NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
                           MORNING REPORT

To:        All National Park Service Areas and Offices

From:      Division of Ranger Activities, Washington Office

Day/Date:  Wednesday, December 31, 1997

Broadcast: By 1000 ET

1997 IN REVIEW

This is the last edition of the Morning Report for 1997 - a year in which
more incidents were reported than all but one or two other years since the
Morning Report was created a decade ago.  

As always, the Morning Report contained an admixture of pathos, struggle, and
triumph, with just a touch of the offbeat and even comedic to lighten what
can often be a pretty gloomy litany of human frailties.  But it is also
continued to record outstanding and even heroic service by employees of the
National Park Service.  Moreover, it helped all of us keep in touch with each
other and apprised of the work that is being done throughout the system to
protect the parks, their natural and cultural resources, and their visitors. 

A reader in the Southwest nicely summed up the mixed feelings we all bring to
the Morning Report in a recent note to the editor: "It often frightens and
appalls me, but it usually makes me proud and it always keeps me in touch."
  
The following are some highlights from this year's Morning Reports.  The
summaries are by no means all inclusive; no slight is intended by any
oversight.  The incidents selected have been chosen to give a general feel
for the type of year we've had in the NPS.

Reports this year were perhaps most notable for the many incidents stemming
from severe weather.  We began on the first day of the year with the series
of storms that struck California, affecting a number of parks but none worse
than Yosemite, which is still recovering from its impacts; we ended the year
(more or less) with the super typhoon that virtually leveled Guam (with the
highest wind gust ever recorded on earth) and inflicted major damage on War
in the Pacific.  In between, there were serious to severe floods and flash
floods at Theodore Roosevelt, St. Croix, LBJ, Zion, Capitol Reef
(repeatedly), Grand Canyon, and Glen Canyon, the latter two killing a total
of 13 hikers; severe storms that produced lightning strikes at Great Smokies,
Cape Hatteras, Devils Tower, Grand Canyon and Great Sand Dunes which injured
almost two dozen visitors and killed one; major winter storms that hammered
parks in the Dakotas and Texas in January and the Northeast in April; and two
other super typhoons which blew through American Memorial and War in the
Pacific before Paka struck Guam.  No prior year has had such a variety of
intense weather events.

As always, the top single incident category by type was search and rescue. 
The compilation of those incidents alone runs to about 35 pages.  NPS
employees ordinarily demonstrate extraordinary degrees of skill,
perseverance, fortitude and bravery in rescuing visitors, many of whom show a
remarkable lack of common sense in getting themselves into serious
situations.  It is perhaps unfair to single out any of these reports, but
some seem worth mentioning because of the nature of the rescue or because of
the insights they provide on human nature.

There was the visitor to Whiskeytown who had to be rescued twice in a two-
month period after getting lost in the same area of the park.  The two
highly-intoxicated adults and six-year-old boy - all hypothermic - rescued in
January in New River.  The blind and deaf dog recovered from a ledge in Grand
Canyon by rangers who rapelled to the site.  The exhausted and dehydrated
couple rescued in Big Bend after being lost for several days.  The eight-
year-old extracted from a pothole at Arches.  The one-ton Belgian draft horse
retrieved from a 40-foot ravine at Oxon Hill in National Capital East.  The
43 rescues performed by Canyonlands rangers - and the four lives saved -
during the very high flows of the Colorado River through Cataract Gorge in
June.  The three hypothermic cavers who entered Bull Cave illegally and were
rescued by Great Smokies rangers.  The Park Police officer who dove into the
Potomac in the winter to rescue a woman from her car.  The girl extricated
from under a five-ton boulder in Yosemite.  The 19-year-old successfully
tracked and rescued in White Sands after wandering away from an illegal camp. 
The 60 or so people rescued from the water at Glen Canyon after a severe
storm swamped numerous boats.  The rescue of a 6'11", 250-pound hiker at
Sequoia that required a 26-person extrication team.  The family of three
rescued from their vehicle at Denali after attempting to drive a considerable
distance on an unplowed road just after 18 inches of snow had fallen.  The
man rescued by Golden Gate rangers after becoming wedged into a crevice below
the Cliff House.  The rescue of a climber near the summit of Long's Peak in
Rocky Mountain in blizzard conditions.  And the three unequipped teenage
snowboarders retrieved by Crater Lake rescuers after they took a "shortcut"
through the snow to their car.

There were also the almost innumerable perilous rescues of climbers from the
sides of El Capitan and other precipices in Yosemite Valley, from the
mountains of Denali, Grand Teton and Rocky Mountain, and from the ridges and
precipices of Mount Rainier, Devils Tower, Zion, New River, Acadia, Grand
Canyon and a host of other parks.  Although these rescues have come to seem
routine, the employees who perform them consistently display remarkable
levels of courage and ability.  They and their kindred in other parks are
responsible for saving countless lives over the years, and deserve a tip of
the hat from all of us.

Also worthy of similar thanks and acknowledgement are the commissioned
rangers and Park Police officers who provide law enforcement in the parks. 
As in other years, law enforcement incidents of all types were second most
numerous to SARs.  

Rangers, criminal investigators and special agents of the NPS continue to
make notable inroads on violations of the Archeological Resource Protection
Act (ARPA) and the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act
(NAGPRA).  A two-year-long investigation at Channel Islands led to several
arrests for depredations at Chumash sites.  The notorious Earl Shumway was
sentenced to jail for violations on BLM lands and at Canyonlands.  Two men
were arrested at Petersburg - and subsequently convicted - for the excavation
and theft of over 2,000 Civil War artifacts - the single largest Civil War-
related ARPA violation recorded since the law was passed.  And a drug search
at a home near Glen Canyon led to the seizure and repatriation of numerous
items to the Navajo nation.  

Other resource crimes, including poaching, also drew substantial attention. 
Rangers and criminal investigators from Shenandoah and Blue Ridge Parkway
served warrants on four poachers for numerous infractions in January; Channel
Islands made a significant case against marine invertebrate poachers; Ozark
concluded a major case (deemed the most significant of its kind in Missouri's
history) against two men for poaching hundreds of animals throughout the
country, including elk in Yellowstone and bighorn sheep in Glacier; rangers
at Everglades and Biscayne made numerous marine poaching cases; Buffalo and
Cumberland Gap rangers continued their running skirmishes with ginseng
poachers; Delaware Water Gap rangers employed forensics to make several
cases; Grand Teton charged a nearsighted hunter with bagging two moose who he
thought were elks.  

Other natural resource violations this year included the theft of
speleotherms from a cave at Sequoia, the dumping of chlorinated pool water
into Rock Creek in DC, and, perhaps the oddest incident of the year, the
citing of a local resident at Castillo de San Marcos for planting a "magic
tree" in the historic fort's north green for his group to meet around for
meditation, dance and music.  

Drug interdiction - unheard of as a concern in the NPS of our forebears -
continues to be a serious problem and a prime focus of enforcement officers
and rangers.  Among the notable incidents this year were the multiple major
seizures in parks bordering Mexico (Organ Pipe, Coronado, Big Bend, Padre
Island and others) and along the smugglers' water route running through
Biscayne.  Memorable were the operations at Obed, which led to the
destruction of 29,000 marijuana plants, and at Big South Fork, in which 6,000
marijuana plants in 167 plots were found and destroyed; the issuance of 90
warrants for drug-related offenses at Whiskeytown; and the major operation at
New River which resulted in the arrest of 44 people and the "cleanup" of the
town of Hinton. 

Car clouts (the standard NPS euphemism for automobile break-ins) were once
the bane of rangers and Park Police officers everywhere, but notable progress
has been made against these criminals in recent years.  This year,
investigations led to significant arrests and convictions in Glen Canyon,
Yosemite, Blue Ridge, Golden Gate, Chickasaw, Grand Canyon, Yellowstone,
Joshua Tree, Gulf Islands, Indiana Dunes, Great Smokies and Chattahoochee. 
Each arrest led to the clearance of numerous other car clouts, particularly
at Chattahoochee.  Arrests there led to the clearance of 100 car clouts,
between 300 and 400 other auto burglaries, four armed robberies, a major
fencing operation, and credit card fraud of over $1 million.

Park Police officers in particular had to deal with numerous demonstrations,
largely because of their location in Washington and in Golden Gate.  Homeless
advocates staged several demonstrations in the Presidio, and Washington had
its usual array of demonstrations for different causes.  They were handled
professionally and resolved with dispatch.

Homicides also appear with disheartening regularity - but still relatively
infrequently - in our parks.  Rangers and USPP officers successfully brought
to justice murderers and attempted murderers at Hot Springs, Golden Gate,
Lake Mead, Blue Ridge, and Glen Canyon.  Investigations of others are still
underway at another half dozen parks, including Shenandoah, where the
investigation of the murders of Julie Williams and Lollie Winans last year
still continues. 

Some of the other notable enforcement incidents included the arrest of an
armed fugitive at Grand Canyon, the capture of a kidnapper at New River and
another at Glen Canyon, the arrest and conviction of a man who attempted to
run down a dozen people at Blue Ridge, the arrest and conviction of armed
assailants at Grand Canyon and Glen Canyon, the containment of a brawl at
Gulf Islands, the conviction of a man at Glacier Bay who threatened several
employees (the fellow who excavated a pit in the ground, covered it with
trees, and holed up - so to speak - with weapons and 30,000 rounds of
ammunition), confrontations with seriously disturbed people at Golden Gate
and Tonto, investigations into vandalism to JFK's grave, the arrest of
paintball warriors at Arches, the eviction and conviction of illegal
trespassers at Kaloko-Honokohau, the arrest of a man for shooting at the
Washington Monument with a shotgun, the investigation of a train robberies at
Mojave, and the arrest of a man who stole a John Deer combination backhoe and
front-end loader valued at $45,000 from New River.  This was the guy who also
had 20 pounds of marijuana, seven gallons of moonshine, over 30 weapons, dog
and cock fight apparatus and animals, and sundry other stolen goodies.

EMS incidents are generally not sent in to the Morning Report, except in
unusual circumstances or when a life or lives are saved.  And not all of
those are submitted, simply because life saving (particularly on the
Service's many protected beaches) is such a routine event.  This was again
the case in 1997.  NPS paramedics, EMTs, lifeguards and other medically
trained personnel defibrillated visitors with heart attacks, provided
advanced life support while hanging from cliffs, administered life-saving
medications, and stabilized injured visitors in myriad SAR evacuations. 
Dozens of former park visitors are still alive today because of the timely
intervention of trained employees, particularly in remote settings with full
medical care hours away.

Hazardous material spills were infrequent but significant in scope.  Valley
Forge discovered that it had inherited a major asbestos dump; Big Thicket had
a pipeline rupture which produced a gas cloud containing benzene, toluene,
ethylbenzene and xylene; Buffalo had a tanker overturn and leak 28,000 pounds
of sludge left over from chicken processing; and Mojave had (and is still
dealing with) 235,000 gallons of mine waste effluent containing heavy metals
and radioactive material.  

Special events are an activity common to the NPS because of the profound
national symbolism of many of its sites (they also provide good vacation
destinations for notables on occasion).  The breadth of types of events is
invariably remarkable; 1997 was no exception.  Events - most run under ICS -
included Yasser Arafat's visit to Jimmy Carter, an inter-tribal bison prayer
ceremony at Yellowstone, the awaiting of a UFO by a group called the Earth
Contact Team at Wupatki (another candidate for oddest event of the year), the
annual Easter egg roll on the White House lawn, the annual "Living American
Flag" celebration at Fort McHenry, the President's Summit on America's Future
at Independence, the placement of 15,000 luminaria in the cemetery at
Fredericksburg in honor of the more than 15,000 Union soldiers buried there,
"Lady Bird" Johnson's tour of a half dozen parks during the summer, the
Rainbow Family's visit to sites near John Day Fossil Beds, the broadcast of
"A Prairie Home Companion" from Yellowstone, the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally
spillover into Mount Rushmore and other area parks, the Promise Keepers rally
on the National Mall, the annual Bridge Day event at New River, the 30th
anniversary celebration of the "summer of love" at the western end of Golden
Gate Park in Golden Gate, and the 50th anniversary of Everglades.

A category that appears regularly in the Morning Report that perhaps does not
get as much attention as it warrants is that of assists to other agencies. 
Park employees from all divisions readily, willingly and tirelessly provide
assistance to local organizations in law enforcement incidents, searches,
structural and wild fires, MVAs, robberies, aircraft accidents, even (this
year) an occupation of a FWS refuge.

Not a few park employees suffered from the vicissitudes of either ailments or
assaults this year.  USPP oficers, rangers and other employees had to deal
with threats and injuries from fists, vehicles, knives (including an ice pick
in one instance), guns, and even potentially infected blood.  Rangers Andrew
Packett and Galen Ewing and maintenance employee Dave Oien all suffered
serious injuries in motor vehicle accidents but have or are recovering.  And
35 interpretive rangers were treated for food poisoning at the NAI workshop
in Beaumont, Texas.

Visitor deaths and injuries were far too numerous this year, as they are in
every year.  Time and space prohibit any kind of definitive listing, but
you're all familiar with the sad but steady roll call of deaths from falls,
motor vehicle accidents, airplane accidents, boating accidents, drownings,
suicides and a dozen other causes.  

Although they are not incidents as such, resource management reports provided
insights into a wide array of natural and cultural resource activities. 
Natural resource reports included summaries on bison management at
Yellowstone; reintroduction or translocation of bighorn sheep at Badlands,
Dinosaur, Canyonlands and Theodore Roosevelt; the 39th annual wolf-moose
study at Isle Royale; the decade-long effort to protect endangered Kemp's
ridley sea turtles at Padre Island; the control and monitoring of melaleuca
at Big Cypress; the sighting and tracking of endangered and newly-released
California condors at Bryce Canyon and Arches; the continuing saga of efforts
to keep pernicious zebra mussels out of the Saint Croix River; the impacts of
the introduction of non-native flowerhead weevils to control thistles at a
number of western parks; updates on the on-going efforts to reintroduce
wolves at Yellowstone and black-footed ferrets at Badlands; and an update on
grizzly management at Yellowstone.  Cultural resource reports included
accounts of a two-year project to identify underwater archeological resources
in Drakes Bay at Point Reyes; a shipwreck study at Sleeping Bear Dunes; and
archeological assessments associated with burned area recovery projects at
Mesa Verde and Bandelier.  We hope to carry more resource management reports
in coming years. 

It is fitting to conclude this short summary of the year with a shared
farewell to the friends and fellow workers who left us this year.  It was not
a good year, and our losses were many - ranger Ray Harding (Lowell), USPP
sergeant Fred Davis (NCR), mechanical engineer Anthony Digneo (Independence),
maintenance worker Robert Johnson (Gulf Islands), research geologist Roderick
"Rick" Hutchinson (Yellowstone), secretary Wiebke Marks and ranger Darrin
Harvey (Badlands), ranger Dale Schmidt (Grand Canyon), budget analyst Robert
J. "Russ" Benford (Chamizal), seasonal trail crew workers Mark Robison and
Chris Foster (Glacier), maintenance employee David Hinman (Pipe Springs),
maintenance employee Rory Perkins (Yellowstone), maintenance employee Joseph
Kranski (Theodore Roosevelt), seasonal Taryn Hoover (Olympic), district
ranger Karl Theune (Delaware Water Gap), ranger Michael Clifford (Jean
Lafitte), facilities management specialist Keith Weiser (Indiana Dunes), oil
and gas specialist Donna O'Leary (LBJ), maintenance worker Michael McNerney
(Bent's Old Fort), outdoor recreation planner Linda Romola (DSC), ranger
Patricia "Toby" Kennedy (Sagamore Hill), and criminal investigator Malcolm
DeMunbrun (Lake Mead).  Adieu.