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drjakuna.bsky.social
Sunny & Cleo
@drjakuna.bsky.social
210 followers 300 following 51 posts
Two rescue dogs who are public lands stewards and enthusiasts. We post about bikes, science, and public lands that we think dogs and people would like a lot.
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drjakuna.bsky.social
Sunny & Cleo @drjakuna.bsky.social · Oct 29
Now here’s a good place to take a dog as long as you mind the mud. Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument is with protecting! Go to gsenm.org to find out how you can help.
Incredible views of red and orange striped sediment in the Moenkopi geologic formation in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah are reflected from water left after a rare desert rain. Huge cottonwood trees in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument reveal their antiquity through the deeply grooved bark, which is nearly as thick as my hand is wide. Dirt roads lead to magical places in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.
drjakuna.bsky.social
Now here’s a good place to take a dog as long as you mind the mud. Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument is with protecting! Go to gsenm.org to find out how you can help.
Incredible views of red and orange striped sediment in the Moenkopi geologic formation in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah are reflected from water left after a rare desert rain. Huge cottonwood trees in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument reveal their antiquity through the deeply grooved bark, which is nearly as thick as my hand is wide. Dirt roads lead to magical places in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.
October 29, 2025 at 3:19 AM
drjakuna.bsky.social
The Grey Cliffs in Utah are a great place to take a good dog for a walk. Too bad the Secretary of the Interior wants to mine it for coal. The potential coal leasing area sits below Bryce Canyon National Park and adjacent to Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. gsenm.org
The grey cliffs, blanketed in pinyons and junipers, emerge demurely from beneath the pink cliffs of the Claron formation. Water on the Grand Staircase is more precious than any coal. This road on the grey cliffs formation in Utah is good for walking dogs, but not for coal mining trucks. The grey cliffs formation should produce more four-wing salt bush, not more coal.
October 11, 2025 at 10:41 PM
Reposted by Sunny & Cleo
janessagoldbeck.bsky.social
🚨 There’s a lot of horrific news out of Washington right now—but you might have missed this: Senate Republicans just introduced a plan to sell off 120 million acres of our public lands.

Let me break down what’s in the bill and why it’s a full-scale land grab. 🧵
June 16, 2025 at 9:13 PM
drjakuna.bsky.social
It’s fire season in Utah. #FranceCanyonFire
The 250 acre France Canyon Fire in Garfield County, Utah sends up plumes of smoke.
June 12, 2025 at 11:42 PM
drjakuna.bsky.social
Sunny and Cleo’s hearts will break if Utah’s public lands get sold off to pay for billionaire’s tax cuts. #notforsale #monumentsforall #publiclandsinpublichands
A heart shaped rock appears to be broken in two at the base of orange and cream colored rock layers and towering spires. A dog, Cleo, takes a break in the desert on the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah. Two dogs, Sunny and Cleo, explore the wonders of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. A sign on the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument reads, “Not for Sale.”
May 30, 2025 at 12:39 AM
drjakuna.bsky.social
Sunny and Cleo love Utah’s public lands so much they don’t want them sold by Utah legislators. #GSENM #Monumentsforall
Two dogs scramble up a deeply eroded slope. Sunset and amazing geology on Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. More erosion in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.
May 17, 2025 at 1:15 AM
drjakuna.bsky.social
Another great day for dogs and plants on public lands in southern Utah. Not so great a day legislatively because of amendments submitted in literally the dark of night, but dogs don’t care about that.
A dog, Cleo, near a little desert trumpet plant. Two pink cactus blossoms. A yellow stemless four nerved daisy flower. Incredible white and orange striped rocks against a deep blue sky.
May 10, 2025 at 5:27 PM
drjakuna.bsky.social
Sunny & Cleo didn’t make the trip to Washington DC, but they are glad that @conservationlands.bsky.social brought the Friends groups in to discuss public lands at the Capitol. These lands generate billions in ecosystem services.

www.stgeorgeutah.com/news/public-...
A dog, Cleo, inspects a vandalized sign on a Bureau of Land Management trail in Utah. Entrance sign to a small national monument dedicated to women’s equality. It was closed. United States Capitol building. Angry dude (left) who wants more oil, gas, and coal, ignores deeply experienced female physician (right) during hearing on American energy dominance.
April 3, 2025 at 2:08 PM
drjakuna.bsky.social
Sunny and Cleo are missing a trip to the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, which is too bad because where else can you see $3 Billion dollars worth of natural capital at work?

public.tableau.com/app/profile/...
Sunrise over the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. Snow on the Claron Formation (Powell Point) over the Blues Wilderness Study Area the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. The Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. Early blooming desert spring parsley in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.
March 22, 2025 at 6:08 AM
drjakuna.bsky.social
Sunny and Cleo don’t know what ecosystem services are, but they were still surprised to learn that some national monuments, like the Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears provide over $3 billion of services per year.

public.tableau.com/app/profile/...
A dog looks down a road. A dog looks down a road.
March 18, 2025 at 12:12 AM
drjakuna.bsky.social
Sunny and Cleo needed a nap after hearing about DOGE’s termination of federal leases to save money. Their Congressman, Celeste Maloy, belongs to the DOGE Caucus, so she isn’t going to help her constituents. See data viz to learn if your community will be affected.

public.tableau.com/app/profile/...
March 3, 2025 at 6:24 PM
drjakuna.bsky.social
Sunny and Cleo have been wondering why reducing taxes on the rich is so important. Here’s our congressional rep to tell us why. Taxing the rich will hurt us because the rich will lower our wages and raise prices if we keep taxing them. People are actually buying this in Utah.

youtu.be/ojsmdUu5EfY
The congressional representative for Utah district 002 says, “Additionally, taxing the rich would hurt the Americans of the lower…” the rest is quoted in the second photo in this post. Utah’s district 002 congressional representative finishes her statement: “Additionally, taxing the rich would hurt the Americans of the lower … tax brackets in the form of lower wages and higher prices.” What’s hurting us right now is all the illegally impounded Federal funding that is being withheld from Utahns.
February 28, 2025 at 10:33 PM
drjakuna.bsky.social
Sunny & Cleo explored a new place near the Dixie National Forest. It’s so dry that cacti have turned pink & are close to death. Trump probably won’t sell this public land, but Zion National park is just down the road. Will Utah be sad if he sells it? IDK.

www.americanprogress.org/article/trum...
February 24, 2025 at 12:34 AM
Reposted by Sunny & Cleo
sltrib.com
Dr. M. Allison Stegner — granddaughter of writer Wallace Stegner — is an ecologist who worked for the U.S. Geological Survey in Moab, until the Trump/Musk layoffs. Here's what she wrote about what happened.
Voices: I lost my job because of Trump’s mass layoffs. What are Utah’s political leaders doing to stand up for people like me?
“Now, rather than paying income taxes in Utah and continuing to work sustaining the health of the federal lands that fuel Utah’s economy, I am applying for unemployment in Utah,” writes Dr. M. Allison Stegner in an op-ed. “How does that benefit taxpayers?”
www.sltrib.com
February 22, 2025 at 2:28 PM
drjakuna.bsky.social
We tried to talk to our congressional representative in Utah about the cost of firing Federal employees and repercussions for Utah, but the response we got was it’s going to hurt and we will have to deal with the pain. Turns out, she’s a member of the DOGE caucus.

public.tableau.com/app/profile/...
DOGE caucus symbol. What is this bullshit misuse of a nice dog’s picture? A dog, Cleo, enjoys a good day on the mountain. She didn’t vote for any of this garbage. She just wants to be able to take a walk on public lands.
February 21, 2025 at 4:04 PM
drjakuna.bsky.social
Wow, we wish it would snow in southern Utah. It would ease some of the worry about how much these Federal layoffs are going to impact the local economy. Our little rural economies will struggle to absorb predicted losses that you can see in the linked data viz.

public.tableau.com/app/profile/...
February 17, 2025 at 9:28 PM
drjakuna.bsky.social
Sunny and Cleo are wondering if the local government in their very red state has a plan to absorb the economic impact of reducing the Federal workforce, so they kept mom company while she put together a data viz to show the estimated costs across the country.

public.tableau.com/app/profile/...
A dog, Cleo, chews on an intestine-shaped toy. A sticker that reads, EAT THE RICH, was documented on a streetlight pole on Main Street in Cedar City, Utah. It’s an unusual sight to see this kind of sentiment in rural southern Utah where Republicans have overwhelming support regardless of what actions they take. The egg case at a local grocery store was completely empty on February 13, 2025 despite receiving a delivery on 2/12/2025. This seems like a problem.
February 16, 2025 at 2:55 PM
Reposted by Sunny & Cleo
paleofuture.bsky.social
Musk’s Nazi salutes were a turning point. And I don’t think we’ll be able to claw back any semblance of the society we had until he’s gone from public life.
February 14, 2025 at 4:57 AM
drjakuna.bsky.social
FYI the Gulf of America is just waiting to get reviewed on Google maps.
A user review of the newly designated Gulf of America on Google maps. Other users might also have thoughtful review this location.
February 11, 2025 at 4:28 AM
drjakuna.bsky.social
Mom’s a little peeved because she came back from the Public Lands Alliance conference in Las Vegas to find out that Sunny needed to go to the vet and that her Federal award for $550,000 to build a seed collection and banking program was frozen for review, probably for wokeness or some such bs.
Even though she was p-oed, mom took Cleo for coffee and a pup cup at the local coffee and yoga shop, which, because it’s in southern Utah, used to be a gun-lovers coffee and yoga shop, but it turns out that yoga and guns do not attract the same kind of people. Sunny did not like this veterinarian because his first d-bag move was to grab her by the scruff of the neck even though she wasn’t feeling well. Mom stepped in, used some fancy words like “idiopathic” to set the tone then took over so Sunny could get a proper rectal temperature taken. She feels better now. Did you know that vending machines can serve cake? This does not happen in southern Utah. Pretty enough Chinese lanterns.
February 9, 2025 at 12:23 AM
Reposted by Sunny & Cleo
gsepartners.bsky.social
Our spring and summer stewardship schedules are now available on the Volunteer Portal website. Stay tuned for our fall release dates later in the season! We appreciate the sweat equity & dedication all of the GSEP volunteers put in to keep this Monument magical! sites.google.com/gsenm.org/st...
January 30, 2025 at 10:14 PM
Reposted by Sunny & Cleo
publiclandlvr.bsky.social
“It’s just scary how bad things can get when places are abandoned with nobody watching,” she said.

www.latimes.com/california/s...

#NationalParks #ParkChat
As Trump cuts federal jobs, even national parks are on the chopping block
As the Trump administration rushes to eliminate federal jobs, even the national parks — among the country’s most beloved and least politicized institutions — are in the crosshairs.
www.latimes.com
February 2, 2025 at 2:45 PM
drjakuna.bsky.social
Cleo still eats turds because she is a puppy and was a stray, but even she wouldn’t eat this one from the Utah legislature who has proposed to co-manage Utah’s national parks and Forest Service land- not for the money, but because they just love the land so much.

www.fox13now.com/news/politic...
Two dogs, Cleo and Sunny, contemplate absurdities. A dog, Cleo, thinks that the state of Utah could have supported the National parks and Forest Service long ago if it really wasn’t all about the money.
February 1, 2025 at 6:43 PM
drjakuna.bsky.social
Sunny and Cleo are celebrating a small victory today - their favorite road on the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, the Burr Trail Scenic Backway, will NOT be renamed to honor Trump.

m.youtube.com/watch?v=c5d4...
Garfield County votes 'No' on renaming Burr Scenic Trail Backway to Trump Trail
YouTube video by ABC4 Utah
m.youtube.com
January 28, 2025 at 1:57 AM
drjakuna.bsky.social
Sunny and Cleo don’t want to see the Burr Trail or Johns Valley Road renamed to honor Trump, but all they could do was go for a walk. You, however, could sign a petition to keep the historic road names in Utah the way they are, check out this petition data viz.

public.tableau.com/app/profile/...
A dog, Cleo, looks up in hopes of a treat on the trail. Johns Valley Road is right by the turn to Bryce Canyon National Park and Ruby’s Inn. A group of students learning about the impacts of roads on wildlife near Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah.
January 26, 2025 at 10:42 PM