Chapter 3
Perpetuating Tradition: The National
Parks under Stephen T. Mather, 1916-1929 (continued)
The Predator Problem
Of all of the natural resource management efforts in the parks, the
most controversial was the killing of predators in order to protect more
popular species. Predator control efforts in the parks were in accord
with the ongoing, nationwide campaign to control carnivorous enemies of
domestic livestock, as demanded by farmers and ranchers and promoted by
the Biological Survey. Inherited from army and civilian park management,
the programs attained legal justification through the Organic Act's
authorization to destroy animals considered "detrimental to the use" of
parks. [90] Determined to keep the national
parks unimpaired, the Service acted as though the predators themselves
were impairments-threats to be dealt with before they destroyed the
peaceful scenes it wished to maintain. Mather believed predator control
helped increase the populations of the "important species of wild
animals," and he once stated that the national parks offered sanctuaries
to all wildlife "except predatory animals." [91] Shortly after he succeeded Mather, Horace
Albright defined predators as those species that preyed on "animals that
add so much to the pleasure of park visitors""-clearly tying predator
reduction to public enjoyment. Albright saw predator control as a means
of protecting those "species of animals desirable for public observation
and enjoyment," and declared that the "enemies of those species must be
controlled." [92]
Bloodthirsty predators seemed to have no place in the beautiful
pastoral parks, at least not in large numbers. From its beginning the
Service practiced predator control "with thoroughness" (as an internal
report later put it) and developed an expanded list of undesirable
predatory animals-at times including the cougar, wolf, coyote, lynx,
bobcat, fox, badger, mink, weasel, fisher, otter, and marten. For a time
during the 1920s, rangers destroyed pelican eggs in an effort to reduce
the numbers of pelicans in Yellowstone and protect trout populations to
enhance sport fishing. [93]
As before 1916, implementation of predator control programs varied
from park to park and remained largely at the discretion of the
superintendents-depending on, in the words of a Park Service report,
"local conditions and the Superintendents' ideas." Generally, the
rangers were responsible for predator control; as a means of augmenting
salaries and encouraging predator hunting, they were often allowed to
sell for personal profit a percentage of the hides and pelts of the
predators they killed. In addition, the parks sometimes hired predator
hunters. [94] Perhaps the most noted was Jay
Bruce, "official cougar killer" for the State of California (whom Mather
once had entertain visitors to Yosemite with tales of killing mountain
lions). Yosemite superintendent Washington ("Dusty") Lewis reported in
1919 that in the previous three or four years, Bruce had killed more
than fifty cougars in or near the park. This had prevented, Lewis
stated, the mountain lion's "slaughter" of Yosemite's deer. [95]
Reflecting the policy of borrowing expertise from other agencies,
Mather commented in 1926 that most predator control in the parks was
conducted by rangers or by the Biological Survey. [96] In parks such as Zion, Rocky Mountain,
Glacier, and Grand Canyon, the Biological Survey supplied its own
hunters or supervised contract hunters. Its classification of which
animals were harmful predators was generally accepted as a guide by the
Park Service. [97] The survey further
influenced the Service in the means by which predators were
exterminated: not only shooting, but poisoning, trapping, and tracking
with dogs. Furthermore, the Park Service obtained support from state
game and fish offices, especially in California, which supplied hunters
(like cougar killer Jay Bruce) and information on predator and prey
species.
The predator programs came under increasing criticism beginning in
about the mid-1920s. Critics focused on the methods of control
(especially the use of poisons and steel traps); the lack of scientific
information to justify the programs; and, most fundamentally, the very
idea of killing predators in the national parks. Moreover, by the early
1920s some parks had begun to report that the largest predators (wolves
and cougars) were disappearing. Glacier, Yellowstone, and Rocky Mountain
indicated in 1923 and 1924 that wolves and cougars were reduced to the
point of extinction, making it unprofitable to hire special hunters. It
is possible that both species were eradicated from these parks by the
mid-1920s. [98]
Even though extinction of large predators was taking place in some
parks, official and unofficial pronouncements of the Service began to
maintain that it was only reducing predator populations, not
eliminating them. In their 1922 conference, the superintendents stated
that some nuisance animals such as the porcupine and the pelican should
be reduced in number, but not eliminated. In all cases they agreed that
predators should be killed only when they threatened "the natural
balance of wild life." Each superintendent was to study conditions in
his park and determine if and when any one species was becoming "too
powerful for the safety of another." Already some superintendents (at
Mount Rainier and Sequoia, for example) had largely ended control in
their parks. Yet others continued their programs, as at Rocky Mountain
National Park, where in 1922 Superintendent Roger Toll initiated a
cooperative effort with the Biological Survey to poison predators or
track them with dogs. Toll later stated that he wanted the predators
reduced to the "lowest practicable numbers" and that the park had too
many predators "for the good of the game." [99]
Throughout the remainder of the 1920s, the Service's basic predator
policy included reducing rather than eliminating predators; killing
mainly wolves, coyotes, and cougars, with declining emphasis on other
predators; and allowing superintendents broad discretion in defining and
implementing their predator programs. These policies were affirmed at
superintendents conferences of 1923 and 1925. Still, even the smaller
predators continued to be hunted, and not infrequently. In September
1926 a particularly striking example of elimination of smaller predatory
animals occurred when otters at one of Yellowstone's lakes were killed
because they were eating trout-some of which were probably nonnative
species introduced for sportfishing. [100]
Criticism of predator control in the national parks intensified in
the late 1920s, when organizations such as the Boone and Crockett Club,
the New York Zoological Society, and the American Society of
Mammalogists protested the Service's policies. [101] These groups and their allies expressed
concern that predator control did not have an adequate scientific basis,
and stressed their views that predators had a natural place in the
parks. University of California biologist Joseph Grinnell spoke to the
1928 superintendents conference (the last one held during Mather's
tenure), emphasizing the need for scientific research to guide national
park policy and the necessity to leave predators alone. [102]
In March 1929, two months after Mather left office, Director Albright
reported to the secretary of the interior that predators were being
"controlled but not eliminated." Although a gradual reduction in
predator killing had taken place, the Service's overall policy had not
changed substantively. The superintendents' continuing discretionary
authority was apparent in that, even though they had adopted a strongly
worded anti-steel-trap resolution at their 1928 conference (they voted
to "forbid absolutely" the use of traps in national parks), such use
continued in Grand Canyon until 1930 and in Yellowstone until 1931.
Although parks such as Mount Rainier and Sequoia had largely
discontinued predator control, Yellowstone aggressively killed coyotes
throughout the Mather era and beyond. [103]
Even Albright's official declaration of a new predator policy,
published in the May 1931 issue of the Journal of Mammalogy (and
almost certainly influenced by newly hired Park Service wildlife
biologists), kept open the option of killing predators "when they are
actually found making serious inroads upon herds of game or other
mammals needing special protection." Yet the new policy statement did
help move the Service away from the traditional views that had dominated
the bureau during Mather's time. Predators, in Albright's words, were to
be "considered integral parts of the wild life protected within the
national parks."
Albright summed up the new policy by underlining what he saw as the
difference between the parks and other lands-that predators not
tolerated elsewhere were to be given "definite attention" in the
national parks. He pledged the Park Service to maintain "examples of the
various interesting North American mammals under natural conditions for
the pleasure and education of the visitors and for the purpose of
scientific study." [104] But Albright's
modification of predator control came only after populations of major
predators had been eliminated or seriously reduced in some parks. In the
years ahead, the new policy would be observed in varying degrees by
different park superintendents. Indeed, Albright himself would staunchly
advocate the continued killing of certain predators.
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