Dear HCN,
Montana Sen. Conrad Burns
and ecologist Richard Keigley seem to share a common discontent:
Both criticize land-management policy in Yellowstone National Park
(HCN, 9/15/97).
Burns recently chastised Interior
Secretary Bruce Babbitt for park policy that let bison die in the
park last winter. Burns said the deaths were proof that “natural
regulation” is bad policy. This seems similar to Keigley’s worries
about trees. Keigley sees elk-damaged trees as an indication that
land management in the park has gone wrong.
But
look again. Last winter, when bison died in Yellowstone National
Park, tens of thousands of deer and cattle also died far beyond
park borders. They died on privately owned land, including land
owned and operated by some of the best land managers in the
mountain-plains ranching community. If Burns thinks that animal
deaths prove that land managers are bad ones, he has a lot of
explaining to do. In a killer winter such as last winter, everyone
sees losses.
For his part, Keigley seems to be
insisting that “natural” conditions in the park would not include
trees that were damaged by an overpopulation of elk. While I
believe that Keigley’s research should be funded – maybe Sen. Burns
can find the money somewhere – I think his premise may be shaky;
Keigley seems to assume that wildlife populations do not go through
periods of boom and bust in “natural conditions.” Or that, if elk
populations ever do boom in natural conditions, the elk somehow
avoid overgrazing their resource
base.
Nevertheless, Keigley’s hypothesis deserves
to be put to the test, in scientific research. There is nothing in
Keigley’s contentions that threatens to put the lie to the policy
of “natural regulation,” and there may be much to be learned in a
study of Yellowstone’s older forest. And if his research does pose
a challenge to current policy, so what? Park managers can then just
move on to something better; but let’s see how the chips really do
fall before leaping onto bandwagons led by Burns and
Keigley.
Lance
Olsen
Glendive,
Montana
Lance Olsen is working
on a book about wildlife
politics.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Wildfire also goes boom-bust.
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