PANGUITCH — Utah Prairie Dog Day was held Thursday at Bryce Canyon National Park to celebrate and raise awareness for the once-endangered species, and the large part Utah Prairie Dogs play in the state’s ecosystem.

The Utah Division of Wildlife Resources coordinated the event with the park, where Petey the prairie dog joined a group of kids and parents. Research Egologist with the United States Geological Survey David Eads spoke and held games with the kids, and drawings from the event of Utah prairie dogs will be displayed in the visitor’s center.

“It’s important I think for adults too. Kids are really fun to teach, and oh my gosh it was amazing watching all the kids today. It was like — the line for all the kids that wanted to do the little prairie dog calling contest was amazing,” said Utah Prairie Dog Recovery Biologist Barbara Sugarman. “I think there’s so much to learn about what can be done with the species.”

According to the National Park Service, Utah prairie dogs are one of five species living in North America. Prairie dogs once scattered an enormous area of the western Great Plains, and Utah prairie dogs were recorded in numbers as high as 95,000 in the 1920s.

As western settlers continued to move in, the number of Utah prairie dogs declined because of pest control, disease, and loss of habitat. By 1972, Utah prairie dogs had been reduced to an estimated 3,300, the DWR stated. In 1973, the mammals were considered an endangered species.

“I know there’s definitely some conflict situations with Utah prairie dogs and we want to make sure we help those folks and also help the species at the same time. We do lots of trapping and translocation efforts in those conflict situations,” Sugarman said.

Sugarman said conservation strategists reintroduced a colony to Bryce Canyon National Park in the 1980s. Sugarman said 153 Utah prairie dogs now live inside the park, making up the largest protected population of Utah prairie dogs.

Range-wide, Sugarman said conservationists counted over 9,500 Utah prairie dogs during the spring count of 2023. However, because of the timing of the count, and the fact that young prairie dogs and newborns will not be seen, DWR estimated a population of over 69,500.

Sugarman said the DWR works with multiple other agencies, including biologists with Bryce Canyon, the Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Forest Service, the Utah Fish and Wildlife Conservation Office, and even Utah counties.

She said that due to the communal effort, all units met their recovery goal for the first time in 2023, which was a “huge accomplishment.”

“It’s a really good story of conservation success, Utah prairie dogs are doing really well right now, the population is pretty close to one of the all-time high peaks right now,” Sugarman said. “I like to say it’s a good lesson of partnership and how working together really accomplishes amazing conservation goals.”

Not only is the tourism promotion relentless, it’s sometimes false advertising.

As the ski season shifts into the summer recreation season, would-be tourists are scrambling to book camp spots, entrance passes, hotel rooms and permits before they’re all gone. And as anyone who has waited in a Lagoon-like lift line at their local ski resort, or has discovered that there isn’t a Zion camp spot available until August knows, Utah is drowning in tourists.

The 2022-2023 ski season shattered the records for ski visits (7.1 million and a 22% increase) and money spent by out-of-state ski visitors ($2 billion). This year’s figures aren’t in yet, but despite less snow than last year’s record setting base, both in-state and out-of-state spending by skiers has increased the last four seasons, and will likely continue.

Just over a decade ago, in the spring of 2013, a 20-story “wallscape” debuted above L.A.’s Wilshire Boulevard promoting Utah’s “Mighty 5″ National Parks. “The launch (was) placed in television ads, building wraps, digital billboards, magazines and social media (all over the U.S. and worldwide) at a cost of $3.1 million, (and) coincided with a steep increase in park visitation that has continued unabated ever since.” The campaign was a runaway success.

Since that time, visitor totals at Utah National Parks have nearly doubled, yet the number of full-time employees has remained the same or declined. The same is true for Utah’s ski resorts. “Despite the gush in skier and snowboarder visits, the number of recreational jobs, including for resort workers, remains roughly the same as it was in 2015-16 when Utah saw 2.6 million fewer skier visits.”

While these data certainly challenge the idea that tourism is such a great (but low paying) job-creator, I don’t mean to suggest for a moment that we’d be better off with the fossil fuel/cattle/alfalfa economy that our anachronistic state legislature adores. Utah’s outdoor recreation economy ranks ninth in the country and utterly dwarfs extractive industries in terms of jobs and revenues.

Despite the stewardship wisdom of the prophets, though, if what you really worship is profit, as Utah’s business and political leaders do, then massive tourist numbers are desirable. If, however, you care about wildlife, air quality, water supplies, garbage and sewage, traffic, solitude, open spaces, preservation, climate change, quiet gateway communities and high-quality recreation experiences, then these exploding visitor numbers are a mighty disaster.

Even the tourism dollar zealots agree that the National Parks are suffering under the mob of visitors. Their solution: Push the crowds toward other national monuments and state parks, and thereby spread the same problems to areas never designed to absorb such visitation. They even have a philosophy for it: “a perpetual visitor economy.” And hokey campaign term for it: “The Red Emerald Strategic Plan.”

Who pays for all of this tourism advertising? We do. When you do a tourist thing like rent a car, book a hotel room or pay sales tax on 21 tourism-related industries, you pay into a fund that goes to the Utah Office of Tourism to encourage even more people to do the same thing. Since 2005, it has spent more than $100 million marketing Utah. That’s correct: $100 million.

Not only is the tourism promotion relentless, it’s often false advertising. Visit Utah.com’s Lake Powell homepage includes a beautiful photo of a brimming full Lake Powell instead of the two-thirds empty, bathtub-ringed reservoir that suffers from climate change and overuse. Their boating guide landing page does the same thing with an old photo. The Lake Powell Pipeline Organization promotes the same environmental mirage with a Lake Powell photo that nobody under the age of 30 will ever see in person. And Utah’s State Park’s webpage displays several once Great Salt Lake photos long before it teetered on the edge of biological collapse surrounded by toxic dust flats.

Despite a mighty long list of problems with the Mighty 5 campaign, it’s not going away. In fact, the Utah Office of Tourism has now copywritten Forever Mighty®. You can even indulge in Forever Mighty swag and logos. And despite a lot of sustainable, ethical and resilient rhetoric on their snazzy website, on nearly every page is the promotion of “growth.”

With endless growth in mind, you better make your recreation reservations soon.

Eric C. Ewert is a professor in and chair of Weber State University’s Department of Geography, Environment & Sustainability. His current research and teaching interests lie in environmental studies, the American West, population, historical and economic geography and geospatial technologies. Views are the opinion of the author, and in no way represent Weber State University.

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The way it started, Arizona’s final road series of the season had the potential to torpedo its chances of a Pac-12 title. The way it finished has put the Wildcats on the cusp of conference crown.

The UA scored eight runs in the 5^th and 6^th innings en route to a 10-4 win at Utah on Sunday night, taking the series and reducing its magic number to one.

Arizona (32-18, 19-8) will take a 1.5-game lead on Oregon State (39-12, 17-9) into next weekend’s series at Hi Corbett Field, needing to win only one game against the Beavers to clinch its second regular-season title in the last four years and earn the No. 1 seed in the Pac-12 Tournament. The UA has won 10 consecutive conference games at home.

The UA hit three more home runs, giving it 10 on the 4-game road trip after hitting only 42 in its first 46 games. Andrew Cain’s 2-run homer tied the game at 2 in the 5^th, part of seven consecutive batters to reach base with two out, with Garen Caulfield giving the Wildcats the lead for good with a 2-run single with the bases loaded and Brendan Summerhill following with an RBI single for a 5-2 lead.

After Utah (31-18, 16-11) scored in the bottom of the 5^th to get back within two, Maddox Mihalakis opened the 6^th with a solo shot and the UA added two more 2-out runs on a Mason White single and a bases loaded walk to Summerhill.

Summerhill would add a 2-run homer in the 9^th to go 3 for 4 with four RBI.

Arizona was outhit 12-11 but drew six walks and had two batters hit, with five of those free passes scoring during that 8-run push in the middle innings.

Cam Walty allowed three runs and nine hits over five innings, including a leadoff home run on the first pitch of the bottom of the 1^st, but worked out of trouble multiple times to pick up his conference-leading 8^th victory. Five relievers followed, with Eric Orloff, Tony Pluta, Jaeden Swanberg and Kyler Heyne combining to hold the Utes scoreless over the final three innings.

The UA and Oregon State begin the season-ending series Thursday at 6 p.m. PT at Hi Corbett. Expected to be on the mound for the Beavers is right-hander Aiden May, who was in the Wildcats’ starting rotation last season before transferring.