Bandelier Administrative History

During the 1970s, the Park Service broadened its view of its responsibilities at Bandelier. As a result of a number of factors, including changing attitudes within the agency, the establishment of the Bandelier wilderness on October 20, 1976, the burro issue, and the La Mesa fire, the management of natural resources took on new significance. After years of adhering strictly to the mandate in the organic legislation that established Bandelier, the Park Service developed an integrated program of resource management at the monument. In 1980, cultural and natural resource management were merged into one division headed by a natural resource manager.

Although an innovative concept, the idea of integrated management raised problems. Cultural resource managers often felt that budgetary allocations did not reflect their concerns. Many in the park and the regional office questioned the efficacy of a program that centered on anything but the archeological ruins that the monument was established to protect. Natural resource managers presented a different picture. In the words of Regional Scientist Dr. Milford R. Fletcher, the two entities were "different ends of the same piece of string," and an integrated program of management was the only way to preserve the integrity of the entire monument. [1]

Much of the tension over resource management at Bandelier resulted from the changing cultural climate in the U.S. After the passage of the Wilderness Act in 1964, the public and its legislators articulated strong concerns about the state of the American physical environment. Throughout the 1960s, burgeoning national awareness of the concept of ecology brought parks to the attention of a powerful grass roots movement. Expanding environmental groups like the Sierra Club, the Wilderness Society and many others began to promote an environmental agenda. After a decade in which use of the park system overwhelmed preservation of its resources, the Park Service began a dramatic shift in the opposite direction.

The environmental movement was part and parcel of a heightened sensitivity to preserving the natural beauty of the U.S. The "Keep America Beautiful" campaign that Lady Bird Johnson initiated during her husband's presidency became the basis of a groundswell in that late 1960s and early 1970s. "Back-to-nature" movements flourished, the Federal Government proclaimed "Earth Day" in 1970, and the concept of preservation took on social significance previously paralleled only during the Progressive Era. Americans cared about their land, and the Park Service was one beneficiary. Droves of enthusiastic young preservationists sought to enter the agency. Ironically, while many of these people valued the natural attributes of the system, the tone of the era dictated the protection of nature from the depredations of humanity. Visitor use of the park system played a small and unimportant role in this concept of preservation. [2]

Directors Stephen T. Mather and Horace Albright had initially promoted the park system because of its scenic beauty. During the 1920s and 1930s, use of the parks was their goal, but they promoted the parks to a public that lacked the opportunity and affluence of later generations. Only after World War II could millions of Americans visit the park system. When their impact overwhelmed the system, the NPS responded with capital development programs like Mission 66. By the 1970s, the increases in visitation made management of natural resources like cultural resources, imperative. If the natural resources of the park system were to survive, they required close attention.

Increasing sophistication in the sciences also prompted new directions in natural resource management. For many years, natural resource management and protection had been synonymous. Resource managers simply preserved; they suppressed fires, protected flora and fauna from damage, and arrested poachers. But as the concept of the dynamics of ecological communities gained credence, scientists began to view the natural world from a different perspective. Sophisticated techniques offered a way to move into new realms of management. During the 1960s and 1970s, the genetic diversity of the planet became an important cultural issue, and the scientific public and the environmental community came to regard the park system as the best collection of natural diversity. New ideas of this nature hastened the implementation of up-to-the-minute scientific programs.

This led to a broadening of the range of responsibilities for resource managers within the agency. In the early 1970s, Chief Scientist Roland Wauer of the Southwestern Region implemented a program to assess the natural attributes of cultural areas. Armed with the latest scientific knowledge and technique, natural resource managers began to look at archeological and historical parks. [3]

Beginning in the early 1970s, this translated into more prominent interest in the natural resources of Bandelier. Rather than simply focusing on the cultural resources of the monument, the Park Service began looking at the natural resources of the undeveloped backcountry. Increasingly attuned to preservation responsibilities and spurred by the interest in the designated wilderness area, in 1973-74 the Park Service began designing a comprehensive resource management plan for Bandelier.

The new plan represented a departure from previous practices at the monument. Until the 1970s, concern for natural resources played a secondary role in the management of the park. The Park Service regarded Bandelier primarily as an archeological area. The proclamation establishing the monument did not refer to its natural attributes, Frank Pinkley paid little attention to the backcountry, and the postwar influx of visitors precluded attention to other issues. Despite the fact that the CCC workers cut trails and did some maintenance, there was little evidence of a coherent plan of natural resource management.

Prior to the 1970s, the Park Service simply reacted to most natural resource questions. When a problem occurred, the staff at the monument dealt with it as best they could. During the 1930s, webworms threatened the trees in Frijoles Canyon, and the custodian developed an eradication program. When small fires broke out, staff members rushed to put them out. A major windstorm damaged trees in 1952, and the agency responded by clearing out the downed timber. Despite frequent inspections, such isolated incidents comprised the extent of natural area management at Bandelier. Archeology and the needs of visitors simply superseded the management of the Bandelier backcountry. [4]

The feral burros that inhabited the backcountry offered the issue on which the need for natural resource management at the monument focused. The presence of the burros preceded NPS administration at Bandelier, but the first Park Service wildlife inspection in 1934 did not mention them. In 1940, however, NPS biologist W. B. McDougall saw approximately twenty during his visit. He recommended that the burros be eliminated, and later that year the regional office approved the first burro control plan for the Bandelier Monument. Slowly, the plan became practice. In September, 1946, rangers shot fifty-two burros, halving the population at the monument. In October and November, 1946, twelve more were destroyed, and burro eradication became policy at Bandelier.

Feral burros became a perennial issue at the monument. After a long period in which other issues diminished the importance of the burros, a "Long Range Wildlife and Range Management Plan," prepared in 1964, initiated new action. The plan recommended that rangers use high-powered rifles to eliminate burros in the higher elevations of the monument. The program also suggested trapping burros at watering holes throughout the backcountry.

In the fall of 1964, the Park Service hired the Los Alamos County Sheriff's Mounted Patrol to hunt burros at the monument. Despite confident predictions, they caught few animals. The rough terrain of the Bandelier backcountry thwarted the mounted hunters. Trapping agile burros in open canyons and mesas while on horseback was not an easy task.

With a mandate to eliminate exotic animals from park areas, agency personnel continued to try to get rid of the burros at Bandelier. In December 1966, rangers observed fifty-eight burros, and visitors reported twenty more. At about the same time, backcountry inspections reported damage to above-ground ruins and increased soil erosion. After viewing the evidence, the staff at the monument decided that there was a correlation between burro grazing and increased soil erosion, particularly in the vast area southwest of Alamo Canyon. The burros ceased to be merely unattractive residents of the backcountry. They became a menace to its ecological and archeological values.

In 1969, Superintendent Stanley T. Albright drew plans to combat the increasing numbers of burros. The plan reported that one hundred burros ranged over three-fourths of the 23,000-acre backcountry, and Albright advocated burro elimination by any available means. Despite his proposal and general acceptance of the idea that the burros had to be removed from the backcountry, there were no burro eliminations between 1969 and 1972. Additional sightings were reported, however, in 1970 and 1971, and the staff estimated the monument population at between fifty and two hundred animals.

The passage of the Wild Horse and Burro Act of 1971 complicated the management of burros within the national park system. The law protected wild horses and burros on BLM and Department of Agriculture (U.S. Forest Service) land. Soon the number of burros on the national forest land adjacent to Bandelier increased, and some crossed the boundary into the monument. The Park Service had to contend with a growing herd of burros in the Bandelier backcountry.

The burros posed a problem for the agency. Although NPS lands were exempt from the jurisdiction of the Wild Horse and Burro Act, the Park Service policy of removing exotic animals that altered ecosystems from park areas offended animal advocacy groups. [5] The agency needed to devise a strategy that removed the burros and did not hurt its public image. For regional office and park staff, the burro issue became a no-win situation. No matter what stance the agency took, portions of its constituency were sure to resent its actions.

At Bandelier, the Park Service found itself "working on a natural problem," Fletcher remarked, "to protect a cultural resource." Many park employees suspected that the burros were responsible for much of the damage to archeological sites in the backcountry. Erosion in the backcountry had increased to an estimated thirty-six tons of soil per acre per year, an astonishingly high rate that threatened unexcavated archeological sites.

The Park Service started "from the beginning" in its efforts to assess the affect of the burros on the monument. The agency hired professional researchers, including John R. Morgart of Arizona State University, to determine the extent of the damage caused by the animals. Morgart's study offered a catalogue of the sins of the burro. A non-native species, burros had a profound impact on the ecosystems of the backcountry. Burros and deer competed for the same food during winter months, and the burros were so successful that USFS Supervisor John Hall complained to NPS Regional Director Frank Kowski that the they were destroying deer habitat throughout the region. The evidence piled up against the burros. With a mandate to preserve the resources of the monument, there was little choice. The animals had to go. [6]

Between 1974 and 1977, the Natural Resources Division of the Southwest Region spent $130,000 on burro research and removal at Bandelier. In the process, the Park Service removed 130 burros, but its research showed that the agency barely held its own. The proximity of the protected burro herds on Forest Service and BLM land and the imperfect fencing on the western and southern boundaries of the monument allowed a constant ingress of burros. The animals also proved to have an astonishing rate of reproduction—29 percent. A rate of 25 percent meant that burro population doubled every fourth year. The Park Service seemed unable to win the battle, and what had been an issue became a crisis. [7]

During the summer of 1977, the La Mesa fire provided an opportunity to reduce the burro population at Bandelier substantially. During the third day of the week-long fire, Fletcher explained to Regional Director John Cook that the fire offered an "excellent opportunity to remove burros." Fletcher indicated that by destroying seventy-five to one hundred animals, the Park Service could nearly eliminate burros from the monument. After the fire, park staff members saw that the fire had driven deer out of their summer range, and deer and burros competed for the same forage. From the perspective of the Park Service, there was little doubt which animal was more desirable. Cook approved Fletcher's suggestion. Fletcher brought in a crew of "steady men," many of whom previously had worked at Bandelier and knew its canyons and mesas. He did not have to worry about them getting lost in mesa and cañon country. During the week that followed the fire, they shot sixty-six burros. [8]

But an intemperate remark cost the Park Service some public support. During the fire, a reporter spoke with Roland Wauer about the burro eradication program. During the conversation, the reporter wondered if shooting the animals bothered park rangers who primarily sought to preserve resources. Wauer responded by acknowledging the difficulty of the job, but also asserted that Park Service people were professionals who understand that unpleasant tasks were part of their obligation. Besides, he remarked casually, "our people don't suffer from the Bambi complex." The press seized on the remark, and it made headlines in a number of western newspapers. The public image of the Park Service suffered. [9]

After the fire, burro eradication efforts continued. In 1979, the Park Service reviewed its original alternatives from 1976 in an Environmental Assessment of the burro issue and found that it had no other options. The agency started a public review period that ended on March 7, 1980. The eradication program resumed, and on March 12-13, thirty-seven burros were shot.

The eradication program bothered animal advocacy groups such as the Fund for Animals, Inc. (FFA). An association devoted to protecting wild and domestic animals, the Fund for Animals believed that there was a better way to solve the problem. Nor were its members strangers to the burro issue. When burros posed a problem at the Grand Canyon National Park, the organization proposed a solution that led to the successful removal of many of the burros there. After the animals were captured, they were put up for private adoption. The project solved the burro problem at the Grand Canyon and attracted favorable media attention.

Flushed with success, the Fund for Animals wanted the opportunity to try similar tactics at Bandelier. They and two other animal advocacy groups, the American Horse Protection Association and a small group from Tucson, the Animal Defense Council, filed a suit against the Park Service. On March 13, the Albuquerque District Court enjoined the Park Service from continuing the eradication program. The three-day reduction program, however, had already ended before the restraining order was served on Superintendent John D. Hunter.

During the 1970s, feral burros became a major environmental problem at Bandelier. Roaming the backcountry, they damaged both the cultural and natural resources of the monument. The Park Service spent large sums on studies, control, capture, and eradication of the burros. This photograph suggests the elusive quality of the animals.

Park Service strategists had to grapple with the lawsuit before the burro reduction could continue. The Fund for Animals, their allies, and the Park Service reached an agreement that allowed the FFA an opportunity to implement a live-capture program at the monument. The Fund for Animals subsequently withdrew from the suit, and after representatives of the Animal Defense Council failed to appear in court, the American Horse Protective Association became the sole plaintiff. The defections weakened the suit considerably. On August 18, 1980, the Federal district court in Albuquerque overturned the restraining order, and in December 1982, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver dismissed the suit. In early 1983, the Park Service made plans to proceed with its program.

Under the terms of the agreement with the Fund for Animals, FFA began its efforts to remove the burros from the monument. In May 1983, two cowboys from Bishop, California, arrived at the monument. In the company of a backcountry ranger, they tried to rope burros, and caught one. They followed with attempts to catch the burros in a foot snare, a snare hidden in small hole into which they hoped the burros would walk. They caught only two or three more. After two weeks, the two cowboys withdrew.

The Fund for Animals then brought in Dave Erickson, an Arizona cowboy who had been responsible for their success at Grand Canyon. He used dogs to hold the burros at bay while his crew roped the animals. This novel approach netted more burros than previous efforts, but even with increased success, the removal of burros from Bandelier looked to be an arduous process. The closed box canyons within Grand Canyon National Park made catching burros a relatively easy task. Pilots chased the animals up the canyon until the burros ran out of room. Trapped against a three-sided canyon, the animals were easy to capture. But as the members of the Los Alamos County Sheriff's Mounted Patrol discovered in their effort to trap burros in 1964, the canyons in Bandelier National Monument were open- ended. In the canyons, the agile animals escaped their captors regularly.

Many in the Park Service believed that Erickson imported burros to fulfill his contract. As the height of tourist season approached, park rangers could not stay with Erickson as closely as they had with the earlier cowboys. Soon the burro corral on Frijoles Mesa began to fill. But there was one problem: most of the animals in the corral were tan with a dark cross running down their spine and across their shoulders. They were unlike any burros ever found in Bandelier, not at all similar to the larger black animals previously seen at Bandelier. "If those weren't Arizona burros, mister," Dr. Milford R. Fletcher later exclaimed, "then I've never seen one!"

Others in the Park Service called the burros "ringers," and they had plenty of circumstantial evidence to support their feelings. One park staff member arose at 2 AM and waited all night on Highway 4 in hope of catching a truckload of burros on their way to the corral on Frijoles Mesa. Seasonal Ranger Kevin Rodgers observed an Erickson horse trailer coming to the park late one evening, but did not realize its significance until too late. He also spoke with Erickson by telephone in his motel room around 11:00 PM the evening before the burros appeared in the corral. Since the animals appeared by 5:00 AM, so Erickson supposedly caught between fifteen and eighteen burros in unfamiliar country, along miles of backcountry trails, in less than six hours. No one succeeded in proving that Erickson did anything improper, but the circumstantial evidence was overwhelming.

Nevertheless, the origin of the burros was not an issue for the Park Service. The transaction between FFA and its contractor did not involve the agency. "The Fund for Animals made the deal," Fletcher pointed out nearly a decade later, "the Park Service was just letting them do it." Shortly afterward, Fund for Animals officials asserted that the twenty-nine burros they had captured, included at least sixteen whose status was termed "controversial," were the last in the monument. Claiming its work completed, the Fund for Animals left Bandelier, giving tacit approval to further agency programs to reduce the burro population in the monument. [10] The Park Service continued its eradication policy, shooting an additional twenty-two burros. The park also received money to rehabilitate its fences along the western boundary of monument, adjacent to the protected burro range on national forest land. By the end of 1983, there were few left within the monument.

The La Mesa fire of 1977 provided another watershed in natural resource management at Bandelier. No one understood the historic role of natural fire in the region. Every eight to twelve years, natural fires would clear different areas on the plateau. Over time, this pattern created a mosaic of burned areas, leading to collections of trees of different age classes. Among mixed conifer environments like that of the Pajarito Plateau, this kind of burning led to a healthy ecosystem, but for the previous one hundred years, fire suppression remained the dominant mode of fire management for individuals and Federal agencies.

The Mesa fire in 1977 also inspired innovations in resource management. Fire-fighting oeprations threatened archeological resources in the burn area. Archeologists and fire-fighters worked in concert to fight the fire without damaging subsurface remains.

By the 1970s, a process of changing attitudes towards fire within the Park Service had begun. Scientists understood that the accumulated fuel loads of a long period of suppression presented a real danger to the resources of park areas. "With fire," Dr. Milford R. Fletcher asserted, "you can pay me now or you can pay me later." The idea of a controlled, human-induced fire to clear out areas of high fuel load gained credence. By 1977, some natural parks such as Yellowstone and Sequoia had controlled fire programs in place. These programs generally allowed natural fires to burn within boundaries that fire specialists predetermined. If the fires exceeded certain prescribed conditions, then the Park Service would respond. Otherwise, the fire simply burned on with careful monitoring.

Despite a growing body of scientific evidence, people who had fought fires all their lives still resisted the idea. Fire had always been anathema—particularly to people in the arid Southwest—and a program that allowed fires to burn unchecked violated every principle they knew. Yet the scientists had considerable influence. In the spring of 1977, Regional Director John Cook approved a controlled burn program for the La Mesa area. Ironically, the fire started the month before the program was scheduled to begin.

The La Mesa fire occurred during June of 1977. Large portions of the Upper Canyon and Frijoles Mesa area were destroyed by the fire, as were extensive areas beyond the boundaries of the monument. Because of the large number of archaeological sites within the area of the fire, archaeologists from the Park Service Regional Office in Santa Fe and the School of American Research joined fire-fighters in front of the bulldozers on the fire lines. This extraordinary effort resulted in the protection of numerous cultural resources that might otherwise have been damaged or destroyed.

The La Mesa fire provided the Park Service with vast quantities of new information about fire. Terralene Foxx, a contract researcher, had set up vegetative plots to document the differences between areas that had been burned with some degree of frequency and those that had not. The fire burned all of her plots, but Foxx was able to use the plots to see how the fire affected areas with different levels of fuel loading. What she found was that areas that had recently burned were not affected as severely as those with higher accumulations of fuel. Her work fit with the growing body of fire research and helped convince many in the Park Service and in northern New Mexico of the value of programs of controlled fire. [11]

The establishment of the Bandelier wilderness in 1976 also forced the reassessment of management policies. In the aftermath of the environmental decade, wilderness experiences became an important part of growing up for many Americans, and enthusiastic backpackers flocked to designated wilderness areas. The number of backcountry users at Bandelier jumped dramatically as soon as it became a designated wilderness. Visitation increased ten-fold the first year, and it added new responsibilities to the burden of the staff. [12] Not only did they have to protect Frijoles Canyon, they also had to maintain the pristine nature of the backcountry in the face of human encroachment. At the same time, they had to make sure that visitors were satisfied with their experience. In essence, the agency had to protect the wilderness area and its visitors from each other. The need for more sophisticated management became increasingly apparent.

The combination of the new resource management plan, which included provisions for the management of natural and cultural resources, the establishment of the wilderness area, the burro question, and the La Mesa fire pointed to the need for a resource management entity at the monument. Careful planning and management of the backcountry could ensure its survival and prevent situations that aroused public opposition against Park Service policies. Superintendent John Hunter and his staff planned a management unit that would included cultural and natural resource management responsibilities.

Under the leadership of John Lissoway, the first person that the Southwest Regional Office specifically trained in natural resource management, the resource management unit debuted in 1980. Its responsibilities included cultural and natural resource management as well as the wilderness area, and the park archeologist position also became part of resources management. This was an unusual practice. In most parks, wilderness responsibilities fell to the enforcement division, but as a result of the many research programs mandated for the wilderness, administration by resource managers seemed desirable. [13]

During the 1980s, the resource management unit grew in significance. It became equal in function to other divisions like protection and administration. But funding at the regional level for natural and cultural resources came from different and not interchangeable "pots" of money. Natural resources at the park received money from the regional natural resources funds while cultural resource money came from its counterpart in the region. During the early 1980s, Bandelier was a focus of natural resource activity and funding, while cultural resources had little to offer Bandelier. This contributed to a changing perception of the significance of the monument.

Funding at the regional level led to the perception of a lack of balance at the park. Because of the trend toward natural preservation in the agency, the increased sophistication of earth sciences, and the great need for management of natural resources at Bandelier, the disparity created tension. Lissoway went to "the well with the most water," natural resource and fire management funding. Cultural Resources at the regional level did not have the funding to match the expenditures on natural resources, and cultural resources managers in the Regional Office and at the park expressed concern that the bulk of spending at an archeological park went for programs directed at the natural resources of the monument. Without clearly understanding NPS allocation procedures, some park observers expressed frustration, wondering how the park could spend such a large portion of its budget on an area used by such a small percentage of its visitors.

The management of the backcountry also involved a sizable cultural resource component. Thousands of unexcavated archeological sites dotted the area, and these areas were better protected as a result of the burro reduction program, the new fire management policies, and other natural resource innovations. They did not help the park address the overcrowding of Frijoles Canyon, but they did further long-term goals of preservation.

The natural-cultural resource dichotomy closely mirrored the long-standing preservation vs. use issue within the agency. Visitation remained a major force at the monument, and this characteristic dichotomy again appeared, unfortunately in the guise of natural resource versus cultural resource management. When some suggested that the backcountry received too great a percentage of funding, they intimated that the process left the main attraction, Frijoles Canyon, without the resources necessary to protect and explain it. From that point of view, larger expenditures on natural resources favored preservation over use No one suggested that the backcountry programs were inappropriate; instead in an era of decreasing funding and limited options, greater attention for the features that bore the brunt of the effects of visitation seemed appropriate. But again, cultural resources at the regional level lacked the ability to provide the funding that its counterparts in natural resources could.

During the mid-1980s, there were signs of a returning balance in funding between the two arms of resource management. Cultural Resources at the regional level began to receive a larger portion of the monetary pie, which translated into more funding for cultural resources at the park. The initiation of an archeological survey at the monument meant a broader approach to cultural resource management and possibly a wealth of new interpretive information. As the head of the Resource Management Division, John Lissoway took steps to ensure a "holistic framework" in cultural and natural resource management policy. Regional natural resource managers also expressed willingness to accommodate cultural resources. "Put a cultural resources person in Lissoway's job [as the head of the Resources Management Division]," Milford Fletcher contended, "and we'll work just as closely with them." [14] By 1987, cultural resources had more money for its programs, and an equitable situation existed. Between the arrival of the Park Service at Bandelier in 1932 and the middle of the 1980s, resource management at the monument became an increasingly professional discipline. From its initial focus upon the ruins in Frijoles Canyon, it came to include both a larger area and scope. The backcountry and its resources, archeological and natural, became more important, and the philosophy of management at the park reflected the new priorities. Resource management became a function of specialists, who were assisted by contract researchers and an all-encompassing form of resource management was the result. By the late 1980s, balancing the different values of the monument offered the greatest internal challenge for park managers, while the world that surrounded the monument offered the greatest challenge to its future.