across large landscapes must consider variation in the social system as a potential contributor to such patterns.

Navigating the Space between Policy and Practice: Toward a Typology of Collaborators in a Federal Land Management Agency

Navigating the space between policy and on-the-ground natural resource management presents unique challenges. We interviewed 22 U.S. Bureau of Land Management Field Office Managers to understand their perceptions toward, and applications of, collaboration with public and private stakeholders. Interviews were transcribed and open-coded using qualitative data analysis software. Then, each interview was represented visually using the MaxQDA MaxMaps feature. We deductively coded each visual model and created a typology based on a mix of salient traits exhibited by each group. Differences emerged in each group’s approach to teaching and learning; communication style; attitude toward collaboration; attention to relational and substantive outcomes; and the ability to create space within the agency mission to achieve mutually beneficial goals. Findings can help agencies navigate the challenges associated with aligning agency directives with on-the-ground realities in different contexts when collaborators exhibit different traits.

Factors Influencing Risk during Wildfires: Contrasting Divergent Regions in the US

(1) Background: Federal land managers in the US are charged with risk-based decision-making which requires them to know the risk and to direct resources accordingly. Without understanding the specific factors that produce risk, it is difficult to identify strategies to reduce it. (2) Methods: Risk characterized by U.S. land managers during wildfires was evaluated from 2010–2017 to identify factors driving risk perceptions. Annotation from 282 wildfires in two regions with distinctive risk profiles, the Northwest and Southwest Geographic Areas, were qualitatively coded using the risk assessment framework of hazards, values, and probability from the Relative Risk Assessment in the Wildland Fire Decision Support System (WFDSS). (3) Results: The effects of climate on seasonal severity, fuel condition, and fire behavior emerged as the most influential factors driving risk perceptions and characterizations of risk in both regions. Monsoonal precipitation extended the longevity of landscape barriers, especially in the Southwest. The results suggest that a scarcity of values at risk and a mild fire environment produce low risk fires regardless of location, while high risk fires reflect specific local values and geography, under the umbrella of dry climate. (4) Conclusions: the climatic contrasts between the two regions highlight how influential climate change will be on future characterizations of wildfire risk.

Targeted efforts are more effective than combined approaches for sampling two rare carnivores

AbstractVerifying the abundance and distribution of species of conservation concern is necessary for land management agencies to determine potential impacts of management actions and for monitoring long‐term population trends. In the Rocky Mountains of the United States, Canada lynx (Lynx canadensis) and wolverine (Gulo gulo) are currently species of management importance for federal land management agencies. Optimal winter methods for detecting the 2 species differ in that wolverines are generally detected using bait stations and lynx are most efficiently detected through snow‐track encounters. There has been interest in value‐added approaches such as observing track encounters while traveling to and from bait stations, to improve multispecies detection probabilities. To estimate the value of adding a track survey to bait station travel (referred to as en route surveys) compared to a stand‐alone snow track survey, we conducted both types of surveys in an area where bait stations were located in western Montana, known as the Southwestern Crown of the Continent, from 2013–2016. We collected genetic data (backtracking to genetic material once a track was encountered) and recorded the distance surveyed from both types of track surveys. Our results showed that stand‐alone track surveys were more efficient for detecting lynx than en route surveys in 2015 and 2016 and that there was no difference in track survey efficacy for wolverines across all survey years. In addition, for wolverine, both types of track surveys detected only 3 additional individuals not identified from bait stations (33 individuals total), suggesting that bait stations were the more effective method to detect wolverines. The opposite was true for lynx, with only 5 of 39 individuals identified during the study detected only from bait stations and not by track surveys (4 males and 1 female). In addition, distance surveyed during track surveys was a significant predictor of detection for both species. Our results suggest that ecology and behavior should be considered when designing noninvasive surveys for multiple target species and that complimentary and concurrent, but separate, efforts are likely more efficient for detecting species with differences in ecology and behavior.

Managed Wildfire: A Strategy Facilitated by Civil Society Partnerships and Interagency Cooperation

Federal land managers in the United States are permitted to manage wildfires with strategies other than full suppression under appropriate conditions to achieve natural resource objectives. However, policy and scientific support for “managed wildfire” appear insufficient to support its broad use. We conducted case studies in northern New Mexico and southwestern Utah to examine how managers and stakeholders navigated shifting barriers and opportunities to use managed wildfire from 2018 to 2021. The use of managed wildfire was fostered through an active network of civil society partnerships in one case, and strong interagency cooperation and existing policies and plans in the other. In both, the COVID-19 pandemic, drought, and agency direction curtailed recent use. Local context shapes wildfire response strategies, yet centralized decision-making and policy also can enable or constrain them. Future research could refine the understanding of social factors in incident decision-making, and evaluation of risks and tradeoffs in wildfire response. Implications Managers and stakeholders seeking to restore fire’s ecological roles in their own landscapes through the use of managed wildfires could use these findings to cultivate supportive local environments for their objectives. Both case studies offer examples of how managed wildfires may be facilitated through civil society partnerships and interagency cooperation. Networks of civil society and agency partners can encourage policy change at multiple levels through concerted efforts over time, particularly by building a larger case through localized examples of collaborative projects and a body of regionally relevant scientific evidence. Strong interagency cooperation on both mitigation and response can also foster an environment of mutual understanding, even given differing missions and mandates for managed wildfire. Management implications Federal wildfire response must consider multiple objectives that may compete across scales, social-ecological contexts, and timeframes. These include minimizing negative impacts on human values, responding to immediate risks of fire exposure, managing land sustainably under longer timeframes; and meeting accomplishment targets, such as acres of hazardous fuels reduction, ecological restoration, and other resource objectives. Federal wildfires and land managers are permitted to manage wildfires for natural resource objectives but face challenges of ambiguous terminology, conflicting policies, drought, increasing numbers of homes in wildlands, and unanticipated events, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Conditions, opportunities, and barriers to manage wildfire vary substantially by locality and are dependent on local actors, yet also subject to higher-level changes in policy direction. Beyond improved risk analytics and decision support tools, enabling social and internal institutional conditions may also facilitate opportunities for use of managed wildfire. Social science can provide evidence and frameworks including concrete lessons learned, expanded use of after-action reviews, process monitoring, briefings with leadership, and science application through boundary-spanning organizations.