Preserving Nature in the National Parks Preserving Nature in the National Parks A History R ICHARD WEST SELLARS Yale University Press New Haven & London This book is published partially through a Library of Congress Cataloging-in- generous grant from Eastern National Park Publication Data and Monument Association. Sellars, Richard West, 1935Ð All royalties from this book go to the Preserving nature in the national parks: a Albright-Wirth Employee Development history/Richard West Sellars. Fund to advance the professional skills of p. cm. National Park Service employees. Includes bibliographical references and index. Earlier versions of portions of this book have isbn 0-300-06931-6 (cloth) appeared in the Washington Post, Wilderness, 0-300-07578-2 (pbk.) Journal of Forestry, Montana The Magazine of Western History, and The George Wright 1. United States. National Park Service— Forum. History. 2. National parks and reserves— United States—Management— Copyright º 1997 by Yale University. History. 3. Nature conservation—United All rights reserved. States—History. 4. Natural resources— This book may not be reproduced, in whole United States—Management— or in part, including illustrations, in any form History. I. Title (beyond that copying permitted by Sections sb482.a4 s44 1977 107 and 108 of the U. S. Copyright Law and 333.7%0973—dc21 97-16154 except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the A catalogue record for this book is available publishers. from the British Library. The paper in this book meets the guidelines Designed by James J. Johnson and set in for permanence and durability of the Caledonia types by Keystone Typesetting, Inc. Committee on Production Guidelines for Printed in the United States of America by Book Longevity of the Council on Library Edwards Brothers, Inc., Ann Arbor, Resources. Michigan. 1098765432 For John E. Cook, of the National Park Service, and for my wife, Judith Stevenson Sellars But our national heritage is richer than just scenic features; the realization is coming that perhaps our greatest national heritage is nature itself, with all its complexity and its abundance of life, which, when combined with great scenic beauty as it is in the national parks, becomes of unlimited value. This is what we would attain in the national parks. —george m. wright, joseph s. dixon, and ben h. thompson, Fauna of the National Parks of the United States, 1933 A national park should represent a vignette of primitive America.... Yet if the goal cannot be fully achieved it can be approached. A reasonable illusion of primitive America could be recreated, using the utmost in skill, judgment and ecologic sensitivity. This in our opinion should be the objective of every national park and monument. —a. starker leopold et al., ‘‘Wildlife Management in the National Parks’’ (The Leopold Re- port), March 1963 I have always thought of our Service as an institution, more than any other bureau, engaged in a field essentially of morality—the aim of man to rise above himself, and to choose the option of quality rather than material superfluity. —freeman tilden to george b. hartzog, jr., ca. 1971 Many of our problems are historical, but history can’t be wiped out. —john a. carver, jr., Assistant Secretary of the Interior, to the National Park Superintendents ‘‘Conference of Challenges,’’ Yosemite National Park, October 1963 Contents Illustrations follow page 148 Preface xiii Introduction 1 Chapter 1 Creating Tradition: The Roots of National Park Management 7 Growth of the National Park Concept 11 Resorts, Spas, and Early National Parks 16 The Management of Nature 22 Chapter 2 Codifying Tradition: The National Park Service Act of 1916 28 Advocates and Opponents 29 The Statement of Purpose 38 A Utilitarian Act 41 Chapter 3 Perpetuating Tradition: The National Parks under Stephen T. Mather, 1916Ð1929 47 Building Park Service Leadership 48 A Formal Policy and a Bureaucratic Rivalry 56 Appropriate and Inappropriate Park Development 58 Deletions and Additions of Park Lands 66 x Contents Nature Management 69 The Predator Problem 71 Popular Wildlife Species 75 Forest Management 82 Ecological Concerns and Mather’s Leadership 85 Utilitarian Aesthetics and National Park Management 88 Chapter 4 The Rise and Decline of Ecological Attitudes, 1929Ð1940 91 Park Service Leadership and the Wildlife Biologists 91 Conflict over Park Development 101 Biological Research 108 Rangelands and the Grazing Species 113 Predators 119 Fish 123 Forests 126 Expanding Park Service Programs 132 New Deal Impacts on the Park Service 140 Declining Influence of the Wildlife Biologists 145 Chapter 5 The War and Postwar Years, 1940Ð1963 149 Wartime and Postwar Pressures 150 Natural Resource Issues under Drury and Wirth 155 The Status of Wildlife Biology 164 The Road to Mission 66 173 Mission 66 180 Changes in Wilderness and Recreation Programs 191 The Public Hunting Crisis and a New Look at National Parks 195 Chapter 6 Science and the Struggle for Bureaucratic Power: The Leopold Era, 1963Ð1981 204 Mission 66 and Parkscape U.S.A. 205 The Leopold and National Academy Reports 214 The Pursuit of Bureaucratic Power 217 Environmental Legislation and Change 233 Policies—New and Old 243 Natural Regulation and Elk 246 Grizzly Bears 249 Forests 253 Exotic Species 258 The State of the Parks Reports 262 Contents xi Chapter 7 A House Divided: The National Park Service and Environmental Leadership 267 Building an Environmental Record 269 The Vail Agenda 276 National Park Service Culture and Recreational Tourism 280 Abbreviations 291 Notes 293 Acknowledgments 361 Index 365 Preface The national park system contains some of the most recognizable natural features on this continent. Such sublime scenery as the Grand Canyon, the Yosemite Valley and Half Dome, Old Faithful, and the Teton Mountains are familiar to millions. These and other landscape icons of the system symbolize the romantic nationalism that has always sustained public sup- port of national parks. The celebrated geography of high mountains and vast open spaces has helped perpetuate a kind of ‘‘From the New World’’ fantasy—the parks as virgin land—which has long enhanced America’s na- tional park movement. In part because of their great symbolic beauty, the national parks have been easy to write about with enthusiasm and effusion. Early studies, and many works published by the National Park Service itself, have tended to glorify the founding fathers of the Park Service and extol the expansion of the system. Although the founders deserve much credit, and expansion has certainly been important, the appeal of this zealous approach has dimin- ished. Recent scholars have written not so much about how the parks came to be created and who promoted them, but about how they were treated after their establishment. As a study of the management of nature in the parks, this book belongs in the latter category. Nature preservation—especially that requiring a thorough scientific understanding of the resources intended for preservation—is an aspect of park operations in which the Service has advanced in a reluctant, vacillating way. The analysis that follows is at times critical of the Park Service. In- xiii xiv Preface deed, writing National Park Service history from within runs some risks— but it also enjoys certain advantages. As a historian with the Park Service for more than two decades, I have had the opportunity to observe the Service closely and to refine my understanding of its culture and corporate psyche. I have had ready access to the files and to the thoughts of fellow employees and retirees. Each individual held strong opinions about what the Service has been and should be, and discussed national park manage- ment with a high degree of candor and openness. It is my hope that this book will inform future efforts of the Park Service, the public, and the Congress to address national park issues. To prepare for the future, it is important first to analyze the past with as much clarity and impartiality as can be mustered. Richard West Sellars Santa Fe, New Mexico Introduction There was a time, through the middle of the twentieth century, when the national parks reigned indisputably as America’s grandest summertime pleasuring grounds. Managed by the National Park Service after 1916, the spectacular mountains, canyons, forests, and meadows set aside to provide for the public’s enjoyment appealed tremendously to a public increasingly mobile and enamored of sightseeing and automobile touring. To make the parks accessible to millions of vacationers, graceful winding roads were constructed, with romantic names like Going to the Sun Highway or Trail Ridge Road. Huge rustic hotels built of log and stone, such as Yellowstone’s Old Faithful Inn and Grand Canyon’s El Tovar, welcomed overnight visi- tors to the parks. In hotel lobbies or in nearby museums, courteous park rangers stood ready to take eager visitors on nature walks—out into the crisp, pine-scented mountain air to enjoy the wonders of trailside forests and streams. In parks such as Sequoia and Yellowstone, visitors fed bears along roadsides or gathered in specially constructed bleachers to watch rangers feed bears; and at dusk each summer a firefall of burning embers cascaded from the heights of Yosemite’s Glacier Point. Enjoying immense popularity, the national park system grew to include areas in the East and Midwest while continuing to expand in the West, where it had begun and where the majority of the older and more famous parks are located. Preserving remnants of the wild landscapes of the fron- tier, the parks were from the beginning a part of frontier history and ro- mantic western lore. Most national parks were truly isolated, and the 1 2 Introduction nearby lands were little developed and sparsely populated. For many park rangers, working in the vast, majestic parks seemed a kind of lingering frontier experience: long assignments in remote backcountry areas; horse patrols along park boundaries; and primitive, wood-heated log cabins to house the family.