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Show A-2 The Park Record The Park Record. Serving Summit County since 1880 The Park Record, Park City’s No. 1 source for local news, opinion and advertising, is available for home delivery in Summit, Wasatch, Salt Lake, Davis and Utah counties. Single copies are also available at 116 locations throughout Park City, Heber City, Summit County and Salt Lake City. SUBSCRIPTION RATES In Summit County (home delivery): $48 per year (includes Sunday editions of The Salt Lake Tribune) Outside Summit County (home delivery available in Wasatch, Salt Lake, Davis, Weber and Utah counties; all other addresses will be mailed via the U.S. Postal Service): $72 per year To subscribe please call 435-6499014 or visit www.parkrecord.com and click the Subscribe link in the Tools section of the toolbar at the top of the page. To report a missing paper, please call 801-204-6100. 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No portion may be reproduced in any form without written consent of the managing editor or publisher. The Park Record (USPS 378-730) (ISSN 0745-9483) is published twice weekly by Wasatch Mountain News Media Co., 1670 Bonanza Drive, Park City, UT 84060. Periodicals postage paid at Salt Lake City, Utah, 84199-9655 and at additional mailing offices. Postmaster: Send address changes to The Park Record, P.O. Box 3688, Park City, UT 84060. Entered as secondclass matter, May 25, 1977, at the Post Office in Park City, Utah, 84060 under the Act of March 3, 1897. Subscription rates are: $48 within Summit County, $72 outside of Summit County, Utah. Subscriptions are transferable: $5 cancellation fee. Phone: 435-649-9014 Fax: 435-649-4942 Email: circulation@parkrecord.com Published every Wednesday and Saturday. Continued from A-1 Mountain lion seen not been a report of a mountain lion since Saturday. The Police Department plans to continue to patrol the area, he said. Kasza planned to search the hillside again on Tuesday. “Hopefully that cougar is back up in the mountains,” he said, calling the higher-elevation terrain “good habitat for mountain lions.” He said it is difficult to predict the behavior of a mountain lion. He said the animal could have traveled 20 miles from Park City since the sightings, depending on factors such as the availability of prey, access to water and the num- Continued from A-1 Ticks infect moose grooming because they are rubbing and scratching to shed those parasites,” said Dan MacNulty, associate professor of Wildlife Ecology at Utah State University. “What you are seeing when you see a moose walking down Main Street in Park City that has no fur is a manifestation of the natural environment.” Winter ticks will attach themselves to moose by the thousands, causing significant blood loss and, often, higher mortality rates among calves because of the significant blood loss. In 2013, Utah State University and the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources took a cue from researchers in New England and began studying the effects of winter ticks on Northern Utah’s moose population. MacNulty said researchers in New England were noticing a dramatic decline in the population because of the parasite. According to an article in The New York Times, researchers in New England discovered “ticks have killed about 70 percent of the calves they have tagged in certain regions, an indication that the tick is taking a significant toll.” Researchers with Utah State University and the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources have been tracking more than 200 moose between the North Slope of the Uintas and the area east of Daniel’s Canyon between Heber and Park City. “Ironically those ghost moose, if you want to call them that, seem to be surviving and the moose that are not grooming or are grooming less are the ones that might be suffering the most from tick loss because those ticks remain on the animal and they continue to loose blood,” MacNulty said. “And we are talking tens of thousands of ticks on the moose.” MacNulty said researchers focused on those two areas because they present two different types of habitats. “The area from Park City basically southeast is more atypical moose habitat with a lot of shrub and Rocky Moun- Continued from A-1 Ski exec, wife donate early as this fall. “(The money) puts us in a position to begin to implement some of those early recommendations really quickly,” he said. Wright said efforts to implement a Communities That Care program began nearly two years ago. But after the deaths of the 13-year-old boys in September, the discussions carried a new sense of urgen- ber of other mountain lions in an area. Kasza said it is best if the hound dogs drove the mountain lion out of the area. “If there are no other signs, that’s a success. We’re letting nature run its course,” he said. Kasza said safety precautions should be taken when a mountain lion is reported to be in an area. People should keep tabs on pets and not feed pets outdoors. If someone encounters a mountain lion, they should stand their ground and then back away. Someone should not run away from a mountain lion, something that could trigger the animal’s natural instincts to chase prey. Should a mountain lion attack, a person should fight back. The Park City area provides habitat for a variety of animals, including deer, moose and elk. The Police Department regularly receives reports of wildlife sightings, including within neighborhoods, but it is rare for a mountain lion to be seen in Park City. tain Maple, not what you would really consider moose habitat,” MacNulty said. “What we wanted to address was whether the moose in that habitat are surviving as well as those on the North Slope.” When researchers tracked tick densities on the moose, MacNulty said they discovered that moose in the Wasatch area between Park City and Heber City had higher levels of tick infestation than those on the North Slope. “That is consistent with habitat difference because the North Slope has more snow and Wasatch is slightly lower, drier and it is a more arid environment and ticks have an easier time in that environment,” MacNulty said. “There is a relationship between tick population numbers and winter conditions. The more mild, less snowfall you have, the more ticks you will have in the environment.” MacNulty said the heavy infestation people are beginning to notice on moose is the “lag-effect of environmental conditions.” He said this spring will determine how many moose are tickinfested next winter. “Those ticks fall off the moose and let’s say they hit dry ground and they reproduce and in the fall they will gorge on those moose through the winter and at the beginning of next spring,” MacNulty said. “That is where you start to see evidence of heavy infestation and potential mortality.” The relationship between ticks and moose is determined by the winter climate, MacNulty said. He added, “There isn’t much we can do about winter climate conditions either.” “If those trends continue and increase, the expectation is that we will have fewer moose and people can expect the moose to eventually disappear with the changing climate,” MacNulty said. “People need to be aware of that. The decline of moose is a potential casualty of climate change and there is no doubt about it because they are seeing evidence of this in Minnesota and New. Hampshire. “The overall trend in the population number doesn’t, at this time, indicate any sort of imminent collapse,” he said. “But the conditions are ripe for a decline.” cy. She is hopeful the program will be comprehensive, providing both care for students who need it and prevention efforts to stop problems before they begin. While there’s no single solution that will solve the issue, she said, the program will go a long way to addressing what has been a glaring deficiency, she said. “Everyone in the community would say that, when two young kids die, clearly we need to do something, and we need to change something to create something positive in our community,” she said. “But even before then, we knew from our partners at the Health Department and other nonprofits that we are really underserved in terms of mental health services, and substance abuse is part of that. So this is a critical gap that we have.” Wed/Thurs/Fri, April 19-21, 2017 Plastic-bag ban sought Park City says it will consider a new rule to help environment By FRANCES MOODY The Park Record Cathy Batten and Sharelle Rodman have made daily efforts to limit their use of plastics. But it was a volunteer trip to the Bahamas that made them crank up their determination to stop the use of grocery bags, water bottles and straws in Park City. Batten said when she and Rodman saw the enormous garbage patch floating in the North Atlantic Gyre, which is a circular system of ocean currents, they realized the destructive effects plastic can have. “Here, in a landlocked state, we don’t always see the effects of what’s happening with plastic,” Batten said. “When you’re on an island and it’s getting trapped there, you see what plastic does to a beautiful landscape.” In October, the two thought of starting a coalition to end single-use plastic in Park City. Since then, they’ve named their effort the Park City Plastic Coalition and contacted Park City Municipal to renew the city’s efforts to ban plastic bags. Luke Cartin, the city’s environmental sustainability manager, is now in the midst of researching what a plastic bag ban would look like in Park City, adding there are a lot of kinks to work out. He plans to present his findings at a City Council work session on May 11. Batten and Rodman said they will be there to represent the coalition, which they say is backed by a large part of the community. “I’m trying to see what’s out there that could be an unintended consequence if bags are banned,” Cartin said. The bags used at boutiques and retail stores are thicker than the ones used in grocery stores. Cartin said the ban would most likely be for thinner bags, such as the ones used in grocery stores. He also wants to keep his mind on tourists and to add produce bags and dry-cleaning bags to the list of plastic that is OK for businesses to have. “A tourist isn’t going to fly with reusable bags,” Cartin said. “We would still want to allow brown paper bags.” If City Council does approve a plastic bag ban, it may be the first of its kind in Utah, Cartin said. “There are over 200 communities in the U.S. that have some version of a plastic bag ban,” Cartin said. “I’m looking to those city codes for ideas.” Molly Brooks, Recycle Utah’s outreach and communication coordinator, Continued from A-1 March part of equation as Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox, are addressing climate change. The March for Science organizers anticipate between 500 and 700 people will attend, down from the 1,000 estimate publicized as City Hall approved a permit for the event in late March. The organizers drafted a speaker list heavy on figures holding doctorates in the sciences. Robert Davies is described as “Utah’s own Climate Science Guru” FRANCES MOODY/PARK RECORD Cathy Batten, left, and Sharelle Rodman have created the Park City Plastic Coalition. They hope to lessen single-use plastic in Park City and suggest that people always have reusable bags with them. said the nonprofit would support a ban. She said the use of plastic bags has a lot of negative effects in Park City. “They’re a huge nuisance at the landfill,” Brooks said. “And when they’re recycled in curbside bins, they get wrapped around the machines and contaminate them.” Brooks asks that people not put plastic bags in curbside recycling. She also encourages people to limit their use of plastic, since plastic never biodegrades. “They only photodegrade, which essentially means they turn into tiny particles, and it takes a really long time to do that,” Brooks said. The microplastics then end up in lakes, streams and soil. “They’re consumed by wildlife and can be dangerous,” Brooks said, adding that Recycle Utah does accept plastic bags that can be dropped off to be recycled. Like Brooks, Batten and Rodman want people to be aware of the negatives that come from plastic use. They said in addition to passing a ban on plastic bags, they also hope to educate people on how they can limit plastic use. “Always bring reusable bags with you,” Rodman said. The two also suggest to use Tupperware instead of Ziploc bags for packing lunches. Batten said she also tries to avoid buying drinks in plastic bottles or using paper and plastic cups when she orders coffee or goes out to eat. “I always carry a reusable water bottle and a coffee mug,” she said. To learn more about the Park City Plastic Coalition, visit its Facebook page: www.facebook.com/plasticfreepc/?hc_ ref=SEARCH&fref=nf. And to find out how to properly recycle plastic bags and other kinds of plastic, go to Recycle Utah’s website: www.recycleutah.org. while Brian Moench leads a group called the Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment. Hobson said Nann Worel, a member of the Park City Council, is scheduled to present information about City Hall’s environmental efforts. The municipal government has an aggressive program meant to significantly reduce emissions. There is worry that a warming climate may someday threaten the ski industry that is critical to the Park City economy. The March for Science is expected to be the second significant issue-oriented event in Park City since Trump took office. The Women’s March on Main, held during the Sundance Film Festival, drew up to 9,000 people to Main Street. The Women’s March on Main also was not designed as a partisan event, but the crowd was heavily against the Trump administration. For more information, see www.facebook.com/events/1515182551839119. 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