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Leon Fager Livestock Grazing Disrupts Natural Fire in Western Forests An early interest in hunting and fishing led native Arizonan, Leon Fager, to pursue a career in natural resource management. Mr. Fager earned a bachelor of science degree in range and wildlife management at the University of Arizona in 1965 before joining the Nevada Game and Fish Department as a wildlife biologist. After subsequent employment with the US Soil Conservation Service he joined the US Forest Service in 1976 as a wildlife biologist on Arizona’s Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest. Mr. Fager transferred to the Black Hills National Forest (South Dakota) in 1978 and subsequently completed a master of science degree in public land policy at Michigan State University. Mr. Fager went on to serve in the Rocky Mountain Region as a regional fisheries biologist, and in the Southwest Region as a wildlife program manager and then as the endangered species program manager. He retired from the Forest Service in December 1997. Shortly after his retirement, Mr. Fager wrote a much-publicized letter to then Forest Service chief, Mike Dombeck, in which Fager criticized several policies of high-level managers within the Southwest Region. Leon Fager tells how decades of livestock grazing in forests of the American West have disrupted natural fire patterns and, as a result, have changed the very structure of the forests in ways that make them more prone to catastrophic fires. Recorded in September 2004. |
