NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
                           MORNING REPORT

To:        All National Park Service Areas and Offices

From:      Division of Ranger Activities, Washington Office

Day/Date:  Monday, December 16, 1996

Broadcast: By 1000 ET

INCIDENTS

96-690 - Gateway NRA (New York) - Double Homicide and Suicide

Park Police officers were notified on the morning of December 5th that
A.H., suspected of the murder of his wife and mother-in-law at his
house a few miles from Great Kills Park, was being sought by city police
officers and might be within the park.  An intensive search for A.H. was
conducted by officers from both agencies.  A.H. managed to elude the
officers, drove into the park, and parked at the fisherman's parking lot at
Crookes Point.  He then walked to the beach and shot himself once in the
chest with a .22 caliber rifle.  The circumstances leading to the murders and
subsequent suicide are under joint investigation.  [Dave Buckley, USPP, GATE]

96-691 - Grand Canyon NP (Arizona) - Assist; Shooting of Officer

At 3 p.m. on December 15th, park dispatch received a report that corporal Jim
Coffey, a Coconino County sheriff's officer, had been shot in the arm in the
community of Tusayan just south of the park.  Coffey had returned fire and
wounded his assailant, who had then fled by vehicle with a female companion
into the nearby Kaibab National Forest.  Two Grand Canyon rangers worked
directly with the sheriff's office in the search operation.  Roadblocks were
established at all South Rim entrance points, and an in-park incident command
operation was established to support the sheriff's office and to maintain a
perimeter along the park's boundary.  Coffey's assailant contacted several
different people cutting Christmas trees within the forest, stealing one
vehicle, then another.  He was eventually located by helicopter and
surrendered to officers at 5:30 p.m.  The woman traveling with him was taken
into custody; at the time of the report, it had not yet been determined
whether she was an accomplice or a victim.  Coffey was flown to a hospital in
Flagstaff, where he underwent surgery.  [Mallory Smith, GRCA]

RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

No submissions.

OPERATIONAL NOTES

Wilderness Management Update - There have been several developments recently
regarding wilderness management:

  o The national wilderness steering committee will meet in Death Valley in
    February.  The principal focus of the meeting will to be to review
    wilderness management policies for adequacy and to develop draft
    director's orders applying to wilderness.  If you have any wilderness
    policy and/or guidance issues you think should be surfaced, let any
    committee member know or send a note to Wes Henry, the wilderness
    coordinator in WASO Ranger Activities, or Jim Walters, wilderness
    coordinator for the Intermountain Field Area.  

  o Wes Henry is the new chair of the interagency steering committee that
    oversees the Arthur Carhart National Wilderness Training Center and the
    Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute.  

  o The "Parks as Classrooms" initiative will again be supporting the
    "Leave No Trace" program with a grant to support training.  An
    important part of this year's efforts will concern working with Boy
    Scouts of America.  Contact Roger Semler, wilderness manager, Glacier
    NP, for further information on this program.  

[Wes Henry, RAD/WASO]

MEMORANDA

No submissions.

EXCHANGE

No submissions.

MEETINGS, CONFERENCES AND EVENTS CALENDAR

Two calendars alternate in the Morning Report on Mondays - this one, which
contains meetings, conferences and events, and a second, which contains
workshops and training courses.  If you know of a conference, meeting,
workshop or training session with Servicewide interest and implications,
please send the information along.  Entries are listed no earlier than FOUR
months before the event, EXCEPT in instances in which registration dates
close much earlier.  Asterisks indicate new entries; brackets at end of entry
indicate source of information.  Brevity is appreciated.

1/2* -- Annual Meeting, American Historical Association, New York, NY. 
Contact: 202-544-2422.  [Diane Vogt O'Connor, DCA/WASO]

1/3  -- Papers due for 1997 Rocky Mountain Symposium on Environmental
Issues in Oil and Gas Operations, to be held July 14-17 at the
Colorado School of Mines.  The Geological Resources Division will
again co-sponsor this conference, now in its fourth year. 
Session topics will include pollution prevention, ecosystem
management, air and water quality, visual impacts and pad siting
and reclamation.  Contact: Bruce Heise at NP-WASO-GRD (cc:Mail)
or 303-969-2017 (phone).  [Bruce Heise, GRD/WASO]

1/8-12 -- "Seaports, Ships, and Central Places," 30th Annual Conference on
Historical and Underwater Archeology, Omni Bayfront Hotel, Corpus
Christi, TX.  Pre-conference heritage resource management
training seminars will also be offered.  Contact: Dr. David L.
Carlson, Texas A&M, 409-847-9248 (phone) or dcarlson@tamu.edu
(Internet).  [Vergil E. Noble, MWAC]

1/15* -- Papers due for fourth biennial scientific conference on the
Greater Yellowstone ecosystem, to be held September 28-30. 
Contact: Joy Perius, 307-344-2209.  [Diane Vogt O'Connor,
DCA/WASO]

1/28-31 -- Seventh International Zebra Mussel and Aquatic Nuisance Species
Conference, New Orleans.  Contact: Elizabeth Muckle-Jeffs,
Conference Administrator, 1-800-868-8776.  [Sue Jennings, SACN]

1/29* -- "New Visions" Seminar, American Association of Museums,
Cincinnati, OH.  Contact: 202-289-1818 (phone); 202-289-6578
(fax).  [Diane Vogt O'Connor, DCA/WASO]

2/5-8 -- "Monitoring Our Wildlife Heritage: What Do We Have, How Do We
Know?", Annual Meeting, Western Section, Wildlife Society, San
Diego, CA.  Contact: Dr. Reginald Barrett, 145 Mulford Hall,
Berkeley, CA 94720-3114; 510-642-7261 (phone); rbarrett@
nature.berkeley.edu (Internet).  [Kathy Jope, CCSSO]

2/16-21* -- 50th Anniversary National Meeting, Society for Range Management,
Rapid City, SD.  Topics include disturbed area reclamation,
rangeland assessment, inventory and monitoring, rangeland
wildlife, rangeland watersheds, coordinated resource management,
simulation modeling of rangeland ecosystems, livestock and
wildlife management issues, grazing management and livestock
production, rangeland ecology, and the history of range
management.  Cost: $165 for non-members before January 12th, $110
for members; costs after the 12th are $215 and $160,
respectively.  The two day rate is $30.  Contact: 1997 SRM Annual
Meeting, PO Box 575, Huron, SC 57350-2475; 605-352-1270 (fax). 
[Bruce Bessken, BADL]

2/17-20 -- "Integrating Spatial Information Technologies for Tomorrow," GIS
'97 Conference, Vancouver, BC.  Contact: Michael Rauscher, Forest
Service, Bent Creek Experimental Forest, 1577 Brevard Road,
Asheville, NC 28806; 704-667-5261 x 102 (phone); fswa/
s=m.rauscher/ou=s29a@mhs.attmail.com (Internet).  [Kathy Jope,
CCSSO]

3/13-15* -- Second National Women in Historic Preservation Conference, Mesa,
AZ.  The pre-registration deadline is February 176th.  The
conference is made possible in part by special funding from the
Service's cultural resource training initiative and has been
approved as official training for NPS employees.  Contact: Eve
Carr or Claudine Barnes, Arizona State University, Women's
Studies Program, P.O. Box 871801, Tempe, AZ 85287-1801, or via
Internet at either of the following two addresses: ecarr@asu-edu,
cbarnes@asu.edu.  [Vivien Rose, WORI]

3/17-21 -- "Making Protection Work: Parks and Reserves in a Crowded,
Changing World," 9th Conference on Research and Resource
Management in Parks and on Public Lands, Albuquerque Marriott,
Albuquerque, NM.  Sponsored by the George Wright Society. 
Registration fees vary; the return registration form may be found
at the GWS Web site at http://www.portup.com/~gws/ gws97.html. 
Contact: GWS, 906-487-9722.  [George Wright Society]

4/26-30* -- Annual Meeting, American Association of Museums, Atlanta, GA. 
Contact: 202-289-1818 (phone); 202-289-6578 (fax).  [Diane Vogt
O'Connor, DCA/WASO]

                                *  *  *  *  *

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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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