Playing God in Yellowstone: the destruction of America's first national park

National Review, Sept 26, 1986 by Wyane Lutton

SCANDAL IN YELLOWSTONE

EXPOSES OF government mismanagement and corruption have been rolling off the presses at an almost exponential rate in recent years. We have now come to expect some agencies to work tirelessly against the American people's best interests, and we are caught by surprise when they occasionally make a mistake in our favor. But with park rangers outfitted in Rough rider uniforms, the National Park Service is one federal bureau that most of us would tend not to be suspicious of.

The crown jewel of our national-park system is Yellowstone. Founded in 1872, during the Presidency of U.S. Grant, it is larger than the states of Rhode Island and Delaware combined. By law the Park Service is responsible for preserving Yellowstone and the other parks under its jurisdiction "unimpaired for future generations." Alston Chase, in his new and highly disturbing book, Playing God in Yellowstone, makes a compelling case for the charge that federal mismanagement --following a half-baked policy of letting nature take its course--is actually destroying Yellowstone. "The park's reputation as a great game sanctuary is perhaps the best-sustained myth in American conservation history," writes Chase, "and the story of its decline perhaps one of the government's best-kept secrets."

Chase, a graduate of Harvard and Oxford, has lectured on the philosophy of science and has long been concerned with Yellowstone. He has uncovered a scandal of breathtaking proportions, dating back to the time when the Park Service took over control of the park from the U.S. Cavalry. Basing park-management policies less on scientific than on political considerations, the Park Service, far from preserving our natural heritage, has actually brought about the extinction of one major species (the Rocky Mountain grey wolf); the elimination from Yellowstone of the white-tailed deer, bobct, wolverine, cougar, lynx, mountain lion, marten, and fisher; the destruction of the range; and the serious decline of the grizzly bear, black bear, bighorn sheep, mule deer, and beaver. Chase musters an impressive array of evidence to support his contention that

OVer the last seventy years nearly every conceivable mistake that could be made in wildlife management has been made by the Park Service in Yellowstone. Not a year has gone by since it assumed responsibility there when the National Park Service did not kill an animal in the name of an environmental ideal. Today, its management policies threaten the very capacity of the park to sustain life.

The basic problem stems from a decision made by the Park Service years ago to eliminate predatory animals from Yellowstone, while publicly denying that it was pursuing such a policy. Chief among the consequences is that the elk and bison herds have exploded. Overgrazing by these specially protected animlas has brought about a calamitous decline in the food available to other animals, as well as contributing to soil erosion and the decline of various plants. It remains a mystery why the Park Service granted most-favored-animal status to the elk, which apparently is not even native to Yellowstone.

Regrettably, conditions at Yellowstone did not improve after Reaganite conservative James Watt became Interior Secretary. The basic management policies instituted by previous Administrations continued. What is more, soon after he took office, Watt approved the construction at Yellowstone of the Grant Village project, earlier rejected by the Carter Administration as a wasteful and improper use of taxpayers' money. The project not only destroyed a prime grizzly habitat, but put the Park Service in the hotel business, in direct competition with private operators in the area.

Your reviewer recently spoke with an avid reader of NR who, coincidentally, spent the past summer working as a conservationist at Yellowstone. After he informed me that he and his colleagues were all familiar with Chase's book, I asked him for his opinion of it. His reply: "Sad to say, but Chase is essentially correct. . . . It's just a matter of time before the bears are all gone."

Playing God in Yellowstone will make most readers very angry indeed. Victories for just causes have been few and far between in recent years. While we are busy promoting the SDI, trying to save the IRA, and working to derail the government's scheme to allow the Red Army to eat Wheaties at U.S. taxpayers' expense, let's also give a hand to the grizzly, bighorn, and beaver, now being gulaged by the Park Service apparatchiks. Spurred on by Chase's book, maybe we can help win one for the animals.