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Here's a thoughtful piece of writing about wildlands management that happens to be about hunting in Theodore Roosevelt National Park but which, I suggest, could be more generically applicable.
The problem, as the author presents it, is that the TRNP elk herd has over time swelled beyond a sustainable level. Because the ecosystem is not intact, no natural mechanism currently exists that is capable of restoring balance. Without some restorative force being applied, the system will break down, or so one can reasonably expect. "What to do" is the question the author poses and "there is no easy answer" is the short response he gives.
Given the current situation, the laws on the books and the traditions long-associated with National Park management, does anyone have a solution they'd like to offer which they believe is more appropriate than those offered below?
BTW, the title given to this article was "So, when does it cease to be a national park" -- and I thought that question itself was intriguing. Given how designated Wilderness is currently being managed and/or mis-managed, one might similarly ask "So, when does it cease to be a Wilderness?" -- or so I pondered.
With respect to Wilderness, that question has little to do with hunting. With respect to the National Parks, hunting is merely one of a great many issues which are all equally applicable -- or so I suggest.
Scott
--- begin quoted ---
March 11, 2007
So, when does it cease to be a national park?
BismarckTribune
So, the question is, should volunteer hunters be allowed to thin the
burgeoning elk herd in the south unit of Theodore Roosevelt National
Park? It's a very complicated situation. There is no easy answer.
There are currently between 750 and 900 elk in the south unit of TRNP.
Naturalists reckon that the park can really only sustain fewer than
half that many elk. What to do? The national park is right in the
middle of a careful and deliberative assessment of options. The process
is intelligent, scientific and cautious. It's in everyone's interest to
let that process find its way to an enlightened solution.
The historic method of dealing with overpopulation in the parks has
been to round up excessive numbers and relocate them. Two hundred and
twenty elk were removed from TRNP in 1993; 198 more in the year 2000.
That is not possible in this situation, because fear of the spread of
chronic wasting disease has led to a moratorium on relocating elk and
other cervid populations. So unless national game management protocols
change - and soon - the surplus elk in TRNP are going to have to be
destroyed. It is at least possible that if the TRNP population are
tested and certified as disease-free, the surplus elk could be
relocated. But the test (lethal) would have to be conducted on several
hundred elk to pass muster. There will be killing either way.
The question is: how, by whom, using what methods? And what, if any, role should volunteer hunters play?
One of the core traditions of America's national park system - the
glory and envy of the world - is that hunting is prohibited within its
boundaries. National parks are places of special serenity, even
solemnity. They are, as Theodore Roosevelt liked to say, America's
cathedrals - equal in majesty to Chartres or St. Peter's of Rome, and
deserving of equally reverent care. They are sanctuaries for
game-places where elk, buffalo and deer, coyotes, badgers and the lowly
prairie dog are protected from the rifle and the trap. They are places
where we go to refresh our spirits, to commune with the earth in a
deliberately untrammeled state. The essential idea of the national
parks is to invite humans inside, but with the lightest possible human
footprint. As the historian Joseph Sax puts it, we sojourn in these
wild places not to employ the same protocols that man uses to dominate
the rest of the planet (what would be the good of that?), but rather -
for a short interlude-deliberately to restrain our technological
superiority in order to reconnect with our basic selves and with the
rest of creation. In a curious and ironic way, Sax says, we become more
human as we lower our technological advantage. That's why fly-fishing
is spiritually superior to throwing a stick of dynamite into the
Gallatin River.
Theodore Roosevelt National Park, though it may not have
mountain-grinding glaciers or sublime waterfalls, is no different from
any other national park in this regard, and it deserves to be treated
with the same sacramental tenderness. We Dakotans have historically
undervalued TRNP. It's our Yosemite, and we ought to treat it with that
level of respect. The no-hunting rule in national parks is so deeply
engrained into our national consciousness (not to mention American law)
that to permit it now would be like allowing 10 men on a professional
baseball team, or redefining the marathon as a 42-mile race.
Everyone I have talked to in national park circles insists upon two
things. First, it would be nearly impossible to find or craft a
loophole in park system law to permit hunting in this one situation and
not others. In other words, what we do in North Dakota would create a
dramatic precedent for the world's most successful national park system
- successful, in large part, because it has prohibited the kinds of
human activity that characterize the rest of the continent. Second,
permitting hunting in any of the 58 full-bore national parks would
effectively change the mission of the whole system. This is a decision
not to be entered into lightly.
Nor is this debate merely about hunting. Ever since the creation of the
national park system in 1872 (Yellowstone), there have been gigantic
pressures to open the national parks to mining, oil and natural gas
development, powered sports, commercialized tourism for the rich,
asphalt access to the outback, and other activities fundamentally at
odds with the very idea of a national park. Though the park system has
an imperfect record, it has been at its best when it has resisted such
exploitative activities.
On the other hand ...
Randy Kreil, the chief of wildlife for the North Dakota Game and Fish
Department, believes that game management problems of this sort are
going to proliferate in the national parks in the 21st century, and
that it is inevitable that hunting will be reintroduced at some point.
Kreil's arguments are hard to dismiss. One of the purposes of the
national parks, he says, was to provide refuge for the recovery of
American game species that had been hunted almost to extinction in the
19th century. "That mission has been accomplished. That was the first
hundred years. In the next hundred years we are going to have to make
tough decisions about how we intend to manage the recovered species."
Because the elk in TRNP have no animal predators (grizzlies and
wolves), they have succeeded beyond the point of sustainability. In
other words, it's silly to talk about the national parks as if they
were intact or pristine ecosystems. Humans have distorted the natural
rhythms of the West. Whether we like it or not, we have management
responsibilities. Hunting by carefully regulated volunteers should be
one of our management tools, Kreil says.
Of course there is a certain appeal to the idea that citizen volunteers
might take care of this problem in a way that gives them the
satisfaction of an elk hunt, while reducing the herd to a manageable
size. It sounds so Tocquevillean. A problem exists. Volunteers line up
to solve the problem at their own expense, no fuss no muss. Instead of
hiring game assassins to do the job, we transform the herd culling from
slaughter to the poetry of the hunt. It's indisputable, I think, that
we all feel a sickening twinge at the idea of bringing in sharpshooters
for whom elk-killing is just a disagreeable job to be done, rather than
permitting amateur hunters to quest for one of the satisfactions of
life in a vast and open place.
I agree with Kreil that we need a thoughtful national conversation
about game management in the national parks in the 21st century. Just
as we have volunteer docents and volunteer campground attendants,
perhaps it would be possible to have a rigorous certification program
for tightly-supervised volunteer hunters on foot or horseback (I say on
foot). In the long run, perhaps a volunteer "Roosevelt Brigade" of
national park hunters, who have spent months or years studying the
history, ecology, geology, literature and philosophy of the national
parks, could be permitted, under exceedingly careful supervision, to
play a role in the future game management of the entire system.
But routine hunting? No way.
In the short term, my favorite option would be for TRNP to work with
the governor, Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., the U.S. Forest Service and
the State Game and Fish Department to build a consortium of landowners
on the northern and western perimeters of the park who would permit
hunters to enter their property (for a reasonable fee). This sounds
like a serious burden, but we have a growing problem on our hands, and
there may be ways to sweeten the deal so that landowners would really
welcome the hunt. If that could be worked out, the TRNP perimeter
fences could be lowered or breached; elk could be driven beyond the
boundaries of the park; and then hunters could play a legitimate role
in culling the herds.
If this is not feasible, I would favor a quiet roundup followed by the
least painful and dramatic slaughter of the surplus elk population,
coupled with a thoroughgoing CWD-testing regimen.
Meanwhile, no hunting in our national parks.
(Clay Jenkinson is the Theodore Roosevelt scholar-in-residence at Dickinson State University. He lives in Bismarck.
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