Chapter 4
The Rise and Decline of Ecological
Attitudes, 19291940 (continued)
Declining Influence of the Wildlife
Biologists
Corresponding with George Wright in the spring of 1935 on the need
for highly qualified scientists in the parks, Joseph Grinnell stated
"quite precisely" his high aspirations for the Park Service's biological
programs. Grinnell believed that the country's "supreme 'hope' for pure,
uncontaminated wildlife conservation" was the National Park Service,
"under its Wildlife Division." [166] A year
later, the division had reached its maximum of twentyseven
biologistsbut Wright, its founder and chief, was dead. It is
difficult to trace all the reasons for the decline of the wildlife
programs that followed, but the loss of Wright's leadership surely
contributed.
Much later, Lowell Sumner recalled that among the biologists only
Wright had the special ability to "placate and win over" those in the
Park Service who increasingly believed "that biologists were
impractical, were unaware that 'parks are for people,' and were a
hindrance to large scale plans for park development." Wright had been
able to exert a "reassuring influence at the top, [keeping] hostility to
the ecological approach . . . muted." Writing to Grinnell in the fall of
1936, Ben Thompson noted the frequently adversarial role of the
biologists, with their negative "I protest" attitudes, which Wright had
diverted and diplomatically finessed into "positive acts of
conservation." Thompson stated that Wright had succeeded in establishing
a division to "protect wildlife in the parks and make the Service
conscious of those values." But the "immediate job" after Wright's death
had been to keep the wildlife biologists from "being swallowed . . . by
another unit of the Service." [167]
Thompson's remarks suggested the vulnerability of the Wildlife
Division. By August 1938, while forestry, landscape architecture,
planning, and other programs flourished within the Park Service, the
number of biologists had dwindled to ten, with six positions funded by
the CCC and still only four funded from regular appropriations. The
overall total dropped to nine by 1939, as the transfer of the biologists
to the Bureau of Biological Survey approached. [168] The transfer came not through any Park
Service intention, but as the result of a broader scheme: the
compromises made when President Roosevelt rejected Secretary Ickes'
attempt to transform the Interior Department into a "Department of
Conservation." Ickes had eagerly sought, but failed, to have the Forest
Service moved from the Department of Agriculture to his proposed new
conservation department. Instead, the Biological Survey was placed in
Interior. Soon after (and apparently without Park Service protest), he
moved all of the Interior Department's wildlife research functions into
the Biological Survey, transferring the Park Service's biologists to the
survey's newly created Office of National Park Wildlife. Although
biologists located in the parks retained their duty stations, they had
become part of another bureau. [169]
Like the national park system, the Biological Survey's wildlife
refuge system had expanded greatly during the 1930s. The refuges in
effect served as "game farms," which, along with aggressive predator
control, constituted the survey's chief efforts to ensure an abundance
of game for hunters. Thus, the survey's management practices differed
critically from those advocated by the biologists who transferred from
the Park Service. In June 1939, about six months before the transfer,
Ben Thompson wrote to E. Raymond Hall, acting head of the Museum of
Vertebrate Zoology after Grinnell's death, asserting that the survey had
"never liked the existence of the NPS wildlife division." [170] Thompson did not explain the cause of the
dislike, but differences in management philosophies and policies, plus
growth of the Park Service's own biological expertise under George
Wright (which very likely diminished the Biological Survey's involvement
in national park programs), may have caused tension between the survey
and the Wildlife Division.
Aware of the policy differences, Park Service director Cammerer and
the Biological Survey's chief, Ira N. Gabrielson, signed an agreement in
late 1939 whereby the national parks would be managed under their
"specific, distinctive principles" by continuing the Service's
established wildlife management policies. The agreement spelled out the
policies, using most of the recommendations included in Fauna No. 1.
Nevertheless, Lowell Sumner later recalled that the transfer weakened
the biologists' influence in the Service. To whatever degree the
scientists had been considered part of the Park Service "family and
programs," Sumner wrote, "such feelings were diluted by this involuntary
transfer to another agency." [171] Although
the biologists would return to the Service after World War II, almost
another two decades would pass before scientific resource management in
the national parks would experience even a small resurgence.
Viewed within the context of the New Deal, the National Park
Service's declining interest in ecological management becomes
comprehensible. The New Deal impacted the Park Service fundamentally by
emphasizing and, especially, by fundingthe recreational
aspects of the Service's original mandate. The Park Service, which under
Stephen Mather had stressed development of the national parks for public
access and enjoyment, used the recreational and public use aspects of
its mandate as a springboard, justifying involvement in ever-expanding
programs during the 1930s. The emergency relief funds appropriated by
Congress during the Roosevelt administration enlarged the breadth and
scope of Park Service programs to a degree undreamed of in Mather's
time. Under such circumstances the Service continued to respond to its
traditional utilitarian impulses, influenced by what its leadership
wanted and by its perception of what Congress and the public intended
the national park system and the Service itself to be.
It is significant that during the 1930s no public organizations
demanded scientifically based management of the parks' natural
resources. Pressure from the Boone and Crockett Club, the American
Society of Mammalogists, and other organizations that helped bring about
the 1931 predator control policies seems to have been focused on that
issue alone. It also appears to have subsided following promulgation of
the predator policies. The National Parks Association's urging that the
parks not be overdeveloped probably constituted the chief criticism
faced by Park Service management during the decade.
Even the Service's first official natural resource management
policies did not move national park management far from its utilitarian
base. The forestry and fish management policies allowed continued
manipulation of natural resources, largely as a means to ensure public
enjoyment of the parks. The policy on predatory animals issued by
Albright in 1931 contained sufficient qualifications to permit continued
reduction. Even easing up on reduction met with resistance, including
that of Albright himself, who feared the parks' popular game species
were being threatened by predators. In addition, the Service's
commitment to strict preservation through the research reserve program
was never realized. Virtually alone among national park policy
statements, Fauna No. 1's wildlife management recommendations, with the
expressed intent of preserving "flora and fauna in the primitive state,"
encouraged an ecological orientation in the Park Service. Still, the
ecological attitudes that did emerge were inspired by the wildlife
biologists, who failed to gain a commanding voice in national park
management.
Unlike the perspectives of the landscape architects or foresters,
the wildlife biologists' vision of national park management was truly
revolutionary, penetrating beyond the scenic facades of the parks to
comprehend the significance of the complex natural world. It was a
vision that challenged the status quo in the National Park Service. But
without a vocal public constituency specifically concerned about natural
resource issues, the wildlife biologists were alone in their efforts.
They were insurgents in a tradition-bound realm; for what support they
did get, the biologists had to rely on shifting alliances within the
Park Service, depending on the issue at hand.
In this regard the 1930s would differ markedly from the 1960s and
1970s, when influential environmental organizations and increasing
public concern about ecological matters would bring strong outside
pressure on national park management. The failure of the Park Service to
pursue options presented by the wildlife biologists in the 1930s left
the Service still largely ignorant of its natural resources and unaware
of the ecological consequences of park development and use.
Greatly enhancing the influence of professions such as landscape
architecture and forestry, the Service's growth and expansion led also
to the ascendancy of landscape architect Conrad Wirth as a major voice
in national park affairs. After waiting in the wings during the
administrations of Newton Drury and Arthur Demaray, Wirth would become
director in late 1951. With the Service still primarily interested in
the visual, aesthetic aspects of nature, those few wildlife biologists
involved in national park affairs under Wirth would face an onslaught of
invasive development in the parks not unlike what the New Deal had
producedonly more expansive.
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