PhD student

Tree rings offer clues to small-population growth

Rachel Sauer — Thu, 05 Jun 2025 15:54:21 +0000

Tree rings offer clues to small-population growth Rachel Sauer Thu, 06/05/2025 - 09:54

Daniel Long

In a recently published paper, PhD student Ellen Waddle and her coauthors provide some clarity on a decades-old problem

When researching what drives the growth of small populations, ecologists consider several factors, says Ellen Waddle, a PhD student in the ��Ƶ’s Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.

“There’s climate. There’s density, which can be thought of as both the total number of individuals in a population or how crowded or spread out individuals are. And then there’s stochasticity, which is this big word that just means variance” or random chance.

CU Boulder scientists Ellen Waddle (left), a PhD student in ecology and evolutionary biology, and Dan Doak (right), a professor of environmental studies, and their research colleagues found "that climate data alone did a pretty poor job of predicting population growth (in small tree populations)."

But whether any of these drivers matters more than the others is a question that has challenged researchers since at least the 1950s, and one that Waddle and her coauthors Mark R. Lesser, Christopher Steenbock and Dan Doak take up in a paper recently published in Ecology and Evolution.

Time and perspective

Researchers have tended to fall into opposing camps with this question, Waddle explains.

“There’s a lot of people that think if we can perfectly predict what the climate’s going to be in an area, we’re going to be able to perfectly predict how that population is going to grow through time. And then you have another set of ecologists that argue, well, it also really matters how many individuals you have in the population.”

Yet in their paper, Waddle and her coauthors come to a less divisive conclusion. By analyzing the rings of two long-lived tree species, Ponderosa pine and limber pine, “we found that climate data alone did a pretty poor job of predicting population growth. We needed to include other drivers (in our predictive models), like competitive density effects and stochasticity, to accurately reconstruct population dynamics over time.”

This means that no individual driver proved more influential than the others. They all mattered.

Which was somewhat surprising, Waddle says, considering the long timescale she and her colleagues were dealing with—many hundreds of years. (The oldest tree they sampled dates back to 1470, half a century before Queen Elizabeth I was born.)

“We're averaging over such a long timeframe that you might be tempted to think that random fluctuations and stochasticity are less important, but this sort of study highlights that that's not always true. There's a lot of uncertainty in how long it's going to take small populations to grow.”

“The most important aspect of our work, to my mind,” adds Doak, professor of environmental studies at CU Boulder and head of the Doak Lab, “is showing that simplifying assumptions we often make about population growth don’t seem to hold up.”

‘The entire history of a tree’s life’

Tree rings, says Waddle, are a gold standard for measuring a tree’s history, one with which most people are familiar. The center, or pith, signifies when the tree established, or secured its roots and became capable of growing on its own, and each concentric ring around it represents a year of growth.

CU Boulder researchers studied small populations of Ponderosa pine (seen here) and limber pine to better understand how drivers such as climate data and competitive density affect growth. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

But for their study, Waddle and her coauthors used tree rings—in the form of tree cores, or centimeter-wide rods extracted from living tree trunks—a little differently.

“What we did, which has not been done often, was to core every single tree in the population,” says Waddle, which enabled her and her coauthors to get a clearer picture of how tree populations changed over time than they would have gotten coring only a handful of trees.

“Another way to put it: The tree core data basically allows us to reconstruct annual censuses of population from start (1400s-1500s) through present day because we can know exactly how many individuals were alive in each year and when each individual first established.”

The tree-core samples themselves came from Bighorn Basin, a mountain-encircled plateau region in north-central Wyoming about 500 miles from Boulder. Waddle collected some of the tree cores herself in 2017, while an undergrad at CU, for what turned out to be her first camping experience.

Yet the bulk of the core samples owe their existence to Lesser and Steenbock. Lesser alone cored around 1,100 Ponderosa pines between 2007 and 2008, in hot, sometimes tense conditions.

“We (Lesser and an undergraduate field technician) would start hiking to the first trees of the day typically around 5 a.m. to avoid the worst of the heat,” Lesser recalls. “Trekking up dry streambeds to reach the trees we would encounter multiple rattlesnakes each morning and on one occasion a mountain lion that set us on edge for the rest of the day! Many days we would core fewer than 20 trees due to the low density of the population and the ruggedness of the terrain—getting from one tree to the next often took an hour or more negotiating cliff faces, ravines and steep slopes.”

But the effort, he says, was worth it.

“Coring the trees itself was an incredibly rewarding experience—sizing up the tree to get a sense of its shape and where the pith was and then extracting the entire history of its life!”

Pick a species, any species

This research on small-population growth is no small matter, says Doak, “because all populations start small,” and “understanding what controls the growth of new populations has a new urgency as we try to predict whether wild species can shift their ranges to keep up with climate change.”

“Pick some species you care about,” says Waddle, who is currently writing her dissertation on how mountain terrain affects plant species’ ability to follow their preferred climate. “What I care about might be different than what someone else cares about, but there’s probably a species that matters to you, whether it’s a food species or your favorite animal.

“If we want to help keep those populations on the landscape, we need to know how small populations grow and how they persist.”

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In a recently published paper, PhD student Ellen Waddle and her coauthors provide some clarity on a decades-old problem.

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But how’s the atmosphere there?

Rachel Sauer — Wed, 04 Jun 2025 18:10:46 +0000

But how’s the atmosphere there? Rachel Sauer Wed, 06/04/2025 - 12:10

Rachel Sauer

In newly published research, CU Boulder scientists study a rocky exoplanet outside our solar system, learning more about whether and how planets maintain atmospheres

In June 2019, Harvard astrophysicists discovered a rocky exoplanet 22 light years from Earth. Analyzing data from the Transiting Exoplanets Survey Satellite (TESS), they and other scientists around the world learned key details about the rocky exoplanet named LTT 1445 A b: It is almost 1.3 times the radius of Earth and 2.7 times Earth’s mass and orbits its M-dwarf star every 5.4 days.

What they couldn’t ascertain from those data, however, was whether LTT 1445 A b has an atmosphere, “and that’s a big general question even in our own solar system: What sets how much atmosphere a planet has?” says Zach Berta-Thompson, a ��Ƶ assistant professor of astrophysical and planetary sciences. “Atmospheres matter for life, so before we go searching for life on other planets, we need to understand a very basic question—why does a planet have atmosphere or not have atmosphere?”

Pat Wachiraphan (left), a PhD student in the CU Boulder Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences, and Zach Berta-Thompson (right), an assistant professor in the department, collaborated with colleagues around the country to study JWST data about rocky exoplanet LTT 1445 A b.

Now, after detailed analysis of data from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), a lot more is known—and was recently published—about LTT 1445 A b, whether it has an atmosphere and what its atmosphere might be if it has one. CU Boulder researchers partnered with astrophysicists around the country to build on previous research that ruled out a light hydrogen/helium-dominated atmosphere but could not distinguish between a cloudy atmosphere, an atmosphere composed of heavier molecules like carbon dioxide or a bare rock.

The paper’s first author, Pat Wachiraphan, a PhD student studying astrophysical and planetary sciences, Berta-Thompson and their colleagues analyzed three eclipses of LTT 1445 A b from the JWST, watching the planet disappear behind its star and measuring how much infrared light the planet emits. From this, they were able to rule out the presence of a thick carbon dioxide atmosphere like the one on Venus, which has about 100 times more atmosphere than Earth. This highlights an important aspect of science: Sometimes just as much is learned from understanding what something isn’t as from defining what it is.

“What I think should be the next step, naturally, is to ask whether we might detect an Earth-like atmosphere?” Wachiraphan says.

Not like Venus

LTT 1445 A b is one of the closest-to-Earth rocky exoplanets transiting a small star, Wachiraphan notes, and thus one of the easiest to target when studying whether and how it and similar rocky exoplanets hold atmospheres.

The JWST is more sensitive to atmospheres of transiting exoplanets around smaller stars, and LTT 1445 A b transits one of the smallest known type stars—about 20 to 30% the radius of Earth’s sun.

In November 2020, Berta-Thompson and several colleagues submitted a proposal to the Space Telescope Science Institute, the international consortium that decides where JWST is pointed and for how long, “before the telescope had even launched,” he says. “Scientists from all over the world send in anonymized proposals where we make our case for why (JWST) should spend hours looking at this particular patch of the sky and what we would be able to learn from that.

“A panel reads through the proposals, ranks them, from which a lucky 5% to 10% will be selected as the best possible scientific use of the telescope. It is such a precious resource that we care really deeply that the choices about who gets to use the telescope are made fairly; every minute of its time is accounted for.”

Rocky exoplanet LTT 1445 A b is in a three-star system; the star it orbits is an M-type star, also known as a red dwarf. (Artists' illustration: Luis L. Calçada and Martin Kornmesser/European Southern Observatory)

Studying data from three eclipses sent back by JWST, Wachiraphan, Berta-Thompson and their colleagues were able to chart thermal emission consistent with instant reradiation of incoming stellar energy from a hot planet dayside. “This bright dayside emission is consistent with emission from a dark rocky surface, and it disfavors a thick, 100-bar, Venus-like CO2 atmosphere,” the researchers noted.

“So, you can imagine that if you have a planet that is just a rock, with no atmosphere, it would be hot on day side and cold on the night side, but if it has atmosphere, then the atmosphere could redistribute heat from day to night,” Wachiraphan says.

In the case of LTT 1445 A b, “we were basically putting an infrared thermometer up to the planet’s forehead and learned its average temperature is around 500 Kelvin,” Berta-Thompson says. “The whole planet is like the inside of a hot oven, basically.

Based on the data sent back by JWST, there could be several ways to detect atmosphere on LTT 1445 A b. “We came up with an observation with this planet passing behind its star. When the planet is behind its star, we’d just get light from the star itself, but before and after the eclipse we’d get a little contribution from the planet itself, too.” Wachiraphan explains. “But you can also detect an atmosphere when a planet passes in front of its star. “The starlight coming out could pass through the atmosphere of the planet and get absorbed, and we could observe that absorption.”

More observations are currently planned for LTT 1445 A b, led by other scientists and using this complementary method of observation, Berta-Thompson says—of collecting data as the planet transits in front of its star. “There’s a lot more we can learn using different wavelengths of light and different methods that allow us to more sensitively probe these thinner atmospheres.”

Like the inside of a hot oven

One of the most fascinating questions for researchers studying exoplanets, Berta-Thopson says, is “what does it take for a planet to retain or maintain atmosphere? Learning more about that is an important step in the process toward finding a planet maybe like this one—that has a surface, has an atmosphere, is a little farther away from its star, where you can imagine it has liquid water at the surface. Then you’re asking, ‘Is this a place where life could potentially thrive? Is there a place where life is thriving?”

These questions are so interesting, in fact, that they’ve prompted the formation of the Rocky Worlds Program, with which Wachiraphan and Berta-Thompson will work closely, to support international collaboration on the next phases of exploration of rocky exoplanets using satellite data.

“Using this really magnificent telescope that is the collective effort of thousands of people over decades, let alone the broader community that found this planet, is the kind of thing that is under threat right now,” Berta-Thompson says. “All of this science and this discovery requires a really long, big, sustained investment in telescopes, in scientists, in education.”

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In newly published research, CU Boulder scientists study a rocky exoplanet outside our solar system, learning more about whether and how planets maintain atmospheres.

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Rocky exoplanet LTT 1445 A b tightly orbits its parent star, which in turn orbits two other stars in a three-star system. (Artist's rendering of LTT 1445 A b: Martin Kornmesser/European Southern Observatory)

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CU Boulder scholars recognized for innovation in PhD research

Rachel Sauer — Mon, 05 May 2025 15:23:14 +0000

CU Boulder scholars recognized for innovation in PhD research Rachel Sauer Mon, 05/05/2025 - 09:23

Patrick Das and Julia Shizuyo Popham have won 2025 Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Innovation Fellowships

Two ��Ƶ PhD students have won 2025 Mellon/American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) Dissertation Innovation Fellowships.

Patrick Das, a PhD student in the Department of Linguistics, and Julia Shizuyo Popham, who is pursuing her PhD in the Department of Ethnic Studies, are among 45 PhD students from across the country who are being recognized for their innovative approaches to their dissertation research in the humanities or social sciences.

CU Boulder PhD students Patrick Das (left) and Julia Shizuyo Popham (right) recently won 2025 Mellon/American Council of Learned Societies Dissertation Innovation Fellowships.

The fellowships, made possible by a grant from the Mellon Foundation, recognize doctoral students “who show promise of leading their fields in important new directions,” according to the ACLS. “The fellowships are designed to intervene at the formative stage of dissertation development, before writing is advanced, and provide time and support for emerging scholars’ innovative approaches to dissertation research—practical, trans- or interdisciplinary, collaborative, critical or methodological.

“The program seeks to expand the range of research methodologies, formats and areas of inquiry traditionally considered suitable for the dissertation, with a particular focus on supporting scholars who can build a more diverse, inclusive and equitable academy.”

Das and Shizuyo Popham will receive an award of up to $52,000, consisting of a $42,000 stipend; up to $8,000 for project-related research, training, professional development and travel; and a $2,000 stipend to support external mentorship that offers new perspectives on their projects and expands their advising network.

Das is researching how geography and multilingualism shape language change in Tikhir, an endangered language of eastern Nagaland, India, near the border with Myanmar. Through spatial analysis, the project maps patterns of interaction between Tikhir and neighboring indigenous languages. Das’ findings offer new insights into how small languages evolve within complex multilingual ecologies.

Shizuyo Popham’s project, titled “Uneasy Intimacies,” interprets Japanese artist and migrant Fukunosuke Kusumi’s collection of visual art within contexts of racial disposability in the American West. By tracing Kusumi’s art through pre-World War II exclusion in Washington, interim detainment in California, indefinite incarceration in Colorado and afterlives of loss and healing, her work examines how seemingly innocuous images reveal marginalized histories, in which dispossessed subjects construct agency and even freedom via the very systems built to keep them down.

“ACLS is proud to support these fellows, who are poised to conduct groundbreaking dissertation research and broaden the audience for humanistic scholarship,” said Alison Chang, ACLS program officer in U.S. Programs. “Their innovative projects not only produce new avenues of knowledge but also inspire the evolution of doctoral education across the humanities and social sciences.”

“This fellowship will enable me to spend sustained time working with the Tikhir community to document their language on their terms,” Das said. “It supports a collaborative approach that values local knowledge and multilingual experience. By combining spatial methods with community insights, we can better understand how small languages like Tikhir are changing today.”

Shizuyo Popham noted that last week, the ACLS joined the American Historical Association and the Modern Language Association in filing a lawsuit to reverse devastating attacks on the National Endowment for the Humanities. “So, beyond the fellowship itself, I’m proud to be joining a community that is courageously fighting for intellectual freedom,” she said.

“I’m also deeply grateful to have an entire year to focus on my dissertation, which is largely about a history intertwined with mass detentions and deportations today. I’ve been studying Japanese American wartime incarceration for half a decade now, and never for me has this history felt so urgent. In these times of increasing terror, I am reminded of why the humanities matter and that to critically think and write is a freedom we must fight for every day.”

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Patrick Das and Julia Shizuyo Popham have won 2025 Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Innovation Fellowships.

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‘Kenough’: Is 'Barbie' more revolutionary for men than women?

Rachel Sauer — Fri, 07 Mar 2025 21:08:55 +0000

‘Kenough’: Is 'Barbie' more revolutionary for men than women? Rachel Sauer Fri, 03/07/2025 - 14:08

Clay Bonnyman Evans

CU Boulder PhD student’s paper argues that the hit film exemplifies ‘masculinity without patriarchy’ in media

M.G. Lord, author of Forever Barbie: The Unauthorized Biography of a Real Doll and co-host of the podcast LA Made: The Barbie Tapes, describes Greta Gerwig’s Oscar Award-winning, box-office behemoth Barbie as “incredibly feminist” and widely perceived as “anti-male.”

Meanwhile, conservative critics rail that the movie is “anti-man” and full of “beta males” in need of a testosterone booster. Conservative British commentator Piers Morgan called it “an assault on not just Ken, but on all men.”

CU Boulder PhD student Julie Estlick argues that Greta Gerwig's award-winning film Barbie is "a really good film for Ken."

But ��Ƶ women and gender studies doctoral student Julie Estlick sees things differently. In her recent paper, “Ken’s Best Friend: Masculinities in Barbie,” published in Feminist Theory, she argues that the movie is “a really good film for Ken.”

On first viewing, Estlick noticed a woman nearby having a “very visceral, emotional response” to the now iconic monolog by actor America Ferrera, which begins, “It is literally impossible to be a woman.”

She wasn’t particularly moved by the speech, and walking out of the theater, she realized she didn’t see the movie as a clear-cut icon of feminism.

“I really questioned whether the film was actually about Barbie, and by extension, women, at least in the way people were claiming,” she says.

Once Barbie was available for streaming, Estlick took a closer look and arrived at a heterodox conclusion:

“Barbie is not anti-man; it is pro-man and is not necessarily a revolutionary film for women, at least not as much as it is for men,” she writes in the paper’s abstract. “This is because Barbie espouses non-hegemonic masculinity through cultural critiques that are rare to see in popular media.”

Hegemonic vs. toxic masculinity

For Estlick, “hegemonic masculinity” is a kind of stand-in for the “toxic masculinity” so often featured in media: superheroes, gangsters, vigilantes, killing machines who are also “lady killers.” Always strong, rarely emotional, such men are absurdly impermeable to harm, and sport chiseled features and perfectly sculpted abs, she says. Yet many are also “man children” whose “ultimate prize” is to have sex with a woman.

“That kind of media comes at the expense of women, works against women, and often oppresses women by sexualizing and objectifying them,” Estlick says.

In the film Barbie, the patriarchy ultimately doesn't serve the Kens any more than it does the Barbies, argues CU Boulder PhD student Julie Estlick. (Photo: Warner Bros. Pictures)

Non-hegemonic masculinity is strong without being oppressive, and supportive and protective of women without regard to any quid pro quo. It allows for men to openly express emotions and vulnerability and to seek help for their mental-health struggles and emotional needs without shame, while retaining their strength, vitality and masculinity.

“It does the opposite of hegemonic masculinity,” Estlick says. “It works alongside women and doesn’t harm them in any way.”

The Kens are first represented in the movie as clueless accessories to the ruling Barbies of Barbie Land. But after Beach Ken (Ryan Gosling) and Stereotypical Barbie (Margot Robbie) find a portal to our world, Beach Ken returns and establishes a patriarchal society in which women become mindless accessories to hyper-competitive men in the thrall of hegemonic masculinity.

But ultimately, the patriarchy doesn’t serve the Kens any more than the Barbies.

“As people always say, men’s worst enemy under patriarchy isn’t women. It’s other men and their expectations, who are constantly stuffing men into boxes,” Estlick says.

Which isn’t to say that women don’t also enforce strictures of hegemonic masculinity.

“When little boys are taught to suppress emotions, little girls are watching. They are watching their fathers, and fathers onscreen, acting in certain ways,” Estlick says. “Girls internalize toxic ideologies the same ways boys do.”

Allan the exception

In Barbie, there is just one male who stands apart from Kendom: Allan, played by Michael Cera.

“Allan is positioned as queer in the film in that he is othered but not less masculine in the traditional understanding of the word,” Estlick writes. He “deviates from the conventional canon of masculinity” and “uses his masculinity for feminism and to liberate women while also protesting patriarchy.”

Allan doesn’t fit into Kendom, with or without patriarchy. As the narrator (voiced by Helen Mirren) notes, “There are no multiples of Allan; he’s just Allan.”

The character is based on a discontinued Mattel doll released in 1964, intended to be a friend to Ken. Fearing the friendship might be perceived as gay, the company swiftly removed Allan from store shelves, later replacing him with a “family pack” featuring Barbie’s best friend Midge as his wife, and a backstory that the couple had twins.

In the film, non-toxic Allan is immune to patriarchal brainwashing and sides with the Barbies in re-taking Barbie Land.

“(T)he film can be understood as a vital framework for masculinity that allows for vulnerability, emotion and heterosexual intimacy among men,” says researcher Julie Estlick. (Photo: Warner Bros. Pictures)

“Right off the bat we see (Allan) as queered from the rest of the Kens and Barbies,” Estlick says.

But Beach Ken, too, eventually senses that he’s not happy in the patriarchal society has created. In one of the movie’s final scenes, a tearfully confused Beach Ken converses with Stereotypical Barbie from a literal ledge:

“You have to figure out who you are without me,” Barbie tells him kindly. “You’re not your girlfriend. You’re not your house, you’re not your mink … You’re not even beach. Maybe all the things that you thought made you aren’t … really you. Maybe it’s Barbie and … it’s Ken.”

In other words, Barbie is rooting for Ken to claim his individuality.

“Beach Ken’s house, clothes, job and girlfriend all represent boxes that society expects men to tick, but this scene illustrates that it is okay to deviate from normative behaviors of masculinity and that manhood is not solely defined through heteronormative bonds and behaviors,” Estlick writes. And “it is acceptable for men to admit to a woman that they need help.”

Barbie is pure, candy-colored fantasy. But in our world, Estlick believes it points the way toward further non-toxic media representations of masculinity and ultimately contribute to better mental health for men trapped in a “man box” — as well as women who have borne the burden of men’s self- and societally imposed strictures on their own humanity.

“(T)he film can be understood as a vital framework for masculinity that allows for vulnerability, emotion and heterosexual intimacy among men,” she concludes. It “(opens) the door to the creation of more media that subverts societal expectations of toxic masculinity.”

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CU Boulder PhD student’s paper argues that the hit film exemplifies ‘masculinity without patriarchy’ in media.

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Top image: Warner Bros. Pictures

Counting hidden deaths at the U.S.’s most dangerous border crossing

Rachel Sauer — Wed, 26 Feb 2025 18:23:17 +0000

Counting hidden deaths at the U.S.’s most dangerous border crossing Rachel Sauer Wed, 02/26/2025 - 11:23

Cody DeBos

CU PhD candidate Chilton Tippin working to document migrant mortality in El Paso

With the desert sun beating down on the jagged trails of Mount Cristo Rey just outside El Paso, Texas, Chilton Tippin, a PhD candidate in cultural anthropology at the ��Ƶ, wipes sweat from his brow. His backpack is weighed down with bottles of water and food—not for himself, but for the people his research group expects to find hiding in the desert.

In the distance, he sees groups of migrants who just crossed the Mexican border, many of them exhausted and injured, pursued by Border Patrol agents on horseback and in helicopters.

CU Boulder PhD candidate Chilton Tippin spent the summer of 2024 documenting the crisis at a deadly crossing point along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Tippin recalls this almost-daily scene on the mountain, a pilgrimage site that has become the deadliest crossing point along the U.S.-Mexico border.

He spent the summer of 2024 documenting the regional crisis. Though he originally expected to study the environmental impact of the Rio Grande, the unfolding humanitarian crisis was too important to ignore.

“My dissertation is about the Rio Grande, but since the river has been turned into a border and become heavily militarized, it has become a site for a lot of violence and death,” he says.

Yet, when Tippin tried to gather data on how many migrants were dying in the El Paso region, he ran into another problem: bureaucratic stonewalls. Many deaths, he discovered, weren’t being officially counted at all.

Without accurate data, the full scale of the crisis in El Paso is obscured, he says, and over the course of his fieldwork, Tippin saw how systemic failures, political pressure and logistical challenges combine to erase countless migrant deaths from public view.

He’s on a mission to change that.

Life and death on Mount Cristo Rey

“We would go up the mountain regularly,” Tippin recalls, “because a lot of the migrants and undocumented people trying to sneak across would be staged just on the Mexican side of the border.”

Mount Cristo Rey, the northernmost peak of the Sierra Juárez mountain range, is famous for the 29-foot-tall statue of Jesus on the Cross at its summit. With roughly two-thirds of the mountain in Texas and the rest in Mexico, it has also become a major hotspot for border crossings.

“When we would approach, often there were 20 or 30 people just sitting there in the desert with no shade, and it’d be 110 degrees (F). They would come running to us, and we would drop our backpacks and hand out 50 water bottles and any food we could carry,” Tippin says.

The migrants he and his team encountered weren’t just battling the elements. Many had endured days or weeks of travel, cartel-controlled smuggling routes and the fear of being caught and detained, or worse.

“Because of the whole process of being chased by Border Patrol in the desert, where the heat is up to 115 degrees, people are malnourished, depleted and exhausted,” Tippin says. “Then they try to swim across the river, and they’re drowning. Or they’re going out into the desert and getting lost and succumbing to dehydration and heat illness.”

Water bottles are placed beneath a religious display on the border between the United States and Mexico near El Paso, Texas. (Photo: Chilton Tippin)

The mountain itself is a paradox, both a path to safety and a trap ready to spring. The rugged terrain provides cover from Border Patrol and makes expeditions up the slopes more difficult, but it also means there’s no easy escape if something goes wrong.

“The mountain itself is such a surreal landscape,” Tippin recalls. “We often felt like we were in The Matrix or The Twilight Zone because we could be up there just kind of walking on the trails, and people are getting chased and detained and tackled.

“It’s also weird because it’s a religious place. But at the same time you’re moving through that landscape, people are running for their lives.”

The cartel’s grip on the El Paso region

For many of the migrants Tippin encountered, danger didn’t begin on the mountain. In Ciudad Juárez, just across the border from El Paso, the Juárez Cartel has taken control of border crossings, turning human smuggling into a lucrative extension of its drug trade.

“I don’t want to push this idea that the violence is just a ‘Mexico problem.’ But the reality is that people wouldn’t be forced into these cartel-run routes if they had a safe, legal way to cross the border,” Tippin says.

Cartel smugglers, known as coyotes, lead groups of migrants across the border, often charging thousands of dollars per person. In the mountains, the cartel stations lookouts to monitor movements of migrant groups and evade the Border Patrol.

“They are just posted up on the peaks, watching for agents and guiding groups through,” Tippin says. “Border Patrol would try to menace them with helicopters, but they never actually go up there because it’s too dangerous.”

Even for individuals who make it safely across the border, the ordeal often isn’t over. Many are sent right back into cartel-controlled territory, where they face violence, extortion or death.

A helicopter flies over the rugged terrain at border between the United States and Mexico near El Paso, Texas. (Photo: Chilton Tippin)

“That’s the deadly dynamic,” Tippin says. “People cross, they get pushed back and then they get extorted again. Women get assaulted. Families get separated. And they keep trying, because what choice do they have?”

The deaths no one wants to count

When the official numbers of migrant deaths didn’t match what Tippin was seeing on the ground, he quickly realized documenting the crisis would be harder than expected.

“I went through the whole summer filing open records requests, and I was told, ‘We don’t count migrants,’” he recalls. “Then when I tried to get autopsy reports, they said that if I wanted to see the records of drowning victims, it would cost over $4,000. And if I wanted a broader dataset—covering deaths in the desert as well—I got a bill for over $100,000.”

Tippin notes that U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reporting rules can be obscure, which may lead to underreporting. If a migrant drowns in the El Paso canals or is found in the desert by local first responders, the Texas National Guard or civilians, they aren’t counted in the official data. If they die in a hospital after being rescued, they also don’t make the list. Even if remains are discovered by CBP personnel but the person was not in custody, guidelines state the death isn’t reportable.

As a result, the official data can be off by hundreds—if not thousands—of deaths.

This isn’t just an oversight, Tippin notes. It’s part of a pattern. No More Deaths, a volunteer organization, exposed years of under-counted fatalities, with actual migrant deaths sometimes exceeding CBP’s reports by two to four times.

For Tippin, the answer to why this happens is simple: Acknowledging the full scale of the crisis would shed light on the deadly consequences of U.S. border policies.

“I think that the deaths go uncounted because it’s inconvenient for the whole political and bordering apparatus to have it be known that, as a consequence of their policies and their practices, hundreds of people are dying in the United States, in the deserts and in the rivers that form the border,” he says.

Fighting for the truth

Despite the resistance, Tippin and several grassroots organizations aren’t giving up the fight. They’re using the limited data they have, as well as anecdotal fieldwork, to push for policy changes, local resolutions and new initiatives aimed at tracking and preventing migrant deaths.

Clothing and water bottles left at shady spot on the United States-Mexico border near El Paso, Texas. (Photo: Chilton Tippin)

“It’s such a preventable public health trend,” he says, “and the way we attempt to address problems such as these is to gather data on them.

“We need to make what’s happening apparent and use the data to strategically implement interventions that could help reverse this alarming and tragic trend.”

One organization in Tucson, Arizona, Humane Borders, is using this approach. It works directly with the local medical examiner’s office to gather precise data on migrant deaths. That data is then used to strategically place water stations in high-risk areas.

Tippin and others want to replicate that success in El Paso, but without government cooperation, progress is slow.

“The medical examiner’s office in Tucson works with humanitarian groups,” he explains. “In El Paso, they won’t even meet with us. That’s the difference.”

But activists like Tippin aren’t waiting for permission. They continue to document deaths, advocate for policy changes and pressure local officials to increase transparency.

Recently, Tippin and his research team went before the El Paso County commissioners, pushing them to acknowledge the crisis and demand more transparency from the medical examiner’s office.

“We recently had them pass a resolution decrying all the deaths in El Paso. It’s a step in the right direction, but we need more than words—we need action,” he says.

In the El Paso region, migrants continue to suffer and die from preventable causes. The work to help them is slow, and the resistance is strong. Yet Tippin and others refuse to back down because, ultimately, it’s not about numbers.

“These aren’t just statistics,” he says. “These are people. And until we start treating them as such, nothing is going to change.”

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CU PhD candidate Chilton Tippin working to document migrant mortality in El Paso.

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Top photo: Chilton Tippin

Is the path to better mental health a walk in the park?

Rachel Sauer — Wed, 05 Feb 2025 17:03:19 +0000

Is the path to better mental health a walk in the park? Rachel Sauer Wed, 02/05/2025 - 10:03

Pam Moore

CU Boulder researchers Colleen Reid, Emma Rieves and their colleagues explored the potential impact of objective and perceived greenspace exposure on mental health

If you or a loved one is struggling with mental health, you’re not alone. Roughly one in every five adults experienced symptoms of anxiety or depression over the past two weeks, according to a 2022 CDC report. The good news is a better state of mind could be right in your backyard—literally.

Perceived greenspace exposure—which represents a person’s perception of the amount and quality of access to and time spent in nearby greenspace—may have a significant positive effect on certain aspects of mental health, according to new research from an interdisciplinary ��Ƶ team.

Emma Rieves (left), a PhD candidate in the CU Boulder Department of Geography, and Colleen Reid, an associate professor of geography, along with their research colleagues, found that perceived greenspace exposure may have a significant positive effect on certain aspects of mental health.

With Associate Geography Professor Colleen Reid at the helm, researchers from the Geography, Psychology and Neuroscience departments as well as the Institute for Behavioral Genetics and the Institute of Behavioral Science explored the link between greenspace exposure and stress, anxiety and depression.

Their study revealed a strong association between perceived greenspace exposure and reduced anxiety. Could better mental health be as simple as a walk in the park? Perhaps, says lead study author and geography PhD candidate Emma Rieves.

The relationship between greenspace and mental health “isn’t just about the greenspace that’s empirically there,” which they measured by aggregating the green pixels, representing greenspace, from aerial imagery, also known as objective green space. “The relationship is mainly influenced by aspects of green space that aren’t well captured by objective measures, such as the quality of the green space, how much time someone spends in green space and how accessible it is,” she says.

Research in the time of COVID-19

Reid started the study in late 2019, says Rieves, who arrived on campus to begin her graduate education in the fall of 2020. “It was weird,” she recalls. “But the [geography] department did a lot to facilitate interactions between students despite the restrictions that were in place at the time.”

Even before Rieves dove into the research project, she had personal experience with nature’s capacity to ease her mind, particularly during the early days of lockdown. “Being in nature definitely helped to combat some of the negative emotions you have when you’re stuck sitting in your house, doomscrolling and wiping down all your produce,” she recalls.

To determine the effect of greenspace exposure on the study’s research subjects, the team had to switch gears early in the data-collection process to account for the extra stress associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, says Rieves.

Once COVID-19 public health restrictions were in place, however, they added pandemic-specific questions to their mental health survey so that subjects could share the extent to which they were impacted by stressors such finances, resources and the possibility of infection. Their analysis could then control for pandemic-specific variables to more accurately identify the connection between mental health and greenspace exposure, says Rieves.

"If you feel like you’re surrounded by greenspace, it’s probably good for you,” says CU Boulder researcher Emma Rieves. (Photo: Josephine Baran/Unsplash)

Is greenspace exposure a key to mental health?

The researchers found that perceived greenspace exposure was directly linked to reduced anxiety metrics and had a borderline statistically significant relationship with lower levels of depression metrics. Meanwhile, objective greenspace exposure bore no statistically significant association with anxiety, depression or stress.

In other words, when it came to mental health, and anxiety in particular, objective greenspace exposure mattered far less than subjects’ perceptions of greenspace exposure.

“ Based on the presence of green pixels, a vacant lot full of weeds would register as having a high green space signal. But if you were there, you might not perceive it as a superabundant green space,” says Rieves. “We found that other factors, like the quality of the environment in this example, is more important to the mental health and greenspace relationship.”

At the same time, the findings revealed a positive association between socioeconomic status and both objective and perceived greenspace, where people with higher socioeconomic status had higher perceived and objective greenspace exposure.

The takeaway

While no one is promising that a walk in the woods is a magic bullet, getting out in nature is never a bad idea, says Rieves. And no matter what the pixels indicate, or how many minutes a day you spend around trees, the data indicate that people’s perceptions of their own greenspace exposure are important to unlocking better mental health, says Rieves.

“This study doesn’t prescribe any specific level of greenspace exposure needed to reap its mental health benefits, but if you feel like you’re surrounded by greenspace, it’s probably good for you.”

CU Boulder scientists Naomi Friedman and Samantha Freis contributed to this research.

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CU Boulder researchers Colleen Reid, Emma Rieves and their colleagues explored the potential impact of objective and perceived greenspace exposure on mental health.

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Studying the ‘cause of causes’ affecting cardiovascular health

Rachel Sauer — Tue, 21 Jan 2025 15:08:47 +0000

Studying the ‘cause of causes’ affecting cardiovascular health Rachel Sauer Tue, 01/21/2025 - 08:08

Chris Quirk

CU Boulder researchers find that socioeconomic status is a key indicator of heart health

Cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of death in the United States, significantly affects those of lower socioeconomic status. In addition, members of historically marginalized groups—including Black, Indigenous and Asian populations—suffer disproportionately. Therefore, public health advocates and policy makers need to make extra efforts to reach these populations and find ways to reduce their risk of cardiovascular disease.

These are the findings of researchers Sanna Darvish and Sophia Mahoney, PhD candidates in the ��Ƶ Department of Integrative Physiology. Their recent paper on socioeconomic status and arterial aging—written with CU Boulder co-authors Ravinandan Venkatasubramanian, Matthew J. Rossman, Zachary S. Clayton and Kevin O. Murray—was published in the Journal of Applied Physiology.

Researchers Sanna Darvish (left) and Sophia Mahoney (right), PhD candidates in the CU Boulder Department of Integrative Physiology advocate for making extra efforts to reach historically marginalized populations and find ways to reduce their risk of cardiovascular disease.

Darvish and Mahoney conducted a literature review of cardiovascular disease, looking specifically at how it affects various demographics. Their focus was on two physiological features that are predictors of cardiovascular issues: endothelial dysfunction—a failure of the lining of blood vessels that can cause a narrowing of the arteries—and stiffening of arteries.

“It’s pretty well established that individuals of lower socioeconomic status have increased risk for many chronic diseases, but our lab focuses on the physiological and cellular mechanisms contributing to that increased risk,” Darvish explains. “We’re looking at what studies have been conducted, looking at blood vessel dysfunction, arterial dysfunction in these marginalized groups that then will predict their risk for cardiovascular disease.”

Exercise as therapy

Beyond the clinical findings, Darvish and Mahoney cite four social determinants of health regarding cardiovascular disease across ethnic and racial groups: environmental factors, like proximity to pollution or access to green spaces; psychological and social factors, such as stress or structural racism; health care access; and socioeconomic status.

While each of the four has different facets that contribute to overall cardiovascular health, the authors found that socioeconomic status was the “cause of causes,” and thus the most important indicator to examine in their goal of recommending effective therapies.

“It became clear to us that socioeconomic status really played a role in every single aspect of social determinants of health,” says Mahoney. “So, our paper naturally centered around socioeconomic status as we realized that it was the most integrated and affected the rest of the determinants of health.”

To help overcome the barriers to better cardiovascular health among those in lower socioeconomic groups, Darvish and Mahoney recommend exercise.

“Exercise is well established as first line of defense, especially aerobic exercise,” says Mahoney. “It’s easy for us to say that in Colorado, but there are plenty of barriers to people everywhere who do not have access to resources.”

“Exercise is well established as first line of defense, especially aerobic exercise,” says CU Boulder researcher Sophia Mahoney. “It’s easy for us to say that in Colorado, but there are plenty of barriers to people everywhere who do not have access to resources.”

One option the researchers propose is high-intensity interval training (HIIT), which packs a robust aerobic effort into workouts as brief as five or 10 minutes. The authors also recommend inspiratory muscle strength training (IMST), during which users breathe into a simple handheld device that inhibits air flow and get a simulated aerobic workout that also strengthens the diaphragm. Previous research has demonstrated that just a few minutes of IMST therapy a day can reduce blood pressure and the risk of cardiovascular disease.

Reducing research barriers

One thing Darvish and Mahoney hope their study will do is galvanize researchers to include more diverse populations in their research. While investigating the existing literature for their review, the two were dismayed to find few studies that included or focused on populations from the lower socioeconomic echelons.

There are structural reasons for that, Darvish explains. Time is an issue, as those lower on the socioeconomic ladder often work more hours and have more demands on their non-work time. In addition, transportation can be an obstacle, as research facilities may not be near neighborhoods with more diverse populations. “We pay our participants an appropriate amount for their participation, but not all clinical trials do,” Darvish says.

“Another thing we are doing is instituting a lift service through our lab, to drive people in from their homes in Denver to our lab in Boulder, and we hope this will help improve access for more people to participate.”

Language barriers can be another impediment, as all release forms and study literature would need to be translated for those who don’t speak English. Darvish and Mahoney say it is important that researchers work to overcome these structural barriers. “Our lab is working to do all we can to reduce biases, and include these diverse populations,” says Mahoney. “We need to practice what we preach and start with ourselves.”

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CU Boulder researchers find that socioeconomic status is a key indicator of heart health.

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Learning the recipe for grizzly gourmet

Rachel Sauer — Thu, 12 Dec 2024 14:30:00 +0000

Learning the recipe for grizzly gourmet Rachel Sauer Thu, 12/12/2024 - 07:30

Doug McPherson

CU Boulder anthropology PhD candidate Sabrina Bradford has been learning what’s on the menu for grizzlies in Montana

If you’re ever heading to Montana’s backcountry, you’d be hard pressed to find a better guide than Sabrina Bradford, a ��Ƶ PhD candidate in biological anthropology.

Bradford has spent more than a decade in the area’s countryside, mostly on horseback, studying conflict between humans and wildlife, social-ecological systems, livestock damage and the grizzly-bear diet.

Lately she’s been getting noticed for that last item.

Anthropology PhD candidate Sabrina Bradford (left) wrote Grizzly Bear Foods: Reference Guide to the Plants, Animals, and Fungi in the Montana Grizzly Bear's Diet, published by Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks.

This fall, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks published her new 100-page book, Grizzly Bear Foods: Reference Guide to the Plants, Animals, and Fungi in the Montana Grizzly Bear's Diet, which will be part of the state’s “bear aware” education program for the public in 2025.

“I saw a lot about how grizzlies used the landscape,” says Bradford, who sometimes has ridden 20 miles a day in the backcountry doing research and working as a guide and bear education specialist. “I took plenty of photos of grizzly bear signs―areas where it looked like a tiller had rolled through the soil, over rocks and torn up trees. I wanted people to be able to see the landscape similar to the way I did. It’s really important to me that the public understands what bears are actually doing on the landscape.”

Of course, that landscape is a massive buffet for grizzlies, whose four food groups are plants, animals, fungi and trash from humans. A few specific examples of their diet: grasses, shrubs, seeds and fruits of trees, mushrooms, ducks, bird eggs, trout, salmon, squirrels, beaver, moose, bison, elk, deer, bighorn sheep, ants, termites and bees.

Bradford, who graduates this month, says grizzlies serve an important role as seed dispersers within the ecosystem there, and many of the shrubs grizzlies eat produce berries (e.g. huckleberry, raspberry, serviceberry, grouse whortleberry, buffaloberry) that are dispersed via scat.

‘Pretty cool animals’

“Bears are pretty cool animals,” Bradford says. “They have incredible spatiotemporal memory [they can recall where and when food was presented], and they use social learning. Mom teaches her cubs food acquisition strategies. This is key for people to understand, those who question why cubs were removed from an area as well as when the mother is removed for dumpster diving. She’s just teaching her cubs how to access a reliable food resource.”

Bears are also not above stealing other animals’ food stash, an activity called kleptoparasitism.

Grizzly bears sometimes steal other animals' food stashes, an act called kleptoparasitism. (Photo: Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks)

“People who hike in grizzly country with their dogs off the leash say their dog will protect them. That doesn’t really work,” Bradford explains. “Kleptoparasitism is one of the food-source acquisition strategies grizzlies use, and they’ll steal food from packs of wolves. Wolves will yield to grizzly bears, and your dog is nowhere near as tough as a pack of wolves.”

Bradford says while she’s seen many grizzlies, she’s never had to use her bear spray. Her advice to avoid attacks: “Realize that the human voice is the most powerful deterrent out there, not radios or bear bells. Talk loud in areas of low visibility so the bears can hear you coming. It’s critical to understand that you shouldn’t surprise a bear, that they’ll do anything to protect their cubs. And be aware of magpies or ravens in the forest because they’re a sign you might be hiking up on a carcass.”

And while grizzlies’ sense of hearing is strong, their sense of smell is astounding. “The size of the olfactory bulb, the part of the brain that processes scent information in grizzlies, is more than five times larger than humans’ olfactory bulb.” She advises people to sleep in clothes they haven’t cooked in: “Just because you can’t smell food on your clothes doesn’t mean bears can’t.”

Bradford adds that there is a common misunderstanding that grizzlies are looking to wipe out the first person they see and that livestock producers want to kill all grizzlies.

“That isn’t true,” she says. “Yes, livestock loss to grizzlies does occur, but ranchers I interviewed said over 80% of the grizzlies out there never cause any trouble. And other ranchers reported that it’s common to see grizzlies grazing grass in the same fields that the cattle use.”

She recalls one rancher telling her, “’Wildlife is embedded deep in our traditions. We don't hate grizzly bears; they're amazing animals. I don't want to give up all I have to the grizzly bear but I'm willing to share it.’”

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CU Boulder anthropology PhD candidate Sabrina Bradford has been learning what’s on the menu for grizzlies in Montana.

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Racing for climate action at 18,000 feet

Rachel Sauer — Thu, 05 Dec 2024 15:14:08 +0000

Racing for climate action at 18,000 feet Rachel Sauer Thu, 12/05/2024 - 08:14

Rachel Sauer

Invited by the king of Bhutan, CU Boulder PhD student Clare Gallagher completed the 109-mile Snowman Race to bring attention to the realities of climate change

Usually when Clare Gallagher runs 100 miles, she does it all at once—a day that’s alternately punishing and exhilarating and at the furthest boundaries of what her body can do.

The 109-mile Snowman Race was different. It spanned five days across the Himalayas and saw 16 of the most elite ultramarathoners from around the world traversing multiple mountain passes approaching 18,000 feet.

Clare Gallagher (left) was invited by Bhutanese King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck to run the 109-mile Snowman Race ultramarathon. (Photo: Snowman Race)

“As far as ultramarathons go, it was not that crazy a distance—we were doing about a marathon a day,” Gallagher explains. “But it took so, so long because these mountains are just so high. We started in Laya (Bhutan), which is about 13,000 feet in elevation, and went up from there.”

Gallagher, a PhD student in the ��Ƶ Department of Environmental Studies and the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR), was invited by the king of Bhutan to participate in the 2024 Snowman Race held at the end of October. It was the second time the race was held—an event envisioned by Bhutanese King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck to draw international attention to the stark realities of climate change in Bhutan and around the globe.

“Once we actually got there and were literally on top of these glaciers, I could see his point,” Gallagher says. “His goal is for international trail runners like myself to help share the story of what we saw, and what I saw is that the glaciers are melting.”

Running 100 miles

Before she vividly learned that a journey of 100 miles begins with a single step, however, Gallagher was simply a girl who liked to run. She ran track as an undergraduate at Princeton and kept running in Thailand, where she moved after graduating to teach English. While there, she signed up for the inaugural Thailand Ultramarathon almost on a whim and ended up winning.

Learn more

Read more about Clare Gallagher's experiences in Bhutan in an essay she wrote for Outside magazine.

The races she entered grew in length, and in 2016, at age 24, she ran the Leadville Trail 100 for the first time and won. “I had been reading Outside magazine, and I always looked up to some of the women who preceded me (in ultramarathons),” Gallagher says.

“I thought they were really badass, and trail running seemed a lot more interesting than track—I’d gotten really burned out in undergrad, but to race in a beautiful mountain environment, in places that are so remote, really appealed to me.”

Clare Gallagher (front row, far left in purple shirt) and 15 ultramarathon colleagues from Bhutan and around the world completed the five-day Snowman Race. (Photo: Snowman Race)

She won the 2017 Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc CCC, setting a course record, and went on to win the 100-mile Western States Endurance Run in 2019, the Black Canyon 100K in 2022 and the Leadville 100 again, also in 2022. She was invited to run the inaugural Snowman Race in Bhutan that year, but she’d started her PhD program, and her schedule couldn’t accommodate the training.

When she was invited to the second Snowman Race in 2024, despite still being in graduate school, she eagerly accepted. The 16 participants were evenly split between Bhutanese and international runners, “and the Bhutanese runners destroyed us,” Gallagher says with a laugh.

“The physiology of running at altitude is pretty fascinating. A lot of the literature is finding that aspects of this ability are genetic, so if you don’t live at these altitudes and if you can’t afford to be acclimating for a month, your experience is going to be really different. It’s probably the gnarliest race I’ve ever done, and I got wrecked by altitude. People thought I might do well because I’m from Colorado—and I was using an altitude tent beforehand a little bit, but I was also taking my PhD prelims and didn’t want to be sleeping in it. So, I got destroyed.”

She did, most importantly, finish the race, and the slower pace she adopted in acquiescence to the altitude allowed her more time to look around.

‘Please send our message’

The Snowman Race course follows the historic, high-altitude Snowman Trek route, beginning in Laya and ending in Chamkhar, and summitting a series of Himalayan passes—the highest of which is 17,946 feet.

"My experiences in Bhutan reminded me that I also feel a lot of hope and a lot of motivation to do what I can do, and smile while I’m at it," says Clare Gallagher (foreground, running in Bhutan), a CU Boulder PhD student in environmental studies. (Photo: Snowman Race)

“On day three we were up almost to 18,000 feet, and I’m walking and kind of sick with altitude, but I still had never felt the immensity of what I felt in the Himalayas,” Gallagher says. “The race route goes really close to glaciers well over 18,000 feet, and I’ve honestly never felt so scared. I could tell these glaciers were melting and the sun was so hot.

“The story of Bhutan is that these glaciers are melting at a much faster rate than predicted and are then creating these big alpine lakes that break through their levy walls or moraines and flood villages. We ran through one of these most at-risk villages—it takes seven days to get there by horse—and the people who live there don’t want to be forced to move. So, they were saying, ‘Please send our message back to your countries, we’re scared of our glaciers obliterating us.’”

And even though her PhD research focuses on plastic pollution in oceans, “even the issue of plastic pollution was apparent up there,” Gallagher says. “The interconnectedness of our world became so, so apparent up there. A piece of plastic trash up there is going to degrade really fast because of the high altitude and super harsh alpine environment, and then all those chemicals are going to go downstream. There’s not ton of trash in Bhutan, but plastic pollution is still a part of this story.”

She adds that Bhutan, like many smaller nations, is vulnerable to the impacts of climate change despite having one of the smallest carbon footprints on the planet, and she rues that it takes runners from western nations flying there—another carbon-intensive activity—to draw attention to the seriousness of climate change.

“A really surprising take-home from this journey was how spiritual the experience was,” Gallagher says. “All of my fellow Bhutanese runners were praying at mountain passes, and any time there was a meditative stupa, they were stopping and praying to the mountain deities, thanking them for safe passage.

“I really do feel there’s some connection between caring for this planet and each other and all the plants and animals on this planet. I feel like that reverence is something I’ve been missing in my work as an environmentalist. The phrase ‘climate change’ has taken on an almost corporate flavor, but in Bhutan things aren’t emails or PowerPoints or slogans, they’re real. Climate change is not just a phrase; it means melting glaciers. So, I’m interested in taking that depth and reverence for the land and living things and beings and asking, ‘OK, what are our problems here in Colorado? What are our challenges?’”

A hazard of the field in which she’s immersed is extreme climate anxiety, and Gallagher says she’s worked to focus day-to-day on “taking care of what I can take care of and acknowledging my present. My experiences in Bhutan reminded me that I also feel a lot of hope and a lot of motivation to do what I can do, and smile while I’m at it. I feel a lot of gratitude for being alive at this time in history and asking, ‘What are we going to do with this moment?’”

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Invited by the king of Bhutan, CU Boulder PhD student Clare Gallagher completed the 109-mile Snowman Race to bring attention to the realities of climate change.

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Top photo: Clare Gallagher runs the Snowman Race in Bhutan. (Photo: Snowman Race)

Studying the elephant-sized issues of living with elephants

Anonymous — Mon, 12 Aug 2024 18:35:43 +0000

Studying the elephant-sized issues of living with elephants Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 08/12/2024 - 12:35

Rachel Sauer

On World Elephant Day, PhD student and researcher Tyler Nuckols emphasizes that both groups are important in human-elephant coexistence

Almost every night, Tyler Nuckols can hear fireworks and shouting—not celebrating a holiday or marking an occasion, but trying to drive elephants back into the forest.

In Ruam Thai, Thailand, where Nuckols is conducting socio-ecological fieldwork as he pursues a PhD in the ��Ƶ Department of Environmental Studies, elephants emerge from the trees of Kui Buri National Park almost every night in search of pineapple.

Over many years, elephants have learned that an easy and accessible meal is in farmers’ fields—to the detriment of those fields and farmers’ livelihoods. As farmers lose their source of income and means of supporting their families, elephants risk injury or worse as farmers—also risking injury or worse—try to deter them.

CU Boulder PhD student Tyler Nuckols (left, conducting research in Thailand) and Karen Bailey, assistant professor of environmental studies, emphasize that human-elephant coexistence encompass significant issues of sustainability, economic equity, environmental justice and agricultural adaptation.

For a lot of people—mainly those who don’t coexist with elephants—this may not seem like much of a problem. Elephants, after all, are among the world’s most beloved and charismatic animals, credited with an emotional range that some claim matches or even exceeds that of humans. People visit a zoo and return home daydreaming about backyard elephants.

But on World Elephant Day, being celebrated today, Nuckols emphasizes that the challenges and successes of human-elephant coexistence encompass significant issues of sustainability, economic equity, environmental justice and agricultural adaptation that communities and populations worldwide are tackling as climate change fundamentally reshapes how humans coexist with wildlife.

“We’re interested in supporting and partnering with local communities to look at solutions to human-elephant conflict beyond the predominant approaches of ‘Where do you farm? What do you farm? How much money do you make farming?’” Nuckols explains. "Our research and community-based conservation approach looks to explore a more complex focus related to factors like identity, access to resources and historical and political factors, among many more layers that may shape how households can engage in solutions to human-elephant conflict and participate in the first place."

Studying coexistence

Nuckols has been working with elephants for more than 10 years, starting with the Elephant Valley Project in Mondulkiri, Cambodia—an ethical sanctuary and retirement home for elephants that had worked in tourism or logging. After earning a master’s degree at Colorado State University, and after COVID curtailed his plans to return to Cambodia to study mitigation techniques to prevent elephants from entering agricultural fields, he began working with Karen Bailey, a CU Boulder assistant professor of environmental studies who leads the WELS (well-being, environment, livelihoods and sustainability) Group.

Bailey completed postdoctoral research in southern Africa with communities living outside protected areas “who were living with the threats of climate change and the impact of sharing the landscape with wildlife,” she says. “Some of the impacts of crop raiding by elephants in southern Africa were significant predictors of potential food insecurity. When that’s combined with the threats of changing seasons and changing climate as well, the realities of human-elephant coexistence in communities in and outside of conservation areas become really pronounced.”

Tyler Nuckols (second from left, blue shirt) and colleagues from Bring the Elephant Home in Thailand. (Photo: Tyler Nuckols)

As part of the Human Elephant Coexistence Through Alternative Agricultural Research (HECTAAR) working group with the human-elephant coexistence research organization Trunks & Leaves, Bailey and Nuckols partner with researchers and conservation groups from around the world to study the reasons for conflict between agriculturalists and elephants, as well as develop and test interventions that support livelihoods and work to rebuild community resilience and landscapes in different countries and cultures.

Nuckols began researching in Thailand in 2022, partnering with NGO Bring the Elephant Home to study human-elephant conflict and how elephants interact with different types of agricultural crops. Nuckols’ research also focuses on environmental justice and resilience, and how communities define ecological justice for both humans and elephants.

The community where Nuckols’ research is based is not only a human-elephant conflict hot spot, but also a success story for conservation and community-based tourism.

“But despite the positive impacts of tourism and some grassroots efforts, conflict occurs every night,” Nuckols says. “You can hear fireworks and shouting and people trying to get elephants back into the forest every night. So, one of the ideas that community members are evaluating is crop transition. Research has shown that elephants won’t eat lemongrass, ginger, chili, citronella, so farmers are interested in growing these crops, but the community is asking how to ensure it’s sustainable and equitable.

“Changing crops is a high-risk decision, when they know they can sell monocrop pineapple that they’ve been growing for decades.”

Risk vs. reward

A significant challenge in human-elephant coexistence is the disconnect between people actually living with or near elephants and the rest of the world that is watching and loves elephants, or at least the idea of elephants.

“Even in Thailand, there’s a huge disconnect between major urban centers like Bangkok and rural provinces,” Nuckols explains. “These farmers are often villainized or portrayed as invaders. They’ve been told they should just pack up and give elephants back their habitat, but that’s not feasible or tenable or just for those people who are being told to leave. It’s very grim, but we’ve had people die in our community from negative encounters with elephants, victims who’ve been attacked in the night while they were guarding their crops.”

Almost every night, farmers in Ruam Thai, Thailand, deal with elephants in their pineapple fields. (Photo: Tyler Nuckols)

Bailey notes that while the world may be watching and feeling invested in the plight of elephants, “there’s an inherent framing of environmental justice that we more equally share the costs and benefits of the environment. We as people globally benefit from elephants existing—we get a warm feeling when we think about them—but we have to remind people that there are costs. We have to think about how to more equitably share the costs and benefits. Anyone who loves elephants and might call themselves an elephant person should know and should be clear that elephant conservation simply will not work if we don’t think about those humans and elevate the human components.”

A complicating factor in some climate change discourse is the argument that humans caused it and animals are blameless in it, so animals should be prioritized in human decision making. “The important nuance is that the rural farmers in Thailand didn’t do this,” Bailey says.

“It’s the wealthy individuals all over the world who are, per capita, emitting many more tons of carbon. There’s an inherent inequity in who is causing the environmental problems, and often the people and communities experiencing the realities of environmental change aren’t key drivers of this change.”

In the community where Nuckols is studying, which is in the rain shadow of a mountain range, drought is a very serious concern. During the last dry season, the reservoir that supplies water to the community nearly dried up. Many farmers in the area grow pineapple for many reasons, one of which is that it’s considered a crop that can survive in high-heat and low-water conditions.

“In the past few years, though, temperatures in the field can soar to 43, 44 (Celsius) and so even now pineapple is struggling to survive,” Nuckols says. “Those conditions are also driving elephants more and more to the edge of the national park, where a lot of the habitat restoration has been funded by large corporate subsidiaries that don’t have time to trek into the forest and dig a water hole.

Elephants at the edge of Kui Buri National Park in Thailand. (Photo: Tyler Nuckols)

“So, you get a concentration of elephants on the edge of the forest, and as climate change gets worse, as resources get more sparse in the forest, elephants are going to go for high energy, high reward crops like pineapple. In a short hour they can devour an entire patch of pineapple that gives them the nutrients and sugar they would spend days foraging for in the dry forest. It’s basic risk versus reward.”

Just listen

In researching the complex factors influencing human-elephant conflict and coexistence, Nuckols emphasizes that a foundational principle of the work is that it’s community-driven and community-led.

“We’re involved in study and data collection, but we do everything in a framework of participatory action research,” Nuckols explains. “We pilot everything we do with focus groups in the local community, we run everything by a group of trusted stakeholders like the village chief and elders working with our organization. We ask them, ‘Is this appropriate?’ and a lot of things were thrown out the window because they’re like, ‘No way.’

“The whole group that’s growing and testing alternative crops now, which is 16 people, are community members who created a collective and are working together. We as researchers act as a bridge to help support the trial, to help find funding. We use our skills to elevate the work that this community is already doing.”

Bailey adds that the lessons learned in researching human-elephant coexistence—though the details can vary broadly between cultures, countries and regions—may inform human-wildlife coexistence in other areas, including Colorado.

“There are tons of parallels and tons of lessons to be learned that we can apply more broadly,” Nuckols says. “One of the biggest is just to listen to community members and help empower those community members. Don’t ever go in assuming you know best. Spend time in the community and pilot your work before you go in and think anything is going to work within a community. Make sure community members feel heard, have a meaningful seat at the table and feel empowered to solve these problems.”

Top image: Asian elephants living in Thailand's Kui Buri National Park (Photo: Tyler Nuckols)

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On World Elephant Day, PhD student and researcher Tyler Nuckols emphasizes that both groups are important in human-elephant coexistence.

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