NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

MORNING REPORT

Thursday, May 10, 2012

INCIDENTS

Saint-Gaudens NHS

Natural Resource Protection Operation Conducted

Staff at Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site in Cornish, New Hampshire, coordinated a successful education and law enforcement operation to halt the illegal collecting of fern fiddleheads in late April. The operation was a collaboration involving multiple parks, the regional office and local law enforcement authorities.

Fern fiddleheads emerge in the early spring and are considered a culinary delicacy by many New Englanders. The park has been trying to educate fiddlehead collectors regarding the collecting of fiddleheads on park property for several years, particularly at Blow-Me-Down Farm, which was added to the park in 2010. The placement of signs on park lands during fiddlehead season, however, was not a successful deterrent.

Early this year, the park began working on a plan with regional law enforcement staff to educate plant collectors through contacts with commissioned law enforcement rangers. Through the willing participation of rangers detailed to the park from Lowell NHP and Saratoga NHP and an operations plan that included coordination with the Cornish Police Department and other local authorities, rangers spent three days at the park making contact with collectors during the height of the fiddlehead collecting season. The park issued an educational press release to all local media sources in preparation for the operation as well. Rangers and Cornish police made several educational contacts with collectors.

The contacts led to an article in the local paper about the collecting of fiddleheads on both federal and state lands in Vermont and New Hampshire and a larger discussion about the ethical collection of fiddleheads from private and public lands; a very positive result for the park. The operation was a great example of a successful collaboration between parks and with the regional office.

[Rick Kendall, Superintendent]

Pacific West Region

Pre-Columbian Artifact Smuggler Sentenced

On May 7th, R.P. was sentenced for a felony smuggling violation in US District Court in Los Angeles. The sentencing stemmed from a five-year-long investigation called “Operation Antiquity” that is focusing on looting, importation, sale and tax fraud violations related to cultural items from the U.S. and other countries (for more information on the operation, click on HYPERLINK "http://classicinside.nps.gov/headline.cfm?type=Incidents&id=3701" this link). Participating along with the NPS in this investigative effort are the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation Division.

Between June and December 2002, R.P. sold $3,810 in pre-Columbian artifacts from El Salvador and artifacts and cave features from Thailand to undercover NPS and FWS agents. All of these items were smuggled into the US by R.P. after having been looted in their countries of origin. Authentication of the Pre-Columbian material was conducted by Dr. Karen Olsen Bruhns of San Francisco State University and Fundacion Nacional de Arqueologia de El Salvador. The Thai artifacts were authenticated by Dr. Joyce White of the University of Pennsylvania Museum.

At the sentencing hearing on May 7th, R.P. was sentenced to six months of home detention, three years of probation and ordered to pay a $10,000 fine. Additional cases against other entities are pending.

[Todd Swain, Special Agent]

OTHER NEWS

The following stories are among those in today's edition of InsideNPS. To see the full text, including images, NPS employees should go to the InsideNPS home page ( HYPERLINK "http://inside.nps.gov/index.cfm?handler=index" http://inside.nps.gov/index.cfm?handler=index). Non-NPS employees can see most of them on the NPS Digest page ( HYPERLINK "http://home.nps.gov/applications/digest/" http://home.nps.gov/applications/digest/):

Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania NMP - Samantha Rae "Sam" Kelly, 17, daughter of Keith Kelly, the park's chief ranger, passed away Sunday, May 6th, as a result of injuries sustained in a motor vehicle accident. Her funeral will be on Friday.

Office of the Comptroller - The Service's FBMS project management team is currently conducting a series of regional and WASO FBMS deployment preparation workshops. Workshops have so far been completed in four regions and the Washington area.

Office of Human Resources - The human resources community held a workshop in mid-March to resolve issues affecting customer services and employee efficiency and to learn how to use several new HR tools.

Law Enforcement, Security and Emergency Services - As previously reported, DOI bestowed victim service awards on a number of people during National Crime Victims' Rights Week. Several paragraphs were inadvertently admitted from the original article; they are restored to this updated version.

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The Morning Report is a publication of the Division of Law Enforcement, Security and Emergency Services, Washington Office, produced with the support of the Office of the Assistant Director for Information Resources and the Office of the Chief Information Officer. Edited by Bill Halainen ( HYPERLINK "mailto:Bill_Halainen@nps.gov" Bill_Halainen@nps.gov).

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