NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
                           MORNING REPORT

To:        All National Park Service Areas and Offices

From:      Division of Ranger Activities, Washington Office

Day/Date: Tuesday, February 6, 1996 

Broadcast: By 1000 ET (Delayed today due to technical problems)

INCIDENTS

96-40 - Southern Areas - Follow-up on Storm Impacts

Two more reports have been received pertaining to damage incurred during the
severe winter storm which struck several Southern states on Thursday, February
1st:

* Vicksburg - The park was closed on Thursday afternoon due to freezing
rain and near record low temperatures.  Schools, businesses and highways
throughout Mississippi remained closed on Friday due to hazardous icing
conditions.  A half to two inches of ice accumulated on park roads,
bridges and vegetation.  At least 27 trees fell on the tour road, with
numerous branches bending to or near ground level.  Although significant
tree damage occurred, park buildings and facilities were not damaged. 
The park was one of the few Vicksburg locations that did not lose utility
service.  Most employees, however, were without electricity, water and/or
telephone at their homes for a day or more.  Park crews are currently
clearing downed trees and vegetation.  The tour road will remain closed
until they have been removed and the remaining patches of ice disappear. 
The visitor center has reopened, but entrance fees are being waived.
 
* Carl Sandburg Home - The storm caused severe damage to park trees, large
numbers of which fell throughout the core historic district.  The park
residence and the preservation center sustained minor structural damage. 
Other buildings fared well.  Phones were still out of order yesterday. 
The park will not reopen for another three to five days.

[Greg Zeman, Chief of Operations, VICK; Connie Backlund, Superintendent, CARL]

96-41 - Rocky Mountain (Colorado) - Follow-up on Search for Downed Aircraft

The aerial search for the private plane that apparently went down somewhere
over the Mummy Range continues.  The pilot has been identified as P.S.,
45, a well-known attorney from Denver who was on a business trip to Boise and
the Pacific Northwest.  Three Civilian Air Patrol aircraft were committed to
the search on Monday, but were hindered by low ceilings and very high winds.  A
ground search has accordingly been initiated.  A four-person team comprised of
rangers Jim Detterline, Karl Pearson, Scot Bowen and maintenance employee Bill
Brown cross-country skied to the Lawn Lake patrol cabin yesterday, placing
themselves a half-day's distance from the Fay Lakes area east of Ypsilon
Mountain - the possible location of the downed aircraft.  The team will
traverse a high ridge leading towards Fairchild Mountain today, then descend
into the Fay Lakes drainage.  They are carrying an ELT finder in the hope that
P.S. was able to activate the plane's emergency location transmitter. 
Investigators have determined, however, that P.S. was flying a borrowed plane,
and that he left his winter survival gear in his own aircraft, which was in the
shop for repairs.  [Doug Caldwell, ROMO]

96-44 - Grand Canyon (Arizona) - Closure Violation

During the most recent shutdown, all backcountry areas were closed by order of
the superintendent and with the agreement of the state of Arizona, which
provided some funding for continued operations in primary visitor areas. 
Despite the closure, members of a Trek America tour group went around trail
blockades, signs and staffed trail blocks in order to hike backcountry trails. 
When contacted by rangers, they said that their tour leader had encouraged them
to do so.  The information was provided to concession management.  On January
26th, the superintendent suspended Trek America's permit for the Grand Canyon
for the three month period from February 1st to May 1st.  [Charlie Peterson,
DR, GRCA]

RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

Theodore Roosevelt (North Dakota) - Bighorn Sheep Translocation

On January 22nd, personnel from British Columbia Wildlife, the North Dakota
Game and Fish Department, and the park captured 21 California bighorn sheep
along the Fraser River near Clinton, B.C., for translocation to the park's
North Unit.  This subspecies is a close relative to the extinct Audubon bighorn
sheep which was native to the North Dakota badlands.  Capture crews were
subjected to extreme winter conditions and temperatures as low as 15 degrees
below zero.  They caught 16 ewes and five rams with netguns shot from two
helicopters.  The sheep were brought to a central processing site for
examination, medication, ear tags and radio collars.  Serological testing
followed USDA/APHIS and North Dakota state requirements.  Biological samples
were taken for elective health research studies.  The sheep were then
transported 1,250 miles and released on the park on January 26th.  An injured
ewe was left in B.C. and a second died within an hour of arriving in the park. 
The transplant, which was otherwise successful, resulted from a five-year-long
international effort which involved 11 state, federal and provincial agencies
in the United States and Canada.  An ecological study will be conducted over
the next three years.  [Roger Andrascik, RMS, THRO]

OPERATIONAL NOTES

No notes.

MEMORANDA

No memoranda.

OBSERVATIONS

Today's rather lengthy quotation comes from a speech Secretary Babbitt gave
regarding the Endangered Species Act this past November.  The full text has
been circulating within the Department, and many people have asked about it. 
Here is a portion of that speech.  Readers interested in the full text can
receive a copy by sending a note to this address:

"Recently I read an account of a Los Angeles 'Eco-Expo' last April, where
children were invited to write down their answers to the basic question: 'Why
save endangered species?'  One child, Gabriel, answered, 'Because God gave us
the animals.'  Travis and Gina wrote, 'Because we love them.'  A third
answered, 'Because we'll be lonely without them.'  Still another wrote,
'Because they're a part of our life. If we didn't have them, it would not be a
complete world. The Lord put them on earth to be enjoyed, not destroyed.'

"Now, in my lifetime I have heard many, many political, agricultural,
scientific, medical and ecological reasons for saving endangered species. I
have in fact hired biologists and ecologists for just that purpose.  All their
reasons have to do with providing humans with potential cures for disease, or
yielding humans new strains of drought-resistant crops, or offering humans
bioremediation of oil spills, or thousands of other justifications of why
species are useful to humans.  But none of their reasons moved me like the
children's....

"Whenever I confront some of [the] bills that systematically eviscerate the
Endangered Species Act, I take refuge and inspiration from the simple written
answers of those children at the Los Angeles expo.  But I sometimes wonder if
children are the only ones who express religious values when talking about
endangered species.  I wonder if anyone else in America is trying to restore an
ounce of humility to mankind, reminding our political leaders that the earth is
a sacred precinct, designed by and for the purposes of the creator.

"I got my answer last month.  I read letter after letter from five different
religious orders, representing tens of millions of churchgoers, all opposing a
House bill to weaken the Endangered Species Act. They opposed it not for
technical or scientific or agricultural or medicinal reasons, but for spiritual
reasons.  And I was moved not only by how such diverse faiths could reach so
pure an agreement against this bill, but by the common language and terms with
which they opposed it, language that echoed the voices of the children...

"I conclude here tonight by affirming that those religious values remain at the
heart of the Endangered Species Act, that they make themselves manifest through
the green eyes of the grey wolf, through the call of the whooping crane,
through the splash of the Pacific salmon, through the voices of America's
children.  We are living between the flood and the rainbow: between the threats
to creation on the one side and God's covenant to protect life on the other."

"Why should we save endangered species? Let us answer this question with one
voice, the voice of the child at that expo, who scrawled her answer at the very
bottom of the sheet: 'Because we can.'"

                                     Secretary of Interior Bruce Babbitt,
                                     speech to National Religious
                                     Partnership for the Environment,
                                     November 11, 1995

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Prepared by the Division of Ranger Activities, WASO, with the cooperation and
support of Delaware Water Gap NRA.

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