George E. Gruell Papers

George Gruell was born in 1927 in Ventura, California to his parents George and Genevieve Gruell. He graduated from Humboldt State College in Arcata, California in 1953 with a B.S. in Wildlife Management. Not long after graduation, he began his professional career with the Nevada Fish and Game Department, where he remained for five years. After his time with the Nevada Fish and Game Department, Gruell went on to serve with the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service as a Wildlife Biologist on national forests in Nevada and Wyoming, a Research Biologist in Montana, and a Regional Fuels Management Officer with the Intermountain Region covering Utah, Nevada, and portions of Wyoming and Idaho for the next 25 years.

Beginning early in his career, Gruell developed an awareness of the importance of developing an understanding of historical ecology, or the interactions between humans and their environments over long periods. As a result, he hiked, bushwhacked, and occasionally helicoptered his way into dozens of mountain locales featured in historical photographs from the 1800s and early 1900s in an attempt to recreate the photographs as accurately as possible. This technique is referred to as "repeat photography."

Gruell would seek out the same boulders, peaks, and vantage points, and when he found them, he would take another photograph. This resulted in a collection of nearly 400 photographs which document the changes and in condition of forests and rangelands spanning the period 1849 to 1994 in the northern Rockies, Great Basin, and Sierra Nevada. Many of the photographs reveal the varying effects of heavy livestock grazing, logging, a fluctuating climate, changes in wildlife habitat, and anti-fire policies over the decades. Gruell's pioneering work and familiarity with historical and scientific literature led him to a comprehensive understanding of vegetative succession and implications on the management of wildland ecosystems. His publications and photographs also advocate in many ways for intentional disturbance of landscapes including prescribed burns to increase the overall health of ecosystems.

After his retirement from the U.S. Forest Service in 1987, Gruell began lecturing and consulting on fire ecology and its effects on wildlife habitat. Over the years, he has given numerous presentations at workshops, symposia, and training sessions that address issues of forest management, fire effects on wildlife habitat, landscape ecology, and ecosystem management. Additionally, he has carried out fire history contracts with Great Basin National Park, Hart-Sheldon Wildlife Refuges, Bridgeport Ranger District, and Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest.

Along with numerous other publications produced throughout his career on forest succession, wildlife ecology, wildlife habitat conditions and trends, fire history, and fire ecology, Gruell also published two books after his retirement. These books include: Fire in Sierra Nevada Forests: A Photographic Interpretation of Ecological Change Since 1849 published in 2001, and Nevada's Changing Wildlife Habitat: An Ecological History published in 2012.