Mojave National Preserve (CA)
Aircraft Crashes, Killing Five
On October 30th, a Cessna 421 Golden Eagle with five people on board
crashed in the park's wilderness north of Kelso near the Tough Nut Mine.
There were no survivors. The flight left Laughlin, Nevada, en route to
Van Nuys, California, on October 29th, and crashed sometime that
afternoon. The plane caught fire after crashing, burning a small area
around it. The crash is being investigated by rangers, FAA and NTSB
investigators, the San Bernadino County coroner, and officers from the
San Bernadino County Sheriff's Office. The wreckage was to be removed on
Saturday; a damage assessment is pending for restoration of the area.
[Submitted by Kirk Gebicke, Park Ranger]
Big South Fork National River & Recreation Area (KY,TN)
Falling Fatality at Yahoo Falls
Hikers came upon a body near Yahoo Falls on the morning of October
29th and reported their discovery to two employees from Daniel Boone NF
who were working along Highway 700. The forest Service in turn notified
rangers and the county rescue squad. Rangers found the body of
28-year-old R.K.H. of Bowling Green, Kentucky, at the base of
the 113-foot high falls. The county coroner pronounced him dead at the
scene. Rangers found R.K.H.'s campsite above the falls at one of the
several overlooks located on the Yahoo Falls loop trail. It appears that
he fell from the top of the falls sometime during the previous night,
but the exact cause remains under investigation. Ranger Jimmy Barna was
IC and lead investigator for the incident.
[Submitted by Chief
Ranger's Office]
FIRE MANAGEMENT
Redwood National and State Parks (CA)
Xowannutuk ("Tuk") Fire (Wildland Fire)
The Xowannutuk prescribed fire was set on October 21st in the Bald Hills area in one of the parks' only old-growth redwood units. With a significant weather change overnight on October 25th, it crossed its boundaries into second-growth Douglas-fir forest and is being suppressed. The parks' program of prescribed burning in this area has an excellent record of containment and resource benefits to natural prairies. (full report)
The Xowannutuk fire has been 100 percent contained.
Park vegetation management staff look forward to being able to study existing forest plots within the boundaries of the burn to discover fire's effect on this dense second-growth stand.
Status
All trail closures and backcountry camping restrictions have been lifted. The Tall Trees access road will remain closed until mop-up operations are completed.
Acreage: Final size is 315 acres; the fire has not increased in size since October 29th.
Resources Committed: Approximately 150 personnel, down from a high of 300.
Estimated containment date: contained 10/31[Submitted by Fire Information Office, 707-464-6101, extension 5058 or 5263]
OPERATIONAL NOTES
NPS History
Rangers and Resource Management: The Early Years
A new book on National Park Service rangers has been published and is now available. The book, entitled National Park Ranger: An American Icon, was written by Butch Farabee and published by Roberts Rinehart Publishers (ISBN 1-57098-392-5, $18.95 in paper).
Through permission of both the author and publisher, excerpts are appearing intermittently in the Morning Report and InsideNPS. Previous installments can be found by searching back issues of either publication for the following dates:
- Part 1 — May 15, 2003.
- Part 2 — May 21, 2003.
- Part 3 — June 3, 2003
- Part 4 — June 11, 2003.
- Part 5 — June 20, 2003.
- Part 6 — July 22, 2003.
- Part 7 — August 4, 2003.
- Part 8 — August 13, 2003.
- Part 9 — August 21, 2003
- Part 10 — August 26, 2003.
The Early Years of Resource Management — Part 1
In establishing Yellowstone in 1872, Congress directed that the world's first national park should be retained in a "natural condition." The enabling act forbade the "wanton destruction of the fish and game" while also providing for "preservation, from injury or spoliation, of all timber, mineral deposits, natural curiosities, or wonders." With these brief phrases the underpinnings were laid for preserving our country's natural and cultural resources; decades would pass before most would come to appreciate the implications for conservation in the United States that they held.
By 1900 only five national parks had been set aside by the federal government. As vote-conscious politicians slowly came to recognize the economic potential of tourism, the move to protect large tracts of the West for the greater good began to gain momentum. For many, the riches of Yellowstone, Sequoia, General Grant, Yosemite, and Mount Rainier embodied our country's once seemingly limitless resources. As the system of national parks grew, managing these lands, their wildlife, and their cultural treasures became a significant administrative challenge.
A legislative landmark, the 1906 Antiquities Act (aimed at preventing "pot hunting" and related archeological looting) authorized the president "to declare by public proclamation historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest" located on lands under control of the federal government to be national monuments.
Wyoming's 865-foot-high Devils Tower, New Mexico's El Morro, and Arizona's Montezuma Castle were the first three areas to be formally recognized for such qualities. These sites and others like them were typically located in remote places, were overlooked by the public and largely inaccessible for tourism, and were neglected for years.
These first parks and monuments were administered as expanses of wilderness and beauty, they were kept free of fires, and their animals were protected. Unfortunately, their ecological well-being was generally measured by their physical attractiveness from a scenic perspective. The use of applied science and biological research was unheard of, so the definition and management of "natural conditions" varied from one superintendent to the next.
Early park managers and rangers took two basic approaches to managing the natural resources of the treasures in their care: they ignored them or they manipulated them. Because so little was known about science and research-based preservation, the killing of predators, fish stocking, regulating animal populations, fighting forest fires, and eradicating diseased trees were practices at the core of early natural resource management.
Scientific method was slowly introduced to the parks. In 1927, Yosemite set aside seven square miles of high mountain country north of Tuolumne Meadows for purposes of study. Titled a Research Reserve, it was the first of an eventual twenty-eight such scientific spots in the park system. Other areas existed in Zion, Glacier, and Sequoia.
At a 1929 conference, park naturalists noted that scientific information about their parks was "almost infinitesimal." That summer, a survey of park wildlife systemwide was initiated and privately funded by University of California-trained George M. Wright, twenty-five years old, independently wealthy, and Yosemite's Assistant Chief Naturalist. Conceptually supported by Director Albright, this was the service's first scientific study of natural resources.
In July 1931, the NPS assumed half the survey costs, with the other half still funded by Wright. This cost sharing lasted for two more years, when Albright finally established the Wildlife Division of the National Park Service with Wright as its head.
Wright's field survey resulted in Fauna of the National Parks of the United States: A Preliminary Survey of Faunal Relations in National Parks, released in 1932. A milestone work commonly known as "Fauna No. 1," its recommendations were unprecedented. They proposed the perpetuation of existing natural conditions and, if possible, the return of each park to a truly natural state, radical departures from the practices managers and rangers had been following. The director adopted Fauna No. 1 as policy in 1934 and urged park superintendents to appoint field rangers (preferably those with "some biological training and native interest in the subject") to coordinate wildlife management.
Soon rangers were being trained whenever possible for conducting a "continual fish and game study program" and for assisting the few biologists then in the service. Many of these new "wildlife rangers" found these innovative practices completely at odds with their long-established routines such as predator control, mosquito abatement, fire fighting, and stocking park waters with fish.
In 1934, ranger Ben Thompson, one of the first four wildlife biologists in the NPS, declared that no "first or second class nature sanctuaries are to be found in any of our national parks under their present condition." He noted that white tail deer, cougar, wolf, lynx, and perhaps wolverine and fisher, were most likely "gone from the Yellowstone fauna."
Rocky Mountain National Park carnivore situation was much the same, except that it had also lost its grizzly population. At Grand Canyon feral burros had "decimated every available bit of range" in the canyon, and domestic livestock had taken a "heavy toll from the narrow strip of South Rim range." Moreover, Grand Canyon's cougars were "almost extirpated," and bighorn sheep were greatly reduced, while the "entire ground cover and food supply for ground dwelling birds and small mammals had been altered by cattle grazing." Yosemite National Park had lost its bighorn and grizzly populations and its cougars were "almost gone." In Glacier the grizzly were "very scarce." The trumpeter swan and bison were missing, and game species in general were "seriously depleted because of inadequate boundaries."
A unique trait of most of the early large parks was an extensive, protected, and "wild" backcountry. With modern encroachments such as hotels, roads, campgrounds, and other facilities impacting only certain areas, the great majority of the park and its resources were escaping brutal overuse by people. But was it too late?
Next: Predator Control
PARKS AND PEOPLE
Niobrara National Scenic River (NE)
GS-025-9 Park Ranger
The park is seeking candidates governmentwide for a GS-025-9 ranger position in its Visitor and Resource Management Division. The position is 6c covered. She/he will be an important team member in helping develop various programs and planning efforts for a unit that will begin its fourth field season in 2004. Most visitor use occurs from May through October on the western portion of the 76-mile long scenic river. He/she will perform a wide range of visitor and resource protection duties, with a strong emphasis on resource management, wildland fire planning and interpretation. River patrol is primarily by canoe and kayak. The duty station is located in Valentine, Nebraska (pop. 2,800). A great diversity of plants and animals are found along the Niobrara, which flows through pine-covered hills and canyons. The major element of the area's economy is cattle ranching; hunting, fishing, and boating are favorite recreational activities. The position is currently advertised on USA Jobs. Interested persons may contact chief ranger Stuart Schneider at 402-376-1901.
[Submitted by Stuart Schneider, Chief Ranger]
Submission standards for the Morning Report can be found on the left side of the front page of InsideNPS. All reports should be submitted via email to Bill Halainen at Delaware Water Gap NRA, with a copy to your regional office and a copy to Dennis Burnett in Division of Law Enforcement and Emergency Services, WASO.
Prepared by the Division of Law Enforcement and Emergency Services, WASO, with the cooperation and support of Delaware Water Gap NRA.