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Gayle Joslin ~ 2020 Inductee
Gayle Joslin – 2020 inductee
Gayle Joslin
1951 –
Gayle Joslin, the first woman hired as a Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks wildlife biologist, was named the “First Lady of Montana Wildlife Management” by the Women’s Outdoor Wire in 2009.
She is a 32-year FWP veteran and longtime wildlife biologist for the Helena area.
As a young woman, Gayle acquired a love of the outdoors after becoming a cook at an outfitters camp where her father guided in the in the Bob Marshall Wilderness. She earned degrees in wildlife management and zoology from Montana State University, under unwelcome circumstances in a male-dominated profession.
After college, she began working on a two-year grizzly bear project for the University of Montana on evaluating habitat and population dynamics.
In 1977, FWP hired Gayle to research the effects of dams, mining, and oil and gas development on mountain goats in the Kootenai River drainage and then along the Continental Divide’s Rocky Mountain Front. The area was later part of Lewis & Clark National Forest Supervisor Gloria Flora’s banned mineral leasing on a total of 356,000 acres along the Front.
For the Wildlife Society, she parlayed that seemingly disparate work to coordinate 35 other biologists’ efforts to look at the effects of recreation on Rocky Mountain wildlife.
The result is “Effects of Recreation on Rocky Mountain Wildlife: A Review for Montana,” a benchmark examination of how wildlife responds to impacts from all manner of recreation – from hikes to bikes and horses to all-terrain vehicles.
The report, co-authored with FWP colleague Heidi Youmans, earned the Montana Chapter of the Wildlife Society’s Communications Award in 2000, and the Touchstone Award presented by the Wildlife Management Institute in recognition of advanced science for wildlife management in North America.
Since leaving FWP, Gayle volunteers to evaluate impacts to wildlife from land, travel, and recreational management proposals and advocates for protecting wildlife security and corridors on a landscape level.
Gayle’s influence is apparent in recent challenges to U.S. Forest Service proposals to weaken Rocky Mountain elk security standards based on tree cover and legal decisions to readjust proposals that would harm wildlife habitats.
When faced with more and more development, Gayle told the Helena Independent Record in 2007, one’s only hope is that more will acquire “a strong appreciation and public awareness for wildlife, so people are willing to make sacrifices to maintain the integrity of our wildlands.”
Gayle is a founding board member of Helena Hunters and Anglers Association and Orion – The Hunter’s Institute.
Additional recognitions include Montana Wildlife Federation’s Les Pengelly Conservation Professional and Fred Carver Sportsman of the Year awards, Montana Wilderness Association Brass Cup Award, and the Cinnabar Foundation’s Len & Sandy Sargent Stewardship Award.
Gayle lives in Helena. Her husband, Jim Posewitz (MOHF 2018), passed in July 2020. Their blended family includes six sons, a daughter, and seven grandchildren.
