5280 Magazine – August 2019

AUGUST 2019 | 5280 | (^109)
Ni
ck
C
ot
e
rivers.” Once they acknowledge their
potential for harm, trail users can
accept—and perhaps even demand—
trail designs and policies that
minimize recreation’s negative effects.
Scientists are just beginning to
figure out what “better” trails might
look like. So far, research suggests that
it’s best to concentrate trails in heavily
trafficked areas and leave other areas
untouched. (As someone who pre-
fers far-flung backcountry rambles to
more manufactured settings, I wince
at these findings.) Instead of build-
ing trails along streams and rivers as
humans have long done, we should
route new trails away from the water
sources that wildlife rely on; exist-
ing trails might be rerouted to permit
wildlife greater access.
Trail closures can also lessen rec-
reation’s impact when wild creatures
anything!” Knight says, noting that
the effects of over-logging or over-
grazing are much more visible, so
people point the finger there, or at
other user groups—which is ulti-
mately futile. It would be more
beneficial to conduct an honest self-
appraisal. “We humans have the
potential to over-everything,” Knight
says, “and that includes recreation.”
However, we also have the capac-
ity to do just about everything better:
We’ve developed less impactful log-
ging strategies, and we’re making
strides with energy extraction. We
can do the same with trails, Knight
argues. “There are so many ways
we can manage for coexistence,” he
says. “But the first step—and this
is the hardest step—is to believe
that we can over-recreate, just like
we can over-log and over-dam our
professor today, he continues to
advise and educate students and col-
lect wildlife data—even on weekends.
Today’s mission to Steamboat Rock
isn’t dictated by any formal study
but fulfills Knight’s personal curios-
ity about the habits of local eagles,
prairie falcons, ravens, kestrels, and
hawks. He knows that golden eagles
have struggled to successfully raise
their eaglets here, and he’s invited me
to join him on this foray to observe
their recent activity.
“I used to be a mountaineer,” says
Knight, who led rock climbs as a
graduate and postdoctoral student at
the University of Washington. Even
now, Knight’s confident strides across
the trail-less hillside hint at his past.
“But I was appalled by other climbers
and their complete lack of interest in
the nature around them,” he recalls.
“They were so focused on getting to
the top that they were oblivious to
their impact on flowers, or birds.”
Wary raptors, for example, will flee
their nests at a climber’s approach,
leaving incubating eggs unattended.
Such consequences seemed obvious to
him, but they weren’t apparent to his
fellow outdoorsmen.
So Knight dedicated much of his
career to investigating recreation’s
ramifications on wildlife—a field
he helped pioneer. His 1995 book,
Wildlife and Recreationists: Coexistence
Through Management and Research,
was the first to address the subject,
and his studies from more than 20
years ago remain relevant today. His
1998 examination of songbirds in
City of Boulder Open Space prop-
erties observed that nesting success
was lower within a 100-meter radius
of mixed-use trails. That same year,
he published a paper describing
how rock climbing correlated with
a diminished number and variety of
cliff plants at California’s Joshua Tree
National Park.
Yet Knight refuses to conclude
that recreationists are the problem.
Rather, he posits, it’s a simple lack
of understanding that their favorite
activities might actually have unfor-
tunate repercussions for wild plants
and animals that is the real issue.
“When people look behind them
after they’ve hiked or biked a trail,
the landscape seems unchanged,
so it’s natural to think, I didn’t hurt
Retired
researcher
Rick Knight
walks near
his home
north of
Fort Collins.
Knight was
a professor
of wildlife
conserva-
tion at CSU
for 30 years.