REPORT CARD
Now neighbors, everyone knows that the National Park Service is America's most beloved federal agency. (The US Forest Service mildly disputes that assertion on the grounds that many people
mistake the USFS's amiable, hard working employees and their campgrounds for NPS employees and facilities.)
So, in truth, are we "the greatest", as Mohammed Ali used to say?
We all agree that indeed we are the greatest, but there seems to be some disagreement among outsiders, not all of whom hail from the U.S. Forest Service or the Bureau of Land Management.
On the political right of the spectrum, Alston Chase has frequently told us that we do a remarkably bad job, starting with his book DESTRUCTION OF YELLOWSTONE. More recently, the popular travel writer and humorist, Bill Bryson on the politically left of center, has weighed in with attacks on NPS management of the parks in THE LOST CONTINENT and A WALK IN THE WOODS.
However, these men are journalists and we all know what a surly, carping, ungrateful, irresponsible lot writers tend to be, left or right.
Is there not be a Solomonic, non-governmental agency without a political ax to grind that would be able to tell us how we are doing; an organization that would provide the NPS with a report card?
Well yes there is, neighbors. Syracuse University (NY) has stepped in to fill the gap. SU's prestigious School of Public Affairs created The Government Performance Project to provide just such a report card for 20 selected government agencies.
The Government Performance Project set up a "report card" grading 20 federal agencies including the National Park Service. The agencies were graded on five criteria: (1) financial management (2) human resources (3) information technology (4) capital management and (5) managing for results. An overall letter grade was then assigned to the agency.
The NPS came in 18th out of the field of 20 agencies. We were given an overall grade of " C. We did better than the Office of Student Financial Assistance and the Immigration and Naturalization Service. On the other hand, we were surpassed in excellence by such luminary organization as the Veterans Health Administration, The Environmental Protection Agency, the Social Security Administration, the Army Corps of Engineers, and other sadly too numerous to mention. The NPS scored straight "C's in all categories, except Human Resources, where we got a "B"
Only a goddamm "C" for an overall grade! How can that be? The snow still dapples the formations of Bryce Canyon in January, the sun regularly rises over Haleakala NP and Old Faithful still erupts on schedule, in spite of budget cuts and staff reductions. How can anyone dare say we are not perfect?
So who was first in the class? That honor went to the goody-two shoes U.S. Coast Guard (Brown nosing teacher's pets! We'll get them after school!) They came in with an overall grade of "A".
Is there any validity to the study? Of course not! We don't have to take any crap from a pointy headed Eastern liberal university whose football team is never invited to one of the more fashionable bowl games and whose basketball team can be charitably described as "always trying", and whose campus is located in God forsaken upstate New York where it snows half the year and rains the other half, proving that even God hates Syracuse University. (Your editor finds that an ad hominem attack is the best defense in such matters, neighbors)
Can the methodology of the study be faulted? Well, that will bear investigating neighbors. Suspicions were raised by the fact that the Park Service's sole "B" was earned in Human Resources. Anecdotal evidence accumulated over the years in the THUNDERBEAR files seems to indicate that Personnel Management or Human Resources may not be the strong suit of the agency and that the "B" was perhaps overgenerous (That is, the NPS tends to deal out more "Cold Pricklies" than "Warm Fuzzies" in dealing with its help, according to some anecdotal evidence, thus raising the question that the other grades might be higher (or, of course, lower.)
However, anecdotal evidence is anathema in academia.
We will have to explore the survey and nitpick the methodology before we can come up with a conclusion.
Ah, but that was 2000. How about the year 2001?. Did we do better? Did our grades rise and we at least get into the top ten of the federal agencies surveyed?
THUNDERBEAR knows that both you and the present Director of the National Park Service, Fran Mainela, are waiting with clinched teeth to see if our grades have improved or if the NPS will have to be placed in the "remedial" class for federal agencies that have learning disabilities, Attention Deficit Disorder, or are just plain "slow".
We contacted the proper folks at Syracuse University and they told us that they had lateraled the ball to George Washington University, right here in Washington, DC. So we contacted Dr. Philip Joyce, who is now heading up the Project and put the question to him.
Unfortunately, Dr. Joyce was apparently away for the holidays (One of the many neat things about being a college professor, neighbors! Encourage your children to do same!) and has yet to reply to THUNDERBEAR'S query. However, we shall have the answer as to how the NPS is doing grade-wise in the very next issue of THUNDERBEAR. Watch for it!
SAFETY MESSAGE
Today we deal with the inherent safety hazards of drying buffalo plop in your microwave oven.
You say you had never planned to dry buffalo chips in your microwave?
That may be true in your case, but there are 280 million people in America and sooner or later, everything is tried by somebody.
I recently received a Holiday letter from a THUNDERBEAR subscriber. As you know, these holiday letters sort of sum up the family triumphs, travels and travails. It had apparently been a slow year for the family as my subscriber reported on her sister's attempt to dry buffalo plop in her microwave.
Now neighbors, before we go into WHY one would want to microwave buffalo plop, we have to first determine if it is LEGAL to microwave buffalo plop. You see, the buffalo crap in question was national park buffalo crap.
The removal of a renewable natural resource from a unit of the national park system for "personal use" is a very gray area from a legal and administrative aspect. Regulations on what can and cannot be taken vary from unit to unit, often wildly. You can for example, hunt in some national park units and you can pick berries, harvest mushrooms, fish, and rake for clams in others.
On the other hand, you may not take antlers from Yellowstone National Park even though the antlers are shed and renewed each year. You see, even though the antlers are lying there apparently unused, they will be recycled by various gnawing critters who desperately need the calcium and other minerals found in the antlers.
Would this line of legal thought apply to buffalo plop? Well, I don't know. (That's one reason I write THUNDERBEAR, so that people can enlighten me on arcane subjects like buffalo chip possession). Clearly, if George and Martha, who own a lawn & garden business in New Jersey, pull their Winnebago off the shoulder at Lamar Valley in Yellowstone and start filling the Winnebago with buffalo chips, we obviously have an illegal commercial enterprise in action.
On the other hand, how about just one or two buffalo pies for personal use? How about altruistic, public-spirited use?
It seems that Jane, sister of the lady who wrote me the holiday letter was touring Theodore Roosevelt National Park with her family. They happened upon a herd of buffalo that looked like a scene out of "Dances with Wolves". Naturally, they were awe struck. Jane teaches in an inner city elementary school in Los Angeles. Her class would be studying the "Winning of the West" (or the losing of same, depending on your politics). Anyways, they would be talking about cowboys and Indians and the environment and all those things that kids are interested in. Jane felt she could make it even more interesting by having the class cook a meal over a buffalo chip fire. (Buffalo chips will burn, but for what I think are fairly obvious reasons, Indians and even cowboys would go to considerable lengths to obtain wood before resorting to buffalo chips; however, Jane was a good hearted environmentalist who wanted to show her class how the Native Americans used every part of the animal, even the plop.)
Could Jane have a buffalo pie for a class project? (If in doubt, ask a ranger.) Unfortunately, probably due to budget cuts, there were no rangers immediately on hand to question about the propriety of taking buffalo chips. So Jane and her family, keeping a wary eye on the grazing buffalo, picked up a couple of the largest driest buffalo pies they could find.
As they were camping, they had a goodly supply of large plastic trash bags. They double bagged the buffalo pats and journeyed home to Los Angeles. Once home, they discovered that while they had been on vacation, Mother Nature had not been idle. The apparently dry buffalo pie was now teeming with wrigley life. Clearly Jane would have to dry it further.
The family clothes dryer came to mind, but the tumbling might crumble the pie. So, the microwave oven was elected to do the job.
Now, neighbors, if you check the suggestions on your microwave door, you will find no suggested settings for buffalo plop. If you check the instruction book, you will get no help. Jane was on her own, a pioneer in the field.
As in most pioneer efforts, there are setbacks. The microwave setting was too ambitious and the buffalo pie began to smoulder, producing a smoke that definitely does not call for a chorus of "Home on the Range".
Jane is still not sure what possessed her husband to throw the smoldering buffalo chip into the freezer rather than into the sink, but the freezer is where he threw it. Possibly he was thinking if something is hot, then you should put it where it is cold. He forgot the basic philosophy of freezer design, which is that when the thermostat detects a rise in temperature, it turns on a fan to move cold air though the freezer compartment. Cold oxygen is just as good as hot oxygen for feeding a fire and the buffalo plop really took off, particularly when he opened the freezer lid to see how it was doing. Too distracted or perhaps too embarrassed to call the fire department, he scooped up the plop and flung it into the back yard where it burned itself out, causing comment and curiosity among the neighbors.
The upshot of this is that you should not attempt to dry buffalo plop in your microwave. The woman's sister, the one who had sent me the family newsletter, had been in the U.S. Foreign Service and had observed that the natives in Nepal and other ecologically sound countries, dried the cow and yak plop by plastering it on outer walls of their houses. This begs the question as it requires that you bring a buffalo to Los Angeles to assure that the product would be fresh enough to stick to the walls of your home.
More over, we still haven't addressed the issue of whether possession of NPS buffalo chips is legal in the first place. Your editor will query the parks. In the interim, remember this safety message from your Thunderbear safety officer. DON'T DRY BUFFALO PLOP IN THE OFFICE MICROWAVE!"
THE SEASONAL WHO CRIED SALT
"The seasonal ranger is the backbone of the National Park Service." So says every park superintendent at the Staff Orientation Meeting at the beginning of every new season in the
national parks. "The seasonal ranger is the pain in the backside of the national parks" growl certain mid-level managers, under their breaths.
Indeed, over the years, a long term seasonal often becomes an institution (some managers believe they belong in one). The long term seasonal returns year after year to the same park, often to the same district. They become tolerably well acquainted with the topography and at least the maxi flora and fauna. They often develop a clientele, park visitors who return year after year to have their children and grandchildren hear Ranger Ed sings his songs and tell his stories around the campfire. The long term seasonal often are lucky enough -- or canny enough -- to include a politician or other mover and shaker among his clientele.
Long term seasonals are often difficult to supervise. They are frequently quite territorial and set in their ways. They sometimes speak rather openly of "having to break in the new permanent", a statement that doesn't endear them to the new permanent district ranger or interpreter. Long term seasonals often boast of having "Twenty seasons of experience". One cynical permanent supervisor begs to differ saying "They've had the same experience twenty times", implying that they are often stuck in a groove and loathe to learn anything new--or discard anything that was proven false.
However, seasonal solidification does not seem to have been a problem in the case of Ranger Robert "Action" Jackson . Ranger Jackson has been working the legendary Thorofare district of Yellowstone National Park for some thirty seasons. He has a degree in Wildlife Management and at one time had the idea of going permanent with the NPS. A few seasons with the NPS disabused him of that notion as he came to the conclusion that year around work with the government is no place for a free spirit. So Jackson hit upon an imaginative compromise; working as a seasonal ranger in the "wildest, most remote part of the lower 48", the Thorofare District of Yellowstone in the summer and running his 1,000 acre buffalo farm in Iowa. I suspect rangering in the Yellowstone backcountry and raising buffalo tended to make Bob an independent cuss, not inclined toward reading our memos.
Rangers, in their classic definition, aren't much for reading memos. According to that definition, "rangers are "members of a small, highly mobile force, capable of making decisions and acting on their own, independent of higher authority in pursuit of an agreed upon goal."
That definition would fit Jackson like a bark on a tree.
Now the Yellowstone ecosystem preserves a lot of things besides Nature. It also preserves a lot of history and a lot of attitudes. One of these attitudes is the "Wild West" mentality, which objects to so-called nitpicking regulations created by "effete Easterners" who "Don't understand the West".
According to this particular myth, the West (but certainly not California!) is (or should be) inhabited by slow talkin', quick actin' sons of the saddle, who take no guff from nobody, particularly "guvment". They are for less "guvment", or no guvment. (but are for hidden welfare state subsidies of certain industries that would make a Swedish socialist cringe at the self-interested greed!).
In all fairness, the Western Myth has been bi-partisan. None other than the celebrated eco-anarchist and all-around liberal, Edward Abbey. envisioned a sort of non-industrial, non-agricultural grazing economy for the West. In this romantic vision, the West would be occupied by horse ridin', Elk huntin' men and women who would support themselves with wild meat and communal cattle herds, sort of like Ghengis Khan and his Mongols (only with more peace and granola crunching.)
Abbey eventually grew up and dropped the Western Myth of a pastoral economy, signing off in a hilarious 1985 diatribe against the Western Myth entitled " The Cowboy and His Cow".
However, others didn't grow up and kept the Western Myth going in various greedhead schemes to monopolize public land and public creatures for their own private use. These folks always support a sending Greedhead Republican political contingent to Washington to support their extractive industries.
Wyoming in particular, always ships a Mesozoic era congressional delegation to Congress, always ready at the drop of a FAX to whine about how the "rights" of the citizens of Wyoming are being trampled by the hated Federal government in regard to "their" national park, Yellowstone, despite the fact that the park was there before the state was. (As a Bullmoose Republican, I recall as how this wasn't always the case. The Rocky Mountain West was once represented by such environmental liberals as Senator Dale McGee (D) Wyoming and Frank Church (D) of Idaho. The reason for this paradigm shift in voting patterns would make for an interesting PhD thesis for a political scientist.)
Now one of the "traditional" industries of Wyoming is that of the Outfitter. The Outfitter has a string of pack and saddle horses (or at least access to them), some hired hands ("cowboys, ma'am"), some special use permits from the Forest Service and Park Service and a whole lot of knowledge about the territory and dude psychology.
In the summer time, the outfitter takes his "clients" (Most people don't like to be called "dudes".) on trail rides through the backcountry of the Yellowstone Ecosystem. However, his big money days come during the fall Elk hunt outside of the southern boundary of Yellowstone National Park. During the seven week elk season, our outfitter can make between $200,000 and $400,000. This is considered good money in job poor Wyoming and translates into a certain amount of political pull. Not only does the outfitter make contributions to the "right" party, they and their "hands" and relatives vote for the right way. (One of the things that has always mightily puzzled liberals is why poor whites who work outdoors are if anything, more reactionary than their employers, but that's the way it is.) Understandably, the Outfitter is a man of some standing in local, state, and national politics.
Now neighbors, you noted that it is theoretically possible to make $400,000 doing something that anyone who loves hunting and horses would love to be doing. $400,000 is more than three times the annual salary of the Director of the National Park Service, and for only seven weeks "work". (No, Fran, you may not take leave without pay to guide elk hunts; conflict of interest!)
Admittedly, the $400,000 is gross and is the high end of the business, but how do you make sure you are in the high end? Pretty much the way McDonalds Hamburgers does it; sort of a McElk hunt: high volume and quick turnover.
If you can have your client shoot his elk the first couple of days of the ten day hunt he paid for and also not overburden your horses with too much cargo, particularly meat, then you can cycle more hunters through the seven week hunting season and also lower your costs: not unlike a successful McDonalds.
But how do you make the elk cooperate? You know the answer to that one. You provide salt. Most large herbivores are salt junkies and elk are no exception. Where do you find a lot of elk? Why, Yellowstone National Park. (Ah, if all of a businessman's equations were so simple!)
"But you can't hunt in Yellowstone!" you say, virtuously.
True, but you can hunt immediately outside the Yellowstone boundary, and, until very recently, salting was not illegal in Wyoming. Salting has long been regarded as an unsporting, if not illegal act in many parts of the nation. However, the average client of a Wyoming outfitter is not going to ask the outfitter if the elk he/she is viewing through a rifle scope, has in fact, been lured into an open meadow by sprinkled rock salt. As the client has paid upwards of $4,000 for the experience of shooting said elk, this reticence is understandable.
Now that we have hustled our client through the killing of his elk, is there anything else that can be done to reduce overhead in our McElk hunt? Well, yes, there's "quick quartering". The less meat that an outfitter has to haul out means fewer non-profitable round trips for his horses and wrangler, plus less wear and tear on the horses (You don't want a lame horse in the middle of hunting season, neighbor!) Quick quartering is a solution to your weight problem. Just the quarters and the backstrap are taken, along with perhaps the head for mounting. Left behind are 40 or more pounds of rib meat as well as, of course, the entrails. In the state of Alaska, wastage of game meat on such a scale is illegal and the laws are enforced, even though it is infinitely more difficult to get the meat out in Alaska than in Wyoming.
So do the various hook & bullet magazines, like FIELD & STREAM or OUTDOOR LIFE object strenuously to the idea of a salted hunt or the wastefulness of quick quartering? Not so much as I could tell (but then I may have overlooked something in my admittedly cursory research) I had ankled down to the local library and looked at the back issues of the two H & B magazines that the library subscribes to, FIELD & STREAM and OUTDOOR LIFE. I found no indignant articles complaining about outfitter salting or the inequities of quick quartering. Perhaps all the hunting equipment ads and ads for guided hunts might have had a chilling effect on editorial policy. (To be fair, I understand there was a very abbreviated article on the salting problem in an issue of SPORTS AFIELD, though I have not seen it.) On the other hand, there was an intriguingly article in the March, 2001 issue of OUTDOOR LIFE. The article was entitled "The West's Best Big Game" and has the following cryptic suggestion: "Consider late season hunts for trophy bulls around Yellowstone National Park in Montana and Wyoming and around Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado." (It is at this point where Dr. Watson usually says "My word, Holmes! Do you suppose this is a clue?")
On the other hand, there is nothing particularly illegal about shooting over salted ground (unless you or your outfitter put down the salt) unethical and churlish, yes, but not illegal. It is not necessary to put out salt every year. It is only necessary to habituate elk to the idea that salt may be present. It is not necessary that you as an honest and ethical outfitter actually use salt, it is only necessary that you be aware of where salting has occurred in the past and happen to be present with the client at the proper time. (Outfitters and state game management types can get real deep into Jesuitical casuistry in no time at all, neighbors!)
Also, is a McElk hunt really so bad? We have dentists and dot.com executives in a hurry. They might not have much time to spend on getting their elk, and as far as wasted meat, if they really were short of meat they would go to SAFEWAY. All they need is a few steaks and enough meat for elk burgers to impress the neighbors at next summer's barbecue.
In addition, isn't there an overpopulation of elk in Yellowstone National Park? Will the wolf population really balance the elk population before that population does irreparable damage to the ecosystem? If that is the case, would it not be far, far better that recreational hunters quietly remove excess elk that happen to stray over the Yellowstone boundary rather than having the NPS be embarrassed at having rangers shoot the excess elk within the park. Would it not be more Christian to allow our fellow Republicans to make that $400,000 nest egg rather than paying overtime to rangers to shoot the elk and donate the meat to inner city soup kitchens?
Ah, but into our child's garden of casuistry comes John Muir and seasonal park ranger Bob Jackson.
Muir enters with his famous quip about doing some tinkering and finding that everything is connected to everything else in the universe.
Muir's connection is the piles of elk guts and waste meat as left by the hunters. The wasteful quick quartering method as well as the gut piles leaves an impressive 370 tons of rotting elk flesh on the ground outside the Yellowstone boundary. The 370 tons is definitely connected to something else; namely the Yellowstone Grizzly.
According to the Grizzlies, the 370 tons of elk outtards and innards will not go to waste, but will be thriftily recycled by Grizzly Inc. for their winter hibernation project. So far, so good. The state gets its license fee, the hunter gets his elk, the outfitter gets his money, and the griz gets the guts and meat for hibernation. Sounds like a Republican version of the Great Web of Life. What could be better?
Major problem: Grizzlies aren't polite. They go to the head of the food chain without a by your leave or a nod to Miss Manners. They have learned that hundreds of tons of protein are available for the taking along the southern boundary of the park at a certain time of year. They also have learned to associate the sound of a rifle shot with the magical appearance of hundreds of pounds of free meat that didn't have to chased or stalked.
As noted, Grizzlies are not polite and don't take their turn. They immediately run to the carcass and establish possession, often getting there before the hunter or the outfitter. Often, even if the Outfitter is in possession and has started quartering the elk, the bear will still try to take possession, using false or bluff charges to intimidate.
The hunter and the outfitters are understandably nervous about the intentions of a quarter ton carnivore. The client hunter may be packing a .44 magnum pistol because after all, this is bear country. He may become excited enough to use the pistol (against the advice of the outfitter) and the wounded bear will have to be dispatched by the outfitter.
So the game management problem suddenly becomes more complex. Rather than just a quiet removal of "surplus" elk from the Yellowstone ecosystem by means of a salt assisted McElk hunt, the elk hunts are removing the endangered grizzly bears that are not surplus. How many bears have been killed by frightened hunters? The figure is not known; some say five, other seven, but whatever the number, it is far too many and does impact on the reproductive chances of the grizzlies.
So, after pointing out how apparently simple decisions lead to complex results, John Muir exits stage right and is replaced by seasonal park ranger Robert Jackson who must explain things.
Robert Jackson has been a seasonal ranger in Yellowstone for some 30 seasons, most of them in the Thorofare district.
Now the Thorofare district is not just any wilderness area in a national park or forest. It is the most remote area in the lower 48. That is, the Thorofare ranger station is farther from a road than any other American place south of Alaska, about 34 miles (which means a round trip of 68 miles on foot or horseback as of course you can't live there--unless you are ranger Jackson.)
This remoteness is important to our story. Writers, particularly outdoor writers are intrigued by geographical absolutes, the deepest cave, the narrowest slot canyon, and of course, the Most Remote Spot in the Lower 48. Should the writer or celebrity journey to the Thorofare ranger station in search of a story, he/she will find it an extra dividend if the Thorofare Ranger Station is staffed by a talkative Certified Colorful Character (CCC).
Ranger Jackson is definitely a triple C and is most talkative and knowledgeable (remember he has a degree in wildlife management as well as 30 seasons of experience). Writers and celebrities learned they could take a trail ride to the Thorofare and be treated to a huge and varying repertories of stories and tales told around the campfire. Jackson has caught more poachers than anyone else in Yellowstone and each arrest is a separate story and, until very recently, YELL administration felt well served by Jackson.
However, reporters started asking Jackson about rumors of the salted elk hunts and the Grizzly mortality. Jackson answered the questions that he was asked and told what he knew.
However, very soon the National Park Service started to get nervous. Like most organizations, the NPS does not like bad publicity and above all they do not like conflict with powerful interests and/or other government agencies. Yellowstone asked Jackson to refer all media inquiries to the park headquarters and Jackson complied.
NPS nervousness turned into bureaucratic paranoia. "Did Jackson REALLY shut up or was he surreptitiously feeding information to reporters?" YELL believed that Jackson was creating "interagency friction" between the NPS and the Forest Service.
Now neighbors, the reason for this "interagency friction" is the fact while Yellowstone National Park is the habitat of one of the most powerful predators in North America, the Grizzly Bear, the area around Yellowstone NP is the habitat of THE most powerful predator in North America, The Greedhead Republican. (The more benign Bullmoose Republican is found mainly in the Midwest and Northeast.)
The Greedheads apparently started to lean on the US Forest Service which is even more timid than the NPS (With a number of honorable exceptions such as Glora Flora). Now the Forest Service just owns the dirt and the trees in the national forests, the game animals belonged to the state in which they were residing. Pontius Pilate like, the foresters could technically wash their hands of the distressing business by lateraling the problem to the state game wardens who were generally the good ol' boy compadres of the outfitters. The "interagency friction" was the implication that the Forest Service was not doing its job in protecting an endangered species.
To make sure that there were no leaks to the press. Jackson was asked (and did) sign a gag order that he not speak to the press. Although YELL prefers not to think of this as a gag order, if something looks like a gag order and sounds like a gag order, well then, maybe it's a gag order. The order is short and to the point: "Bob Jackson is not authorized to speak to the media while on government time. He is not authorized to speak to the media as a representative of Yellowstone National Park or the National Park Service at any time. On his days off and outside the park, he can talk to the media, but is not authorized to express opinions regarding Yellowstone National Park , the National Park Service or about anything he does in his official capacity with the National Park Service. During any media contact, he is not authorized to be in uniform and must make it clear that he is not presenting the National Park Service. he is only allowed to give factual information about his position even though he is off duty."
In short, Jackson could only comment on declining coffee prices in Brazil and the unfortunate situation in Bosnia.
Still, for whatever reason and whatever source, stories on the salted elk and dead grizzlies continued to get out. The NPS was beside itself. (There is a certain poignancy here, neighbors. Most of us bureaucrats have had a story that we dearly wished we could "control" and how sadly we missed the tools available to say, J.V. Stalin or Chairman Mao)
There were questions raised about Ranger Jackson's work performance, whether it might be best to terminate him (although that didn't seem to be an option in the previous 30 seasons.) It was thought possible that Jackson not be asked back to the Thereafter District for the year 2002 season.
Ironically, the NPS was hoisted by its own petard. YELL administration insisted that reporters contact only "officially designated" spokespersons. Well and good. One journalist played the game and interviewed the designated permanent spokesperson, expecting only to get the party line.
Amazingly, he found that the "spokesperson" not only shot himself in the foot, but kept reloading!"
The "designated spokesperson" stated without prompting that Jackson had been making inflammatory statements that were causing friction between the Park Service and the U.S. Forest Service and that the problem had become "political" (Remember those Greedhead Republican predators lurking in the brush, neighbors!)
Astoundingly, the NPS spokesperson then said "I know you should never say you're trying to muzzle an employee, but I'm trying to Muzzle him."
The YELL spokesperson then told the incredulous journalist that "Bob is delusional. He is probably certifiable".
The Journalist immediately contacted Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) an environmental agency whistleblower protection service and offered to make a sworn statement as to the above facts. PEER accepted the offer.
Now friends, this is what is known as a legal meltdown. In retrospect, YELL would have been better off making Ranger Jackson the Official Spokesperson for the controversy as he could not possibly have made things worse. It is possible that the NPS could be charged with a First Amendment violation and practicing psychiatry without a license, an unusual foul up even for a federal agency.
Ranger Jackson remains remarkably good humored about the affair. He only wants to return to his beloved Thorofare District for two more seasons and then retire to his buffalo farm. THUNDERBEAR checked with YELL and there was grudging admission that Jackson would be offered a job in YELL "but not necessarily in the Thorofare" Somehow, I think that Jackson will return to the Thereafter and if he wants the pop corn concession, the NPS will be required to give it to him.
And what of the salted elk and defunct grizzlies? That remains an incredible can of worms with no solution in sight. However, thanks to Jackson and PEER, the problem is now out in bright sunlight and not hidden under a bureaucratic carpet.
THE LEAGUE OF OLD MEN
The holiday season is always my time to look in on old NPS acquaintances and catch up on their lives. Frequently they will mention things that they did not put in their Christmas letters.
I called Roger Siglin, formerly Chief Ranger of Yellowstone, Superintendent of Gates of the Arctic National Park and Green Blood Extraordinarie.
Roger lives in defiance of age and the elements in the interior of Alaska in Fairbanks on a street called Frog Pond Circle. (Here we must digress and get nitpicking in the interest of science; can there be such a thing as a frog and thus a frog pond in interior Alaska? I mean, in the winter in central Alaska, everything freezes solid right down to the permafrost. I can accept a "Mosquito Pond Circle", but not a "Frog Pond Circle, but I can understand why a developer would choose the former over the later.)
Anyways, Roger was hard at work in his shop building cargo sleds for snow machines. He had been working seven day weeks to fill orders as business was good. He was quite happy in spite of the long hours. (I did not ask Roger if it might have been less frustrating to have skipped the 30 years with the government and gone directly into the sled business.
He had gone "Outside" as the Alaskans say, to do some hiking in the Southwest and attend the Ranger Rendezvous at Grand Teton National Park.
He met with some old friends, among them Don Chase, and other former superintendents, Greenbloods all, to do a five day hike in one of the premier parks in the Southwest.
The hike had gone well. Old friendships were renewed and all the problems of the national parks were solved around the campfires to the satisfaction of all.
Reality set in when they arrived at the park visitor center. It was a cool day in late fall and they and the park staff were only persons in the building. The former superintendents trooped into the building covered with trail dust and five day growth of beards, set down their dusty packs and shyly waited to be congratulated on their accomplishment, greeted, or at least asked a few questions.
They were to be disappointed. The staff ignored them and continued to talk Parkspeak with each other. (Parkspeak is the arcane jargon of the NPS in which one plots career goals, how to defeat anyone who might stand in the way of those goals, transfers, training and so on. Needless to say, the taxpayer is excluded from parkspeak discussions even though the speakers may be standing next to them.)
The former superintendents did not state who they were. (It is bad form for a Greenblood to identify himself, except perhaps, just as he/she is leaving.)
Several of the former superintendents allowed as how they had up to date information on the condition of the backcountry trails, and that there were some serious deficiencies in maintenance, safety and signage. They had found directional signs lying on the ground. Some of the signs were at decision points and could be critical for the taxpayer. Don Chase noticed that the visitor register that was kept in an ammo box at one backcountry site has been completely filled indicating that no one had checked the trail in a long, long time (Chase donated his own notebook to the ammo box.) There were other deficiencies. Was the staff interested?
Not particularly. With the studied, feigned interest of the manager of a French restaurant noting the complaints of a petty bourgeois customer, one of the staff irritably took down a few notes, and got back to parkspeak.
Chagrined, the Greenbloods trooped back out of the visitor center, several vowing to write an irate letter to the superintendent.
Even after a month had passed, Roger will still bent out of shape by the staff attitude. "PJ, things are not as they once were" he intoned. (They never are. I imagine that in neolithic times, old men were claiming that there were better rocks and better cave men in paleolithic times.)
"What is your solution, Roger?" I asked.
"I would form a corps of retired superintendents, Chief Rangers and Chiefs of Interpretation who would volunteer to travel incognito throughout the parks, inspect the parks and report the shortcomings of the parks, including the staff attitude toward the visitor. The reports would go to the Region and WASO and action would be taken."
"The League of Old Men". I breathed.
"Well, Actually, I would call it the "Senior Inspectorate Service" or something a bit more upbeat and less ageist, Roger huffed.
"No, No," I said, "I was just thinking out loud. Your proposal reminds me of a Jack London short story called "The League of Old Men." It's set in the Yukon Territory in the late 19th century. It tells the story of a group of old Indian men, tribal elders if you will, who notice that their tribes have gone to hell in a hiccup. They notice that there is no respect for the elders or the Old Ways. In fact, the Old Ways are fast disappearing. The young people of the tribes are drunkards and beggars, and cowards, no longer hunters and warriors, but dependent on the charity of contemptuous Whitemen. The old men resolve to do something about the situation. Rather than sitting around the campfire, smoking their pipes, and telling stories as old men do, they resolve to forget their infirmities and rise up to right the wrongs that civilization has inflicted on their tribes. They form The League of Old Men and venture forth to kill the more egregious White fur trappers and miners, secure in the knowledge that they have nothing to lose."
"Interesting" said Roger "How does it turn out?"
"The old men don't win." I replied.
"Figures." he responded "Anyway, come to think of it, I guess my plan has already been tried by Howard Chapman" (Editors note: Howard Chapman was a Director of Western Region of the NPS. After retirement, through the goodness of his heart and at his own expense, he continued to visit national parks in his region and helpfully make lists of deficiencies on the part of the park staff and hand them to the current superintendent. After some negative encounters along the line of "______you, Howard, we don't have to listen to you any more", Howard took the hint and began the more appropriate hobby of talking about his grandchildren.)
"Possibly it might lead to kinder treatment of the older taxpayers in general if there was a possibility that the garrulous old coot in question was actually an undercover agent for WASO" I said encouragingly.
"On the other hand" said Roger, answering his own argument as he is often wont to do, "I guess the new generation of park people might find it somewhat ironic if the generation that spent 30 years screwing things up, suddenly descended upon them to tell them what they were doing wrong!" (Who says that bureaucrats never learn wisdom or humility!)
"Ah, but there is still a need for the League of Old Men" I replied. "It is true that we have been found out and used up in our own country, but we can still pull a Butch and Sundance!" I enjoined.
"Butch and Sundance?" Roger queried.
You remember when things got too civilized for Butch Cassady and the Sundance Kid, they took their train and bank robbing syndicate down to South America.
You plan to rob trains?" asked Roger incredulously.
No, dammit! Help make parks.
"Make parks?"
"Yes!" I said triumphantly "There are scores of national parks and reserves in Mexico, Central and South America that are pretty much just parks on paper. They need money, but also need somebody with experience to help them to put the park together. It would be sort of the NPS version of the Peace Corps--A sort of League of Old Men for the Environment.
"We couldn't call it the League of Old Men" mused Roger "Too politically incorrect. Maybe we could called it The League of Good Ol' Persons?"
"Sounds good!" I replied. "You might check this out with Chase and Farrabee.
"Maybe The League of Good Ol' Persons might win this time around." Roger responded.
Maybe so.
DUTY CALLS
Friends, Thunderbear Associates has been called upon to establish Peace in the Middle East and eliminate global warming without eliminating Republicans.
These tasks are in addition to our smaller tasks of increasing biodiversity, reestablishing the Chestnut in the Eastern U.S., deyankeefying the dendrology of Great Britain and the reintroduction of the wolf and Grizzly bear into Scotland.
Some of our projects, such as the introduction of the endangered Siberian Tiger into Alaska and New Zealand, have met with somewhat hysterical opposition from the governments of these states, even though the ecosystems of Alaska and New Zealand are unusually well suited for the Siberian Tiger and both lack a large feline carnivore at present.
No neighbors, this is not a pitch for money. Thunderbear Associates have all the money we need and then some. (When have you ever heard an environmental group make THAT statement!)
Indeed, we would like to thank the Western Sheep & Wool Growers Association for their generous financial support of our efforts to introduce the coyote into Australia.
But if we don't want your money, then what are we jawing you about?
We merely wish to advise you of a slight change in THUNDERBEAR activity, Gentlepeople. Due to the demands of the above mentioned tasks, your kindly editor, The Christian Bureaucrat finds that he must prioritize tasks such as World Peace and whatever, as he doesn't have enough time to get THUNDERBEAR out each month. Therefore, starting with the January-February 2002 Issue (#244), THUNDERBEAR will be coming out every two months rather than every month. We trust this will cause no great inconvenience to anyone. To see if a new issue has been posted, simply check the website the first week of every other month.
Thank you for your understanding and cooperation.
IN THE SUMIDERO
(In which Joan and I continue our exploration of Mexico as Joan teaches her way through the country.)
The Mexico City Airport Marriott Hotel has the advantage of not only being at the airport, but literally in the airport. You walk down a long hall and you find yourself in the terminal. The advantage is that you don't have to venture out into Mexico City atmosphere which assaults every one of your senses except hearing.
Mexico City is easily the most polluted city in North America since Butte, Montana went out of business. It is also the largest city in the world, which makes it difficult for the 20 million plus who must live at the bottom of this bowl of airborne muck.
What to do? Eco-disaster mongers like Paul Ehrlich or Lester Brown would say the population must be reduced. That misses both the point and the problem. More prosaically, automotive emissions must be reduced-- fast and precipitately. The quickest way to do this is for Mexico to talk Toyota into building its North American Prius plant here in Mexico. This should not be impossible. Mexico talked Volksvagen into building the world's largest VW plant at Puebla. They could change the name from "Prius" to "Limpio" (Spanish for "Clean") and provide enough tax incentives to make the "Limpio" the car of choice for the Mexico City basin.
One built in incentive is the fact that gasoline is surprisingly expensive in Mexico (Perhaps not so surprising as the only folks who can make and sell gasoline is the state monopoly, Pemex) The Mexican Petroleum Industry was nationalized in 1938 with Texaco, Standard Oil, and others being the reluctant donors. State industries are often the happy homes for redundant politicos and featherbedding, which would be OK if Mexico could afford it but it cannot.
One of the many nice things about Mexico City is that most of Mexico's pollution is located there and once you have left, you are home free. The next morning we flew out to Tuxla Gutierrez. the capital of the state of Chiapas.
"Tuxla", as it is almost universally called, is on no one's list of interesting Mexican cities. It probably became the state capital in 1892 due to a certain amount of racial prejudice. Tuxla was, and is, less overwhelmingly Indian than say, San Cristobal de Las Casas. Tuxla is a sort of workaday city of around 380,000 folks with few historic buildings, but a nice zoo.
Joan would be teaching there a few days and while we were there we would take in Sumidero Canyon National Park.
Sumidero Canyon National Park is one of those compromises that third world countries feel they must make out of grim necessity. A wilderness canyon with class IV and V rapids was dammed to provide hydroelectric power in an energy poor nation with comparatively little hydro potential due to lack of rainfall and major rivers. The Rio Grujalva, which flows through Sumidero canyon proved to be an exception and the Chicoasen dam, fifth highest in the world was built in 1981, creating a narrow lake 16 miles long with sheer cliffs rising nearly 3,000 feet above the water. The parallels between Glen Canyon dam or Hetch Hetchy reservoir spring to mind.
The lake provides a placid water highway from which to view the Sumidero gorge. The dam survey crew took nine days to fight their way through the gorge when they first descended it in the 1960's. Should the gorge have been preserved as wilderness?
Interesting philosophical question, neighbors. I would suspect that Mexicans, even environmentally inclined Mexicans, would not find it a hard call. A "wilderness experience" in the pre dam Sumidero would be world class, but it would take world class skills or a world class river outfit like Sobek to take you through. It is unlikely that there would be enough business for a Mexican outfitter to gear up. It would thus be foreign outfitters taking foreign visitors down a Mexican river, with all the resulting resentment and antagonism.
As it stands, it is a Mexican operation all the way, and that's the way it should be.
To do the Sumidero, you take a "collectivo" which is usually a retired American school bus (with all remembered comforts) about seven miles from Tuxla to the Spanish colonial town of Chiapa de Corzo, which nestles quite prettily on the banks of the Rio Grijalva. You walk two blocks down to the embaradero and purchase tickets which amount to about $10.00 gringo for perhaps the best 3 hour journey in Mexico.
You don't immediately jump in a boat and go. This is Mexico. There are certain economies of scale. Your captain must have enough passengers to make it worth his time and gas. This gives time to buy a beer and chips, sit at a waterfront table and watch the riverine scene. There are worse way to pass time in this life. In twenty minutes to half an hour, your captain will have his passengers and it is time to board.
You pass a rack and are handed a well maintained, coast guard approved life jacket. Mexico is rapidly improving in various subtle ways. Safety and maintenance are two things that are usually downplayed in a developing country with the argument that they are "frills" that are too expensive and time consuming. In reality, of course, safety & maintenance are the bedrock of progress. The last time we visited the Sumidero, we were given a slab of foam rubber with a hole in it that was supposed to act as a life jacket. The times they are a changing for the better.
The lancha is an open, 30 foot fiberglass boat that the Mexicans make by the thousands as work and offshore fishing boats. They are usually powered by 75 horse Yamaha. We have about 25 passengers, mostly Mexicans. Mexicans are inveterate and enthusiastic tourists and really love exploring Mexico in large, happy groups.
The first few miles are through back yard rural Mexico, with children playing in the water or fishing off trees that have fallen in the water. Bucolic, 19th century life. Probably amoebic as well as bucolic. Tuxla Guiterrez, our capital of 380,000 souls, is thinking about a water treatment plant, but right now puts the raw sewage into the river (and the National Park), but there are plans and that is the important thing.
Shortly, the river narrows as we enter the 1,000 foot high gates of the Sumidero. The walls sport an incredible vertical cactus garden, including big species like Cardon,
The captain opens the throttle and we get up on plane. Edward Abbey would not approve, but we have miles to go and things to see. The surface of the reservoir is plate glass placid and the Yamaha moves into a cruising hum that is almost pleasant.
It is the rainy season and this is the best time to view the canyon. Tourists who visit Yosemite in glorious August often wonder what the fuss is about when they are asked to note a damp spot on the valley wall and imagine how spectacular Yosemite Falls are in May.
In the rainy season of June-October, the plants and trees are flowering or just doing their deep green thing, and best of all, the waterfalls are working.
The Sumidero waterfalls are something special. Unlike Yosemite, the walls of the canyon are karst limestone. This means that the waterfalls come roaring out of mysterious caverns half way up the vertical cliffs. The most famous of the Sumidero falls is the 600 foot "Christmas Tree Falls" named for the phenomenon that its spray has caused; a luxuriant growth of moss in the shape of a Christmas tree.
We make short stops at various points. We motor into a cave for a bit and see some bats, we stop at a small religious shrine that also has a plaque commemorating the founder of Sumidero National Park (Alas! I didn't get the name) Whoever he was, our founder had been most successful in preserving a setting for what must have been a change from a river to a lake ecosystem. We stop to look at huge crocodillians basking on the occasional shore (The guide books insist on calling them crocodiles, but they look like alligators to me) They are large, healthy reptiles with yards of valuable hide. Their existence is sure evidence that the Sumidero National Parks have convinced the locals that the wildlife is better viewed than skinned, from an economic stand point. There is abundant bird life, particularly on an island rising out of the lake, a former mountain that enterprising herons have turned into a rookery
The great walls of the Sumidero rise to nearly 3000 feet before us. It's a bit like taking a boat trip through a dammed and flooded Yosemite Valley.
A dammed and flooded Yosemite Valley! Oh, blasphemous thought! Bite your tongue, O philistine!
Ah, but which Canyon has been more desecrated, the Sumidero or the "saved" Yosemite?
Let us count the ways we have "saved" Yosemite Valley: miles of roadways, vast traffic jams, jails, stores, government offices supermarkets, banks, 23 retail booze outlets fueling the need for one of the most active law enforcement programs in the national parks, a hotel for the rich, and motels for the middle class, and "Nature Study centers" that preempt nature. In fact, all the appurtenances of Industrial tourism as practiced by the National Park Service and its sibling the Yosemite Park & Curry Company.
In the Sumidero, one is often out of sight and sound of another lancha, virtually the only other human artifact is the little religious shrine and the park founders plaque. (Considerably more modest that the big bronze slabs that the NPS bolts to rocks to commemorate Stephen Mather)
Oddly enough, we did dam one Yosemite Park canyon, the famed Hetch Hetchy Valley, neatly preventing the National Park Service and the Yosemite Park & Curry Company from "developing" it before we became environmentally and aesthetically mature. So we actually have another Yosemite Valley "mothballed" for future use when we pull out the dam, drain the reservoir, and do it right this time as grown ups.
In the meantime, The Sumidero Canyon is a less stressful, more natural substitute for Yosemite Valley.