| Elk Management Planning You are invited to attend any of the five planning workshops scheduled for August 2005. Additional information may be found on the park website at http://parkplanning.nps.gov/wica. The workshops will include brief presentations on elk management at the park and the planning process. Facilitators will be on hand to encourage and record comments from participants. Park and other agency specialists will be available to answer technical questions. We hope these sessions will better inform the park and public participants about elk management within Wind Cave National Park. Please attend and provide us your thoughts and concerns about elk management inside the park. Meeting Schedule
After finding several previously unrecorded Alvin McDonald signatures while surveying in Wind Cave over the previous few years, we decided to create a list of all Alvin McDonald signatures and a GIS layer to show their location within Wind Cave. In doing a little research, 26 signatures by Alvin were located in one of three sources: cave trip reports, the Wind Cave Feature Inventory, or historical documents. With the development of this list, four items for each signature were documented: the actual signature, associated room or survey name, the nearest survey station, and the associated date. Eventually, we plan to include a photo of each signature with this database. Through time, Alvin signed his name five different ways (Alvin McDonald, A.F. McDonald, A.F.McD, AFM, & Z.U.Q.). Seth Spoelman created the GIS layer, which is depicted in the diagram below. These signatures are scattered throughout the Historic Section. There may be many more yet to be located and if anyone is aware of a signature that is not on this map, please contact Rod Horrocks.
Comments and feedback about Resource Ramblings are encouraged and can be made to Dan Foster, in person, or via email. |
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Wind
Cave National Park is beginning a planning process to decide how
best to manage the elk population that uses the park. This process
includes writing an elk management plan/environmental impact statement.
The park and other agencies have met to identify preliminary and
required items such as the purpose and need for an elk management
plan, specific objectives, and general alternative approaches to
meet these objectives. We are seeking public participation in this
early stage. We want to know issues and concerns you may have about
elk management inside the park, and your thoughts on elk management
alternatives and potential environmental impacts.