Wild Utah Project Is Now Sageland Collaborative!
Our Rosy-finch Project uses community observation to answer big questions about North America’s most mysterious bird. As our volunteers fill in gaps in information about rosy-finch habitat, migration patterns, and population distribution, decision makers can use these crucial data to plan for threats like climate change in the coming years.
As Wild Utah Project celebrates 25 years of science in service of wildlife and wildlands, we start our next quarter century with a new name. Wild Utah Project is now Sageland Collaborative.
Don’t worry—our mission is the same, and we’re the same organization. We have even more opportunities for people to get involved on behalf of our wildlife and lands. So why change our name?
Our projects have many intersections across the landscape. As we restore degraded streams, for example, we also heal wildlife migration corridors, improve water quality downstream (such as at Great Salt Lake), and create habitat for amphibians like boreal toads and pollinators like monarchs and bumble bees.
Expanding region & impact
Habitat and migration corridors do not stop at state boundaries. Our conservation projects have grown beyond Utah to impact the entire West, and we want our name to reflect the expanding geographic scale of our mission. As a special landscape that connects much of the West, sage is deeply connected with people and wildlife across the region. Try saying the word “Sageland” without smelling the lands you love, from mountain trails to desert valleys.
In addition, the single project that began our work has blossomed into multiple projects that cover a wide range of conservation priorities, wildlife, and habitat needs. Just some of our work includes:
Answering crucial questions about sensitive species, such as monarch butterflies and rosy-finches, to lay the groundwork for conservation planning
Restoring degraded habitats
Tracking wildlife movement to map and restore wildlife corridors
Wide-ranging partnerships for effective conservation
From wildlife to agriculture, clean water to recreation, a lot depends on the health of streams. However, streams in the West are often degraded, sometimes due to the removal of beaver. Our team helps heal these struggling landscapes by getting out in the mud to build simple, low-cost, science-based restoration structures similar to beaver dams. This work mimics the positive impacts beavers once had throughout the landscape, including creating vital habitat for all kinds of wildlife, reducing runoff and floods, offering fire breaks, and improving water quality. It is only possible through collaboration between many entities, from government agencies to landowners.
We are passionate about spaces that have been considered “wild,” but conservation today encompasses more than this. We recognize the interdependence of diverse wildlife and human communities across the West, and our work focuses on key intersections that will have lasting conservation outcomes.
That’s why we collaborate with as many voices as possible in building conservation strategies. We work with volunteer community scientists, landowners, academic institutions, government agencies, other nonprofit organizations, and community groups to achieve our landscape-level goals, namely:
Promoting habitat connectivity,
Protecting species in conservation need, and
Restoring critical habitat so wildlife in the West can thrive.
What does this mean for our volunteers and supporters?
Our growth means more opportunity to get involved. We are the same organization with the same important mission, but we have more to do.
As we work to reach lofty goals for our beloved West, we recognize that the conservation community must learn from and involve all the voices that represent the West. The health of our precious wildlife and land affects each of us. Whether you live in an urban city, a small rural community, or western suburbia, you can be a part of the Sageland Collaborative team and make a positive difference.
The red-necked phalarope spends winters floating in the open ocean off South American coasts and summers in the Arctic—11,000 miles away. At just one ounce, these birds depend on stopping at Utah’s threatened Great Salt Lake to replenish exhausted fat stores during their annual migration. Our Wetlands and Waterbirds project seeks to conserve species including this little shorebird.
The boreal toad was once common in Utah’s mountains, but it has experienced serious population declines during the past two decades. With threats from drought to development, the boreal toad is listed as a Species of Greatest Conservation Need in Utah's Wildlife Action Plan. Our Boreal Toad Project harnesses the power of the community to support conservation planning for this species.
You can conserve pollinators, rosy-finches, boreal toads, and other species in conservation need. Join us as we heal habitats, protect key wildlife corridors, and develop science-based strategies to conserve the unique wildlife and lands of the West.
Thank you for your dedicated support of Wild Utah Project over the past 25 years. We look forward to the next quarter century—and beyond—of working together to make a difference for our wildlife and lands as Sageland Collaborative.
Don’t miss our virtual celebration on October 13! We’ll have a raffle for awesome prizes including a stay at Alta Peruvian Lodge. Learn more below.
Artwork: Jenna Mills | Author: Sarah Woodbury
