Phil Nyland, former wildlife biologist for the Aspen-Sopris District of the White River National Forest, has been volunteering for his former employer since taking an early retirement at the end of May. The U.S. Forest Service does not have plans to rehire his position and is anticipating a major restructuring in upcoming months.
A couple weeks into his retirement, Phil Nyland wasn’t yet off on his next grand adventure. Instead, he was battling peak-season traffic into Aspen, headed up Buttermilk Ski Area to the U.S. Forest Service’s closure gate on Government Trail, reminding hikers, runners and mountain bikers that the trail was still closed to protect elk during the sensitive calving season.
Nyland, who was the wildlife biologist for 23 years in the Aspen-Sopris Ranger District of the White River National Forest, took early retirement May 31 as part of the Trump administration’s efforts to reduce the federal workforce. Nyland participated in the Department of Agriculture’s Voluntary Early Retirement Authority, also known as VERA and “early out,” which temporarily lowered the age and service requirements necessary for retirement ahead of an anticipated major restructuring across the agency.
At 57 years old, Nyland would have had at least three more years before he considered retirement. Amid ongoing shake-ups at the Forest Service, he said early retirement was a good fit for him.
Nyland noted that the wildlife technician he worked with participated in the Deferred Resignation Program, another Trump administration program designed to cut federal staffing levels. Under the DRP, workers had one pay period to wrap up their work; Nyland wanted time to ensure his career’s worth of work was set up to continue.
“With [VERA], I could stay on another two-and-a-half months and wrap things up, have an orderly exit,” Nyland said.
With no wildlife staff working in the Aspen-Sopris Ranger District — amid an overall staff reduction of about 30% — Nyland has been volunteering his time to continue to protect area wildlife.
“It’s an opportunity to help out,” he said. “I still love being a wildlife biologist.”
Plus, wildlife closures really only work when they’re enforced.
“We have fantastic compliance when there’s staffing,” he said.
Staffing areas that are closed seasonally to protect wildlife is a short-term focus. But local government officials, wildlife and wildfire experts say Nyland’s early retirement leaves a far bigger hole.
“The void is, there’s no one on the forest who can be the voice of wildlife on the forest,” Gary Tennenbaum, director of Pitkin County Open Space and Trails, said.
Nyland was involved in a wide array of projects across the White River National Forest, advocating for wildlife through plans for ski areas, oil and gas development applications, permits for recreational uses and more. But his legacy is clearest in his work to improve wildlife habitat through prescribed fire, and his departure raised alarm for Tennenbaum and other land managers.
“It’s a huge hit for the conservation of wildlife,” Tennenbaum said. “It’s a huge hit to the prescribed fire program to improve wildlife habitat. It’s going to be a huge hit to the community.”
The U.S. Forest Service has been conducting prescribed burns, like the one on Red Mountain near the Sunnyside trail on April 14, to improve wildlife habitat and mitigate wildfire hazards for more than a decade under the leadership of former wildlife biologist Phil Nyland, who retired early at the end of May. The agency has no plans to replace him.
A tool for wildlife habitat
When Tennenbaum started working in Pitkin County in 2002, he was warned, “Prescribed fire here is the way you kill careers” due to the fear that such burns could get out of control, he said.
Nyland helped change that and devoted much of his energies to educating people about how prescribed fire could be a tool to both benefit wildlife habitat and mitigate danger of catastrophic wildfire.
“Phil was the catalyst to get these prescribed fires going in the valley,” Tennenbaum said. “He was crucial to convincing not just the governments, but also the public of the need for this, not just for wildfire reduction but for wildlife habitat.”
Nyland spearheaded the Aspen-Sopris Wildlife Habitat Improvement Project, which identified more than 45,000 acres of national forest lands that could benefit from prescribed fire or mechanical treatments to improve habitat for elk, deer and bighorn sheep.
Nyland credits a mentor, former Colorado Parks and Wildlife District Wildlife Manager Kevin Wright, with pushing him to improve wildlife habitat.
“Kevin came into my office in 2004 with photos taken of elk winter range in the Woody Creek area and showed me the vegetation and said, ‘What are we going to do about this?’” Nyland said. “The photos showed very dry, sparse, stunted vegetation.”
That vegetation would provide food for hundreds of elk and mule deer in the Woody Creek for their entire lives, and this was decadent, old and not as nutritious as it ought to be to support the health of the herd. Wright and Nyland had seen this poor habitat that needed rejuvenation all over the Roaring Fork, Crystal and Colorado river valleys.
“Fire can trigger most of our fire-adapted vegetation communities to resprout on their own,” Nyland said. “So we just started drawing blocks or circles on a map in areas where we felt this would be the greatest improvement.”
Over several years and through consultation with a wide range of experts and specialists from fire managers to ranchers and homeowners, Nyland created the Aspen-Sopris Wildlife Habitat Improvement Project, or ASWHIP. In it, he notes the importance of returning fire to the local landscape.
“Population growth within and around White River National Forest, increased fuel loading due to suppression of all fire, and the threat of losing structures from wildfires has created a fear of fire and a misunderstanding of the vital role fire plays in maintaining ecosystems,” reads the 2011 environmental assessment for the ASWHIP. “Fire serves to set back the ecological processes in vegetation communities. The disturbance from fire triggers vegetation sprouting and new plant growth, which introduces age class diversity, vegetation health, and vigor to fire-adapted landscapes.”
Former White River National Forest wildlife biologist Phil Nyland points out the ‘mosaic pattern’ of vegetation regrowth in the area of April’s Sunnyside prescribed burn. Nyland, who recently left the Forest Service under a Trump administration program designed to reduce the federal workforce, spearheaded a major project that uses prescribed fire to improve wildlife habitat on local Forest Service lands.
Prescribed fire had rarely been used as a tool for wildlife habitat improvement in the Roaring Fork Valley. In the 30 years prior to the approval of Nyland’s project, a total of 6,200 acres of national forest in the Aspen-Sopris ranger district had been treated with prescribed fire.
“Maintaining this level of treatment will not realistically improve habitat on a meaningful landscape scale,” the environmental assessment notes. “Habitat decline will outpace localized improvements.”
Since the ASWHIP was approved in 2011, the Forest Service has conducted 13 prescribed fires, totaling about 13,000 acres of habitat improvement. These include highly visible burns close to towns, like one near the Sunnyside trail and Starwood neighborhood in Aspen this April and more remote locations like in the Filoha Meadows area up the Crystal River Valley.
The project also allows for mechanical treatments like selective thinning and masticating brush, which are more costly; so far, eight mechanical treatment projects have occurred on 900 acres in the Aspen-Sopris Ranger District, bringing the total area treated for wildlife habitat improvement to over 14,000 acres in 14 years.
“His was the first landscape-scale effort we looked at in the valley, really across the forest, aimed at wildlife habitat improvement. Phil has just been a driving force behind it,” Scott Fitzwilliams, former White River National Forest supervisor, said. “The entire valley owes him a debt of gratitude if they care about wildlife and wildlife habitat. He is the consummate Forest Service employee who is just dedicated and passionate about everything he does.”
When the vegetation that large game like deer and elk eat becomes decadent and old, it’s less nutritious, and Nyland explained that can affect the health of individual animals in terms of things like if they are able to produce enough milk to feed their young. Down the line, poor-quality food can lead to declines in the herd.
Much of the vegetation in the White River National Forest is adapted to wildfire, meaning it has evolved alongside fire and burning triggers sprouting of new plants and growth within weeks. But for myriad reasons, a prescribed fire can be preferable to a wildfire. There’s the ability to plan for proper conditions and mitigate risks to human health, but it can also mean better conditions for improved habitat.
A prescribed fire burns on Red Mountain near the Sunnyside trail on April 14. The burn, planned by recently retired U.S. Forest Service wildlife biologist Phil Nyland, was aimed at improving habitat for elk and deer, with a secondary benefit of mitigating wildfire danger.
“Severely burned areas can be unsuitable for elk for approximately three years after wildfires,” the environmental assessment for the ASWHIP notes. “But elk can use prescribed burn areas treated in a mosaic of vegetation consumption as early as the next season.”
That “mosaic” pattern is key to prescribed fire and is visible in the burn area from this spring’s Sunnyside burn. Some areas burned, while others did not, leaving a patchwork of new growth amid the older vegetation.
“You can see it,” Nyland said, standing on Buttermilk Ski Area in late June and pointing to the burn area on Red Mountain near Starwood. “It’s doing what we expected. There’s sprouting and regrowth. We’re not having soil erosion and runoff issues.”
Institutional knowledge
There are many areas in the Roaring Fork Valley where the benefits of past prescribed fire are clear, but Nyland says one project in particular stands out to him.
“I’m really proud of the work around Filoha Meadows for a variety of reasons,” he said.
There were two prescribed fires near Avalanche Creek and Filoha Meadows in the Crystal River Valley, one in 2016 and another last year. Nyland said the burns improved winter range habitat for elk, mule deer and bighorn sheep, and were successful collaborations with local governments — especially Pitkin County Open Space and Trails, which owns and manages land near both burns — and fire agencies.
“It also involved gaining the trust of the community and the homeowners around Redstone and the Crystal River Caucus,” Nyland said, which encompasses a wide range of ideological and political beliefs. “People that can see these projects from their coffee table.”
Such a project speaks to the behind-the-scenes work that Nyland did at the Forest Service for more than two decades.
“He really amassed some really good knowledge of the resource and local context,” said Kevin Warner, district ranger for the Aspen-Sopris Ranger District. “And he developed a lot of relationships with land owners, special interest groups, peers at other agencies like the BLM and the state and the local governments.”
Nyland saw the need for improvement and took on the ASWHIP environmental analysis, as well as the communication with neighbors and local governments, Warner said.
Nyland is quick to credit everyone he worked with for any success. When former colleagues say the habitat improvement project was the first of its kind, Nyland credits former Eagle ranger district wildlife biologist Joe Doerr with the idea. He says Jim Genung, a fire and fuels expert with the Forest Service who also recently retired after decades of work, taught him both about working with prescribed fire and communicating with the public.
Genung worked as the forest fuels specialist on the Aspen-Sopris Ranger District for many of the prescribed burns before becoming a forest fire management officer.
“Phil would identify these habitat problems and together we’d come up with solutions,” Genung said. “We put a lot of work into designing the treatments, and the post-fire treatment and monitoring really proved we were doing the right thing.”
Former White River National Forest wildlife biologist Phil Nyland oversees a prescribed burn in the Cattle Creek area from a helicopter in 2018. Nyland’s early retirement under a Trump administration program to reduce the federal workforce has left local officials concerned about the future of many projects on local forests.
This collaboration is a reflection of how the Forest Service was designed.
“The whole concept of the way we do our work is an interdisciplinary manner,” Fitzwilliams said. “Everyone comes together to look at a landscape and mitigate impacts.”
A wildlife biologist is vital for understanding the land and the wildlife, as well as understanding rules and policies that govern land management. It takes time and dedication to develop.
“You don’t replace that institutional and resource knowledge. Phil knew the ground, he knew the resources, and then he knew the people involved in it,” Fitzwilliams said. “So much institutional knowledge and resource knowledge just walked out the door and you don’t replace that overnight.”
No plans to fill the job
As the Forest Service, like many other federal agencies, faces budget and staffing cuts and a looming reorganization, there aren’t plans to post or rehire a wildlife biologist on the Aspen-Sopris Ranger District, though staff from other ranger districts will pick up work in Nyland’s former territory. His work will continue to serve the forest.
“It is still one of my highest priorities on the ranger district to keep implementing prescribed fire projects that benefit both wildlife and fuels reduction,” Warner said. “It’s still sitting right at the top of the priority list.”
Prescribed burns can be a key tool as concern grows over persistent drought and the threat of catastrophic wildfire in the area.
While the primary goal of the ASWHIP prescribed burns was habitat improvement, there’s a secondary benefit of reducing the likelihood of catastrophic wildfire, which was clear to firefighters and fuels experts like Genung during the Lake Christine Fire. A 2015 prescribed burn aimed at improving wildlife habitat on Basalt Mountain also helped calm the 2018 wildfire.
“The Lake Christine Fire was somewhat diverted up the hill when it ran into that prescribed fire,” Genung said. In this context, there is a desire to see the projects continue. “We are passing the torch a little bit. Those projects will stay. There are fire folks who are interested in carrying the torch with some of those projects.”
The Roaring Fork Valley Wildfire Collaborative has worked with the Forest Service, other government agencies and local landowners to coordinate fire mitigation work across the valley. With Nyland’s retirement, the collaborative, initially formed in 2022 as a project of the Aspen Institute before being chartered as an independent nonprofit, is being called upon to step up.
“Phil had a real gift for bringing people together across boundaries to improve habitat and forest health. His departure — especially in the context of ongoing Forest Service staffing and budget cuts — leaves a real gap, but it also underscores the importance of carrying forward the work he helped set in motion,” Angie Davlyn, the collaborative’s executive director, wrote in an email.
“With federal cuts and reduced capacity, the challenge now is for the rest of us to rise to the occasion. Our USFS partners still serve as a cornerstone of wildfire resilience, but we know they’re having to make very tough choices about what they can realistically take on,” Davlyn added.
She said the wildfire collaborative will work to fill gaps, but it will require significant funding that the young organization doesn’t yet have.
In addition to the work on prescribed fire, Nyland was a key team member on projects that required environmental assessment under the National Environmental Policy Act, conducting wildlife surveys and monitoring ongoing work. That work, too, will be passed on to wildlife biologists from other ranger districts. There’s potential for some of it to be contracted to outside biologists, but that comes with drawbacks.
“Then you have a biologist who’s never stepped foot on the ground; it’s just not the same,” Fitzwilliams said. “We contract people to help us, but it’s different than having someone there who knows the resource and really understands it and understands the community.”
Both Nyland and Genung intend to start consulting businesses in the wake of their retirements. Genung will be working with local fire agencies, governments and nonprofits to continue with prescribed fire. Nyland has created Nyland Wildlife Services LLC, and says his dream is to travel the U.S. and Canada and consult with governments on issues related to wildlife.
