THE KEEPER OF SPOTTED BEAR

Deb Mucklow Starling grew up in Fort Collins, Colorado in town. But nearly every weekend Starling and her family would pack up their stuff and head for the hills.

“I knew early on I wanted to be a forester,” she said in an interview recently. “By 14 I decided I wanted to go to forestry school.”

Her brother’s Cub Scout leader was the late Dr. Edwin Mogren, a forest researcher at Colorado State University. They were family friends, which also led to her love for the woods.

Starling went on to get a degree in forestry from Colorado State and began the bulk of her career in Northwest Montana, first in the Kootenai National Forest in 1980 and later at Tally Lake, Hungry Horse and Glacier View Ranger districts. In 1999, she became the Spotted Bear District Ranger, a post she’s held since.

Spotted Bear is a unique and dynamic district. It’s huge — 1.1 million acres, of which about 850,000 acres are wilderness. It’s 100,000 acres larger than Glacier National Park. The landscape is profound and beautiful, some of the best in the West, perhaps even the world, with soaring peaks, lush river bottoms and expansive meadows.

Managing it is a challenge and for her efforts, the Flathead Chapter of the Society of American Foresters presented Starling with the 2016 Field Forester of the Year award.

“Deb never loses site of the fact that those acres not within wilderness require active management to meet the long term objectives of our public lands. While a staunch supporter of the concept of wilderness, Deb is also dedicated to the concept of managing each acre appropriate for its designated and best use, whether that be wilderness, recreation or fiber production,” the Society noted in its nomination.

Starling said she’s worked with great people over the course of her career — people who care deeply for the landscape. In areas outside the wilderness, she’s centered her efforts on stewardship projects, which include timber harvest, but are also light on the land.

For example, over the years, the district has worked hard to create projects that preserve the native Ponderosa pine stands, by thinning competing trees like Douglas fir, that grow beneath them.

Starling is also a people person, the Society noted. She takes pains to get to know people.

“Even though she finds herself behind the desk dealing with the administrative day-to-day of running a ranger district, she never misses the opportunity to get on a horse or strap on a backpack and get out on her district to see what is going on. She is well-acquainted with the land she is charged with managing,” chapter chairman Brad French said.

Starling has been recognized with multiple local and national wilderness awards. She has been recognized by the Interagency Grizzly Bear Council for her work on the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem recovery plan and regularly partners with multiple other agencies and organizations to work towards common goals. She received the Flathead Chapter Citizen Forester of the Year award in 1996 and has been an active chapter member throughout her career.

Starling said one challenge in Spotted Bear is creating stewardship projects that not only help with forest management, but are also economical, as the district is a long way from mills, nearly 40 miles up the Hungry Horse Reservoir.

On the wilderness side of things, the job also has its challenges, she noted.

The district has 1,100 miles of trails and including livery services, has 36 outfitters. During the summer months, thousands of people enter the Bob Marshall Wilderness at Spotted Bear.

“The challenge is getting enough resources to adequately meet the needs of the interests out there,” she said. The district doesn’t have a large staff. It has 14 permanent employees, of which seven work year-round. It also has 22 temporary employees. In addition, each summer there’s five student interns, and two Montana Conservation Corps crews and about 70 volunteers, with 25 hosted volunteer trips annually through the Bob Marshall Wilderness Foundation.

Volunteers, MCC crews, Forest Service and outfitters all pitch in to keep the trails open, but visitors should realize that some lesser-used trails will only see maintenance every three to five years, she noted.

Having said that, Starling enjoys getting out into the field and there’s still places she hasn’t been to — namely the Trilobite Range in the northeast end of the district.

Her message to the visitors is simple. Get out and enjoy it.

“Everyone should get out and enjoy their national forests,” she said, whether its hiking, skiing, riding a horse, biking or just taking a ride down a forest road. “It’s a privilege we have.”