- Subject: NPS Morning Report - Friday, November 3, 1995
- Date: Fri, 3 Nov 1995
NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
MORNING REPORT
To: All National Park Service Areas and Offices
From: Division of Ranger Activities, Washington Office
Day/Date: Friday, November 3, 1995
Broadcast: By 1000 ET
INCIDENTS
95-718 - Big Cypress (Florida) - Attempted Suicide; Life Saved
While on his early morning rounds through the park's campground on November
2nd, maintenance worker Dusty Torre came upon a vehicle parked by itself with a
piece of plastic tubing extending from the exhaust pipe into the vehicle's
interior. Torre pounded on the window, opened the door, and had the operator
turn off the vehicle. He then alerted the operations center at Everglades; the
center dispatched park and county emergency personnel to the scene. The victim
will fully recover. [Bill Carroll, CR, BICY]
95-719 - New River Gorge (West Virginia) - Resource Theft
On October 31st, rangers investigated a report of a timber theft in the Garden
Ground area of the park and found three local men stealing timber. Ronnie and
Orba Williams and Thomas Hurley were apprehended leaving the area with two,
eight-foot-long Paulownia logs loaded onto a trailer. The trio had employed a
four wheel ATV equipped with a trailer, winch, come-along and sheve blocks to
haul the timber out of the steep and remote location near the rim of the gorge.
Severe damage was done to the terrain when the logs were hauled up the steep
slope. Further investigation revealed that a total of eight Paulownia trees up
to sixteen inches in diameter had been cut and prepared for removal from the
area. The trees were found scattered over a six-mile area near the rim of the
gorge. Six maple trees were also cut and bucked up into short lengths for
removal, and several smaller trees were cut and destroyed in the process of
clearing the area for the removal of the saw logs. The three men were found to
have a small bag of marijuana and a loaded .22 caliber rifle in their
possession . They have been charged with resource destruction, firearms
violations, and possession of marijuana. The investigation is continuing.
Additional charges are expected. [Rick Brown, Acting CR, NERI]
RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
No field reports today.
OPERATIONAL NOTES
No notes.
OBSERVATIONS
Quotes submitted for consideration for the Morning Report should pertain to
either the National Park Service or closely related issues, such as wilderness
and conservation, and should include the author and the date and source of the
quote. A mailing list has been created for periodic dissemination of the
master list of quotes to date to interested parties. If you'd like to be on
that list, please send a note to this address.
The name of the person who submitted today's entry has been mislaid. Thanks,
though, for a good quote:
"The hotly contested question of vehicle use in the parks...is not an issue of
transportation, but of pace. Intensity of concentration on the natural scene
and attentiveness to detail are simply less likely to occur at forty miles an
hour. For this reason it is appropriate to discourage motorized travel. Such
a policy would not militate against all road building in reserved parklands.
We need reasonable access to the various areas of very large parks. And
because reserved lands should affirmatively be made enticing to as wide a
spectrum of the public as possible, including newcomers who need a taste of the
opportunities the land offers, it makes sense to have - as we do in many
parks - a highway designed to provide an introduction for those who are
deciding whether they want to come back for more. The purpose of reserving
natural areas, however, is not to keep people in their cars, but to lure them
out; to encourage a close look at the infinite detail and variety that the
natural scene provides; to expose, rather than to insulate..."
Joseph L. Sax, "Mountains Without
Handrails", 1980
Prepared by the Division of Ranger Activities, WASO, with the cooperation and
support of Delaware Water Gap NRA.
Telephone: 202-208-4874
Telefax: 202-208-6756
cc:Mail: WASO Ranger Activities
SkyPager: Emergencies ONLY: 1-800-759-7243, PIN 2404843
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