Chapter 5
The War and Postwar Years, 19401963 (continued)
The Status of Wildlife
Biology
Although Newton Drury accepted the advice of the wildlife biologists
many times, he made no effort to expand the Service's scientific
research capability; nor would Wirth, who evidenced only random interest
in the wildlife biologists and their policies. The biologists were
transferred back to the Park Service from the Fish and Wildlife Service
beginning in 1944, when Victor Cahalane, George Wright's successor as
head of the Wildlife Division, returned and was stationed in Drury's
office. Two years later, the remaining handful of wildlife biologists
were reinstated to the ranks of the Park Service (and in October 1947
the Service ended its wartime "exile" in Chicago, moving its
headquarters back to Washington). [48]
Under Drury in the middle and late 1940s, the Service prepared
several reports that emphasized the need to improve its biological
programs, including researchbut the recommendations encountered a
reluctant Service leadership. In late March of 1944, before Cahalane
reentered the Service, Chief Naturalist Carl Russell recommended that
after the war Drury should promote park research rather than
construction and development, and that the Service should not "attempt
to justify an extensive program of post-war construction." He advocated
instead a "definite program of post-war studies looking toward full
understanding of our responsibilities as trustees." Apparently
thinking in terms of a jobs program for research, Russell noted the
"lack of organized information" in fields such as history, ethnology,
and natural sciences. He claimed that as many as two hundred researchers
could be put to work in Chicago, Washington, New York, Berkeley,
Cambridge, and other cities. [49]
On March 23, 1944the very date of Russell's memorandum on
research Dorr G. Yeager, assistant superintendent at Zion National
Park, issued a lengthy statement on the deterioration of natural
conditions in the park that corroborated Carl Russell's concerns. Yeager
identified problems of excessive and poorly located park development,
predator control and overpopulation of deer, invasion of exotics, and
alteration of riverine systems in the park. Given such problems, he
speculated that the park had been so mismanaged that it had become
"impossible to maintain a seminatural condition." He believed
that in Zion the Park Service might be "forced to admit that the natural
condition can never be regained." Yeager recommended approaching these
complex problems through scientific investigation. Solutions could be
arrived at "only through a carefully planned and executed research
program" addressing the Service's responsibilities in biological and
geological matters. [50]
In early 1945, perhaps in response to such recommendations, the
Service prepared the most comprehensive statement on national park
scientific research needs to appear during the Drury era. Instead of a
large internal research program, however, the report championed the use
of independent researchers and foundations. Noting inadequate funds for
inhouse research, the report encouraged scientists and university
students to use the parks as "field laboratories." Still, the use of
outside expertise did not mean that the Park Service should avoid
"organizing and prosecuting a vigorous research program when time,
funds, and qualified personnel are available." The report called for the
Service to create permanent positions (it did not suggest how many) to
be filled by technical experts who would oversee the necessary
research.
The report further stated that, in addition to guiding the management
of flora and fauna, research was needed to support interpretation and
development. Park development was to be carried out with a scientific
understanding of natural resources to help ensure their preservation. In
weighing the relative importance of development and preservation, the
report favored preservation, stating that "minor objectives in park
development such as might pertain only to Man's convenience . . . must
receive secondary consideration when they conflict with the primary
objective of preserving the primitive." [51]
There was no substantive response to these calls for improving
research. In April 1947 Drury's office issued yet another report,
asserting that in light of the importance of preserving natural
resources, the Service must "extend and expand its existing research
program." It stated that current research efforts were "not altogether
satisfactory." Expansion of the program should be accomplished through
hiring additional personnel and cooperating with other scientific
organizations. [52]
Despite the Service's proclamations, the biologists did not gain
additional positions to expand their programs. As Lowell Sumner
recalled, only eight biology positions were reestablished after the war.
The April 1947 report on research listed even fewer: only six positions,
four of them in central offices such as Washington or the regional
offices, and two in parks. By either count the number was not
sufficient, given the large number of parks to be managed, each with
serious wildlife and development problems to be addressed; thus the 1947
report called for at least fourteen additional biologist positions. A
1948 summary of wildlife conditions in the national parks upped this
recommendation to sixteen additional positions, half of which should be
"bird and mammal men, ecologists, and botanists," the other half to be
aquatic biologists. [53] The following
year, a similar report noted the variety of wildlife concerns, including
moose ecology in Isle Royale; fishery management in Yellowstone, Grand
Teton, Glacier, and Rocky Mountain; and management of large and small
mammals in parks such as Acadia, Dinosaur, Theodore Roosevelt, and Wind
Cave. The same report noted, however, that no progress had been made in
securing the necessary biological staff, and it repeated the hiring
recommendations made in the 1948 summary. [54]
Documented needs and statements of good intentions notwithstanding,
the Park Service made no real increases in its biological program during
the Drury administration. Victor Cahalane recalled that Drury was very
timid in approaching Congress about the necessity for additional
scientific positions. He believed the director was supportive of
scientific programs, but only as long as they did not cost anything. It
may have also been that the biologists themselves were not persuasive
advocates of their programs. But, in truth, management had other
priorities. In 1951 Chief Landscape Architect William Carnes reported
that the Park Service currently employed "about 140" landscape
architects, who were engaged in "planning the development essential to
the administration, protection, and public use" of the national parks.
[55] This very large commitment of staff
reflected the priorities of Drury's last years as director, even before
Conrad Wirth would substantially increase planning and development with
his Mission 66 program.
Ironically, management's failure to give strong support to the
biologists may have been influenced by a concept derived from the
wildlife policies established in Fauna No. 1that under the right
circumstances most species in the national parks should become
self-sustaining. Species were to be allowed to carry on their struggle
for existence "unaided" unless threatened with extinction. Once they
were out of danger of extinction, any "artificial aids" provided by the
Park Service were to be discontinued. One implication that could be
drawn from this policy was that with resources that were not endangered,
a more or less custodial oversight would sufficenot requiring an
extensive commitment to research or to a large staff of biologists. For
example, once bison reduction in Yellowstone had brought the population
to the desired level and allowed the range to restore itself, it seemed
that the bison would require less management and possibly almost no
research. Drury had stated in 1943 that the ultimate goal for
Yellowstone's Lamar Valley bison was to put the herd "entirely on its
own resources," and the Service was already on the way to discontinuing
winter feeding and other operations at Buffalo Ranch. [56]
Similarly, Lowell Sumner told a Park Service conference in October
1950 that the Service was mainly interested in "watching natural
processes unfold," and that park management consisted "primarily" of
"letting nature alone." He cited the termination of the bear
shows and the efforts to eliminate roadside feeding as examples of
current wildlife policiesto return bears to "a normal way of life,
based on rustling their own natural food." Sumner noted that, by
contrast, other bureaus such as the Forest Service and the Fish and
Wildlife Service intensively managed game species, treating many of them
as crops to be harvested. Later, as director, Conrad Wirth would clearly
signal a hands-off approach by stating that wilderness preservation was
not specifically a "program item" for the Service, "because in a sense
the less you have to do the better it is being preserved." [57]
Sumner and his fellow biologists were keenly aware, however, that
not only did placing species on a "self-sustaining basis" require
research, but also that Fauna No. 1 itself called for research to be
conducted prior to any "management measure or other interference with
biotic relationships." Any significant disturbance of natural conditions
required prior knowledge of the resources affecteda policy highly
unlikely to be honored with 140 landscape architects and only about a
half-dozen wildlife biologists in the parks. Sumner knew that, most
fundamentally, Fauna No. 1 had called for "a complete faunal
investigation" of all national parksleaving nature alone did not
mean failing to achieve an understanding of the populations and dynamics
of species inhabiting the parks. [58]
Having long ago endorsed Fauna No. 1 and still seeking to adhere to
some of its tenets, the Service lacked the interest in acquiring what
biologist Carl Russell had called a "full understanding of our
responsibilities as trustees." To do so would have necessitated a
substantial buildup of its biological staff; but Drury's unwillingness
to act left wildlife biology weak and vulnerable. As Olaus Murie, who
had become head of the Wilderness Society, commented to Drury just
before Drury resigned from the Park Service early in 1951, the status of
the biological programs was "precarious" and the Service had only
managed to "hang on to some biologists." To Murie, ecological science
had moved up to new levels and the Park Service had undertaken a "high
responsibility" in keeping important natural areas unimpaired. Yet with
the superintendents' tendency to "oversimplify the task of the research
man," as Murie saw it, the biological researcher was frequently seen as
little more than a "trouble shooter." The Service's administrators gave
the biologists neither "universal approval" nor enthusiastic support.
[59]
Beginning in the mid-1950s, Director Wirth's Mission 66 program,
ultimately averaging about $100 million per year, would not improve the
biologists' status. Although the goals of Mission 66 came to include a
strong rhetorical commitment to researchdeclaring that "guess-work
is not good enough for America's national heritage" and that "exact
knowledge and understanding based on sound scientific . . . research is
essential"in reality the program included negligible support for
biological sciences. Exasperated because biology had been ignored and
aware that Mission 66 would not include substantial funding for his
programs, Chief Biologist Victor Cahalane resigned from the Park Service
in 1955. [60]
Rhetoric aside, Wirth indeed seemed distrustful of science. As
Cahalane remembered it, Wirth appeared to care neither about wildlife
issues nor about what the biologists were doing, and to believe that
scientists were using money that could better be spent drawing park
plans. The director's indifference was most evident in his failure to
bolster science programs during Mission 66. He made explicit his
disregard for science in a letter to Horace Albright in November 1956,
expressing the need to "slant a practical eye" toward the issue of
overgrazing of Yellowstone's grasslands, a matter of deep concern to the
wildlife biologists. In a telling comment, Wirth added: "Sometimes I
find, Horace, and I am sure you will agree with this, that you can get
too scientific on these things and cause a lot of harm." The director's
remarks fell on receptive ears, given Albright's record of opposition to
the biologists on numerous wildlife management issues. Albright
displayed attitudes similar to Wirth's when he told a 1958 gathering of
the National Parks Advisory Board that "there should not be too much
emphasis laid on biology." After all, he added, the people were "the
ones who are going to enjoy the parks." The former director asserted
that "ninetynine percent" of the people who visit the parks are "not
interested in biological research." [61]
With little support for science programs within the Service, outside
research received continued emphasis during Mission 66. Indeed, reliance
on researchers from universities or other federal bureaus had always
figured prominently in park management's thinking. Mather had depended
on it almost exclusively, and the Drury administration had called for it
repeatedlya trend that continued under Wirth. Much as the 1918
Lane Letter had done, an April 1958 memorandum to the Washington office
and all field offices stressed the need for outside research in
cooperation with universities and other bureaus. The Service should seek
to "advance programs which will attract qualified scientists to the
National Park System for productive research purposes." [62]
Victor Cahalane recalled that during his career the Park Service
never got much out of university research, that the research was often
too abstract, and that it did not influence wildlife management policies
and practices. Furthermore, an internal report in the early 1960s
observed that relying on others to do national park research resulted in
products "most frequently oriented toward the researcher's interests,
and only incidentally toward Service needs and objectives." [63] In truth, by continually emphasizing the
use of external scientific research, the Service revealed even more
clearly the limitations of its commitment to use its own funds and
staffing for such purposes. From Mather's time on, the repeated
assertions that the Park Service should rely on research conducted by
other institutions were a means to avoid coming to grips with the
problem internally, in contrast to the enormous support given to tourism
development and related management programs.
In 1958, as Mission 66 approached its halfway mark, the budget for
scientific research projects throughout the entire park system, not
including biologists' salaries, was only $28,000a minuscule sum
compared to that spent for development and construction. In a letter to
Lowell Sumner in December 1958, Olaus Murie stated that Mission 66 had
brought about a "period of expediency" in the Service, causing "a
confused outlook, in which the biological program suffers." Even with
many "splendid people" in the Park Service, Murie believed that the
Service's Washington office still did not know "what is taking place in
the human mind" with the advances in ecological knowledge. [64]
Yet some Park Service leaders were becoming more aware. In 1960 an
internal report by a high-level committee commented that the "research
effort" for national parks was so inadequate that the parks' resources
were "actually endangered by ignorance." Chaired by biologist Daniel
Beard (a former superintendent at Everglades and Olympic, and soon to be
a regional director), the committee reported that research seemed "less
understood, less appreciated, and less organized than anything else" the
Service undertook. [65] The following year,
Beard told the superintendents conference that the Park Service had a
"surprising lack of understanding of the purpose and needs of research."
The Service's tendency to seek research support from universities
instead of building its own scientific staff meant that the biologists
had to "stand hat in hand in an effort to get foundation support" and to
rely on the "peon labor" of graduate students. Similar concerns were
expressed to the superintendents by Chief Landscape Architect William
Carnes, who stated that there was "little reason to brag about our
accomplishments in the research field" and that the Service had not
"assumed the leadership" to provide knowledge necessary for park
management. [66]
The most influential internal statement on research needs was the
inspiration of Howard R. Stagner, chief of the Branch of Natural History
and advocate of a strong science program. In 1961 Stagner oversaw
preparation of a document entitled "Get the Facts, and Put Them to
Work." Released that October, it was sharply critical of the Service's
"inadequately financed" research program, which lacked "continuity,
coordination, and depth." The report described the parks as "complex
organisms" that were "rapidly becoming islands" surrounded by
lands managed for different purposes. It argued that research was
necessary for the Service to "know what it is protecting, and what it
must protect against." The Service "must understand, much more
completely than it now does, the natural characteristic of these
properties, the nature of the normal processes at work within them, the
unnatural forces imposed upon them, and, as well, the relationships of
park visitors to the natural environments." [67]
A significant shift from earlier thinking, the insights of both
Beard and Stagner reflected a growing concern among conservationists and
some Service leaders about the national parks' ecological conditions.
Such concern went beyond distress about deteriorating park facilities or
the location and appearance of facilities once they were builtthe
major emphasis of many conservationists through much of the 1950s. "Get
the Facts" took a different stance, stressing a "critical" need for
scientific knowledge of the national parks and quoting from an
international panel of scientists that the parks offered the "principal
future hope of preserving some scattered fragments of primeval nature
for fundamental scientific research." [68]
"Get the Facts" recommended a long-range research plan with a
"logical sequence" of projects, together with adequate funding and
staffing of the "highest professional research competence." With this
document in hand, Stagner worked to increase funding for the science
program. More important, he used the report to heighten Secretary of the
Interior Stewart L. Udall's interest in national park science. [69] Udall's response would result in major
reports prepared outside the Park Service, focusing even more attention
on ecological issues in the parks.
By the Service's own reckoning in the early 1960s, it had almost no
scientific research to inform natural resource management or to advise
on possible impacts of Mission 66 development. In the rush of Mission
66, and with nearly three decades having passed since the acceptance of
Fauna No. 1's recommendations as official policy (including the
requirement for "properly conducted investigations" prior to any
"management measure or other interference with biotic relationships"),
the scientific programs called for in Fauna No. 1 had been rendered
virtually impotent. [70]
Reflecting this disregard for science, the wildlife biologists'
organizational status remained repressed during the postwar years,
culminating in the late 1950s with Wirth's decision to bring the
biologists under the rangers and foresters, whose policies they many
times deplored. Returning to the Service after the war, the wildlife
biologists were placed under the naturalists. In 1947, after a number of
wartime vacancies had been filled, the Service employed sixty-one
"year-round professional" naturalists who oversaw the park interpretive
programsa staff that dwarfed that of the biologists. Rather than
managing natural resources, the naturalists focused on interpreting
them, a responsibility usually not of primary concern to wildlife
biologists. [71] Also in contrast to the
biologists' status, the Park Service foresters continued to enjoy close
ties with the rangers, and by the end of Drury's tenure many men with
formal college training in forestry occupied key positions such as chief
ranger and park superintendent. [72]
The rangers gained strength in 1954, when Wirth established a
Washington office for "ranger activities"the Branch of
Conservation and Protection. Indicative of their close alliance with the
rangers, the foresters were included in the new office. The head of the
branch (in effect the "chief ranger"), Lemuel A. (Lon)
Garrisonformer superintendent of Big Bend National Park and a
rising star in the Servicebrought clout to the position.
(Garrison's successors would be another former ranger and
superintendent, John M. Davis, and then former chief forester Lawrence
Cook.) To increase the new unit's influence, Garrison urged that it be
upgraded to division status.
In 1957, as the rangers were achieving this new status, they made
their bid to gain control of the wildlife biology programs. [73] Wirth responded in October of that year by
transferring the biologists to the newly established Division of Ranger
Activities. Initially he had intended to place the biologists in a
branch separate from the foresters. He changed his mind, however, and
ordered a merger of forestry and wildlife biology into one branch under
forester Lawrence Cook, who reported to the chief of the ranger
division. [74]
The transfer evoked impassioned opposition from former chief
biologist Victor Cahalane, who strongly disapproved of the Service's
forestry practices. Cahalane wrote to E. Raymond Hall (now with the
University of Kansas' Museum of Natural History, and a member of the
National Parks Advisory Board), urging that "everything possible" be
done to reverse the transfer. In view of the Service's failure to bring
its forest policies in line with contemporary ecological principles, the
former chief biologist characterized the foresters as a group that
"pretends to know everything about ecology but actually has no
competence in that field." He cited the foresters' efforts to suppress
"as rigorously as possible" natural fires and native insects and
diseases, and added that "under the mandated merger [the foresters] will
apply the same philosophy to wildlife. Knowing little or nothing about
animal ecology, they can work havoc." [75]
Cahalane found a ready listener in Hall, who also disapproved of
the Park Service's forest management. Early in 1958 Hall attacked the
Service's policy to "practice forestry" that led to disruption of
natural succession in park forests. In a telling comment, he observed
that the Service persisted in using the term "forestry"a
designation used by bureaus such as the Forest Service, with their focus
on the economic benefits of timber production. Why, he asked, when the
goal was to preserverather than harvest natural resources,
should Park Service foresters not be called "biologists," or
"botanists"? After all, wildlife biologists were not known as "game
managers." Hall believed that the continued use of the term "forester"
contributed to a "fuzziness in policy and in practice as concerns the
preservation of natural conditions." [76]
Hall's protest had no effect. The merger held, with the wildlife
biologists and foresters remaining in the ranger division and reporting
directly to Lawrence Cook, an outspoken advocate of traditional forest
practices. Contrary to the views of Cahalane and Hall, the rangers
insisted that the "basic principles and procedures" of wildlife
management were "identical and parallel" to those of forestry. [77] To assist with wildlife management in the
field, the park superintendents soon formally designated fifty-nine park
ranger positions as "wildlife rangers," probably filling these positions
with men who had long been responsible for such work. [78]
In Washington the wildlife biologists transferred to the ranger
division were to be involved in day-to-day field operations. Two
wildlife biologists stayed with the naturalist division, recently
redesignated the Division of Interpretation. They were responsible for
overseeing "all biological research" and recommending policies on
wildlife and fish management. The directorate explained that the
research and policy biologists were better off in interpretation, where
they were removed from day-to-day demands of actual management, and that
previously "basic research and investigations" had "suffered" when field
management activities distracted the research biologists. [79] However, with only two biologists in
research and policy, that aspect of the biology programs remained
virtually powerless in the surge of Mission 66 activity.
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