Volume 69 Issue 1 (Fall/Winter 2015)

2 Awareness, Appreciation, Conservation The sage-grouse is an iconic bird that inhabits vast seas of sagebrush in western North America and has been the focus of extensive discussion and concern among wildlife managers, ranchers, mineral extraction and energy companies, land developers and others in the west and beyond. Why all the discussion about a 2-to 5-pound bird? 8 Recreation Ecology in National Parks and Protected Areas People love national parks, but managing a growing numbers of visitors with a mandate to preserve natural conditions in perpetuity is a challenge. Recreation ecologists are providing park managers with good science to help them with that balancing act. 12 Synthesis: Science at Utah State University 20 Reptiles in the New Natural World Side-blotched lizards in southern Utah deserts and marine iguanas in the tropics may seem to have little in common, but they both live in places where increasing human activity may be changing their behavior and physiology 24 Economics and Public Land