Science Moab Kristina Young

From the perspective of an archaeologist, the physical body of an ancient person is a gift because a body is a time capsule of the past. They lived in that space and that time, and their bodies are manifestations of what was there. We talk with archaeologist Erin Baxter, teacher and Curator of Anthropology at Denver Museum of Nature and Science, about her work unraveling the ancient southwest culture and her fascination with the archaeology of death.

The Little Colorado River (LCR) is a culturally and spiritually significant drainage for many people in the southwest. The LCR also provides sediment load to the main stem of the Colorado River for the production of sandbars downstream AND it is an important spawning ground for and home to the largest population of Humpback Chub. We talk with Phoebe Brown, river guide and researcher, about her studies that involve understanding the interactions of phosphorus and the growth rates of the Humpback Chub.

Rangelands are vast, natural grasslands, shrublands, woodlands, wetlands, and deserts that support grazing and browsing mammals and they are primarily natural ecosystems with native vegetation.These rangelands can become degraded by fire or improper grazing. We talk with Kari Veblen, professor of Rangeland Ecology at Utah State University about her research that focuses on the ecology and management of rangelands. Her research emphasizes multi-use landscapes, public and private, that are managed simultaneously for wildlife conservation and sustainable livestock production. The ultimate goal of her work is to inform sustainable management of rangeland ecosystems.

It is well known at this point that humans are using more water out of the Colorado River, then the river can support…for humans as well as other life forms that live along and within the river. Agriculture is using approximately 80% of that water. We talk with Aaron Derwingson, Water Projects Director of the Colorado River Program for the Nature Conservancy. Aaron and his team do freshwater conservation restoration projects across the whole Colorado River Basin, involving a combination of work from science and policy to direct project work on the grounds. By working to build relationships with the agricultural community, the team hopes to help ensure that there are sufficient water supplies for both people and nature.

Sagebrush once stretched across almost 500,000 square miles from the Dakotas to California. Each year, a million acres is lost to invasive species, catastrophic wildfire, development, improper grazing and climate change. Matt Cahill is the director of the Sagebrush Sea program for The Nature Conservancy. Matt advocates that scientific solutions and large-scale collaboration are needed to reverse the trend in sagebrush. We talk with Matt about what is being done to save this vital landscape.

For the past three years, the Nature Conservancy has hosted a small cohort of Indigenous college students at their Canyonlands Research Center in southeast Utah. The program, known as N.A.T.U.R.E. (Native American Tribes Upholding Restoration & Education), seeks to empower the next generation of science and conservation leaders on the Colorado Plateau. During those seven weeks, students work with Indigenous knowledge holders and scientists, Western scientists, and program mentors to learn and teach about the science, conservation, and knowledge of the region’s landscape and conduct their own original capstone research projects. In this episode, Science Moab talks with two students from the 2023 N.A.T.U.R.E. cohort, James Johanntoberns (Kiowa/Caddo/Pawnee) and Shundeen Smith (Diné). We talk about their experiences in the program and their capstone research projects focused on ant-biocrust interactions and the legacy of abandoned uranium mines on the Navajo Nation.