By Faith Heaton Jolley

A large herd of about 200 elk snarled traffic in Salt Lake City along the I-80 freeway for several weeks during the record snowfall in 2023.

Utah experienced a series of chaotic, “dumpster-fire”-esque events during a six-month period between the fall of 2022 and spring of 2023. Much of the mayhem involved record-breaking snowfall, which was great for combatting ongoing drought conditions, but also wreaked havoc on wildlife in several parts of the state.

Because wildlife can be unpredictable, various crises involving them and their management occur from time to time. When such situations arise, it falls to the communications teams of wildlife agencies to help relay essential information to the public and to internal staff. Here’s a look at the recent crises that the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources dealt with and lessons learned by their public information officer, Faith Heaton Jolley.

Millcreek Canyon cougar incident

The first situation involved a woman who was leapt on and scratched by a cougar while trail running in Millcreek Canyon near Salt Lake City in September 2022. Thankfully, she wasn’t seriously injured and was able to make it down the trail and to a local hospital. DWR biologists and conservation officers responded to the scene and were able to locate the cougar involved. Because it had injured a person, the cougar was euthanized, per DWR protocols.

Because the woman had called emergency dispatchers, a local media outlet (listening to police scanners) was alerted to the incident. After providing information and doing a virtual interview, the PIO felt confident that the TV station was satisfied and had what they needed. However, the reporter then showed up on the scene unannounced to get additional footage of the area. The search for the cougar was still underway, and the reporter was there and heard the gunshot of the cougar being euthanized.

Lesson learned: Be prepared for reporters to just show up on scene, even after providing them information. Have a prepped outreach/communications employee there, even if you aren’t planning to hold a formal press conference. This will allow your employee to intercept reporters and visit with them in a predetermined staging area. This will also help keep media personnel out of areas where an investigation — or other follow-up activities — are still occurring, so they don’t impede ongoing work or see or hear something you don’t want them to.

Diamond Fork cougar incident

In April 2023, there was another very similar incident. A man was hiking in Diamond Fork Canyon, about 70 miles south of Salt Lake City, when he encountered a mountain lion and was also severely scratched. He was able to hike back down the canyon and drove himself to the hospital. The local county sheriff’s office received a report of the incident and shared it through social media late that same night, which of course, alerted reporters to it. Because so many media outlets wanted information, the decision was made to hold a press conference.

The PIO told the agency’s conservation officers to ask the victim if he was comfortable doing media interviews at some point in the future, in case the media asked — thinking that media could just be referred to the man if they were interested. However, moments later, an officer informed the PIO that the man who’d been attacked was on his way to the press conference — a definite curveball to controlling the narrative at the media event. Thankfully, the victim’s account of the incident was straightforward, and the press conference went smoothly.

Lessons learned: Make sure you are coordinating with other partnering agencies so you can help control the timing and messaging of any public information that is released. Make sure you communicate very clearly about the plans for any public outreach so that everyone is on the same page

Winter mayhem

More than 900 inches of snowfall in parts of Utah during the 2022-23 winter caused multiple issues for the state’s wildlife. Here are a few of the incidents and decisions that had to be communicated to the public:

• Elk take over Salt Lake City: In search of food, a herd of roughly 200 elk migrated onto a golf course next to a major freeway on the east side of Salt Lake City. They caused countless traffic concerns on nearby roadways, and despite numerous attempts to herd them out of the area, they kept returning and stayed there for roughly 2 months.
• More elk chaos: A separate herd of elk migrated near the freeway about 15 miles from the first location, and 15 elk were hit by vehicles during one weekend. The DWR had to partner with the Utah Department of Transportation to lower speed limits in the area and post warnings on electronic road signs.
• Emergency deer feeding: In an effort to help deer herds that were struggling in deeper-than-normal snow, the DWR implemented emergency deer feeding in some parts of northern Utah. This also required nuanced messaging to explain why the public should not feed deer or other wildlife on their own.
• Emergency shed hunting closure: The DWR announced a statewide emergency closure to shed antler hunting during these months, also in an effort to help wintering big game, particularly deer populations.
• Closures to wildlife management areas: While several wildlife management areas in Utah have annual seasonal closures to help protect wintering big game, those closures were extended this year due to the weakened condition of deer in northern and central Utah.

The concurrent, multi-month crises obviously provided some challenges and increased workload for the public information officer and DWR communications team. But there were also some valuable takeaways and lessons learned. Here are a few:

• Keep providing updates to the media, even if there isn’t much of an update to share. They are anxious for more information each day. Always be responsive and just tell them that there isn’t any new information, if there aren’t any updates that day.
• Have an emergency response plan (particularly for wildlife attacks or other major crises that occur from time to time) and train staff to know what to do and what their role is. This should all be done in advance and routinely brushed up on so that everyone feels confident in what to do when the actual crisis hits.
• As much as possible, prep evergreen statements, draft messaging, etc., and get it approved in advance. This will help speed up your emergency communication efforts. If you have preapproved statements or information, you can reuse it — or easily modify it — in applicable situations.
• Don’t forget about your internal communication! So often as communications professionals, we are focused on our external audience and the general public, but we need to loop in our internal staff as well. This was an oversight when we closed shed antler hunting, and then our front desk staff began getting calls and had no idea what was going on or what to tell people.
• Train your coworkers to loop you in when crises arise, particularly ones that may hit the media or that the public could learn about. This will help you to prep messaging and talking points in advance so you are ready when reporters do reach out.
• Use all your channels to get your messaging out. This will help magnify your message and help you reach more people who may get their information in different ways.
• Don’t be a hero — ask for help! When everything is on fire and chaos is raining down, don’t try to do everything yourself. Lean on your team members to help prep messaging, put together communications materials and handle media interviews.