Dear HCN,
Re: “Fun-hogs to replace
cows in a Utah monument” (HCN, 2/1/99), give us a break. Give us
the real story. The Escalante, a lone remnant of Glen Canyon, is a
sensitive and disastrously disturbed river system. It is a central
riparian corridor for wildlife, but at present it is barely alive.
It flows through national forest lands, the Grand
Staircase-Escalante National Monument, and the Glen Canyon National
Recreation Area, so it is an “interagency problem.” This river has
been battered nearly to death over the last 150 years, and nobody
knows exactly what it was like before the most recent human
disturbances. But it can be something better.
A
“conservation deal” trading out grazing allotments is fine, and the
Grand Canyon Trust should be praised. Moving the cows out may be a
good first step toward restoration of the river system, but one
wonders what is being protected if this is the only management
decision. If the public lets it only become a first step to filling
the canyons with recreational fun-hogs, the river
loses.
Michael
Cohen
Cedar City,
Utah
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Hogs replacing hogs are still hogs.
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