Wilds worker one to 'watch'

Bob Walters knows a single look at wildlife can change a person's life; he knows because it happened to him.

When Walters was about 16 and living in a Milwaukee suburb, he and his father and friends went on a fishing expedition in Canada. Walking along the shore of a swamp, Walters noticed a large nest and determined to get a better view.

He waded into the swamp, soaking his shoes and putting himself under siege by swarms of mosquitoes.

As soon as he got under the nest, a startled bald eagle flew off, knocking sticks loose from the nest. He was as startled as the bird. Sticks rained down on him, he remembered.

"I was probably knee-deep in water, and these sticks coming down and this huge bird coming off the nest. I'll never forget that. It was just kind of, 'Wow.' I just found the whole thing absolutely remarkable. It was more exciting than almost anything I could remember."

Today, Walters is the coordinator of the watchable wildlife program in the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources. His goal is to help others experience the same type of "wow" moment, and he achieves it by facilitating viewing and photographing throughout the state.

From racing to find a home for an orphaned eagle chick to joining raptor banding expeditions at Dugway Proving Ground to checking out mountain goats at Little Cottonwood Canyon, Walters has been intimately connected with helping Utah's wildlife since he joined the division 28 years ago.

After graduating from a Bayside, Wis., high school, he got what he terms a wild idea that he'd like to attend college in some place that was unlike Wisconsin. "There are few places any wetter than Wisconsin, and the Sonoran Desert represented a significant departure," he said.

He earned his undergraduate degree at the University of Arizona in Tucson, studying wildlife biology. Then Walters headed north again, to the University of Wisconsin, Madison, for his master's in water resources management, a fish and wildlife specialty.

Next stop: back to the desert. This time it was Utah.

Discovering Utah

In August 1976, soon after arriving in the state, he landed a job with the division, working for what was then the agency's nongame section. (Later the section was disbanded, its employees working throughout the division in either wildlife or aquatic areas.)