One of my highlights every spring is the chance I get to count sharp-tailed grouse on a remote grouse gathering area — called a lek — in northern Utah.
It can be said that the "lure of the West" is native trout. They are the embodiment of the Western character — its eternal struggle and triumph of adaptation to a life of water in a dry land.
Spring means all kinds of walleye activity around these parts, and we're pretty excited about it. Our aquatic biologists are currently in the middle of spawning operations out at Willard Bay, preparing to grow millions of sterile walleye to plant into waters throughout the state.
I heard my husband yell, "Look at that!" I turned and looked toward where he was pointing and saw a 2-foot, yellow-and-black reptile slowly crawling across the ground to the right of me. I gasped at how large it was — and because I'd never seen one and had no idea what it was.
It may be a long way from Africa, but Utah has its own little Serengeti where herds of deer and elk roam. As a wildlife biologist for the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, I've flown over a hundred wildlife surveys during the last quarter century. It was on one of those long days of flying in a helicopter counting elk that I began to realize how amazing this area really was.