Blakeley Adkins:
The people that have really influenced me, personally, are folks that I've been lucky enough to work with that have inspired me and made me more inquisitive made me want to ask those questions.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Hello there, and welcome to the first episode of Voices of Greater Yellowstone for 2022. This is your host, Kristin Kuhn. We have so many great guests lined up for you this year and we're kicking it off with the amazing, Blakeley Adkins. Blakeley is a former wildlife technician and grizzly bear viewing guide and current Volgenau Foundation wildlife program associate for the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. This episode is called Elk in Paradise, so clearly we're going to be talking all about a herd of elk vacationing on a tropical beach. Okay, not really, but we are going to learn more about the incredible elk herds that frequent Montana's aptly named Paradise Valley. If you've ever visited Yellowstone through the parks northern entrance at Gardiner, you've passed through the epically beautiful Paradise Valley on your way to or from Livingston Montana. Blakeley, from her home base in Livingston focuses on wildlife issues in Paradise Valley. She works with ranchers on reducing conflicts with wildlife and collaborates with partners to find new solutions for barriers to wildlife migration and movement.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
In this episode, we'll chat specifically about what the Greater Yellowstone Coalition is doing in Paradise Valley for the iconic elk herds that call this place home. We'll cover innovative ideas like elk occupancy agreements, you'll learn more about those later and learn about how Blakeley is working with other organizations, agencies, and into individuals to reduce wildlife-vehicle collisions in the valley and keep both elk and humans safe. The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem is an amazing region. Its mountain peaks, roaring rivers and charismatic wildlife have inspired and provided for humans since time immemorial. With Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks at the heart of it all, the ecosystem spans 20 million acres across parts of Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming. Whether you live here or have just passed through, you know just how remarkable this place is and why it should be protected for years to come. Let's learn more about elk in Paradise Valley. Here we go.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Easy start, just go ahead and state your name and our position for us.
Blakeley Adkins:
I am Blakeley Adkins and I'm the Volgenau Foundation wildlife program associate for the Greater Yellowstone Coalition.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Great. And what kinds of things does a Volgenau Foundation wildlife program associate for the Greater Yellowstone Coalition do, day to day?
Blakeley Adkins:
Yeah, so I've been with the Greater Yellowstone Coalition for under a year now, but in my experience so far, it's kind of ever evolving. But main projects we're working on right now, or that I'm specifically working, on are implementing wildlife crossings on Highway 89, which run through the Paradise Valley in Montana so between Livingston and Yellowstone National Park. And then also working on conflict mitigation, mostly with grizzly bears, as they expand their range and come further into places that maybe we haven't seen as many of them within the ecosystem, as well as places within the ecosystem where they've been for a long period of time.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Yeah. A lot of, of course, wildlife focused work. It's right there in the title. And so we're definitely going to spend some time talking about your work at GYC, but around the GYC office you're definitely a bit notorious, I would say, for having had a pretty adventurous existence up until joining our team. Can you tell us a little bit about your journey beforehand and what brought you eventually to join the GYC team. What were you up to before hanging out with us?
Blakeley Adkins:
Yeah. I graduated with a undergraduate degree in wildlife biology in 2008. And since I started working for GYC was doing seasonal wildlife work. Variety of different things, but mostly working as a bear viewing guide on the coast of British Columbia and doing wildlife technician work as well throughout the year, but mostly wolverine work in the wintertime.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
So you are one of those exalted few who've actually seen a wolverine in the wild I take it?
Blakeley Adkins:
I have, but I've never run into one just on my own backpacking or back country skiing, which I know lucky few have. Although I've seen a lot, it was intentional, trying to put a collar on one in a live trap.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
That sounds exciting to say the least. And bear viewing guide. While most people are trying to avoid grizzly bears, you were doing something of the opposite.
Blakeley Adkins:
Yeah. Our lodge is on the central coast of British Columbia. And a lot of people from all over the world are dying to see a grizzly bear in the wild. Very remote. End of an inlet, mouth of a river and only people out there. No roads, you have to either boat in or fly in. And watch grizzly bears in their native habitat.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Amazing.
Blakeley Adkins:
Their natural habitat, just being grizzly bears which is pretty special.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Yeah. No, that does sound incredible. So lots of time with bears and other very charismatic critters up there in Canada and beyond. But what drew you to conservation work in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem?
Blakeley Adkins:
Yeah. I ended up in this part of the world by working for the Tom Miner Basin Association, located in the Tom Miner Basin, which is also in the Paradise Valley and doing ranch work for them as well as helping them set up some grizzly bear research.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Very cool. So a lot of the work that you do with GYC today is centered in Paradise Valley, correct?
Blakeley Adkins:
Yeah.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Can you describe that area for us?
Blakeley Adkins:
Yeah. It's a pretty remarkable place. You've got the Absaroka mountains on one side and the Gallatin range on the other side. Really fertile habitat. I can imagine before humans started developing here, it must have just been packed with wild flowers. The Yellowstone River flows through it and that valley encompasses kind of Livingston, Montana to Yellowstone National Park.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Right. So for folks who are listing, who maybe have visited Yellowstone, if they've gone through the northern entrance at Gardiner, they would've driven through Paradise Valley to get to the park, correct?
Blakeley Adkins:
Exactly. Yeah. Full of wildlife, full of agriculture as well. Because of that fertile soil, you have a lot of ranching and agriculture and it's a desirable place to live.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Certainly. I mean, it's quite aptly named. I'm going to take a little leap here, but I'm assuming that the intersection of humans and wildlife, because it is a working ranching valley and then like you said, also very rich with wildlife is why perhaps Paradise Valley is a focus of quite a bit of your work. Is that fair to say?
Blakeley Adkins:
Yeah. There's a lot of wildlife coming and going from the park, including large carnivores, ungulates, as well as back and forth from those two mountain ranges as well. And then you have a pretty substantial ranching population and there's been more and more development as well over the years. More people are moving into the valley, which creates that need for conflict mitigation. You have some families that have been here for multiple generations, but even those families are experiencing changes within the landscape, whether that's due to climate change, the extraction of wolves and now presence of wolves, and then just the ever evolving wildlife populations.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Yeah. Yeah. Paradise Valley is somewhat known for the very large herds of elk that inhabit or frequent the valley. Why do elk like to hang out there?
Blakeley Adkins:
Yeah. There's two migrations of elk that go in and out of the park into Paradise Valley. You have the Northern Yellowstone herd and the Paradise Valley herd. It is a very desirable place for elk to be, with or without agriculture. In the past, there must have just been tons of low elevation forage for them to eat. And now you have, on top of that, you have alfalfa growing and irrigated pastures, and then you have the Yellowstone River as well, so a water resource for them.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Yeah. Okay. So it sounds like elk have always had a reason to come into Paradise Valley, but now with a lot of agricultural land in the valley as well, perhaps there's an extra draw and then an extra space for them to get in a bit of trouble. Is that right?
Blakeley Adkins:
Yeah. Basically, I mean like any wildlife they're going to be where their food is. You have that from higher elevations in the summertime, where there's more forage, down into lower elevations in the wintertime when forge is easier to access.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Right. Yeah. What are some of the challenges that elk find when they do move into the valley and what is the shape of the conflict with humans that they can run into there?
Blakeley Adkins:
Yeah. I guess, all manner of things, whether you're on a large piece of property on a ranch or on a small piece of property that has a delicious apple tree or garden that might be appetizing food for them. There's a variety of barriers that they run into when they enter the valley. A major barrier being Highway 89. You have a lot of people visiting Yellowstone National Park and coming and going on Highway 89, which goes through the valley. And you have different attractive food resources on either side of that highway, as well as the river on one side of the highway. That's a huge barrier for the elk. There's a lot of elk and other wildlife that get hit by vehicles every year. Another barrier that they might run into are fence lines. That could be damage to either the fence or the wildlife itself and that's a challenge.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Yeah. Okay. When elk can counter a fence, I'm guessing, either they're going to be diverted or they're going to try to get over it, which could potentially damage the fence or try to get over under it, which could damage the elk. It just sounds like there's a lot of complications there.
Blakeley Adkins:
Yeah. And there's been a lot of work done changing the way that fences are built. Whether that's the height of the fence, or the type of wire that's used, or the height of the lower wire, for example. Antelope or pronghorn will go underneath.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Interesting.
Blakeley Adkins:
And so if you have smooth wire that's a little bit higher up they don't run into as much issues and you can still keep your livestock fenced in.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Oh okay. How you design a fence could continue to contain your livestock, but might just be a little easier for a pronghorn to get under, an elk to get over, or another critter to pass through.
Blakeley Adkins:
Exactly.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Interesting. Well, that's cool to hear.
Blakeley Adkins:
Let's see, other sources of conflict is just the competition that you have between elk and deer and livestock. And then just damage to crops as well.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
When you say competition, are we talking like fistfights between cow and elk? What kind of competition are we talking about?
Blakeley Adkins:
That'd be pretty cool. That'd be a whole nother source of tourism.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Certainly.
Blakeley Adkins:
If you're growing alfalfa, let's say, and you're attracting elk into where you want your cattle to be grazing. That could be a huge loss.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Sure.
Blakeley Adkins:
And that could impact you financially, if that is your alfalfa field. Right. That creates another source of conflict, just socially, within the valley.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
What are some of the things that you and your team are doing to help mitigate that conflict? What can we do about elk and humans and cattle to trying to share the same space in this place?
Blakeley Adkins:
Yeah. One project, the Greater Yellowstone Coalition actually just successfully accomplished was a elk occupancy agreement with one of the families in the valley. They have a large ranch in the Paradise Valley and a lot of attractive forage for elk, but they're also raising cattle. And so this has been done in Wyoming in the past, but never before in Montana where they, GYC as well as some other partners, said, "Hey, how about if we fence off a portion of your land and we put money aside into that fence, as well as weed mitigation and just making that parcel as attractive as we can and not put the cattle in there, but just have it available for the elk?"
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Oh, interesting.
Blakeley Adkins:
We can then separate the elk and the cattle. The main purpose of that was to avoid the transmission of brucellosis. Brucellosis is a non-native bacterial disease that causes cattle, elk and bison or buffalo to abort.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Right.
Blakeley Adkins:
That's a huge overlying threat to the ranching community in the Paradise Valley.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Sure. Yeah. No. Totally makes sense. So this elk occupancy agreement is basically taking part of private land, ranching land, but setting it aside as elk habitat in a voluntary agreement with a rancher?
Blakeley Adkins:
Yes.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Okay.
Blakeley Adkins:
Yeah.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
And then that way the rancher can keep their cattle in one place, have a little parcel that elk are welcome to and know that everybody has what they need and don't have to commingle and potentially have conflict of resources, but also potentially transmit disease.
Blakeley Adkins:
Exactly.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Okay. Very interesting. And so you said that's been done in other places around the ecosystem but this one is new for Paradise Valley?
Blakeley Adkins:
Yeah. And I think Montana in general.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Oh, yeah. Very cool.
Blakeley Adkins:
Yeah.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
That's a really interesting, creative solution to that. So do you see that elk occupancy agreement as something that's going to be, hopefully, replicated either in Paradise Valley or in other areas where there's similar conflict?
Blakeley Adkins:
It's definitely one of the tools in the toolbox for dealing with brucellosis. You can vaccinate your cattle, but that's not a hundred percent effective. And so having things like elk occupancy agreements available is what's going to be able to have us all coexist.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Great.
Blakeley Adkins:
Another example of something that folks are working on now is a brucellosis compensation program. You can say, "Hey, I'm a rancher. I want to be a part of this." And money will be set aside. If your cattle get infected with brucellosis, you have to put your whole herd into quarantine for an average of a year, I believe, or slaughter them all. The money piles up. And a lot of ranchers, if they were infected with brucellosis, they would go underwater. It's a real threat, it's a real risk. A brucellosis compensation program would help subsidize that loss. It would just be set aside unless your herd got infected and then that money could be available to you.
Blakeley Adkins:
Other resources fo mitigating that threat is hunting opportunities. The transmission from elk to cattle is what most people are worried about in the valley and in the greater Yellowstone as a whole. If you have hunting opportunities on private land, that also helps separate the cattle and the elk. Elk will come down into the valley around hunting season, because they're like, "Oh, it's hunting season. I'm going to go into private land." They definitely know. I couldn't tell you specifics, but they definitely know what hunting is. If you've got a ton of elk on your property, you can call the state and say, "Hey, can we set up a special hunt?"
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Oh, okay.
Blakeley Adkins:
And you can also apply for private property hunting tags. And there's also Paradise Valley ranch in the valley and they open up opportunities for hunting for anybody. It's not an outfitter, you don't have to pay a bunch of money to go hunt on the land. Basically, if you're a hunter in the area, you can just apply for a permit to hunt on their property.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Okay. Okay. Wow. Yeah. It sounds like there's quite a large range of tools, then, for either helping reduce transmission and risk or just helping people coexist.
Blakeley Adkins:
Yeah.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Interesting. You mentioned early on doing some work on the highway itself and possibly setting up future opportunities for crossings. Can you talk a little bit more about that?
Blakeley Adkins:
Greater Yellowstone Coalition is part of a partnership called Yellowstone Safe Passages. And so that is agencies, landowners, foundations, and a few other NGOs as well as community members. And that was started ... There's been a few attempts in the past to implement wildlife crossings on Highway 89. It's been known for a while that it's a huge source of wildlife-vehicle conflict. Just over time you've got more visitors going into the park, to and from the park, I think last year there was over 4 million visitors to Yellowstone.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Yes. Yeah. Pretty remarkable.
Blakeley Adkins:
And Gardiner is one of the main entrances. Yeah, the work that we're doing is a lot of just communication with land owners. Most of that property on either side of the highway is private. Those relationships really need to be formed with those land owners if you're going to put an overpass or a potential underpass or even just fencing along their property. There has to be a lot of communication and agreement that happens there. And then we also work with Montana Department of Transportation and Fish, Wildlife and Parks very closely because they're huge.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Yeah. Pretty important.
Blakeley Adkins:
Huge partners in the whole process.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
You know, as you're talking, it strikes me that people visit Yellowstone for many reasons, but the wildlife is certainly a huge draw. Many folks may not really is or think about how, even on their journey to the park, they're moving through really wildlife rich country. It's interesting that that risk of having that conflict exists outside the park.
Blakeley Adkins:
Yeah. That's a good point. I mean, you see people that are in such a hurry to get to the park and they may not even realize that they drove past a grizzly bear or a huge herd of elk closer than they would see it in the park.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Yeah. Anyone who listened to episode four of this very podcast, which is all about wildlife crossings, you can hear a lot more about our work in that space. And one thing we really do try to emphasize is local solutions, tailor made solutions for the community because there really isn't a one size fits all approach to constructing wildlife crossing infrastructure. It is really important to collaborate with local folks and make sure that you have the best solution for that particular area.
Blakeley Adkins:
Yeah, absolutely.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
We've talked about conflict and a lot of the different innovative tools that we are working toward using to manage all kinds of different issues in the valley. We have fencing work and we have elk occupancy agreements and we have collaboration moving in the direction of figuring out wildlife crossing solutions for the highway. If all of these things ... Let's kind of cast our minds into the future a bit. If all these things are working together in tandem, what's your vision for the future of the valley and for coexistence in particular?
Blakeley Adkins:
Oh man. In a perfect world, I guess, first of all, you'd want to maintain those important corridors for that elk migration, for grizzly bear movement, for all the other species on the landscape to come and go as they need to in order to survive. And with all the new people that are moving into the area, myself included, I think that educating people on exactly where they are and where they've moved into is really important. Somebody may move into the valley and not realize that they could have a bear in their backyard eating apples off their apple tree. Or that they may be going for a hike and they might run into a herd of elk. They might not have any idea until they actually get here. Educating everybody, educating people of the importance of working lands. Without these ranches on the landscape, you run the risk of that huge swath of land becoming developed and that would be detrimental for the valley.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
You know, you hit on something really interesting there, which was the role that working lands and ranches have to play in keeping landscapes open. Because if ranches are no longer viable, it's not like the family is just going to take off and that land is going to stay open. The more likely outcome is that that land is going to become developed. And the way that our population is growing, it's likely going to be a subdivision, which is not going to be the easiest thing for wildlife to move through.
Blakeley Adkins:
No, definitely not.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Well, and you mentioned education for all of us. It does seem like there is a lot that we could all do to be better citizens of our ecosystem, whether better parts of our human communities and more informed and aware members of the ecosystem itself.
Blakeley Adkins:
Yeah. Definitely. It all comes back to communication.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Yeah. I certainly believe that. I might be a little biased though.
Blakeley Adkins:
As a communication specialist.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Yeah. Something like that. I'm curious to hear a little bit more about your personal connection to the land. Do you have any stories you can share with us from Paradise Valley, in particular, or any wildlife encounters that you've had in the ecosystem that were particularly memorable?
Blakeley Adkins:
Yeah. I guess what comes to mind first is the Sandhill crane migration. I don't think that'll ever get old. They do a special little dance during the mating season where they'll jump up and down and make noise. And you could see flocks of hundreds or more of the cranes at the right time of the year when they're migrating through.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Yeah. They really are remarkably special. You never get tired of seeing them. They seem almost like a creature from another era, somehow. Yeah. I'm with you there.
Blakeley Adkins:
And working on a ranch you realize about all the little guys, like nematodes in the soil.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Nematodes?
Blakeley Adkins:
A nematode. Yeah.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Sounds like a Pokemon.
Blakeley Adkins:
Yeah. We tend to focus on the big charismatic species in the valley, the elk, the bison, the grizzly bears, the wolves, there is so much more going on in this valley than just those critters.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Everybody's important. Everybody role to play. In short, why do you do this work, Blakeley?
Blakeley Adkins:
I feel like I've been pretty lucky overall, in terms, of being able to do this kind of work still. As a child, I mean, what child doesn't love being outside and looking at critters. I guess that just evolved after getting a degree in wildlife biology and being able to do wildlife work.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Was there a a moment when you were a kid where you knew you wanted to work with critters? Can you trace that back to kind of a defining moment or is it something you've always carried with you?
Blakeley Adkins:
Yeah. When I was six, I wanted to be a veterinarian.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Yeah, same.
Blakeley Adkins:
Like most six year olds. And when I was in high school, I had the opportunity to study abroad and go to Costa Rica, Nicaragua. And while I was in Costa Rica, I met some graduate students who were studying wildlife and I thought, "Oh my God, you can study howler monkeys for a living? Well, that's what I want to do." I would trace it back to that moment when I realized you could study howler monkeys.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Howler monkeys.
Blakeley Adkins:
And not just have to be a veterinarian.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Well, that's actually kind of a perfect lead into my next question, which is, do you have a conservation or science hero?
Blakeley Adkins:
We all look at folks like David Attenborough and it's hard to not be in awe of somebody like David Attenborough, but the people that have really influenced me personally are folks that I've been lucky enough to work with, that have inspired me and made me more inquisitive, made me want to ask those questions and learn more. My two bosses in British Columbia are a great example of that, that run the bear viewing lodge. Just constantly make you want to do better and learn more and be appreciative of where you live and the work that you do. I mean, I couldn't tell you how many times they've seen a grizzly bear and they're just as excited to get back out there and go see another grizzly bear, so folks like that I would say are my heroes.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Yeah. No, that's great. That's absolutely wonderful. It takes a particular kind of person to get really excited about the same thing all the time and to really appreciate the beauty in that moment that they're in.
Blakeley Adkins:
Yeah. And just that infectious nature when you're around them that you could have people coming in that might think, "Oh, it's pretty boring to be out there for four hours and never see a bear." And they change those people's mind. They're like, "Hey, but check out that raven flying over us. Let me tell you about ravens." Yeah.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Very cool. Yeah. Enthusiasm and earnestness are really beautiful things. All right, Blakeley, we do have a handful of listener questions for you. The first one is coming at you from Linda, from Wisconsin. We did actually touch on this a bit, so maybe we can just put a finer point on it. But Linda's curious about if elk wintering on private land would be accessible to hunters. And it sounded like there were some instances of folks who could open up their private land to hunting. Can you talk a little bit more about that?
Blakeley Adkins:
Yeah. It's basically up to the landowner. I'm not a hunter, myself, so I don't have an extensive knowledge with this. Yeah, I think there's a few different opportunities for hunting. You could have an outfitting operation on your land and open that to people that would ... I think you have a cap on how many animals that you can hunt off your land, but open that up to whoever to pay money and come onto your property and hunt. And then you can also ... Let's say you didn't have an outfitting operation, but thought, "Oh geez. Elk are really inundating my property this year. I'm going to call Fish, Wildlife and Parks and see what my options are." And I think that you can have a special permit to kill some elk on your property. And then Paradise Valley Ranch, as I mentioned before, they kind of have a unique setup where they open up opportunity to anybody. As long as you are a hunter, I guess in a lottery system, to have the opportunity to hunt on that private land. For no extra cost.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Amazing. It's not like elk that our hanging out on future elk occupancy agreements will necessarily be off limits. There are some circumstances in which folks can have hunters come in to their private land. Okay. Moving on. Sally from Montana is wondering if you'd be willing to share any particularly memorable or perhaps even harrowing moments from your guiding years.
Blakeley Adkins:
Oh, boy. I mean, for the most part, guiding you'd just be watching bears doing their thing. And so in the springtime and summer they're grazing on sedge predominantly and basically look like cattle out there in the estuary. And then in the fall there fishing for salmon. That's a unique part of the world where you have so much food available in the fall that some bears, you'll wonder if they even know that you're there. There's so much food available and they're so focused on fishing. So after guiding for 11 years, it's easy to have your ego get the best of you, which I'll fully admit to, or get a little complacent. We're lucky enough to have a few bears out there that test that. One bear in particular, who we called Roxanne, she was the only bear for the entire existence of that lodge that got bear sprayed.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Oh, my. Okay.
Blakeley Adkins:
She was a little sassy. She's probably still out there now, but basically just said, "No, I'm going to tell you guys what to do, humans."
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
You're in her backyard and getting a little comfortable and Roxanne's like, "Actually, I'm a remind you who's boss."
Blakeley Adkins:
Yeah. I think most of the guides had at least one experience with her where she just said, "No, why don't you back down? I'm not backing down from you. Why don't You be the one to back down?" Which is a good reminder that us, as humans, don't always have the upper hand when it comes to critters like grizzly bears.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Well, stay spicy, Roxanne. Okay. Another question for you. Erin from Washington DC, is curious to know how climate change is impacting elk habitat.
Blakeley Adkins:
Yeah. What comes to mind with that question is last summer, specifically. We had a really, really dry summer here and that impacted, not only elk, but us as humans. It shut down fishing for certain times of the day because the river was so warm. And then when it comes to wildlife; elk, for example their forage is dried out in places that maybe they weren't expecting it to be dried out. There was a lot more elk congregating on private land. If you had a nice pasture of irrigated alfalfa, you better believe that there's going to be more elk there. That impacts ranching, that impacts wildlife, that brings more elk down into the valley and more wildlife-vehicle conflict.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Yeah. No, that is a really interesting point. While we have a drought that is impacting ranchers and their ability to support their cattle, their food source also becoming much more appealing to wildlife who are being stressed by the same conditions.
Blakeley Adkins:
Right. And then that competition too. You're trying to feed your cattle, but you've got this competition with the elk and the deer and then hay prices go up. And so it all just snowballs.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Yeah, certainly.
Blakeley Adkins:
Yeah.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Well on that sunny note ... No, that really is an interesting thing to think about because you're working on a specific set of challenges now and also I would imagine, have to stay pretty in tune to the way that those challenges are going to evolve as conditions change in the future. We'll have to stay scrappy and stay creative.
Blakeley Adkins:
Absolutely. Yeah. Creativity, I think is the name of the game when it comes to conservation.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
For sure.
Blakeley Adkins:
Yeah.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Yeah. Well, Blakeley, it has been incredibly wonderful to have you. It is always so interesting and such a treat to talk to you and we are really grateful that you spent some time with us today.
Blakeley Adkins:
Yeah. Thank you. It was great.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
We'll catch up with you soon.
Blakeley Adkins:
Sounds good.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Clearly, there are a lot of challenges facing Paradise Valley's iconic elk herds and the people who share the landscape with them, but there are also a lot of creative, committed folks working on innovative ideas to keep open lands open, livelihoods intact, and wildlife moving across it all safely. Blakeley, thank you so much for joining us. We shared a lot of laughs and learned a bunch about elk, your work and the beautiful landscape you call home.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
The Voices of Greater Yellowstone podcast is produced by the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, a nonprofit dedicated to working with all people to protect the lands waters and wildlife of this special ecosystem.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
If you are interested in supporting our work, there is a link in the show notes that will take you to a donation page. People like you make our work possible so thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Happy 2022, and we'll see you next time.