QCNR News

In 1872 the United States created Yellowstone, the first National Park in the world. Since then many more parks, monuments, preserves, wildernesses and other protected areas have been created in the USA. Protected areas, like Yellowstone, are invaluable, ...

In memory of Huey Johnson. Huey was an exceptional alum of the college and a recipient of the distinguished doctorate from USU.

Utah State University Assistant Professor Janice Brahney and her team used high-resolution atmospheric deposition data and identified samples of microplastics and other particulates collected over 14 months in 11 national parks and wilderness areas. The r...

Spring is in full swing. Trees are leafing out, flowers are blooming, bees are buzzing, and birds are singing. But a recent study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that those birds in your backyard may be changing right al...

Back in 2013 Matthias Koschorreck, a biologist in the Department of Lake Research at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) in Germany, on a whim decided to take some measurements in the catchment of a small river in Catalonia, Spain that h...

Finding Columbia spotted frogs in Utah's mountains is not easy. But it's possible, with a guide like Paula Trater. She leads a visitor down a dirt path, then through mucky wetlands filled with cattails and a riot of birdsong.

A new paper including research from a Utah State University scientist provides a framework for understanding how light and noise pollution affects wildlife. The framework is the product of an effort among worldwide experts in ecology and physiology and re...

Two longtime members of Utah State University’s Department of Environment and Society were honored recently by the Society for Range Management (SRM) for their career achievements in rangeland science and management.

In a move to protect its ski slopes and growing economy, Utah – one of the reddest states in the nation – has just created a long-term plan to address the climate crisis.

Collaboration is a vital part of the success of the students in Utah State University’s S.J. and Jessie E. Quinney College of Natural Resources. One of the goals of QCNR is to develop collaborative programs that help students gain hands-on professional wo...

First-graders know that seedlings need three things to grow – sunlight, water and soil. They are right – plants do need soil – but soils also react to plant growth. As plants develop, they alter the chemistry, bacteria and microscopic flora that make up a...

Humans are a complex species. Convincing them to do something … like protect themselves from a grizzly attack … might seem like a straightforward task. But it’s not. Human-wildlife conflict is a challenge in many parks and protected areas, and is often th...

When pondering factors affecting the changing climate, you usually don’t think about predators like sharks. But sharks and animals lower on the marine food chain can have huge effects on the amount of carbon stored in marine ecosystems. Utah State Univers...

For tens of millions of people, migration is a tough reality. What causes people to migrate away from their home countries, and what happens when they do? Migrants and their labor are responsible for moving hundreds of billions of dollars around the world...

Utah State University Professor Nancy Mesner, Water Quality Extension Specialist in the Department of Watershed Sciences, coordinated the aquatic portion of USU’s GearUp program by getting high school teachers and students out on the water. The GearUp act...

When you think of national parks, you might picture the vast plateaus of the Grand Canyon, the intricate wetlands of the Everglades or the inspiring viewscapes of the Grand Tetons. You probably don’t envision 100 million pounds of mashed water bottles, ba...

The Utah Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit is partnering with the Bureau of Reclamation and the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources to protect and recover endangered and imperiled fish species in the Colorado River Basin. Population estimates of...

Global concern about the availability and cost of petroleum has grown since prices spiked in the 1970s. It’s easy to hope that renewable sources, such as biofuels, will solve the world’s energy problems. But innovation in biofuels involves more than good ...

When one considers the historic harm done by mining operations to rivers in the West, it is tempting to speculate—if people then could only understand what is known about how river systems work … could one have avoided decades of ecological upheaval and d...

Fear of death or injury keeps humans well away from dangerous places or risky situations, so it seems reasonable to assume that wild prey species will do the same when it comes to avoiding their deadly predators.

This past summer, a year after 72,000 acres of high-elevation woodlands burned around southwestern Utah’s Markagunt Plateau, residents of the nearby resort town of Brian Head noticed something strange: Tiny white cottony puffs drifted through the air and ...

Morgan Larsen, a Utah State University-Uintah Basin (USU) student, received the Berryman Institute Scholarship that, in addition to the monetary award, provided Larsen the opportunity to spend the summer working for the United States Department of Agricul...

Dr. Paul Rogers, faculty member in the Wildland Resources Department and Director of the Western Aspen Alliance, has received much coverage of his research paper on the decline of the aspen clone “Pando” due to grazing effects and climate change.

Opposition is mounting rapidly to a Colorado man’s proposal to pipe Green River water from Utah to the Denver area — and the objections aren’t coming only from the usual suspects.

Visitors to national parks in Utah, as well as many other tourism destinations, make decisions based on weather conditions. But will climate change affect the way tourists experience Utah’s national parks?

There are two things the waters of the Great Salt Lake and agricultural lands have in common: they are both in steady, rapid decline.

South Canyon Sage-Grouse on Wild About Utah

LOGAN, Utah (AP) — The number of Utah snowmobilers is declining despite an increase in the state's population, a report by Utah State University has found.

Utah State University environment and society professor Chris Monz, his former student Ashley D’antonio and Kevin Gutzwiller demonstrate the impacts of recreationists on wildlife populations.

Early ’70s were heady times on Utah State University campus

The Great Salt Lake in Utah is roughly the same area as 75 Manhattans. It feeds and houses millions of birds of hundreds of species, provides the namesake of Utah’s capital city and some credit it for the state’s trademarked claim to “the greatest snow on...