With the recent hiring of two highly qualified individuals, Western Watersheds Project continues to expand its capability to influence the management of western public lands.
In September 2003 Western Watersheds Project hired Katie Fite in a new position as the organization's Biodiversity Director. Katie is a graduate biologist from Utah State University who worked for the Idaho Department of Fish and Game for many years before taking on the position of Conservation Director for the Committee For The High Desert for the last eight years.
Katie has been one of the most successful advocates in the west for riparian restoration, wildlife, and wild lands. Her work with WWP will enhance WWP's impact on policy makers and the BLM and Forest Service.
With her encyclopedic knowledge of public lands extending from Owyhee County, Idaho to Elko, White Pine and Humboldt Counties in Nevada, as well as Malheur and Harney Counties in Oregon, Katie will be responsible for monitoring BLM and Forest Service management of public lands across southern Idaho, all of Nevada, and eastern Oregon. Katie will also be continuing work she was carrying out for the Committee For The High Desert in partnership with WWP in support of legal actions against the BLM in Twin Falls and Owyhee Counties, Idaho, on State of Idaho public school endowment lands in Owyhee County, and on the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest in Nevada. Katie can be reached at: katie@westernwatersheds.org.
On October 9, 2003 Western Watersheds Project hired Glenn Hockett of Bozeman, Montana to be Montana Director for WWP.
Glenn Hockett brings more than 20 years of experience in rangeland ecology to WWP and a degree in Range Management. He is president of the Bozeman-based Gallatin Wildlife Association, which advocates fish and wildlife conservation with a focus on keystone native species, including bison, bighorn sheep, sage grouse, trout and beaver.
The GWA was instrumental in recent efforts to reintroduce bighorn sheep to the Greenhorn mountains of Montana. The group has also initiated stream-side fisheries and beaver habitat recovery projects along Brackett Creek in the Bridger area and worked to control noxious weeds along the Madison River in Bear Trap Canyon of the Lee Metcalf Wilderness Area.
Under Hockett's leadership, the GWA has endorsed the National Public Lands Grazing Campaign, an initiative to end abusive livestock grazing on public lands through a voluntary federal buyout plan for public lands ranchers. Glenn will continue as President for the Gallatin Wildlife association while working for Western Watersheds Project.
Glenn will continue to monitor forest plan revisions for the Beaverhead Deerlodge and Gallatin National Forests; the Resource Management Plan for the BLM Dillon Field Office; and management plans of the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks for elk, sage grouse, grizzly bears, bison and wolves.
Glenn's decades of on-the-ground knowledge in Montana ensure that his work for WWP will be influential in the restoration of public lands for wildlife and fisheries. He can be reached at: glenn@westernwatersheds.org.
Based in Hailey, Idaho, WWP now has offices in Mendon, Utah; Pinedale, Wyo. Missoula and Bozeman, Mont. and Boise, Idaho as well as ongoing conservation work in eight western states. The group's chief target is public-lands livestock grazing that destroys western watersheds and threatens or endangers species such as wolves, bison, Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep and all native fish.