Episode 57: Recreating - Balancing Fun with Ecology

Episode 57: Balancing Enjoyment and Ecology

Introduction to In the Woods Podcast

Lauren Grand: . [00:00:00] Okay. Ready to get started?

Ashley D'Antonio: Yeah, ready to go.

Lauren Grand: From the Oregon State University's Extension Service, you are listening to In the Woods with the Forestry and Natural Resources Program. This podcast brings the forest to listeners by sharing the stories and voices of forest scientists, land managers, and enthusiastic members of the public. Each episode, we will bring you research and science based information that aims to offer some insight into what we know and are still learning about forest science and management.

Stick around to discover a new topic related to forests on each episode.

Thank you for joining us on another episode of In the Woods. I'm Lauren Grand, Oregon State University Extension Forester and Associate Professor of Practice, and I'll be your host for today's episode. Today's episode is all about having fun in the forest. Lots of people visit forests every year, but did you know that there's a whole body of research on how humans recreate in forests and how that affects ecosystems and wildlife?

It's really cool stuff.

Meet Dr. Ashley D'Antonio

Lauren Grand: Joining us [00:01:00] on the podcast today is Dr. Ashley D'Antonio, and she's an associate professor in nature based recreation management and the Jean D. Knudsen forestry chair. She also serves as the associate department head in the forest ecosystems and society department in the OSU college of forestry.

Ashley's research is really interesting and I've had the privilege of hearing a few of her presentations at various events and conferences and I'm especially excited to chat with her today about how we play in forests and the effects it has. But first, let's get to know her a little bit more. Ashley, can you tell us a bit about yourself and how you got into this role and body of research?

Ashley D'Antonio: Yeah, of course. And thanks so much for chatting with me today, Lauren. I'm really excited to talk to you about this. So I get into this field in a random path, if I can use like a recreation pun. My undergrad is in ecology and I really enjoyed ecology, but I was looking for a field of research that brought in this social component where you could think about how people interact with their environment.

And when I graduated [00:02:00] with my undergraduate degree, I didn't even know recreation ecology was a field. I didn't know really what I wanted to do. And so I actually was a middle school and high school science teacher for a little bit, which gave me time to explore what other fields were out there. And I actually was in Grand Teton National Park on vacation and got asked to participate in a survey.

about how visitors responded to sounds like helicopters or airplanes in the park. And I was like, what are your, is your field of study? What are you doing? What is this? And I learned that there's a whole field of research around studying recreation in protected areas and forests. And so I looked into that and was able to find a graduate program and eventually found my way here to Oregon State, where I get to continue doing research about people in parks and forests.

And I get to teach our future recreation managers as well.

Lauren Grand: That's such a cool story. I didn't know that about you. And I think it's really great that you share that because there's so many people that have a similar story in terms of not knowing exactly what they want to do, but love [00:03:00] forestry. And I, that's so great. So thanks for sharing. Okay.

Understanding Recreation Ecology

Lauren Grand: So like you, I had not heard of recreation ecology until I actually have heard you talk and present.

For our listeners out there, can you tell us a little bit more? What about what exactly recreation ecology is?

Ashley D'Antonio: Of course, yeah, not a lot of people know what it is, so that's okay. It's a small field of research. It's an interdisciplinary science, so that means we incorporate in aspects of ecology and social science and communication sometimes, so we have a lot of different fields that come to play in recreation ecology.

But what we're really interested in is looking at how outdoor recreational activities like OHV use, all these great things that folks like to do outside. how that might be causing disturbance to ecosystems and natural areas. And that disturbance can be things like vegetation being trampled, wildlife being disturbed, soil compaction, or again, human caused noise that can [00:04:00] impact the environment, like that study I participated in in Grand Teton.

Really, we're trying to understand what disturbance is happening. How it happens. And then also importantly, the fields really applied. So we want to work with land managers, the folks who are managing our forests and our parks to help them mitigate that disturbance so that we're still meeting our conservation goals and making sure the environment is protected, while at the same time, making sure providing these opportunities for folks to get outside and enjoy nature.

So we're focusing on disturbance with the idea of that we can manage that disturbance at a level We're still meeting our other goals and still also, again, helping people get outside and enjoy these places.

Lauren Grand: Yeah, that's great to really be able to try to find that balance and meet in the middle.

Balancing Recreation and Conservation

Lauren Grand: So speaking of balance it sounds like your work does examine that balance between that outdoor recreation and conservation work. And so how do you see these competing mostly in the [00:05:00] Pacific Northwest?

Ashley D'Antonio: Yeah, the Pacific Northwest is a really interesting and exciting place to do this work. I think because so many people in the Pacific Northwest really love getting outside and enjoying nature. Actually, before, before I came on to chat with you today, I looked up the latest numbers from the State Comprehensive Outdoor Recreation Plan for Oregon, which kind of start, tries to understand like, How much Oregonians are recreating outside.

And the latest score said and found that 95 percent of Oregonians participated in some form of outdoor recreational activity in 2022. So yeah, I was surprised too. It's defined broadly. It can be walking at your local park. So that's important, right? Outdoor recreation isn't always just like. Going out in the middle of nowhere and rock climbing, right?

It's anytime you're enjoying nature outside. So 95 percent of Oregonians are enjoying our natural landscapes here, our forests and our parks. So having all of those people out there, we do have a lot of parks and protected areas in Oregon, about 50 percent of the [00:06:00] state has some level of protection, but we've got a lot of people going out to these places.

And so the issues that tend to arise and where this question of balance comes up is when we have a lot of people going to the same place. often around the same time of the year, and we may also have really sensitive or protected species or ecosystems in those locations. So that's often where this conflict occurs.

You know, we've got lots of outdoor space for people to recreate, but we tend to be drawn sometimes to the same places, that one really amazing waterfall or that really favorite trail, and so that can be where we start to have issues. For example, if I can give you an example from some of my research I worked on a collaborative project with Dr.

Troy Hall and a former graduate student, Carly Schoenlieber. And we were working with the Siuslaw National Forest and Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area, which has and manages some amazing beaches. And you know, in the Pacific Northwest, summertime is a great place to go out to our beaches. But they're [00:07:00] also really great time for our shorebirds to be nesting.

So we can have really high recreation use on these beaches in the summer, in the same places, and the same time that protected species like the Western Snowy Plover are trying to nest here. So we did a study looking at how Visitors were using the beaches where they were walking and tried to encourage visitors to walk in the wet sand away from where they might disturb these plovers.

And again, the main issue was not that people were going to the beaches, but that timing of the high visitor use to these beach systems, and that's very sensitive time of the year. for a federally species was causing that potential conflict. So we can use recreation ecology studies to understand where people are going, how they're interacting with that sensitive resource, and then hopefully use tools like education and outreach to help visitors mitigate their impacts in those places.

Lauren Grand: So do you find that recreationists that you talk [00:08:00] to when they learn more about your studies, are interested in actively changing their behavior or wanting to help?

Ashley D'Antonio: Yeah, I think as a whole, people do want to do the right thing, like it's not frequent that visitors are going out there and purposefully disturbing the environment, but sometimes it can be hard to know what to do, and some of these impacts can be frustrating. Okay. kind of subtle. So, you know, if you're hiking off trail, you're trampling vegetation, but if you're the first person to do it, you might not even realize that's occurring.

But if everybody's hiking off trail in that same location, we can create vegetation impacts. We can go into places where wildlife aren't exposed. So, um, we have a lot of people who are not expecting us and you might not even see that wildlife that you've now scared or disturbed.

Some of these impacts are subtle and a little harder to observe if you're not used to looking for them. And most people do want to do the right thing. Most people are visiting nature. because they value it, and they enjoy it, and they get benefits from it, and they don't want to cause [00:09:00] impact, but we need to try and communicate in effective ways what those impacts are, and importantly, what behaviors folks can do to reduce those impacts.

Lauren Grand: Yeah, I can imagine a lot of people wanting to still be able to visit the beach and not having any idea that there's a bird called the snowy plover and that they could be impacting it.

Ashley D'Antonio: Yeah, exactly. Yep, but once folks learn, again, pretty much, they want to do the right thing.

Lauren Grand: yeah, I see that a lot in my work too. It's pretty great.

Human Impact on Natural Ecosystems

Lauren Grand: And has that led to, or just generally in your research, some really surprising things or what surprises you most about the findings from your research and the impact on natural ecosystems?

Ashley D'Antonio: Yeah, I think some things that are surprising to me , one, it's really interesting how much people want to engage in this research, you know, I do a lot of recreation work where I'm looking at vegetation or wildlife or plants, but a lot of my work also involves interacting with the public and asking them to participate in studies, they carry GPS units for me, they answer long surveys for me, And folks are like really willing and interested [00:10:00] to engage the majority of the time and so that's, even though I'm somewhat of an introvert, I really enjoy getting to interact with the public and that's one thing that I found even like surprising.

In doing this research as an introverted person, it's oh, I really enjoy interacting with the public and talking to people about their recreation experiences. Some other things that are surprising in some really recent research has been just the variety of ways that humans interact with the environment and what those impacts can look like.

For example Former PhD student of mine, Dr. Laura Jacobs, and a colleague in College of Engineering, Dr. Tala Nawab, we actually did a study recently on human waste specifically human solid waste, so poop, in beaches in Washington in Olympic National Park. And this question was partly inspired by a tribe in Washington that was concerned about human waste on beaches where they collected shellfish.

And so we came in to partner and look at, well, what is actually the impact of human waste on these beaches when folks are [00:11:00] coming to camp and they have to poop, everybody does it, and they're maybe not disposing of it properly. We actually found, surprisingly, that there are human health impacts from this, which is not something that I had, there hadn't been a lot of research on, we hadn't really dug in too deeply but we were able to look at where folks were disposing of their human waste improperly, and then we were able to work with Dr.

Navab's lab to do some DNA testing to see if that human waste was you know, connected to people, which it was, to confirm that. But we also found that human waste was introducing E. coli into the environment, which can make people sick. And some of the E. coli was actually resistant to antibiotics and had high virulence, so it could actually like make people sick and you wouldn't be able to treat that by antibiotics.

There hadn't been a lot of work around this and I always knew as a recreation ecologist that You know, improperly disposed of human waste is gross. It impacts the visitor experience but it also can have ecological implications. But in our field, we'd [00:12:00] only really talked about, oh, there might be some E.

coli in the environment, but we hadn't really put that human health perspective on it. And so that study and those research was surprising to me. So anytime I'm digging into something new, something that's not looked into as much in the recreation ecology field, I think I'm surprised by what we find and maybe how little we understand some of the implications of these impacts for both the ecosystem and for other humans.

Lauren Grand: You know, that's really interesting. Yeah, and a very surprising, you know, something definitely something that would be surprising in your research. I didn't think about the, you know, the impact on human health. I definitely interacted in situations where I've seen, you know, inappropriately you.

deposited human waste. And I actually know somebody who I went to school with that part of her work was to count on long trails how many times it was seen. But I'm curious how, you know, how [00:13:00] you used, you know, research like that and maybe other research that you've done. to help landowners find that balance with wanting to allow public access and have people out there and have fun but still protecting the environment and people who visit or harvest from you know, harvest food resources from those systems.

Ashley D'Antonio: Yeah, so I can talk about the Olympic National Park study in a little detail, and then I'll talk more broadly about how recreation oncology can help land managers. So in that Olympic National Park study, we also did, we mapped where human waste was found, and we were able to put some context on the potential issue, like, hey, this is happening.

there's some potential human health issues here. We can give that data to the park and then they can make management actions in response to that and then come back and monitor whether or not that's changed. So for example, we, one option Olympic could do is to encourage people to pack out their human waste using things called wag bags or other similar products.

So that's one thing that they could do. So our data. And this is another thing I love about this field [00:14:00] can offer some potential management actions that those park managers and forest managers can consider and then they can use the same methods that we used in our study and either we can come back and redo it and see if anything's changed, or they can use those methods and do that monitoring themselves.

That kind of highlights both of the ways that recreation ecologists and recreation ecology research really helps land managers. We can come in and measure the what, where, why, and how much of the recreation disturbance, like what is the disturbance? How much is there? Why is it occurring?

And where is it occurring? To get a baseline understanding of what are the impacts of recreation at my park or my forest or my trail? And that gives them some baseline data to understand Do I have a problem? Is there an issue? Are we still meeting our conservation goals, or do we need to make a management action?

Do we need to make a change here? And then, another thing that a lot of my research has been doing is to help with this monitoring. So [00:15:00] I don't tell recreation managers what to do in terms of their decisions on their lands. They make those decisions, but we might want to see, did it work? You know, if you are encouraging campers to pack out their human waste, you want to see is that actually working to reduce the E.

coli or those health impacts? Or again, with our snowy plover example, if you're encouraging people to walk in the wet sand, you're going to want to come back and monitor whether or not people are doing that. So we can come in and help monitor, we can come up with. methods and approaches that managers can use to come back and look at those same types of disturbances and look at how they change over time to see if their management actions are working.

And that feeds into this adaptive management cycle where you make a management change, you see if it's working. If it's working, great. If not, we can come back and try something new. Yeah, so that's the way that, that recreation ecologists can help managers, both with that understanding what's happening in the system and what disturbances we're [00:16:00] seeing, and then also helping them to monitor whether or not their management actions are working to mitigate or reduce some of those impacts.

Lauren Grand: That's really interesting and a really great tool. And, you know, Sounds like you can help foster relationships and that human dimension work in multiple ways so you mentioned a lot about monitoring and you know, collecting data. And so are you and, you know.

Leveraging Technology in Recreation Management

Lauren Grand: outdoor activities are more and more popular and there's lots of apps and geospatial data out there and resources where people can get a lot of information and use technology outside.

How is this technology helping to mitigate environmental impacts in recreation?

Ashley D'Antonio: Yeah, this is a great question. Usually folks ask me about technology is like something that's causing more impact. So thinking about this is Oh, how can we leverage technology or what are some of the positive sides is really exciting to talk about. So from a [00:17:00] research perspective, there's some benefits to this.

So folks are going out there and recreating and maybe they're using apps like Strava or all trails or where they're mapping where they're going, or they're using this to write reviews. These are all data sources that recreation ecologists and others that look at outdoor recreation management can use to understand where visitors are going and what components of ecosystems are interacting with.

So it can be really labor intensive to do some of the studies that I've talked about, right? You got to put a lot of people in the field, you have to interact with a lot of folks and have them be willing to engage in your study. You know, doing a lot of mapping takes a lot of time, and it's great for the have those sorts of studies.

It gives students experiences. It can be thesis projects for graduate students. It can, you know, have land management interns do that work. But we also have this wealth of data that's now available with technology that we can just collect from our offices and get some information if we don't have the resources to go out there [00:18:00] on the ground and talk to people or you know, map where all the visitors are going.

So it, it provides an opportunity to leverage some data to answer some recreation management issues. Especially when a lot of our land managers are faced with limited funding and limited staffing and those sorts of things. The other thing that I think is really powerful about technology for mitigating environmental impacts is that social media and these other apps can also be communication tools.

This isn't like a key part of my research, but it is something that I teach about and we talk a lot about when we think about recreation management. You know, social media can be leveraged by land management agencies to put out messages about how visitors can reduce their impacts. It's also a great way to reduce some of the gatekeeping around outdoor recreational activities and create a more inclusive and welcoming outdoor recreation community if folks are able to learn how to go backpacking, for example, or find other beginning backpackers that are like them to engage in these [00:19:00] activities.

And as a recreation ecologist, I'm in this field so folks can go out and enjoy these places. And so these tools that can be another form of education and outreach to get people outside and to have them connect with others who might help them engage in behaviors that mitigate their own impacts are really exciting to me.

So I think there's this whole research side and the data nerd is excited that I can sit at my computer and pull data from Strava to figure out where people are going in these parks and protected areas. But I'm also looking at what are some of the social benefits of having this technology and getting more people outside and educating them about how they can recreate while mitigating their own disturbance.

Lauren Grand: Yeah, I'm so glad that you brought up that education piece because that's obviously the world that I kind of sit in and I was thinking in my, as you were talking, I was like, Oh, you know, I've seen some of those trail apps integrate some augmented reality where like you're walking along a trail and this video pops up and starts to educate you more and so I was thinking, Oh, [00:20:00] that's so interesting how you might be able to integrate some of the research that you're doing with teaching people and maybe guide them the right way through Thank you.

The forest. I don't know if anything like that exists, but anyway, it was just sort of like an exciting way to see those two things come together. And,

Ashley D'Antonio: Yeah, I think there's so many opportunities. I think we've just started to scratch the surface of how we can leverage technology for education and outreach related to the outdoors. So yeah, those are exciting ideas.

Lauren Grand: uh, lots of things for new recreation ecologists to work on.

Ashley D'Antonio: Yes.

Lauren Grand: Okay.

Future Directions in Recreation Ecology

Lauren Grand: So what about you in terms of the future? What directions do you see your work going in or do you have exciting questions that you're starting to ask now that you're looking forward to working on in the future?

Ashley D'Antonio: Yeah, so one of the things that I really love working on are collaborative projects. I think that might be evident from some of the examples I provided. I'm always working with someone else and someone from a different field. And one of the things that we've been doing recently in my research group and some studies that we've been doing, is to think about scale.

When [00:21:00] I'm out or you're out on a trail, we're experiencing that at a very human scale, right? We can perceive at a certain distance and hear sounds at a certain distance and, you know, our impacts are at a certain scale. But that's not the same. So, I want to talk a little bit about the human perception.

We know that the human body interacts in the same way that like a bear experiences that environment or a smaller organism like an insect or a frog.

And those types of things, those components in the ecosystem can also be disturbed by recreation. But if we're only studying the human scale and the human perception, we might be missing some of those disturbances. So, some recent studies have tried to look outside the human brain. So I've got to collaborate with some landscape ecologists where we've looked at habitat connectivity, so how connected different habitat patches are at the scale of an entire national park, and how visitor use on trails and roads might cause some potential impact to that connectivity or cause habitat fragmentation.

So we're using tools from other fields of science to Scale up and think [00:22:00] about the bigger picture of recreation at the scale of an entire forest or an entire park. So that's really exciting. And then I also am thinking at the smaller scale. So I have a colleague at Western Oregon University, Dr.

Gareth Hopkins, who's a herpetologist. And I don't really know anything about herpetology but he was doing a study that was looking at turtles in a park in Salem and native turtle species and their response to recreation. And so we were able to work together to look at how does an individual turtle, when it's um, Uh, Uh, Um, Uh, Um, Uh, Um, Uh, Um, Uh, Stop basking, which is not good for that turtle's biology.

So we're looking at that smaller scale of what's happening at these individual ponds with these individual turtles? And what does that mean for them? [00:23:00] And so thinking outside that human perspective, and trying to think a little bit more about Different scales and how different species might be experiencing their environment and what does recreation mean for them and what might that disturbance look like has gotten me really excited as a recreation ecologist and also again provides these opportunities for me to Collaborate with other types of scientists and exciting ways.

Lauren Grand: Like a side interest and so learning about turtles is always fun and exciting. So I'll have to reach out to you when you're done working on that collaborative project and read all about it. That'll be interesting. But yeah, that's lots of cool stuff and thinking, you know, thinking about the landscape scale and the individual scale is really important, I think in all facets of our field.

I can imagine why you're looking forward to doing a lot of that work. So thanks for sharing that with us. [00:24:00] And we're about to close up on our chat, but I wanted to give you the opportunity to share anything else you think you might want to let us know about in terms of recreation or recreation ecology before we,

Ashley D'Antonio: yeah. I think I'll just add like recreation ecology is just one field of a broader field of folks that look at visitor use management and recreation management. So folks are You know, if they're more excited about the social side, there's amazing social scientists that do recreation work and folks that focus on psychology that look at this work as well.

So there's a whole wealth of different types of science that can help inform visitor use management and outdoor recreation in our parks and protected areas. And so again, I didn't know that coming out of my undergrad and I think folks are still learning that there's a whole science around this. Yeah, just encouraging folks to

explore that if it's of interest.

Lauren Grand: Well, thank you for joining us and sharing that and helping spread the word about this type of work that's being done and really interesting stories that you tell about [00:25:00] how we all use the forest and how that affects the ecosystems and the wildlife that are out there and living there. So thanks for joining me.

I really appreciate having you today.

Ashley D'Antonio: Yeah,

thank you. It was really lovely chatting.

Lauren Grand: Just a reminder you all listening today that if any questions came up or you wanted to talk more about recreation ecology, let us know and leave us a comment on our website at inthewoodspodcast. com.

Lightning Round with Dr. Ashley D'Antonio

Lauren Grand: And coming up next is our lightning round where I get to ask Ashley some questions.

Not too personal, don't worry.

Lauren Grand: The first one is what is your favorite tree.

Ashley D'Antonio: This is so great. I had to think about this. I think my favorite tree is the pacific dogwood. I love the delicate flowers and I love that it provides berries for some of my favorite types of birds such as cedar waxwings. And then I recently learned that you can [00:26:00] use the bark to make a dye. And I'm really into knitting and so I'm always interested in what natural things can be used to dye fabrics or dye yarn, That, that's my answer.

I

Lauren Grand: you know what color it is?

Ashley D'Antonio: think it's like a brownish color. I tried to google it once I learned this and I couldn't find a very answer or like not many people are actually now. But I think it it dyes like a, a muddy brown.

Lauren Grand: Okay, cool. Very interesting. I didn't know that about Dogwood. Thanks for sharing. Okay, so now what is the most interesting thing that you bring with you in the field, whether it be in your kit or something you always just like to have

with you?

Ashley D'Antonio: Yeah, so I think what I always like to have with me is knitting. So I just about knitting. , But anytime I'm going into the field, I always have knitting with me. There can be like some downtime with this type of work. And so having something to occupy my hands if there's a little bit of downtime in the field.

I think the other thing that I tend to [00:27:00] have with me in the That's more, , related to my research, is almost always a high accuracy GPS unit. Because we do a lot of mapping in Recreation and Ecology, and you never know when you need to, map an informal trail that a made, or, like, a random campsite you came across. And so, even though it's a little clunky, I always make sure I have a high accuracy GPS

in my backpack.

Lauren Grand: Very cool. Two clunky things,

knitting

Ashley D'Antonio: Yes, I always have a very

big backpack.

Lauren Grand: I mean, I feel like being prepared is always best. then so I'm sure there's a lot of people that, are learning about recreation ecology, for the first time, or, are getting excited about it as a result of our conversation, hopefully. So do you have any resources or recommendations for our listeners who might be interested in diving a little bit deeper

into this topic?

Take care.

Ashley D'Antonio: Yeah, this is a really great question and because we're kind of a small field of folks, a ton of like, like a single website or clearinghouse out there. There is a really great [00:28:00] recreation ecology textbook called Wildland Recreation. That is kind of the one textbook about recreation ecology and that. field. My former advisor is one of the authors of it. It's not super technical. So if folks are interested in taking that side, I would recommend that book. I also recommend if folks are interested in getting examples about recreation ecology, a lot of Parks or protected areas that have this sort of work being done may highlight it on their website.

So like you could go, again, I can provide an example, like if you go to Grand Teton National Park's website, they have a whole section about research that's occurring in the park, and they don't just highlight their ecological research, but they will also highlight visitor use studies or recreational ecology studies that have been done.

So if you have a favorite place that you like to go to, it could be worth digging into their website to see what place based research is happening there. And then, otherwise, , I have a website if folks are interested in learning more about studies that have been done in my [00:29:00] lab. And a lot of the other recreation ecologists are U. S. based. I've collaborated with them. And so you could kind of follow a breadcrumb trail to some of the other work that's being done. But you've just made me think about we need a more, like, centralized resource for

this time of work.

Lauren Grand: Cool. Yeah, that's really great. And I will definitely make sure we have to your website and the textbook that you recommended for people to be able to click on, and recommend that people go out and check out their, the places they'd like to visit. That's a really great idea. I never thought about doing that.

I'm going to have to do that the next time I go on my next hiking trip.

Ashley D'Antonio: Nice.

Lauren Grand: Well, I just thank you so much for sharing all this information with me and our listeners. I learned so much about how important it is to think about how we use forests and how that might cause impacts to those ecosystems.

So I'm really glad to have had you on the podcast. Thank you for

joining us.

Ashley D'Antonio: Yeah, thank you so much for having me. It

was lovely chatting.

Conclusion and Credits

Lauren Grand: Okay, well that concludes another episode of In the Woods. [00:30:00] Join us in a couple weeks to explore another topic on Oregon's amazing forests. But until then, what's in your woods?

Lauren Grand: The In the Woods podcast is produced by Lauren Grand, Jacob Putney, and Scott Levengood, who are all members of the Oregon State University Forestry and Natural Resources Extension team. Other members of the team who've been involved in the podcast include Carrie Berger, Jason O'Brien, and Stephen Fitzgerald.

Episodes are edited and produced by Carrie Cantrell. Music for In the Woods was composed by Jeffrey Hino, and graphic design was created by Christina Friedhauf. Funding for In the Woods is provided by Oregon State University Forestry and Natural Resources Extension, the Oregon Forest Resources Institute, and the USDA Renewable Resources Extension Act funding.

We hope you enjoyed the episode and we can't wait to talk to you again next month. Until then, what's in your [00:31:00] woods?