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Volume 9 Number 1 Preserving Yellowstone’s Natural Conditions Reviewed Cultural Resources Management Christmas Bird Counts Fungus Among Us Time Machine Yellowstone Science A quarterly publication devoted to the natural and cultural resources

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Page 1: Yellowstone Science - National Park ServiceYellowstone Science Volume 9 Number 1 Yellowstone Science is published quarterly, and submissions are welcome from all investigators conducting

Volume 9 Number 1

Preserving Yellowstone’s NaturalConditions Reviewed

Cultural Resources ManagementChristmas Bird Counts

Fungus Among UsTime Machine

Yellowstone ScienceA quarterly publication devoted to the natural and cultural resources

Page 2: Yellowstone Science - National Park ServiceYellowstone Science Volume 9 Number 1 Yellowstone Science is published quarterly, and submissions are welcome from all investigators conducting

Reflections on a 50-YearRelationship…

In the eight years of its existence, Yel-lowstone Science has reported on a widevariety of topics related to natural won-ders and cultural history. This first issueof the twenty-first century continues toaddress the general theme of constantchange in the natural world. Our thanks toauthors for their voluntary contributionsthat help all of us to better understand theworkings and history of this special place.

Beyond its natural and cultural re-sources, let me here suggest that this park

has another noteworthy resource. It’ssomething you have to work here to knowabout. For the 50 years that I have person-ally enjoyed an on-and-off working rela-tionship with this park’s staff—first as aseasonal ranger in the early 1950s and inrecent winters as a volunteer wildlifebiologist—I’ve found that there has al-ways been a small central core of indi-viduals who cheerfully do the bulk of thedaily business of preserving, protecting,and helping others to enjoy.

My salute to those individuals whoselove of Yellowstone is expressed by dedi-cation to their work, no matter how me-nial the task. Some of these devoted indi-viduals are found in the production staffof this publication. I thank them for mak-ing my brief stint as guest editor both easyand pleasurable. May this park alwayshave the benefit of a dedicated core ofhard-working people. Truly, they are an-other special resource.

Jim Caslick

Page 3: Yellowstone Science - National Park ServiceYellowstone Science Volume 9 Number 1 Yellowstone Science is published quarterly, and submissions are welcome from all investigators conducting

Editor

Sue Consolo-MurphyGuest Editor

Jim Caslick

Assistant Editor and Design

Tami BlackfordAssistant Editors

Mary Ann FrankeKevin SchneiderAlice Wondrak

Printing

Artcraft, Inc.Bozeman, Montana

Yellowstone Christmas Bird Counts of the 2Twentieth CenturyChristmas Bird Counts continue in Yellowstone—a tradition both scientific andsocial.by Terry McEneaney

Yellowstone Nature Notes: Time Machine 10by Alice Wondrak

The Evolution of Cultural Resources Management 13in Yellowstone: An Interview with Laura JossRecent staff additions accelerate the completion of cultural resource inventories,to be followed by more in-depth research of the park’s extensive collections.Interview with Laura Joss, former cultural resources branch chief

Pilobolus: A Fungus that Grows in Yellowstone 17The interaction of Pilobolus and a round worm may be a factor in the distributionof lungworm disease in the park’s northern elk herd.by K. Michael Foos

Book Review and Essay 21Preserving Yellowstone’s Natural Conditions: Science and the Perception ofNature by James Pritchard.Reviewed by Paul Schullery

News and Notes 24Lynx Survey to Begin • Park Wins Auction for Rare Item • Interior SecretaryVisits • New Publications • Winter Use Decision Announced • ThanksgivingRumblings • Bison Decision Reached • “Obsidian Pool” Official • Photo Contest

On the cover: Black-Billed Magpie,photo by Terry McEneaney.Left: Obsidian Cliff, NPS photo.Above: Yellowstone in the Afterglow:Lessons from the Fires, a new publica-tion now available from the park.

A quarterly publication devoted to the natural and cultural resources

Table of ContentsWinter 2001

Yellowstone ScienceVolume 9 Number 1

Yellowstone Science is published quarterly, and submissions are welcome from all investigatorsconducting formal research in the Yellowstone area. Correspondence should be sent to the

Editor, Yellowstone Science, Yellowstone Center for Resources,P.O. Box 168, Yellowstone National Park, WY 82190.

The opinions expressed in Yellowstone Science are the authors' and may not reflect eitherNational Park Service policy or the views of the Yellowstone Center for Resources.

Copyright © 2001, the Yellowstone Association for Natural Science, History & Education.Support for Yellowstone Science is provided by the Yellowstone Association for Natural Science,History & Education, a non-profit educational organization dedicated to serving the park and itsvisitors. For more information about the Yellowstone Association, including membership, or to

donate to the production of Yellowstone Science, write toYellowstone Association, P.O. Box 117, Yellowstone National Park, WY 82190.

Yellowstone Science is printed on recycled paper with a linseed oil-based ink.

Page 4: Yellowstone Science - National Park ServiceYellowstone Science Volume 9 Number 1 Yellowstone Science is published quarterly, and submissions are welcome from all investigators conducting

Yellowstone Science2

Yellowstone Christmas BirdCounts of the Twentieth Centuryby Terry McEneaney

December 17, 2000, marked the last of28 Yellowstone Christmas Bird Counts(YCBCs) conducted during the twentiethcentury. Park naturalist Milton Skinnercompleted the first YCBC on December23, 1920. That day, a total of 14 birdspecies representing 1,196 individualswere counted. Skinner conducted the origi-nal survey on horseback, traveling 22miles through one to five inches of snow,with temperatures ranging from 0 to18° F.Naturalists William E. Kearns and DaviddeLancey Condon conducted the secondYCBC on December 19, 1939. Tempera-tures that day ranged from 21 to 34° F,with snow found only in the higher eleva-tions. They split up to cover a total of 20miles on foot, and tallied 21 bird speciesrepresenting a mere 432 individuals.

From 1975 through the end of the twen-tieth century, the YCBC has been con-ducted annually. Regardless of weatherconditions or number of birds detected,the YCBC has sparked public interest inwintering birds, as evidenced by the slowbut steady increase in participants—thetradition continues. What is the origin ofthe Christmas Bird Count? What is it like?

Of what value are the data? What havewe learned? This article attempts to an-swer these questions and to explain whypeople participate in the winter eventcalled the Christmas Bird Count.

History of the Christmas BirdCount

The concept and proposal for the firstChristmas Bird Census appeared in theDecember 1900 issue of Bird Lore, theprecursor of Audubon Nature Notes. Thebrainchild of this event was none otherthan Frank Chapman, the editor of BirdLore and one of the prominent orni-thologists of the twentieth century.Chapman was disturbed, as were otherconservationists, by the slaughter of wild-

life in an annual holiday event in theeastern United States, during which allforms of wildlife were shot. Basically, theteam that shot the most birds and mam-mals during the hunt was declared thewinner. In protest, Chapman convinced27 friends in 25 different locations na-tionwide to set aside December 25, 1900,as a day for a large-scale bird count.Instead of shooting birds, they decided tocount them—hence the name.

Much has changed since the originalChristmas Bird Count (CBC) took place.Today, more than 50,000 people from avast area including all 50 United States,all Canadian provinces, the Caribbean,Central and South America, and the Pa-cific Islands participate in more than 1,800Christmas Bird Counts annually.

Methods

The methods established for the Christ-mas Bird Count are simple and havechanged very little over time. The countday can occur any time during a two-and-

Mallards were one of the six bird species found on all 28 Yellowstone ChristmasBird Counts. Photo by Terry McEneaney.

Skinner conducted the original survey on horseback,traveling 22 miles through one to five inches of snow,with temperatures ranging from 0 to18° F.

Page 5: Yellowstone Science - National Park ServiceYellowstone Science Volume 9 Number 1 Yellowstone Science is published quarterly, and submissions are welcome from all investigators conducting

Winter 2001 3

Swan Lake Flats. The number of bird species and individual birds have been reliably higher atlower elevations during Yellowstone Christmas Bird Counts. Photo by Terry McEneaney.

Figure 1. The Yellowstone Christmas Bird Count area is a circle having a 7.5-mileradius, centered at Yellowstone’s North Entrance station (map scale: 1 inch = 3 miles).

Map by the Spatial Analysis Center and Tami Blackford.

Corwin Springs

Jardine

Gardiner

North

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Station

Mammoth Gardner

River

Yellowstone River

Blacktail

Ponds

MontanaWyoming

Yellowstone

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9

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Page 6: Yellowstone Science - National Park ServiceYellowstone Science Volume 9 Number 1 Yellowstone Science is published quarterly, and submissions are welcome from all investigators conducting

Yellowstone Science

TABLE 2. 12 MOST ABUNDANT BIRD SPECIES—YELLOWSTONE CHRISTMAS BIRD COUNTS,1920–2000, BASED ON 28 YEARS OF DATA

Species No. Individuals No. Yrs. Detected Average No. Birds per YearBohemian Waxwing 10,546 25 421.8Gray-Crowned Rosy Finch 5,442 26 209.3Common Raven 4,031 28 143.9Mallard 2,282 28 81.5Black-Billed Magpie 2,244 28 80.1Mountain Chickadee 1,591 27 58.9American Dipper 1,472 28 52.6Rock Dove 1,386 18 77.0Townsend’s Solitaire 1,283 28 45.8Clark’s Nutcracker 729 28 26.0Black Rosy Finch 713 26 35.7Black-Capped Chickadee 348 27 12.4

TABLE 1. 26 MOST FREQUENTLY DETECTED BIRD SPECIES (>50%)—YELLOWSTONE CHRISTMAS BIRD COUNTS,1920–2000, BASED ON 28 YEARS OF DATA

Years Detected Years DetectedSpecies No. % Species No. %Mallard 28 100% Belted Kingfisher 23 82%Clark’s Nutcracker 28 100% Black Rosy Finch 20 71%Black-Billed Magpie 28 100% Dark-Eyed Junco 20 71%Common Raven 28 100% Red-Breasted Nuthatch 20 71%American Dipper 28 100% Rock Dove 18 64%Townsend’s Solitaire 28 100% Common Snipe 18 64%Black-Capped Chickadee 27 96% Northern Flicker 18 64%Mountain Chickadee 27 96% Common Goldeneye 16 57%Bald Eagle 26 93% Northern Shrike 16 57%Golden Eagle 26 93% Hairy Woodpecker 16 57%Gray-Crowned Rosy Finch 26 93% Downy Woodpecker 15 53%Bohemian Waxwing 25 89% Steller’s Jay 14 50%Green-Winged Teal 25 89% American Tree Sparrow 14 50%

4

one-half–week period between Decem-ber 14 and January 5. Each bird countencompasses a 177-square-mile area—acircle measuring 15 miles in diameter, ora 7.5-mile radius from a center point. TheYCBC center point is the North Entrancestation in Yellowstone National Park,one-half mile south of Gardiner, Mon-tana (Figure 1). The perimeter of thecount circle extends in the northeast toJardine, Montana; in the south to Mam-moth, Wyoming; in the southeast to Black-tail Ponds in the park; and in the north-west to Corwin Springs, Montana. Anunlimited number of people may partici-pate in this event. Avian species associ-ated with bird feeders at private resi-

YCBC Data

Most of the people involved in Christ-mas Bird Counts are not professionalornithologists. These “citizen scientists,”as they are now called, contribute a sig-nificant amount of information on birdsin general; however, this body of knowl-edge must be treated carefully. Whilemany professional ornithologists treat thisinformation with scientific caution, re-cent advances in the summary and analy-sis of CBC data has resulted in a some-what greater scientific use of this infor-mation than was previously thought pos-sible, to track general national popula-tion trends and changes in winter ranges.

dences are also allowed to be part of thetotal tally. Participants cover as much ofthe circle as possible within a 24-hourcalendar day, counting all individual birdsand species encountered within the desig-nated area. The count leader assigns routeswithin the count area to avoid recountingof the same birds. The same areas arecovered fairly well each year; however,one of the principal drawbacks of thismethod is the lack of established censusroutes and observation points that areessential for developing meaningful popu-lation trends. CBC data are compiled andsent to the National Audubon Society andlater appear in an annual publication en-titled American Birds.

Page 7: Yellowstone Science - National Park ServiceYellowstone Science Volume 9 Number 1 Yellowstone Science is published quarterly, and submissions are welcome from all investigators conducting

Winter 2001 5

Figure 2. Number of Individual Birds, Yellowstone Christmas Bird Count.

Figure 3. Number of Bird Species, Yellowstone Christmas Bird Count.

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Page 8: Yellowstone Science - National Park ServiceYellowstone Science Volume 9 Number 1 Yellowstone Science is published quarterly, and submissions are welcome from all investigators conducting

Yellowstone Science6

The strength of the YCBC data is in thequalitative information it provides, suchas weather conditions; relative abundanceof particular bird species; availability offood; notes on obvious food sources, suchas aquatic vegetation and insects, juniperberries, seed cone crops, and availableprey; and notes on unusual numbers ofindividuals of a species. For example, the26 bird species most frequently observedduring the 28 years of conducting YCBCscan be clearly established (Table 1). Also,winter relative abundance can be deter-mined (Table 2). In addition, a histogramplotting trends of individual birds overtime can be developed (Figure 2), as cana histogram of species detected duringYCBCs (Figure 3). However, populationtrends for individual species cannot beascertained because of the lack of stan-dardized census methodology and un-controlled variables, such as weather. Al-though only limited quantitative infor-mation can be extracted from the data, avast amount of qualitative informationhas resulted in the following findings:

• Ninety-five species were detectedduring the 28 years that YCBCs wereconducted (Table 3). Of that total,only 26 species were found at leasthalf of those years. The remaining 69species were either uncommon, er-ratic (wandering), or rare.• The number of bird species ob-served has varied between 14 in 1920,

and 44 in 1987.• The number of individual birdsobserved has varied between 432 in1939, and 3,357 in 1988.• The average number of bird spe-cies observed per YCBC was 33.• The average number of individualbirds observed per YCBC was 1,373.• The highest number of individualsof any one species observed was 2,081Bohemian Waxwings in 1988.• Bohemian Waxwings, RosyFinches (Gray-Crowned and Blackcombined), and Common Ravenswere the most numerous birds de-tected during the 28 years of con-ducting YCBCs.• Food and habitat availability playvital roles in winter bird distribution.• The YCBC represents a true re-flection of winter-like conditions in amid-elevation (montane) to lower el-evation (foothill) mountainous envi-ronment. Winter information of thistype, collected during YCBCs, israrely collected elsewhere in moun-tainous habitats.• Winter weather is highly variableand probably the single most impor-tant factor influencing bird distribu-tion and abundance.• The lower the elevation, the morebird species and individuals one islikely to encounter in winter. Thenumber of wintering bird species and

individuals detected are reliablyhigher in the Gardiner, Montana, areathan in the Mammoth, Wyoming,area.• No two winters are the same. Tem-peratures and snowfall vary from dayto day, month to month, and year toyear.• Caution should be exercised whenjudging winter-like conditions basedon a single day. Regional weatherpatterns do not take into accountmicrosite differences, such as snowdepth, temperature pockets, andchinook winds.• Natural features, such as thermalareas and the extent of open water,play important roles in luring mi-grant or wintering birds.• Artificial features such as bird feed-ers and ornamental shrubs and treeshave played important roles in winterbird distribution and abundance inthe Gardiner/Mammoth area. Regu-lar- or late-season elk-hunter successhas played an important role in preda-tory and scavenging bird distributionand abundance in the Gardiner/Mam-moth area.• In recent years, Rock Doves, HouseSparrows, European Starlings, andHouse Finches have overwintered andnested in the area, primarily with theassistance of bird feeders, artificialstructures, and ornamental plants.• Bird feeders are much more effec-tive in luring birds during cold tem-peratures than in mild ones.• Years with exceptional numbers ofindividual birds usually have beeneruptive years for Bohemian Wax-wings, when they comprised up to 62percent of the total individual birdscounted. Rosy Finches (Gray-Crowned and Black combined) alsohave comprised up to 84 percent ofthe total individuals observed duringsome peak years.• The total number of observers par-ticipating in a YCBC has not ap-peared to reflect the number of indi-viduals or species detected.• The most ideal winter weather con-ditions for counting the maximumnumber of bird species and individu-als during a YCBC are moderate toheavy snows, and low to moderate

The Gardner River. Thermally-warmed open water provides important winterhabitat for birds. NPS photo.

Page 9: Yellowstone Science - National Park ServiceYellowstone Science Volume 9 Number 1 Yellowstone Science is published quarterly, and submissions are welcome from all investigators conducting

Winter 2001 7

temperatures. Under these conditions,birds are more concentrated and arerestricted to narrow habitats havingavailable food. A lack of snow orextremely mild temperatures resultin the opposite—natural foods aremore available and birds are morewidely distributed.• Most erratic and rare bird speciesdetected during the YCBC have beenclosely associated with bird feeders,thermal areas, and areas of exposedopen water.• The most unusual or erratic birdsdetected on the YCBC to date in-clude:

–Virginia Rail (1996, 1998, 1999;Mammoth, WY);

–Winter Wren (1998; Mammoth,WY);

–Hoary Redpoll (1984; Gardiner,MT);

–Sharp-Tailed Grouse (1996;Gardiner, MT);

–Northern Mockingbird (1998;Gardiner, MT); and

–Swamp Sparrow (1994; Mam-moth, WY), the first record ofthis species in Yellowstone Na-tional Park.

• Because winter conditions arriveearlier at higher elevations, winterconditions reliably prevail duringYCBCs, making them highly reflec-tive of wintering bird species. At

lower elevations, winter conditionsmay not prevail by Christmas, mak-ing those CBCs less reflective ofbirds that may occupy those areaslater that winter.

Personal Experience and Summary

During Yellowstone Christmas BirdCounts I have witnessed a number ofwonderful sightings including a North-ern Goshawk chasing Rock Doves, aMerlin chasing an American Dipper, anda Northern Shrike flying with a vole in itstalons and transferring the vole to itsbeak while in flight. I have had opportu-nities to snowmobile, ski, walk, fall, slide,sit in a vehicle, and even bathe in a hotspring while looking for birds. I havecome across hundreds of wonderful findsincluding wolverine tracks in the snow,river otter swimming in the Gardner River,a white-tailed jackrabbit population erup-tion, and a Bald Eagle roost. DuringYCBCs, I have seen hundreds of Baldand Golden Eagles and Townsend’s Soli-taires, and thousands of Gray-CrownedRosy Finches and Bohemian Waxwings.I have had the opportunity to observeboth rare and vagrant birds. I have expe-rienced unusual weather conditions—somild that you thought you were in Cali-fornia, snow coming down so hard youcould barely see 50 feet in front of you,other times it was so cold you couldn’t

Ruffed grouse, birds of woodlands and forest edges, have been observed on five of28 YCBCs. NPS photo.

References

LeBaron, G. 2000. One hundredthChristmas Bird Count. Ameri-can Birds. National Audubon So-ciety. New York, N.Y. 682 pp.

McEneaney, T. 1988. Birds of Yel-lowstone. Roberts-Rinehart.Boulder, Colo. 171 pp.

Thomas, L. 1996. Monitoring long-term population change: why arethere so many analysis methods?Ecology 77:49–58.

Terry McEneaney is the ornithologist forYellowstone National Park and author ofseveral books on the birds of Yellowstoneand Montana. Photo courtesy TerryMcEneaney.

run to the car fast enough. The YCBC ismore than just watching and countingbirds in the winter. It is about putting upwith the elements, developing friendships,and gaining field experience. It is alsopersonally gratifying to watch peopleimprove their field skills over time.

You may ask, if the data has limitedapplication, why even conduct a Christ-mas Bird Count? For me, it is more thanwatching and counting birds. It is a socialevent beyond the scope of scientificknowledge. It is a winter ornithologicaltradition. I look forward to the twenty-first century and continuing the Yellow-stone Christmas Bird Count tradition.

Page 10: Yellowstone Science - National Park ServiceYellowstone Science Volume 9 Number 1 Yellowstone Science is published quarterly, and submissions are welcome from all investigators conducting

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Yellowstone Science8

Page 11: Yellowstone Science - National Park ServiceYellowstone Science Volume 9 Number 1 Yellowstone Science is published quarterly, and submissions are welcome from all investigators conducting

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Winter 2001 9

Page 12: Yellowstone Science - National Park ServiceYellowstone Science Volume 9 Number 1 Yellowstone Science is published quarterly, and submissions are welcome from all investigators conducting

Yellowstone Science10

When the “Nature Notes” came into being in 1920 [see Schullery and Whittlesey,Yellowstone Science 8(1)], folks in Yellowstone weren’t as concerned with what would cometo be known as the park’s “cultural resources” as we are today. This installment might bemore aptly titled “Culture Notes.”

As a child who was fortunate enough to visit Yellowstone during each of my formativesummers, the culture of nature held an early fascination for me—the most exciting thing tome at Old Faithful was always more the inn than the geyser. Walking into the inn was likewalking into a roomful of sky in the midst of a forest glen—the sun even shone bright whitecircles down onto its floor, and if you were a careful looker, you could trace their beams allthe way back up to a tiny hole in the logs of the impossibly high ceiling. And then there wasthat clock.

Designed by Old Faithful Inn architect Robert Reamer specifically for the inn, the clockreaches the top of the inn’s three stories that are accessible to visitors, and sports a 13-footpendulum. Originally fitted with wooden hands, it was made around 1903 by Livingstonblacksmith George Colpitts, who also fashioned the inn’s fireplace set and andirons. If therewas ever a “machine in the garden,” this was it.

Reamer didn’t have to hang a gigantic clock from the side of the inn’s giant chimney, whichmight lead us to wonder why it’s there, outsizing even the fireplace and its proportionallymassive andirons. Regardless of whether its maker simply intended to let everyone knowwhat time it was, the clock’s power to awe makes our relationship with the concept of timein Yellowstone worth considering. It is, after all, one of the reasons that Yellowstone existsas a national park today—Old Faithful didn’t become Yellowstone’s primary icon and theworld’s most famous geyser by accident. It captured the imaginations of its first observers

by Alice Wondrak

Time Machine

Page 13: Yellowstone Science - National Park ServiceYellowstone Science Volume 9 Number 1 Yellowstone Science is published quarterly, and submissions are welcome from all investigators conducting

Winter 2001 11

because it was a figment of naturewhich seemed to conform to therhythm of the human experience.So appealing was this notion thatthe myth that the geyser erupts“once an hour, on the hour” re-mains fixed in the minds of manyvisitors today, despite the park’sbest efforts to convincethem that the geyser runson its own “schedule.”

Standardized time andschedules themselves werenewish concepts at the turnof the twentieth centurywhen the clock was built.Until the transcontinentalrailroad physically linkedthe entire North Americancontinent in 1869, it hadn’treally mattered if it wassimultaneously 8:56 in Chi-cago and 9:03 in Denver.Timekeeping that was bothaccurate and universal be-came an American culturalobsession only after thetimetable—a creation ofthe same railroad system,oddly enough, whoseNorthern Pacific financedthe first major explorationsof the Yellowstone area andbankrolled the constructionof the Old Faithful Inn (andits clock)—necessitated themaking of time zones inthe U.S. The nation syn-chronized its watches in1883, the same year that

Alice Wondrak is a writer-editor at the Yellowstone Center for Resources. She is also a 1999 Canon National ParksScience Scholar and a doctoral student at the University of Colorado–Boulder. She is exploring the environmentalhistory of the “Yellowstone bear,” from tourism icon to ecological indicator. Photo courtesy Alice Wondrak.

the Northern Pacific Railroad first broughtvisitors to Yellowstone via its terminus atCinnabar, Montana. If the park broughtAmericans together ideologically, the rail-road brought them together physically ina place whose main attraction was theapparent convergence of nature’s won-der and culture’s order.

Of course, Reamer’s clock couldalways just remind you that it wastime to get out onto the deck andsee if the geyser had started toblow. If the clock represents theimportance of human time inYellowstone’s history, it equallyrepresents the importance of geo-

logic time in its creation.We know that Old Faith-ful erupts fairly regularly;we also know that it didn’tsp(r)out up overnight.

If we know anything elseabout Yellowstone, it’sthat change is the only con-stant over time. Unfortu-nately, however, this hasalso been the case with theinn’s clock. It had ceasedto be faithful in recentyears, and in 2000 wasretro-fitted by an interdis-ciplinary team ofLivingston historian DickDysert, Anaconda machin-ist Mike Kovacich, andBozeman clock expertMike Berghold, who re-built its works “fromscratch.” Today theclock’s pendulum swingsagain, marking the min-utes until the next geysereruption, dinner date, orinterpretive talk for guestswho are anxious to learnmore about the inn, thegeysers, and their pasttimes.

Old Faithful Inn’s clock. NPS photo.

Page 14: Yellowstone Science - National Park ServiceYellowstone Science Volume 9 Number 1 Yellowstone Science is published quarterly, and submissions are welcome from all investigators conducting

MAMMOTH HOT SPRINGS HOTEL

YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK

Sixth BiennialScientific Conference on the

Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem

HOTBED OF CHAOS OR RESERVOIR OF RESILIENCE?

CALL FOR PAPERS

YELLOWSTONE LAKE

Please submit a one-page, double-spaced abstract of proposed papers orpanel sessions, on diskette or as an attachment via electronic mail (Word,Word Perfect, or ASCII format) by March 15, 2001, to: Program Commit-tee, Yellowstone Center for Resources, P. O. Box 168, Yellowstone Na-tional Park, Wyoming 82190; email: [email protected]. Seewww.nps.gov/yell/technical/conference.htm for information and forms.Abstracts will be published in the conference agenda booklet. Authors ofselected papers and panelists will be notified by May 15, 2001.

The conference will be held at the Mammoth Hotel in Mammoth HotSprings, Wyoming, the headquarters for Yellowstone National Park. Thiscall will be followed by all necessary information on conference registra-tion, accommodations, and related details. Please contact Michelle LeBeauat (307) 344-2239 for more information.

HOW TO SUBMIT AN ABSTRACT REGISTRATION INFORMATION

The purpose of the greater Yellowstone conferenceseries is to encourage the awareness and applicationof wide-ranging, high-calibre scientific work on the

region’s natural and cultural resources. We encouragemultidisciplinary presentations and interdisciplinarydiscussions about the relationships between the regionallandscape and its residents of many species.

The Sixth Biennial Conference will focus on acentral feature of the ecosystem’s landscape,Yellowstone Lake—from its depths, wheresubmerged hot springs and spires emerge atop

the Yellowstone caldera, to itsbeaches, where rare plantsand evidence of prehistoricpeoples erode at the mercyof wind, waves, and modernfootsteps. The programcommittee invites proposalsfor scholarly papers andpanel discussions that

contribute to professionalknowledge and debate

on the followingtopics or othersthat relate to theYellowstone Lakebasin and itshuman andnatural history.

Hydrology, geology, geochemistry, and geophysics

Plants, fish, and other wildlife in or around the lake

Invertebrates and microfauna

Archeology and human history of the lake basin

Socioeconomic values associated with Yellowstone Lake and its resources

Issues related to recreational use of or around Yellowstone Lake

Management of natural or cultural resources

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In March 2000, Laura Joss, chief ofYellowstone’s Branch of Cultural Re-sources from 1994 to 2000, became su-perintendent of Fort McHenry NationalMonument and Historic Shrine andHampton National Historic Site, bothlocated in Baltimore, Maryland. Laurareceived a B.A. in Anthropology fromIndiana University, and an M.A. in His-tory Museum Studies from theCooperstown Graduate Program. Shestarted with the National Park Service asa volunteer at Mesa Verde National Park,and has worked as either staff or consult-ant at several other national parks andmuseums. Prior to her departure fromYellowstone, she talked with YellowstoneScience staff about overseeing culturalresources management here.

Yellowstone Science (YS): Thinkingback to before you came, what made youwant to come to Yellowstone and take onthis challenge?

Laura Joss (LJ): I had a great experi-ence here as acting chief of interpretationfor three months in 1992, and I reallyenjoyed the resources and the people.When I was offered this position in 1994,I thought it was a great opportunity tobuild a new program, work with somereally good professionals, and get to knowthe resources better.

YS: It seems in the last decade, we’vehad great growth in the cultural resourcesprogram. What was the staff size whenyou got here and how has it grown?

LJ: When I arrived, there were twopermanents, one seasonal, and two part-time Yellowstone Association (YA) em-ployees. Now we have five permanentand five term employees, as well as thesame two YA employees. My intent wasto base the growth on the need for re-source inventories and establish at leastone person in each program: archeology,anthropology, cultural landscapes, eth-nography, historic structures, and themuseum, library, and archives. We stillneed a librarian, although we now have aterm library technician. We are gettingcloser to the positions that we need toflesh out each program. When we progressfar enough along with our inventories,we’ll get more into researching the col-lections and to better protection and moni-toring. It is being done a little now, but Ithink we need a lot more of that along theroad.

YS: How would you describe the stateof the program when you arrived?

LJ: The program had been created

from staff then-assigned to interpretationor planning. The positions were pulledinto one branch, but it wasn’t very cohe-sive at that time. One thing I tried to workwith quite a bit was making the branchmembers feel like more of a team andgetting a common vision of the program,and getting our goals delineated. I feellike those stones have been put in place—the foundation is there now.

One program that was an emphasis forTom Tankersley, who was the culturalresource contact, was working with tribalpeople. That was something I had done alittle of when I got here, but it really hit usbig time with the bison plan and Environ-mental Impact Statement (EIS), when wedid more face-to-face consultations withtribes. The list of tribes that have ex-pressed concern or interest about bisonhas grown to 84. I have worked hard, notjust for the bison program but for allprograms in the park, to have a regularconsultation schedule with tribes, whichis now twice a year. And I have tried toincrease the tribal presence in the parkthrough employment opportunities.Whenever we have a big training here, Iask if we can get slots for tribal membersand we’ve had some tribal people comefor those. The tribes do some contractwork for us, particularly with culturalresources. We also facilitate traditionaluses—sweat lodges and other ceremo-nies—in the park by tribal people. A lotof teachings go on in the park by tribalpeople who have used this area for gen-

The Evolution ofCultural Resources Management

in YellowstoneAn Interview with Laura Joss

Laura Joss. NPS photo.

Winter 2001

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Yellowstone Science14

erations. Superintendent Mike Finley re-ally helped facilitate that when he agreedto a fee waiver for tribal people coming infor traditional activities.

YS: Before coming to Yellowstone youwere the Rocky Mountain regional cura-tor?

LJ: Yes. I was there for three and a halfyears and had oversight of the curatorialprogram for 41 parks in this region.

YS: How does Yellowstone’s curato-rial program match up, and what are itschallenges?

LJ: Well, it is one of the larger pro-grams in the region, and I became famil-iar with it when I was in Denver becausewe were subject to an inspector general’saudit which cited us for our problemswith the museum environment and stor-age areas. Yellowstone and other parksthat were cited received increased atten-tion to correct those deficiencies. All theparks on that list have corrected theirdeficiencies, except Yellowstone. Wehave done everything we could withinthe current location, but overcrowding isa big problem. Susan Kraft[Yellowstone’s museum curator] hasworked very hard to make improvementswithin her storage area, but there are stilla lot of problems with the Albright Visi-tor Center basement. That’s why we’vebeen planning for a new building for

some time. That planning has gonethrough several iterations here in the parkbecause different sites were targeted atdifferent times. In the course of consider-ing those, doing subsurface testing andcompliance, the process has now evolvedto the point that we have four sites we’relooking at. One is at the edge of Gardinerand the other three are in upper Mam-moth [site of park headquarters]. Be-cause of some of the compliance issues inMammoth, which includes the Fort Yel-lowstone historic district, and the poten-tial for future growth, we’re looking atthe Gardiner site very closely as our pre-ferred site.

YS: What is the scope of the collection,or roughly speaking, the size?

LJ: We have about 250,000 historicartifacts and natural resource specimens.We also have nearly 90,000 historic pho-tos. In addition to the museum collection,we have the library and archives, includ-ing 8,000 linear feet of archives. We’rethe only park in the National Park Systemthat is a National Archives and RecordsAdministration repository, and they havestandards that they hold us to for thestorage and maintenance of those collec-tions.

YS: And this is currently located inapproximately how large an area com-pared with what you need?

LJ: We need between 40,000 and70,000 square feet of space, because weare planning for 100-year growth in ournew building. We have a large historicvehicle collection that should have morespace so we can more easily access them.We have been promised $4.8 million in“line item” construction money in aboutfiscal year 2002, but we need $10–12million to construct the size facility nec-essary for the long term.

YS: Is the hope that you can put someof these things like the William HenryJackson photographs or the vehicles ondisplay? Or is that not appropriate?

LJ: Our core mission for this buildingis collection storage. We don’t have thestaff to turn our collection storage reposi-tory into a working museum or even avisitor center. We will, however, try toshow people working through glass walls,or perhaps use glass walls to display thevehicles. We’d like to have people beable to access them visually but not needa tour guide to accompany them. So itmight be sort of a “virtual visitor experi-ence.”

YS: The park has not had a full-timehistorian for some time. Is that position inthe wish list? What other positions re-main to be filled?

LJ: I’d say the historian is a badlyneeded position. Lee Whittlesey func-tions as the de facto historian, althoughtechnically he is the archivist and thatposition brings more than enough workfor one or even two people. We do havesome money right now for oral histories,and Charissa Reid and Sally Plumb arefilling that gap by doing some reallyimportant interviews with former biolo-gists and park employees who worked inthe natural resources program early on.Of course, Paul Schullery has filled an-other part of that program’s need becauseof his long and active interest and exper-tise in the history of Yellowstone. He iscontinuing to work closely with Lee onresearch in that realm, although he ispart-time and also working on otherprojects. The anthropologist position istemporarily filled by Rosemary Sucec.We have two-year money to fund thatposition. That program should be welladdressed and will include the ethno-graphic resources inventory. She’ll alsohandle the tribal consultation meetings,

Members of the Lakota tribe engage in a prayer ceremony to bless a project toincrease awareness about the bison issue, August 1997. NPS photo.

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and she’ll do oral histories with tribalmembers.

YS: Cultural resources and the wholeevolution of appreciation of America’sculture has grown along with Yellow-stone National Park, hasn’t it? Yellow-stone was created because of the greatwildlife and the geysers, and no onethought about cultural resources then. Doyou feel as though public perceptionshave changed to include the historic as-pects of Yellowstone?

LJ: Yes. Early park superintendentPhiletus Norris, for instance, had a strongappreciation and interest in tribal uses ofthe park, which date back at least 10,000years. He documented archeological sites,wickiups, and some interactions withtribal people who were here. A lot of thecultural resources have evolved as thepark has grown. Structures were builtduring the development of the park, andbecause of their age, many are historicnow.

YS: And they’re growing in publicappreciation, aren’t they?

LJ: Exactly, yes. And the museumcollections have grown. There were manyresearch parties that came into the park inthe 1800s and took collections to theSmithsonian or other major museums.Now we’re trying to get a handle onwhere those collections are and what theyconsist of because they tell us a lot aboutthe early history of Yellowstone. Thosecollections, primarily natural and somearcheological, were recognized as im-portant back then, they just weren’t heldhere in the park. And with anthropology,there are well-documented cases of inter-actions with tribes early in the park’shistory, the most commonly known onebeing the flight of the Nez Perce in 1877.

YS: With natural resources manage-ment, the Park Service has evolved intorecognizing the natural processes andchanges that are occurring. With culturalresources, is there recognition that thesethings are going to constantly change inways that you can’t even predict? Or howdo you decide what period to preserveand present, for example, in Fort Yellow-stone?

LJ: We are actually wrestling with thatone right now at Fort Yellowstone, be-cause there are a couple of very importantperiods of development and you don’t

want to leave any of those out of a culturallandscape. You’re right, that is a currentissue, particularly for cultural landscapes.But for most cultural resources, you try tokeep things in the best condition you can.The mitigating measure would be to docu-ment them as well as you can as soon asthey’re identified. That way, if there is

loss or change, you’ve at least got the bestcondition documented.

YS: There’s a common perception thatwhen a structure is historic, no changescan be made. But it really is not thatsimple, is it?

LJ: No, in fact, we do recognize thatthere have to be some improvements madein buildings for safety reasons, livability,or to use modern techniques that mighthelp preserve the building. That is alltaken into consideration when we gothrough our compliance process. For in-stance, with safety, some improvementsare negotiable and some are not. Wework closely with the maintenance andsafety staff to come up with a plan thatwill benefit everyone, including the usersof the building, since quite a few functionas offices or homes, while maintaining asmuch of the original fabric of the struc-ture as possible.

YS: Aren’t there still thousands of yearsof work left to be done? Yellowstone is sovast; does it need systematic surveysacross the backcountry for wickiups andarcheologic sites?

LJ: You’re right, we probably wouldnever hire all the staff we need to com-plete inventories, particularly archeologi-cal. Maybe 2 to 3 percent of the park hasbeen inventoried for archeology and thathas resulted in our finding about 1,000sites. We have inventoried along the roadsand that’s often where the tribal peopletraveled prehistorically. We may be in-ventorying the highest use areas, but thereprobably will be a systematic method for

inventorying within the park, particu-larly the backcountry. Along rivers orlakes, logical campsites for us wouldhave been logical campsites for peopleprehistorically, too.

YS: Particularly when we are still rela-tively sparse in terms of inventories andknowing what we have, can you com-

ment on what you think some of the majorthreats are? We hear about, for example,vandalism of archeological sites or theftof important artifacts. Do you think wehave any notion of the scale of that?

LJ: Many of the threats to Yellow-stone’s archeological resources are natu-ral. With spring runoff and erosion, weare losing sites along the rivers and eventhe lakeshore because of variations in theamounts of water. We have a very goodworking relationship with the rangers tomonitor sites that are particularly vulner-able to vandalism and may be withinaccess of the normal visitor use areas.One area that has been vandalized overthe years is Obsidian Cliff. The base ofthat cliff has changed quite a bit even inthe last 30 years. Former ranger JerryRyder used to comment that because ofall the people taking away souvenir ob-sidian, the profile of the whole cliff hasbeen affected.

YS: What is the policy when a naturalprocess threatens archeological sites? Say,for instance, if a wickiup is naturallyabout to collapse, or a fire threatens toburn it. Is the goal to preserve that site andprevent that natural decay or burning? Oris the hope to document it and let theprocess go on?

LJ: We try to document the site asmuch as possible and retrieve as manyartifacts from it as may help tell its story.Oftentimes our thrust is so much to iden-tify the sites that we don’t have time tofully research or excavate them. And wedon’t always need to, because you can get

“Maybe 2 to 3 percent of the park has been inventoriedfor archeology and that has resulted in our findingabout 1,000 sites.”

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diagnostics that will help shorten the pro-cess. We do try to erect protective mea-sures around sites if possible, andwickiups are particularly vulnerable. Wehave worked with the fire crew to reducesome of the fuel load around wickiups.Our biggest problems with wickiups,however, are that they are falling down.We are looking at ways to interpret thosestructures, perhaps by re-erecting one somewherewhere more people couldview it. The money wehave gotten for this pro-gram has primarily beenfor inventories, and notso much for monitoringand protection, so that isstill a vast need.

YS: Isn’t part of thechallenge to try to docu-ment what we are doing today? So therewill be an historic record 100 years fromnow and people will understand why wedid what we did?

LJ: Yes. Oral historians are going tolove park newsletters like YellowstoneScience and The Buffalo Chip, particu-larly because they document those oralhistories at the moment. It saves themfrom coming after us in a nursing home in50 years. Those are good things we can bedoing now and more proactive measuresthat will help people down the road.

YS: Lee Whittlesey is often called theferret of the files because he’ll go aroundthe buildings saying, “Don’t throw thataway! I’ll look at that!” And especiallywith the electronic age coming up, thereis some concern that so much record isgetting lost.

LJ: Yes, an interesting evolution of thecultural field is that we’re working much

more closely now with the computer folks.It’s a very quickly evolving process thatis forcing people who are very used topaper and objects into a high-tech field.We rely on the staff to help us by printingout email messages and filing them, andhopefully those will eventually go to thearchives. Think if we were able to seeNorris’s email correspondence to his fieldrangers or to the headquarters back inWashington. It would be very interestingto read some of his thought processes.

YS: Now you’re going off to be a

superintendent at two culturally basedsites and you’ll have responsibility thatcrosses all the divisions. How do you seesome of the bigger challenges that goalong with that?

LJ: I really look forward to that diver-sity of operation. I experienced it brieflywhen I was acting superintendent at BryceCanyon and really loved the variety ofoperations that I got to be involved in. Ithink Fort McHenry and Hampton are alittle further along in identifying theirresources than Yellowstone because theyare so much smaller. There’s a GeneralManagement Plan being prepared atHampton right now and I’m very inter-ested in seeing that through. I just wel-come this opportunity to broaden myexperience in different program areas.

YS: What would you describe as yourhighlight here at Yellowstone?

LJ: I’d say my highlight in general hasbeen working with the American Indiantribes...I think we’ve made some reallygreat strides toward improving commu-nications and that has been very gratify-ing to see. Personally, another highlightwould be hiking up Mount Hornaday lastsummer to look for paleontological speci-mens. It scared the heck out of me, but itwas just spectacular once we got up there.

YS: What do you think you’ll missabout Yellowstone?

LJ: I’ll definitely missthe staff. I’ll miss livingin the park. I’m learningthat is not very commonback east and we werevery lucky to be able todo that at Yellowstone.I’ll definitely miss thevariety of wildlife here,the wide open spaces, theclean air, the clean wa-

ter—all the resources that Montana andWyoming are so well known for. I thinkmost of all though, I’ll miss working withthe program that I have gotten so deeplyimmersed in and gotten to know so well.I feel like I am just really beginning toknow this place and now I am leaving.

YS: Well you can still watch, albeitfrom a greater distance.

LJ: The webcam!YS: We will miss you and we wish you

luck.LJ: Thank you.

“Think if we were able to see Norris’s emailcorrespondence to his field rangers or to theheadquarters back in Washington. It wouldbe very interesting to read some of his thoughtprocesses.”

Wickiups, used as temporary hunting lodges, are evidence of Yellowstone’s10,000-year cultural history. NPS photo.

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After the information about Pilobolusfrom a 1993 article in Yellowstone Sci-ence 1(3)1 was used as a basis for a May2000 segment in the National GeographicNature series “The Body Changers,” itseemed appropriate to expand upon thedescription of this unique fungus.

Pilobolus (Figure 1) has been foundthroughout Yellowstone in associationwith a large number of animals includingelk, bison, mule deer, pronghorn, moose,and bighorn sheep. It moves through thedigestive tract of these and other animalsand is excreted in their droppings that itsubsequently helps to decompose.

Life Cycle

The life cycle of this organism has beenstudied in some detail during the three

centuries since it was originally describedin 1688. In viewing the life cycle weusually begin with a viable sporangiospore(the asexual reproductive propagule) ofPilobolus. When sporangiospores (Fig-ure 2 [A]) are located in a nutrient sourcesuch as dung, they swell and send forthgerm tubes [B] that grow into mycelia,the filaments of which fungi are com-posed. Because the mycelia are sub-merged, they cannot be seen in naturalmedia. However, when the organism iscultured on synthetic media in a labora-tory, the mycelia can be seen as branch-ing filaments without cross walls radiat-ing out through the entire medium.

After three or four days of growth,depending upon species and various en-vironmental conditions, the mycelium de-velops barrel-shaped swollen areas [C]either at the apex or within the mycelium.

These swollen areas expand and becomecytoplasmic-rich enlarged segments ofthe mycelium called trophocysts [D]. Asthe trophocysts mature they are separatedfrom the rest of the mycelium by cellwalls. Within a few days these trophocystselongate and develop into greatly thick-ened mycelia that grow toward the light.These thickened mycelia [E], called spo-rangiophores, grow upward through themedia and continue to elongate as theygrow into the air.

After a few hours the sporangiophoresstop elongating, and their terminal por-tions begin to enlarge [F]. As this termi-nal portion swells, a cell wall forms [G]separating the apex from the rest of thesporangiophore. This swollen apical area,called the sporangium, contains concen-trated cytoplasm that will divide, produc-ing tens of thousands of individual bi-

Pilobolus: A Fungus that Grows inYellowstone

by K. Michael Foos

Figure 1. Photograph of Pilobolussporangial apparatus. Photo courtesyK. Michael Foos.

Figure 2 (A–K). Life cycle of Pilobolus. A germinating sporangium is in thecenter with the various stages of the life cycle running clockwise beginning at thelower right of the diagram. Artwork courtesy K. Michael Foos, computer graphicsby Tami Blackford.

E

FG

HI

J

K

BD C

A

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nucleate sporangiospores. The separat-ing wall, called the columella, remainsbetween the sporangium and the rest ofthe sporangiophore. Meanwhile, the sub-apical region of the sporangiophore con-tinues to swell and produces a uniquestructure called the sub-sporangial swell-ing [H]. As the sporangium matures [I] itdevelops a black, water impermeable cellwall, and the sub-sporangial swellingceases to increase in size. During the nextfew hours, as the sporangium continuesto mature, its cell wall separates from thecolumella. As the sporangial wall sepa-rates from the columella, some gelati-nous material from within the sporangiumis exposed. Finally, the cell wall of thesub-sporangial swelling ruptures alongthe line of columella attachment and thepressure that is within the cell builds upand causes it to explode [J], much as awater balloon that has been smashed. Asthe end blows out of the cell it propels thesporangium several feet into the air. Sub-sequently, the recoil of the sporangio-phore and its loss of cytoplasmic contentscause it to collapse [K].

A pressure of approximately 5.5 kilo-grams’ force per centimeter squared de-velops within the sub-sporangial swell-ing because of a high concentration ofdissolved substances, primarily phosphateand oxalate ions, and because of the elas-ticity of the cell wall. This is enough forceto “shoot” a sporangium more than 2meters vertically, or more than 2.5 metershorizontally in the direction of the light,depending upon the angle of the sun. The

initial velocity with which sporangia aredischarged has been calculated as be-tween 5 and 28 meters per second.

If sporangia land on and adhere to grassor other herbage, they are in prime loca-tions to be consumed by herbivores. Ifsporangia are consumed by an appropri-ate herbivore, they pass through theanimal’s digestive system and are depos-ited in feces. Within days, thesporangiospores within these sporangia

begin to germinate and repeat the lifecycle.

When maintained in culture (withoutbenefit of the portion of the life cyclewithin the herbivore), most isolates ofPilobolus lose vigor after a few serialtransfers, and in a relatively short timecease producing sporangia. Often, afterseveral more transfers, they cease to growaltogether.

Special Characteristics of Pilobolus

Pilobolus has some special character-istics that one might not normally expectto find in a fungus:

• Light affects the growth of Pilobolusin two very distinctly different ways.First, light is required to stimulate thedevelopment of asexual reproductivestructures, beginning with the trophocystand continuing through the developmentof the sporangium. While the details ofthis development vary between species,all species require light to develop nor-mally. This makes their asexual repro-duction highly photoperiodic. That is,

sporangia develop in the morning afterthe development of the trophocyst on theprevious day. Second, light has a photo-tropic effect on Pilobolus sporangio-phores. It affects both the direction andrate of growth of sporangiophores. Then,the sporangial discharge, which is uniqueto the genus Pilobolus, is directly af-fected by light. The sub-sporangial swell-ing seems to act as a lens and directs lightto an area in the sporangiophore that“aims” the tip of the sporangiophore to-ward the source of the light, prior todischarge. This particular aiming mecha-nism has been examined in some detailand it has been shown experimentallythat virtually all sporangia shot fromPilobolus will hit a target in an arc ofapproximately 5 degrees.

• Pilobolus has an absolute require-ment for chelated iron. That is, whilemost fungi can use iron in an inorganicform, Pilobolus must have the iron itneeds in a complex organic molecule.The type of organic molecule that worksbest for Pilobolus is similar in shape tothat of hemoglobin, an iron-containingmolecule found in the blood of mosthigher animals. Several studies have iden-tified this nutritional problem, and at leastthree different molecules have been foundthat can provide the iron required bythese organisms. To date, no one hasdefinitely determined the origin of thechelated iron used by these organisms in

Elk droppings are germination sites for Pilobolus sporangiospores. NPS photo.

A primary reason for studying Pilobolus collected fromYellowstone is to obtain isolates from an area that hasbeen relatively undisturbed.

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Winter 2001 19

their natural habitat. Interestingly, thereare indications that the iron requirementmay well be different in different species.

• Species of Pilobolus utilize sodiumacetate as a carbon source and use nitro-gen in the form of ammonium ions. Somespecies have a near absolute requirementfor fatty acids. Unfortunately, much ofthe work on this aspect of Pilobolus nutri-tion died with Robert Page, who studiedthis organism in detail more than 30 yearsago. Because we do not know the detailsof the nutritional requirements of theseorganisms, media containing dung areoften used. No good synthetic mediumhas yet been developed that works con-sistently well with a large number ofisolates of all species of Pilobolus.

• Pilobolus produces at least one phero-mone. Of course, Pilobolus is not theonly fungus to produce pheromones. Sev-eral fungi, and many other organisms,produce pheromones. There are even per-fumes that claim to contain human phero-mones. It has been shown that a phero-mone produced by the mycelium of one

mating type of Pilobolus stimulates themycelium of a compatible mating type ofPilobolus to grow toward it. Thus, twocompatible mycelia become oriented to-ward each other prior to cell fusion. Stud-ies of the activity of pheromones inPilobolus await discovery of the propermating types and a suitable synthetic me-dium.

Pilobolus Systematics

For several years, I have been studyingthe taxonomy and the biogeography of

Pilobolus to gain information about thediversity of this organism. A primaryreason for studying Pilobolus collectedfrom Yellowstone is to obtain isolatesfrom an area that has been relativelyundisturbed. Very few, if any, naturalareas can absorb human invasion withouthabitat disruption. The Yellowstone eco-system is one of the last remaining areaswhere biological specimens of all kindscan be found in an environment that mightbe called a “natural habitat.” In the case ofPilobolus, I wanted to find isolates fromanimals that had not been transportedfrom other ecosystems, had not been fedmilled feed ( perhaps containing antibiot-ics), and were not hybrids of individuals

from different populations.As the isolates of Pilobolus have been

collected and identified, the usual taxo-nomic characteristics for this genus havebeen used. However, many of those char-acteristics have little value because theyvary greatly. So, characteristics such assporangial size, sporangiophore length,and trophocyst dimensions have been con-sidered only superficially. However, char-acteristics such as spore size, shape, andcoloration have been examined closely.These photographs of sporangiospores(Figure 3) from three species of Pilobolus

are shown to provide a perspective of therelative sizes and shapes of these spores.

Two other characteristics that are in-cluded in original descriptions of speciesof Pilobolus and remain constant, but areoften ignored in keys to species, are thesporangial attachment and shape of thecolumella. Published keys to the speciesof Pilobolus do not refer to the shape ofthe columella or sporangial attachmentas distinguishing characteristics. How-ever, after working with hundreds of iso-lates of these organisms, I have come tobelieve that these are valuable, highlyconsistent, and non-variable characteris-tics. Furthermore, they can be readilyrecognized because there is a correlationbetween the type of columella and theassociated sporangial attachment.

Two types of sporangium attachmentoccur in species of Pilobolus. In the first,a distinctive groove is found between thesporangium and sub-sporangial swell-ing. The second type of attachment hasno groove. Sporangia with grooved at-tachments have papillate columellae.Sporangia with non-grooved attachmentshave rounded columellae. Figure 4shows both types of columellae and spo-rangial attachments of two species ofPilobolus.

Although taxonomic considerations areusually left to the taxonomists, this char-acteristic is so conspicuous that it begs tobe mentioned in this description of thePilobolus. Both of these species wereisolated in Yellowstone and were cul-tured on synthetic media in a laboratory.After photographing the sporangial at-tachments, the sporangia were removedto show the columellae, while leaving therest of the structure intact. If you lookclosely, you can see the groove aroundthe sporangium to the right and below thepapillate columella found under that spo-rangium. The sporangium on the left hasno groove around it, and under that spo-rangium is a smoothly rounded columella.

Figure 3. Photographs of magnified sporangiospores of Piloboluskleinii (left), P. crystallinus (center), and P. roridus (right). Photoscourtesy K. Michael Foos.

Subsequent work in Yellowstone has shown that theinteraction of these same two organisms may also be afactor in the distribution of lungworm disease in thepark’s northern elk herd.

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Symbiosis

Nearly 40 years ago, a symbiotic inter-action between Pilobolus and a roundworm named Dictyocaulus was described.This interaction leads to the transmissionof the larvae that cause lungworm diseasein cattle. Subsequent work in Yellow-stone has shown that the interaction ofthese same two organisms may also be afactor in the distribution of lungwormdisease in the park’s northern elk herd.2

Pilobolus and D. viviparous are bothcoprophilous, phototropic organisms thatrequire passage through an herbivore’sdigestive tract for continuation of theirlife cycles. The infective larvae of D.viviparous develop in about the samelength of time and under the same condi-tions as the sporangia of Pilobolus, andboth have corresponding host ranges,habitats, and geographical distributions.The simultaneous appearance of numer-ous D. viviparous larvae and a prolifera-tion of Pilobolus sporangiophores on thesurface of dung point to their potentialinteraction.

This interaction of Pilobolus and Dic-tyocaulus viviparous has been describedin the northern elk herd of Yellowstone.3

The videotape, “The Body Changers”

depicts infective larvae as they climbPilobolus sporangiophores to the spo-rangium and shows how larvae movetoward the moisture within the spo-rangium and migrate into the sporangiumitself prior to sporangial discharge. Here,the larvae can travel within dischargedPilobolus sporangia and survive as thesporangium strikes a target. When onherbage, the Pilobolus sporangial wallprotects not only its own spores, but thelarvae as well, from desiccation and ul-traviolet radiation.

Lungworm disease has been endemicin the northern elk herd for at least 40years. The elk herd has grown during thetime it has been infected, and can now befound in expansive regions of Yellow-stone. As the elk have continued to carryand transfer these pathogens, they havemaintained the disease for generation af-ter generation. Having demonstrated thatPilobolus and Dictyocaulus larvae simul-taneously reside within individual elk,we have made a strong case characteriz-ing the role of Pilobolus in the transmis-sion of the pathogen and as the primaryagent for maintaining the current preva-lence of lungworm disease in this elkherd.

So, while this fungus is small and in-

Literature Cited

1Foos, K.M. 1993. Pilobolus ecol-ogy. Yellowstone Science 1(3):2–5.

2Worley, D.E. and R.E. Barrett.1964. Studies on the parasites ofthe northern Yellowstone elkherd. In Rumen Physiology andParasitology of the Northern Yel-lowstone Elk Herd (ed. R.H.McBee), pp. 10–28. NationalPark Service Progress Report:Mammoth, Wyo.

3Foos, K.M. 1997. Pilobolus andlungworm disease affecting elkin Yellowstone National Park.Mycological Research 101(12):1535–1536.

Figure 4. Photograph of two types of sporangial attach-ments (top) and two types of columellae (bottom). Photoscourtesy K. Michael Foos.

conspicuous, its presence in Yellowstoneis felt by its effects not only as a decom-poser, but also as an agent in the dissemi-nation of the lungworm pathogen.

K. Michael Foos is a professor of biologyat Indiana University East. He has in-cluded studies of Pilobolus from the Yel-lowstone Ecosystem in his research pro-gram for the past 15 years. A major goalof this study is to compare fungi collectedthroughout the northern Rocky Moun-tains to determine whether the isolatescollected that appear to be the same spe-cies have similar gene sequences. Simul-taneously, he is able to photographicallysurvey plants and animals within the Yel-lowstone Ecosystem for biology and pho-tography classes. Photo courtesy K.Michael Foos.

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Winter 2001 21

Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press,1999. xix plus 370 pages, 37 black andwhite illustrations, two maps, endnotes,“essential sources” essay, index. $45.00

(Cloth).

I had best begin by admitting that,according to the book’s acknowledgments(p. xi), “the original idea for the project”came from a conversation between theauthor and me. Pritchard’s exceptionallycareful consideration of the historicalrecord in its many forms, as well as hisextensive communication with dozens ofother Yellowstone researchers and staff(many of whom, I am sure, were of muchgreater help to him than I was), relieve meof any significant responsibility or creditfor what he says, but it seems fair toacknowledge my apparent part.

At least since 1933, when Carl Russellproduced “A Concise History of Scienceand Scientific Investigations in Yellow-stone National Park,” many researchers,students, journalists, and others havewritten about the evolution of scienceand the perception of nature here. Onewould think that after so much had beensaid, there couldn’t be all that much moreto say. (One might especially think so ifone was, like me, author of several booksthat deal with the topic.)

But in thinking such a thing, one wouldbe wrong. Preserving Yellowstone’s Natu-ral Conditions is a grand achievement inpart because it does so much to recast the

entire experience of science and nature inYellowstone, and in part because when itisn’t taking the story in fresh directions itis probing more deeply into the old estab-lished directions.

Most people who are at all familiarwith the recent historical scholarship ofYellowstone may know the outline of thestory that this book tells. Yellowstonebegan in 1872 as a collection of geologi-cal and geothermal oddities. Animals andplants were not seen as a particularlysignificant local resource, and were givenlittle more protection than they mightreceive on other public lands. But in theunpredictable political atmosphere of theGilded Age, the park was an opportunitywaiting to be taken. Early conservation-ists identified Yellowstone as a kind oftheatre-of-the-last-stand for the rapidlydisappearing big game of the AmericanWest. Under the determined champion-ing of George Bird Grinnell, George Gra-ham Vest, and others, the park soonevolved into an enormous wildlife re-serve. Since the 1890s, ecological mys-teries and controversies, rather than geo-logical matters, have dominated the timeof most managers and the attention of thepublic.

Over the long haul of the twentiethcentury, Yellowstone management poli-cies have always reflected changing soci-etal values: an evolving aesthetic of na-ture, greater tolerance for predators andfire, less tolerance for human influence in

a “wild” setting, and a growing relianceon science as a tool for settling the park’sendlessly thorny management quanda-ries. In all, the changes have tended toincrease our desire to protect not merelynature’s showpieces but nature’s verybeing. For much of this century, thoughwe may not have called any given policy“natural regulation” until quite recently,we have been slouching toward preserv-ing not natural things, but natural condi-tions.

What Pritchard brings to this story is anappetite for the underlying scientific andpolitical currents behind each develop-ment and an adventurous ability to iden-tify the consequence of each event. Hefollows several interwoven threads in hisnarrative. There is the inevitable (butsomehow more entertaining than usual)administrative history: how authority andpower regularly emigrated within andbeyond the National Park Service (NPS),and how those movements were affectedby changes in the growing agency.

There is the exasperating tension be-tween local and national interests, be-tween those who, because they livednearby, regarded themselves as dispro-

Preserving Yellowstone’s NaturalConditions: Science and thePerception of Natureby James Pritchard

Book review and essay by Paul Schullery

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portionately entitled to decide how Yel-lowstone should be managed, and thosewho lived far away and at first hardlycared at all what happened in the park, butwho have become progressively less will-ing to let the locals have their way.

There is, for nearly a century now, theamazingly important and thoroughly per-vasive interest of the regional livestockindustry in Yellowstone ungulate man-agement, an interest that has resulted inintense political pressures to manage thepark’s wildlands in certain ways. Rangemanagement scholars, who traditionallyfunctioned as the scientific arm of thestockgrower community, have had analmost incalculable influence on Yellow-stone, and still do. Pritchard’s recountingof this thread, alone, more than justifiesthe price of the book.

There is the growth of the wildlifemanagement profession, with its own in-ternal schisms and convolutions. Yel-lowstone has constituted almost as muchof a philosophical reach for this profes-sion as it has for the range managementprofessionals. It will probably surpriseyou to see how far back the tension be-tween wildlife biologists (i.e., game man-agers) and Yellowstone’s leadership ac-tually goes.

There is the parallel growth of a scien-tific community with less allegiance tothe goals and even the belief system of thegame-management professionals. Therise of ecology and, later, of conservationbiology as important disciplines withvoices and ethical frameworks of theirown is key to understanding why theprofessional wildlife management com-munity has struggled so with Yellow-stone issues.

There is the larger public conservationmovement, with its changing constituen-cies and groups, its gradual awakening tothe value of wilderness, and its maturingorganizational bureaucracies that alwayshave and always will find Yellowstone abully pulpit, an irresistible moving tar-get, and a perfect test case. Love-haterelationships never get more stormy thanthose between Yellowstone and its watch-dogs.

And there is, weaving its way throughthese and other stories, a spectacular ar-ray of distinguished, strong-willed indi-viduals—scientists, administrators, poli-

ticians, and others—who came along togive this or that administrative, philo-sophical, political, or scientific trajectorya nudge or a boot onto a new course.From the trophy-happy bowhunters whowere allowed to “collect” grizzly bearsfor a California museum, to the park staffwho crushed pelican eggs on the MollyIslands to save park trout for human an-glers, this is a great, bewildering, andunforgettable saga, nothing less than theintellectual history of an important Ameri-can institution.

At the center of this saga of science andhuman values, and the foremost hero ofthe book, is Charles C. Adams, a promi-nent early-twentieth-century ecologist.Harvard trained, a co-founder of the Eco-logical Society of America, and author ofpioneering ecology texts, Adams is nowlargely forgotten or neglected by parkhistorians. Pritchard argues persuasivelythat there is a direct line from Adams’fostering of both science and ecological

integrity in national parks, through theworks of George Wright in the 1930s andStarker Leopold in the 1960s, to the mod-ern era. The role of predators in wildcommunities, the urgent need to resistexotic species introductions, the equallycompelling need for complete, year-roundhabitats, and other subjects that we nowregard as part of the “recent” wave ofthinking in park management were thriv-ing ideas and ideals, in Adams’ circle atleast, 80 years ago.

Here also, at last, is a full telling of thescientific and philosophical underpin-nings of the Park Service’s current “natu-ral regulation” policy. A number of re-porters and commentators have portrayednatural regulation as a hastily conceivedbrainchild of a few desperate Yellow-stone administrators who, faced with over-whelming public disapproval of the elkherd reductions of the 1960s, needed adifferent policy and adopted natural regu-

lation solely as a political expedient to getthe heat off. This is essentially the tale asit is told in Richard Sellars’ importanthistorical book Preserving Nature in theNational Parks: A History (1997). InSellars’ account of the wildlife contro-versies of Yellowstone of the 1960s and1970s, bureaucracy over-rode science atevery turn. As one complimentary re-viewer (Montana, The Magazine of West-ern History 49[2]:78) wrote in summa-rizing the Sellars book, the NPS decidedto adopt natural regulation for reasonsthat were “solely political, lacking a shredof scientific evidence.”

Now, thanks to Pritchard’s book, thereis a good antidote to this regrettably over-simplified version of events. By review-ing the work and previous studies of GlenCole, Douglas Houston, and other biolo-gists of this key period, and by showingthe influences of the greater scientificcommunity’s thinking on these Yellow-stone researchers, Pritchard provides a

contextual corrective for the popular butshallow view that this new policy wassomehow “just politics.” Pritchard showswhere the ideas and science of naturalregulation came from, and how they fo-cused and congealed in the thinking of afew key individuals in the NPS in Yel-lowstone (for one example, Cole andHouston both worked in Grand TetonNational Park immediately before com-ing to Yellowstone—Cole on the south-ern Yellowstone elk herd and Houston onJackson Hole moose. While in the Tetons,both were already considering naturalregulation in their studies, and were fa-miliar with the literature on the subject).

In fact, after reading Pritchard’s ac-count, it appears to me that natural regu-lation policy, as hesitantly as it was of-fered to the world, as entwined as itindeed was in politics, and as incompleteas it may necessarily have been in itsearliest formulation, was probably as well

Here also, at last, is a full telling of the scientific andphilosophical underpinnings of the park service’s cur-rent “natural regulation” policy.

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grounded scientifically as any previousYellowstone wildlife management policyhad been at the time of its adoption. Afterall, the scientific criticisms of predatorcontrol, fire suppression, fish stocking,maximum sustained yield harvest of wild-life, and ungulate feeding have all in-creased dramatically in the scientific com-munity since the 1960s. And since thenatural regulation policy was launched,30-odd years of inquiry, debate, and scru-tiny have only increased the level ofrespect that a considerable element of thescientific community now has for theidea and the policy in Yellowstone(Yellowstone’s 1960s leadership thoughtof natural regulation policy as somethingthey were applying specifically to theungulates, but eventually all natural re-source management—bears, fish, fire, andso on—was widely perceived as part of abroad natural regulation policy).

But there is more to this long haul ofscientific controversy than merely thepotential vindication of a given policy.Had the Park Service in the late 1960s justcontinued its earlier course—of intensivemanipulation of the Yellowstone set-ting—today’s managers and public wouldbe little better informed today than theywere then about how this wildland actu-ally functions. The scientific and educa-tional gains of the policy seem to me to beextraordinary. Ecological understandinghas advanced immensely because naturalregulation has required such intense study.So, whether one regards natural regula-tion policy to have originated solely frompolitical necessity, from some lucky in-tuitions on the part of a few bright scien-tists, or from some combination of poli-tics, evolving scientific theory, and theenergy and vision of a few people in theright places, it is getting harder and harderto argue that it was a bad idea in the firstplace.

Among the many other threadsPritchard follows there is one that he hashighlighted perhaps without intendingto—a remarkable disjunct in our receivedwisdom about the NPS. That wisdom haslong upheld Horace Albright as the great“wilderness defender” who championedthe cause of the parks against consider-able odds and won so many battles ontheir behalf. All that is true; Albright’sachievements were indeed heroic, and

some were the result of individual forti-tude almost beyond imagining. But whenviewed through the eyes of the environ-mental historian, a different Albrightemerges. Again and again, when chang-ing scientific understanding suggestedthat it was time for policy to adjust,Albright almost invariably led the resis-tance. Predator control, natural fire, natu-ral regulation—Albright was always onthe side of the status quo and against theadventurism of trying new things. Per-haps it will take another historian, per-haps after another generation has passed,to give us a more complete and probingportrait of this most complex of conser-vation heroes.

That I regard the book as indispensabledoes not mean I agree with everything init. Here and there are errors of fact orinterpretation. In his discussion of thefires of 1988, Pritchard seems to believethat NPS delays in fighting the fires al-lowed the wind to create “fires of monu-mental extent” that could not then be putout when firefighters finally tried (p. 286).This was certainly a fashionable view atthe time, but it is untrue. All fires weredeclared “wildfires” (meaning that theywere judged to be out of prescription andtherefore to be suppressed—the termi-nology of wildland fire isn’t used cor-rectly in the book) when a modest total ofabout 17,000 acres was contained within

fire perimeters. From that time until thefinal total of about 800,000 acres wasincluded in the fire perimeters, firefightingwas continuous and aggressive. The NorthFork Fire, for example, which accountedfor about half the total acreage affected,was fought from within about an hour ofits start.

Toward the end of the book Pritchardconfidently asserts that, “the 1980s spelledthe demise of single-species thinking interms of managing Yellowstone’s wil-derness” (p. 306). I know what he’s get-ting at: that greater-Yellowstone manag-ers became more inclined to think inecosystem terms. But the demise of single-species thinking is hardly what has hap-pened. Instead, we now are more con-sciously managing single species towardecosystem goals. The existing legal andbureaucratic tools give us little choice. Ifthe distinction is not clear, consider howoften the Endangered Species Act mustbe invoked (Save the grizzly bear!) toachieve some ecosystem-managementend (Stop unplanned suburban sprawl!).American society, through its laws andpublic opinions, still cherishes some spe-cies much more than it cherishes others.Until that changes, ecosystem manage-ment will be practiced through this pecu-liar device of using the rare and adored asa tool to protect the rest.

Sad to say, it is already clear that thisbook will not be widely enough read. I donot think that even one regional publica-tion, including newspapers that devotevast amounts of attention to Yellowstoneissues (and to far less deserving books),has noted it, much less given it the kind offulsome review it deserves. Anyone seek-ing to be informed about Yellowstone’scomplex ecological issues is terribly dis-advantaged by not having read this book.Not reading it promotes just the kind ofmulti-generational ignorance and confu-sion that the book so carefully and sym-pathetically describes for us as havingimpeded better management of Yellow-stone in the past.

Paul Schullery, former editor of Yellow-stone Science, is the author of Searchingfor Yellowstone: Ecology and Wonder inthe Last Wilderness (1997) and otherbooks about the park and conservation.

Horace Albright, former Yellowstonesuperintendent, was instrumental increating many of the park’s earlywildlife policies. NPS photo.

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24

Lynx Survey to Begin in YNP

The wildlife team at the YellowstoneCenter for Resources (YCR) is initiatinga three-year effort to document the pres-ence and distribution of lynx in Yellow-stone National Park. Principal investiga-tors are biologists Kerry Murphy, KerryGunther, and Jim Halfpenny (ANaturalist’s World, Gardiner, Montana).A YCR wildlife technician, a volunteer,and District Resource Management Co-ordinators will also work on the survey.

Field personnel will document lynxduring winters by snowtracking on theground and from airplanes, and duringsummers by using hair-snares and DNA-based species identification techniques.Training and field work begin duringJanuary 2001. Contact Kerry Murphy at(307) 344-2240 for more information.

Park Wins Auction for Rare Item

The original Yellowstone Park Trans-portation Company ledger of stagecoachoperations in the park, 1892–1906, hasjust been purchased for addition to thepark archives. Thanks to the magic ofInternet auctions and friends of Yellow-stone, this item is now available for use inthe research library, located in the base-ment of the Albright Visitor Center.

Interior Secretary Visits Yellowstone

Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt madeone last official stop in Yellowstone Na-tional Park on January 13 to receive abriefing on the park’s successful wolfreintroduction. The park held a press con-ference in the morning and then visitedLamar Valley, where the group observedwolves and even a grizzly bear stirringfrom hibernation. Secretary Babbitt pre-sided over the release of 14 Canadiangray wolves in 1995. Today, over 120wolves inhabit the park.

New Publications Available

Yellowstone in the Afterglow: Lessonsfrom the Fires is now available from theYCR. The report was written by parkvolunteer and seasonal writer Mary Ann

Franke. It is based on readings of pub-lished and unpublished research (mostlysince 1988) on the effects ofYellowstone’s wildland fires and on dis-cussions with many of the participatingscientists. It will soon be available online.

The 1999 Investigators’ Annual Re-port is also available. It can be found onYellowstone’s website at www.nps.gov/yell/publications. This report representsa summary of all the research done inYellowstone during 1999.

The long awaited Greater YellowstonePredators: Ecology and Conservation ina Changing Landscape, proceedings ofthe Third Biennial Conference on theGreater Yellowstone Ecosystem, has justarrived in print. These proceedings offera glimpse of the rich history of Yellow-stone predators and cover a surprisingnumber of species including ravens, sala-manders, and spotted frogs, in addition tomedium and large carnivores.

If you would like a copy of any of thesepublications, please contact TamiBlackford at (307) 344-2204 [email protected].

Winter Use Decision Announced

Protecting visitor safety and enjoyment,air quality, wildlife, and the natural quietof Yellowstone and Grand Teton nationalparks were the determining factors in adecision to phase out most snowmobileuse in the two parks over three years infavor of multi-passenger snowcoaches.

The Record of Decision, published inNovember 2000, followed many years ofstudy to determine what kinds of winteractivities were appropriate for Yellow-stone and Grand Teton national parks andthe John D. Rockefeller, Jr., MemorialParkway. A final rule required to imple-

ment portions of the Record of Decisionwas finalized and published in the Fed-eral Register on January 22, 2001. Winteruse planning started as far back as 1993.

The decision concludes that snowmo-bile use in these parks so adversely af-fects air quality, wildlife, naturalsoundscapes, and the enjoyment of othervisitors that the resources and values ofthese parks are impaired, creating a situ-ation which conflicts with the mandate ofthe NPS Organic Act that parks be left“unimpaired for the enjoyment of futuregenerations.” Executive Orders issuedby Presidents Nixon and Carter and theNPS’s own regulation on snowmobilingprohibit snowmobile use in national parkswhere it disturbs wildlife, damages parkresources, or is inconsistent with the park’snatural, cultural, scenic, and aestheticvalues; safety considerations; or man-agement objectives.

Effective the winter of 2003–2004 andthereafter, the Record of Decision allowsoversnow motorized recreation access viaNPS-managed snowcoach only, with lim-ited exceptions for continued snowmo-bile access to other public and privatelands adjacent to or within Grand TetonNational Park. Until then, interim actionswould progressively reduce the impactsfrom snowmobile use in the parks.

Specifics of the plan are as follows:DURING THE WINTER OF 2000–2001:

• There is no cap on snowmobileuse.

• Oversnow motorized travel is pro-hibited from 11 P.M. to 6 A.M.,except by authorization, begin-ning December 18, 2000.

DURING THE WINTER OF 2001–2002:• Existing commercial snowcoach

operators would be allowed toincrease their fleet size and en-courage snowmobile rental busi-nesses and other new operators topurchase or lease snowcoachesand reduce snowmobile numbers.

• Daily snowmobile use numberswould be set for all three parkunits at levels not to exceed theseven-year average for peak days.

• For snowplane use on JacksonLake, permits would be reissuedto permit holders of record. NoA snowcoach in the park. NPS photo.

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&notesNEWS

new permits would be issued.• Oversnow motorized travel would

be prohibited from 9 P.M. to 8 A.M.,except by authorization.

DURING THE WINTER OF 2002–2003:• Existing commercial snowcoach

operators would be allowed tocontinue to increase their fleetsize and encourage snowmobilerental businesses and other newoperators to purchase or leasesnowcoaches and reduce snow-mobile numbers.

• Daily snowmobile use numberswould be set for all three parks atlevels that are expected to lead toan approximately 50 percent re-duction in snowmobiles enteringYellowstone’s South and Westentrances.

• Current snowmobile use levelswould be allowed to continue atthe East and North entrances, onthe parkway’s Grassy Lake Road,and on the Continental DivideSnowmobile Trail in Grand TetonNP and the parkway.

• Snowmobiles in Yellowstonemust be accompanied by an NPS-permitted guide and travel ingroups of no more than 11.

• In Grand Teton NP and the JohnD. Rockefeller, Jr., MemorialParkway, the superintendentwould be authorized to requiregroups and guides.

• Oversnow motorized travel wouldbe prohibited from 9 P.M. to 8 A.M.,except by authorization.

• Snowmobile use would be elimi-nated within Grand Teton NP ex-cept on the Continental DivideSnowmobile Trail and on accessroutes leading to private landsand adjacent national forest lands.

• Snowplane use, as well as snow-mobile use, would be discontin-ued on the frozen surface of Jack-son Lake in Grand Teton NP.

In 2003–2004 and thereafter, mostoversnow motorized visitor travel in thethree park units would be by NPS-man-aged snowcoach only.

The Record of Decision is availableonline at www.nps.gov/planning.

Thanksgiving Rumblings

Yellowstone’s geologic forces werehard at work on Thursday, November 23.An earthquake of 4.2 magnitude occurredin the park at 9:20 P.M. The epicenter ofthe shock was located about one milenorth of Norris Junction, an area that isnoted for earthquake swarms. The earth-quake was felt at Madison Junction and atMammoth Hot Springs, where no dam-age was reported. In 1975, this area expe-rienced a magnitude 5.9 event that didcause damage. No obvious changes inthermal activity were observed at theNorris and Old Faithful areas as a resultof the earthquake.

Yellowstone National Park and otherGYE residents can help develop a newonline Yellowstone earthquake databaseby answering a simple online question-naire if they feel ground motion accom-panying earthquakes in and around Yel-lowstone National Park. The question-naire can be found online at http://pasadena.wr.usgs.gov/shake/imw/STORE/Xjjai/ciim_display.html.

Bison Decision Reached

The National Park Service and the U.S.Department of Agriculture’s Animal andPlant Health Inspection Service and For-est Service came to a final agreement ona joint management plan for bison inYellowstone National Park and the stateof Montana. The plan is designed to pre-serve the largest wild, free-ranging popu-lation of bison in the United States, whileminimizing the risk of brucellosis dis-ease transmission (between bison andcattle) to protect the economic interestand viability of the livestock industry inMontana. By allowing bison the opportu-nity to seek critical winter range outsidethe park, the plan reflects a commitmenton the part of the agencies to end theunnecessary killing of bison outside Yel-lowstone National Park. It is the result ofover eight years of negotiation and sevenmonths of mediation between the federalagencies and the state of Montana. Acopy of the Record of Decision is avail-able online at www.nps.gov/planning.

“Obsidian Pool” is Official

The NPS Office of Policy in Washing-ton, D.C., reports that the U.S. Board onGeographic Names officially approvedthe name Obsidian Pool for a backcountryfeature in the Mud Volcano area on No-vember 9, 2000.

Your Picture May Be Worth 1,000Words—And a Trip to a NationalPark

Remember that great picture you tookat a national park last summer? Everyonesaid it should win a prize—and now itcan! The first National Parks Pass Expe-rience Your America Photo Contest hasbeen announced to select the image forthe 2002 National Parks Pass. The con-test is sponsored by the National ParkService and the National Park Founda-tion with Kodak, a Proud Partner ofAmerica’s National Parks.

Any photo taken by an amateur pho-tographer in a national park since January1, 2000, is eligible. The winning imagewill appear on the 2002 National ParksPass. The photographer submitting thewinning image will get a trip for four toany national park, a Kodak camera kit,and a personalized National Parks Pass.

Complete contest rules and an entryform are available online at www.nationalparks.org or by sending a self-addressed stamped envelope to: NationalParks Pass Photo Contest Rules, P.O.Box 5220, Young America, Minnesota55558-5220. Entries are due by March15, 2001. National Park Service, Na-tional Park Foundation, or Kodak em-ployees and their immediate family mem-bers are not eligible to enter.

Obsidian Pool. NPS photo.