Dedication Point

John Freemuth is a professor of public policy at Boise State University, but he also serves as the Cencil Andrus endowed chair of Environment and Public Lands for the Andrus Center for Public Policy. During the Clinton administration, Freemuth served as the chair of the science advisory board for the BLM, so he has a vast depth of knowledge on how science can and should affect public policy. We ta...

Dean Hagerman is a historian, graduate student, and former National Guardsman who worked at the Orchard Combat Training Center within the Snake River Birds of Prey NCA. As someone with both direct experience working for the National Guard at their training area inside the NCA, and a graduate student studying the history of this very area, Dean is uniquely positioned to share the history behind thi...

John Sullivan was the first manager of the Snake River Birds of Prey National Conservation Area, serving in this role for over a decade. In our interview, Sullivan provides some fascinating insight into the issues that needed to be addressed during the early years of the NCA, including a contentious relationship with an Army National Guard training center.

Tracy Andrus is the middle daughter of former Idaho governor and secretary of the interior Cecil Andrus. Tracy has a wealth of amazing stories about growing up in the Andrus household and traveling to Washington, D.C. for her father’s term as the Interior Secretary. She has become an advocate for public lands in her own right in her role as the president of the Andrus Center for Public Policy at B...

All of our previous interviews released as a part of this series have been focused on the very recent history of the Snake River canyon region. This interview with Ted Howard, the tribal chairman of the Shoshone-Paiute tribe, takes us back to the earliest interactions that humanity had with this landscape, and also provides crucial insight into issues over land ownership in Southern Idaho and thro...

Dr. Mark Plew is a professor of Anthropology at Boise State University. He has spent a significant portion of his career conducting research in the Snake River plain, and has spent more time investigating archaeological sites within the Morley Nelson Snake River birds of Prey NCA than any other archeologist in history. It this oral history interview Dr. Plew outlines a number of key insights into...

Former Deputy Attorney General for the state of Idaho Clive Strong discusses the Swan Falls controversy of the early 1980s. This landmark agreement has had far reaching implications for water rights and water law across the US, but it also had a local impact on the establishment of protection for the Morley Nelson Snake River Birds of Prey NCA.

Norm Nelson is the oldest son of Morley Nelson, who is widely considered to be the most influential figure in the establishment of a National Conservation Area in the snake river canyon. What many people don’t realize however, is the substantial role that Morley’s family played in working to get protected status for this unique area. While Morley was working his full time job as the region’s snow...

Larry LaRocco served as a congressman from Idaho’s 1st congressional district in the US House of Representatives from 1991 through 1995. When he was elected, LaRocco knew very little about the Snake River canyon region, but he had cut his teeth as a politician working on wilderness legislation in central Idaho as a field coordinator for Senator Frank Church. LaRocco entered congress at a moment wh...

Dean Bibles played a key role in one of the most important actions connected to the establishment of the Snake River Birds of Prey NCA - the 1980 withdrawal by then Secretary of the Interior Cecil Andrus, which created the current boundaries for this protected area. It was actually Dean's idea to increase the boundary of what was then called the Snake River Birds of Prey Natural Area, via an a...

Karen Steenhof has been working in the Morley Nelson Snake River Birds of Prey NCa for over 40 years as a wildlife and research biologist. The research that she conducted in the 1970s, 80s and 90s played a key role in the establishment of protection for the area. She has become one of the leading advocates for research based management of the NCA – advocating for continued raptor monitoring in the...

In our fifth episode of this oral history series we are featuring our interview with Andy Ogden, a man who knows more about the Snake River Canyon than most do about their backyard. Andy was introduced to birds of prey by Morley Nelson when he was just a teenager, and Nelson quickly became a role model for Andy. When Andy was in high school Morley convinced him to take on one of the first raptor r...

This, our fourth episode of this oral history series, will feature an interview with Cecil Andrus. Andrus is probably Idaho’s best known politician - he ran for Governor of Idaho in 1970 as a Democrat and an environmentalist - and he won. Andrus also served as the Secretary of the Interior under president Jimmy Carter, where he was able to have his most dramatic influence over the establishment of...

Michael Kochert has been researching raptor species for over 40 years and has served in multiple capacities for the Raptor Research Foundation. He has been interested in wildlife biology since he was a child, and admits he wasn’t initially interested in birds of prey. But, it didn’t take long after his first impression in the Snake River Canyon that he would proudly called himself a “desert rat”....

Steve Stuebner is the author of “Cool North Wind”, a biography of Morley Nelson. Steve spent years researching Morley’s life for this book, conducting numerous interviews and uncovering fascinating details about the creation of the Morley Nelson Snake River Birds of Prey NCA.

Our first interview is with the man who deserves the most credit for the creation of a national conservation area in the snake river canyon - Morley Nelson. Morley passed away in 2005 at the age of 88, but we uncovered this archival interview conducted in 1990 by the founder of the Archives of Falconry, Kent Carnie. The original interview was close to six hours long - we’ve edited it down to inclu...