Master of Science

thesisThe writer began this study with three purposes in mind: ( 1 ) to better understand what impact man with his many cattle and sheep has had upon the open range of the Escalante area in southern Utah; (2) to determine what effect accelerated erosion and reduced forage of the open range has had upon the economy of the locality; and (3) to provide, if possible, some information which might be considered pertinent to the rehabilitation of this area, so scarred and ravaged from man's misuse of the land. The Upper Valley Allotment was chosen as the site where one could conduct such a study because plant succession there seemed current and many physical changes bad occurred. Many data were available in relation to this area. Forest Rangers of the U. S. Forest Service have long been aware of the overstocking of sheep and cattle within the area. The carrying capacity (as computed by the Forest Rangers) is still below the present number of stock grazing this range. The area of Potato Valley, now known as Escalante Valley, has for many years been of Keen interest to the geologist and the biologist. Its diversity in climate, physiography and natural habitat provides an unusual number of ecological niches in which both animal and plant forms have extended their range and evolved into new units or sub-species. To the ecologist and conservationist the area provides a challenge. To reconstruct in one's mind what must have been observed by such men as John Heaps, Rufus Liston, Tom Alvey, Joe Spencer, Filo Alien and other early cattle and sheep men as they made their way into this mountain meadow and benchland is rather difficult. But it is not difficult for the ecologist to visualize the devastating impact that man, with his uncontrolled numbers of sheep and cattle, has had upon the open range. Nowhere in the State has the abuse of the open range affected the people so critically as it has these people in the Escalante Valley; nowhere have the results of this abuse of the open range been so devastating to the cattle and sheep men as they have been in the community of Escalante, Utah