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Ed Bangs, Gray Wolf Recovery Coordinator for the US Fish and Wildlife Service, often said in presentations that managing wolves is easy but managing people is difficult. If left alone, the species would regulate itself, but you could not exclude the various perspectives and viewpoint different communities brought to the issue. Former SAWS staff member Mason Boring learned a similar lesson about managing designated wilderness during his time with SAWS. Mason spent 4 years on s

Not many people can say one of their first conservation jobs overlapped with one of the worst natural disasters to hit a region. Aracelia Skridulis was a SAWS crew member in 2024 and experienced just that when Hurricane Helene came through. Having spent most of her life in western North Carolina, working in the region was already special. She had seen the increased demand for recreation spaces on our forest and the impacts that was having and this was her opportunity to contr

Roger Osorio (right) while working for SAWS in 2013 . Roger Osorio did not always see conservation as the career pathway he would pursue. Growing up in the Bronx, New York, wild places may have seemed far away. This changed when he joined Groundwork Hudson Valley in 2008, an organization focused on transforming urban neighborhoods through partnerships that inspire young leaders and support local economic development. His work there centered around historic restoration, trail

Across the region, cold has not kept SAWS crews and volunteers from making a difference this winter. On a cold December day, where temperatures barely cleared freezing, twenty-one volunteers made their way out to the Cumberland District of Daniel Boone National Forest in Kentucky to lend a hand. Kristy Ealdwine, Kentucky Volunteer Coordinator, was able to leverage the impressive turnout by splitting the crew into 3 separate teams to maximize efforts that day. Two crews loaded

by Aerin Miller Hurricane Helene left many issues in its wake. After immediate needs were met, one question that came up revolved around impacts to U.S. Forest Service trails and access. To address this question, SAWS’ Tennessee Trail Specialist team was asked to survey all trails in the North Zone of Cherokee National Forest. This large footprint gave us an opportunity to see so much this region has to offer. Through our surveys we encountered trails in every state and condi