Aggie to Participate in National Public Land Policy Student Congress

Utah State University graduate student Brandon Flack is among just 21 scholars selected nationwide to participate in the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s third National Student Congress on Public Land Policy for Land Management. The four-day gathering is scheduled for Sept. 8-11, 2016, in Las Cruces, New Mexico.

“This is a distinct honor for a graduate scholar and Brandon is a well-deserving recipient of this opportunity,” says Terry Messmer, professor in USU’s Department of Wildland Resources and faculty advisor to Flack. “Selection of student congress participants is a very competitive process.”

At the conference, Flack will join in discussion with fellow students, policy makers, federal land managers and academicians to discuss public land policy in the face of a changing environment. From their talks, the group will provide public policy recommendations to BLM and U.S. Department of Interior leaders.

Flack, who earned a bachelor’s degree in wildlife science from USU in 2014, is pursuing a master’s degree in wildlife biology. His research efforts, ranging from approaches to wild horse and burro management to sage grouse habitat conservation, focus on animal behavior and species interactions.

“I include human beings in those categories,” says the Salt Lake City native. “I really enjoy working with people. I’ve had the opportunity to work with private landowners and agency personnel and it’s been especially rewarding to build relationship with them and work together on wildlife and habitat-related issues.”

With a fellow grad student Charles Sandford, Flack assisted the state of Utah with development of a novel, community-based conservation approach to wild horse and burro management in the state’s rangelands.

“This is a very complex and polarizing issue,” Flack says. “On the one hand, left unchecked, the horse population will rapidly increase and exhaust range resources, resulting in unhealthy animals and habitat. On the other hand, horses are a much-loved animal and some groups object to efforts to limit their numbers.”

In discussions with ranchers and other stakeholders, Flack worked to explore varied viewpoints and built consensus.

“I feel like our discussions were very productive and we came up with great ideas,” he says.

Flack’s current research focuses on sage-grouse behavior and habitat in Utah’s Morgan and Summit Counties — an area known as the “Wasatch Back.” The grad student and his colleagues use VHF and GPS tracking to monitor the animals’ behavior and movements.

“These populations haven’t been studied very much and we’re finding they behave differently from larger, well-studied populations in other areas of Utah and the Great Basin,” he says.

For example, the birds readily “strut their stuff” during mating season in areas populated by humans, including roadways.

“We haven’t observed this behavior in the larger populations,” Flack says. “These birds’ overall breeding range is quite small and their habitat is under a lot of development pressure.”

At the National Student Congress, the USU student says he looks forward to collaborating with other students and agency managers as they explore complex policy issues.

“These are challenging times, as managers balance scientific, social and political issues in the face of limited resources and a changing climate,” Flack says. “I’m excited to participate in a process that will yield recommendations that agencies will actually take into consideration and possibly implement.”

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