Welcoming Our New Communications Specialist
Join us in welcoming our new Communications Specialist, Carter Boyd! Carter is a writer and photographer from Texas. He spent many years in Georgia, working as a river guide on the Ocmulgee and studying photography at Savannah College of Art and Design. He also volunteered for Sageland Collaborative prior to his position.
In addition to working as Communications Specialist for Sageland Collaborative, he is the web editor of a literary magazine focused on ecology and theology, works at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts, and studies American poetry.
Get to know Carter below.
What draws you to this work?
I share this quote all of the time, with anyone who asks, from Utah author Ellen Meloy: “Wherever you go, there are untamed creatures nearby that need your attention… Quit standing around like a wall trout. Get to work. We will need these things so that we may speak.” That sums it all up: we are responsible for the more-than-human world that we’ve endangered, and we also stand to lose a lot along with it if it goes.
What's one fond memory you have of engaging with non-human beings?
Any time that I get to listen to coyotes, I’m happy. I spent a night on Antelope Island this past fall and woke up to several coyotes laughing and howling and got to watch them wander around on the shore of the lake during sunrise. Every other way of waking up pales in comparison!
What keeps you going with western wildlife and land conservation?
I’m new to the West, after having spent most of my adult years in the Southeast, where everything looks very different. It’s so easy to be excited about wildlife and land conservation when I’m still learning and getting to know the ecosystems and species around me.
What are you most excited to explore as you start in this role?
My background is not in conservation or ecology–I’ve worked in outdoor recreation, volunteered with conservation nonprofits and government organizations, and studied ecology on my own, and so I’m really looking forward to working with and learning from all the brilliant scientists and ecologists here at Sageland Collaborative and at all of our partner agencies and organizations.
If people could only know one thing about you, what would you want that to be?
My very, very deep love of pecan trees. I don’t have many complaints about Salt Lake City, but it’s pretty hard to be out of the natural range of pecan trees.