For much of the twentieth century, grizzly bears were seldom seen in Grand Teton National Park. According to the park’s Sue Consolo-Murphy, the bears “visibly arrived” in the early twenty-first. At the next Draper Natural History Museum Lunchtime Expedition, she discusses how wildlife watchers, park rangers, and biologists have responded to the change.
The free talk is titled The Challenges of Success: How Social Science and Other Factors Influence Bear Management in Grand Teton National Park, and takes place in the Buffalo Bill Center of the West’s Coe Auditorium July 3 at 12:15 p.m.
As Chief of Science and Resource Management for Grand Teton National Park and the John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Memorial Parkway, Consolo-Murphy directs programs to study and protect fish and wildlife, native vegetation, air and water quality, and cultural resources. During her long National Park Service career at seven parks, she has helped restore the swift fox to South Dakota’s Badlands, spearheaded removal of Yellowstone National Park’s Fishing Bridge campground to restore grizzly bear habitat, and worked with Trout Unlimited to remove two diversion dams from Grand Teton to improve fish passage.
Consolo-Murphy earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Wyoming and a master’s from the University of Montana. She is a former editor of Yellowstone Science magazine, and has written on bear management, beaver surveys, and information transfer. She and her husband Dr. Kerry M. Murphy co-authored Wildlife at Yellowstone in 1999. She has received awards for natural resource management as well as an Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee 25th Anniversary Award for Program Leadership at Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Park.
For more information on this lecture and other natural science topics, click here. On August 7, Dr. Mark Elbroch of the Teton Cougar Project reveals The Secret Social Lives of Mountain Lions. The Draper Museum’s Lunchtime Expeditions series is supported in part by Sage Creek Ranch.
Since 1917, the award-winning Buffalo Bill Center of the West has devoted itself to sharing the story of the authentic American West. The Center is an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution. For additional information, visit centerofthewest.org or the Center’s Facebook page.
