Word: parkes
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Varley's view, which hews to a National Park Service doctrine dating to 1963, postulates that nature, not man, should be allowed to deal most of the cards in Yellowstone. Fires naturally started by lightning strikes have been left to burn in the park since 1972 unless they have seriously threatened lives or property. In the 16 years before last summer, there had been 233 such fires, which consumed a modest 34,157 acres. But the policy became increasingly controversial last July and August as the fires and smoke repeatedly drove tourists from the park. This, in turn, made federal...
Yellowstone has 2.4 million visitors each year, who spend some $43 million inside park boundaries alone. Says Bill Schilling, executive director of the Wyoming Heritage Foundation, a business-backed lobbying group: "Yellowstone is Wyoming's crown jewel. Tourism was seriously impacted throughout the state." Responding to pressure from business interests in Wyoming, Montana and Idaho, the Interior Department has decreed that this year every fire in Yellowstone started by natural means, as well as by human carelessness, will be strenuously suppressed...
...tourists, it had relatively little impact on Yellowstone's animals, compared with the normal rigors of winter. The fires killed only 335 of the 31,000-member elk herd. But a harsh winter eliminated almost 5,000 more, and their carcasses lie in various states of decomposition throughout the park...
Yellowstone's herd of 2,700 bison was reduced more by a highly controversial hunt last fall and winter just outside the park (570 killed) and harsh weather (260) than by the fire (9). Yellowstone's best-known residents, 200 or so grizzlies, may have been reduced by a total of two as a result of the conflagrations. A pair of bears that had been tagged with radio transmitters could not be located during the winter. Says Assistant Chief Ranger Gary Brown: "The bears don't seem to be frightened by fire. Poaching is a bigger threat by a long...
...species of floras in the park, lodgepole pine and the duff from its fallen needles and branches provided most of the fuel for the fires. But nature has provided the tree with a way to make a comeback. Some lodgepole pinecones are serotinous: they open and release seeds only when activated by the heat generated by fires. In some areas surveyed by Yellowstone biologists, seed densities from such cone releases measure in the millions per acre. As a result, the ground will soon be thick with pine sprouts...