NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
                           MORNING REPORT

To:        All National Park Service Areas and Offices

From:      Division of Ranger Activities, Washington Office

Day/Date:  Thursday, March 7, 1996

Broadcast: By 1000 ET

                            *** NOTICE ***

        There was no Morning Report yesterday, Wednesday, March 6th.

INCIDENTS

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

On March 3rd, a volunteer with Rocky Mountain Rescue discovered the wreckage
of the twin-engine Cessna which went down in the park on January 31st.  Park
employees hiked to the Lawn Lake area the next day in an effort to reach the
site and recover the body of the pilot, P.S., 45, of Littleton,
Colorado, but deteriorating weather conditions forced them to discontinue the
operation.  Attempts will resume when the weather improves.  The crash site
is very close to the coordinates originally provided by air traffic
controllers in Denver.  No wreckage had been found there during previous
searches, and its believed that it appeared because last week's high winds
blew away the snow that was covering it.  The volunteer who reported the
wreckage is the same individual who found the wreckage of another private
plane which crashed in the Indian Peaks wilderness area just outside the
southern boundary of the park about two weeks ago.  [Doug Caldwell, ROMO]

96-90 - Buffalo (Arkansas) - HazMat Spill

A tractor trailer hauling liquified chicken fat rolled over on Highway 21 at
the south end of Boxley Valley historic district on the afternoon of February
26th.  Approximately 3,000 gallons of liquified chicken fat spilled from the
rig along with diesel fuel and antifreeze from the tractor.  Tyson Chicken,
based in northwest Arkansas, is handling the cleanup.  The company, which is
the largest chicken supplier in the country, has averaged three to four such
accidents in the park each year, and negotiations are now underway in an
effort to get them to reroute their trucks away from the park.  [Bob Howard,
LES, BUFF]

96-91 - Coronado (Arizona) - Illegal Aliens Apprehended; Drug Seizures

During the month of February, rangers apprehended 43 undocumented aliens who
had crossed the Mexican border into the park.  The local Border Patrol office
set a new, single-month record of 2,021 apprehensions, almost tripling the
old record of about 750.  An interagency narcotics interdiction operation in
the park during the month led to the seizure of almost 1,200 pounds of
marijuana in three separate incidents.  [B. Smith, CORO]

96-92 - Death Valley (California) - MVA with Fatality

The park received a report of a single car, rollover accident on Mud Canyon
Road on the evening of March 5th.  B.C., 40, the driver and lone
occupant, was killed in the accident.  B.C. was the son of the park's
campground host, who had just come on duty that day.  Speed is believed to
have been a contributing factor.  [Ed Forner, DEVA]

96-93 - Redwood (California) - Search; Suicide

Rangers patrolling in the Coastal Drive area noticed that a vehicle had been
parked near High Bluffs overlook for several days.  Ranger Curt Vade Bon
Couer investigated; he determined that it was registered to H.H.,
53, of Bayside, California, and that H.H. had been despondent over a
failing marriage.  A long gun case was found in the vehicle.  A hasty search
of the area proved fruitless.  On the morning of March 4th, H.H.'s wife
received a letter from him indicating that he was going to kill himself. 
Searchers subsequently found his body in dense brush on a coastal bluff.  He
had apparently shot himself with a .22 caliber rifle.  [Bob Martin, CR, REDW]

EVENTS

No events reported.

RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

Isle Royale (Michigan) - Wolf-Moose Study

The 38th annual wolf-moose winter study, a joint venture by park staff and
Dr. Rolf Peterson of Michigan Technological University, concluded on February
29th.  The results were dramatic.  Researchers recorded 22 wolves, including
seven surviving pups from three territorial packs, and slightly fewer than
1,200 moose, virtually half of the number counted last year, when the moose
population was at its highest level in six decades.  For the first time since
the mid-1980s, wolf pups were born to and survived in each of the three
packs.  Conditions for the crash of the burgeoning moose population came
together this winter - deep snow (more than three feet on the ground) and
extreme cold, a severe infestation of winter ticks (which causes hair loss),
increased wolf predation, and chronic malnutrition from the declining amount
of browse.  Wolf predation, starvation, and accidents (moose falling off
cliffs looking for browse) accounted for a moose mortality rate nearly double
that of the 1980s and 1990s. It's too early to say with certainty that the
park's wolf population is on its way to "recovery," but a critical test was
passed by one of the packs this year.  The Middle Pack, which has a new,
first-time generation of breeders, produced a "normal" sized litter of four
pups.  As young wolves eventually assume the alpha roles in the other packs,
that indicator of litter size will reveal whether recovery truly has occurred
or will occur.  [Jack Oelfke, RMS, ISRO]

OPERATIONAL NOTES

No notes.

MEMORANDA

No memoranda.

EXCHANGE

o There is a new publication of interest to those involved in wilderness
management.  The "International Journal of Wilderness" is edited by
John Hendee of the University of Idaho's Wilderness Research Center and
sponsored by several agencies, including the NPS, BLM, USFS, and Fish
and Wildlife Service.  They are looking for both subscribers and
contributors.  You can subscribe by writing to the magazine at 2162
Baldwin Road, Ojai, CA 93023.  Subscription costs $30.  [Jon Jarvis,
WRST]

OBSERVATIONS

Today's quote, another in the series of observations pertaining to specific
parks, was sent by Marianne Mills at Badlands:

"The plan is now to build...a drive around [Crater Lake] so that all these
points may be considered in a single day from a carriage.  And a great hotel
is planned!  And a railroad must be made to whisk you through the life and
vigor-giving evergreen forests of Arden.  Well, so be it, if you must so mock
nature and break this hush and silence of a thousand centuries, but I shall
not be here.  Not hotel or house or road of any sort should ever be built
near this Sea of Silence.  All our other parks have been surrendered to
hotels and railroads.  Let us keep this last and best sacred to silence and
nature.  That which is not worth climbing to see is not worth seeing."

                                   "The Seas of Silence," Joaquin
                                   Miller, 1904

Distribution of the Morning Report is through a mailing list managed by park,
office and/or field area cc:Mail hub coordinators.  Please address requests
for the Morning Report to your servicing hub coordinator.

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

                                  --- ### ---