Photo: Bob Woodall/ FPI Mormon Row Homestead Barn and the Tetons

America’s Best Idea

A Place Set Apart for Man and for the Beasts

Story by Bert Raynes

Wildlife photos by
Henry H. Holdsworth / Wild by Nature Gallery

 

Marmot

     The first action to set aside some publicly held land to satisfy man’s inner needs and emotions—those needs and feelings you can satisfy if you will let Yellowstone’s quiet off-road treasures do so—came during America’s savage Civil War. In 1864 Congress granted the Yosemite Valley to the State of California, with this explicit proviso: “…that the premises shall be held for public use, resort, and recreation; shall be held inalienable for all times.”
     Land destined never to be exploited for the benefit of the few, but held in public ownership to benefit the many. The beginning of an entirely new public-land policy, coming when this nation was at risk and largely still unexplored and unknown. Coming at a time of war, far-seeing and far-reaching actions to preserve. Remarkable.
Just eight years later, in 1872, Congress authorized Yellowstone National Park, the first national park in the country, and the first in the world. It’s sometimes said that the national park idea is the “best idea the United States of America ever had.” Even great original concepts often must be refined, improved, and administered. Unforeseen obstacles must be overcome. Perhaps the first challenge in Yellowstone National Park was poaching.
     For in addition to the geysers, hot springs, the falls, the forests and lakes, the yellow stone itself, were ample numbers of large animals, both prey and predator. It very soon became apparent that market-hunting slaughter had to be prohibited, and was in 1883. By 1894, protection for large game animals within Yellowstone was legislated, even as the then new idea of range management was emerging. And in 1903 President Theodore Roosevelt recognized that the killing off of predators—in this instance mountain lions—has a deleterious effect upon their prey—on the elk and deer—and ordered it stopped. (Wolves, however, were exterminated in the park and have only just, in 1995, been reintroduced, restoring that essential component of wild creatures belonging there.)
     Eventually, in 1916, Congress established the National Park Service with a purpose and a management philosophy worth being reminded of:

 

River Otter

     “The Service thus established shall promote and regulate the use of Federal areas known as parks, monuments, and restorations hereinafter specified by such means and measures as conform to the fundamental purpose of said parks, monuments and reservations, which purpose is to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wildlife therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.”
As you visit Yellowstone National Park, Grand Teton National Park, the six national forests, wildlife refuges, and the private lands surrounding it comprising what has become known as the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE), you will experience today’s snapshot. Nature is dynamic. The park is always changing, albeit within those directives. It responds to fires, droughts, climate change, and to varying views on how best to manage facilities and its animals and fish. Need I mention political pressures? Them too.
Today, thanks largely to the wisdom and foresight of all those who established the parks and the National Park System and those who have administered through a learning process since 1872, there remains a place set apart for man and for the beasts.

Moose Cow and Calf

     Opportunity for you, and habitat for them. Your chance to see herds of bison in scenes reminiscent of what early denizens and then explorers witnessed in the 1800s. What Lewis and Clarke recorded, although they never came closer than about 100 miles of what is now Yellowstone National Park. Perhaps you will spot a pack of wolves in pursuit of some prey, or a grizzly bear digging for some delicacy. Bald eagles, trumpeter swans, a pair of sandhill cranes. Otters with a trout. What you are seeing and experiencing in your visit will look deceptively unchanged and unchanging. It distinctly is not. As Henry David Thoreau noted, decades before Yellowstone National Park was created, “All nature is a new impression every instant.” What you are seeing actually is a success story, somewhat like Franklin’s observation about our Republic: “If you can keep it.”
     Wildlife remains in abundance, from the wolf to the bison, black and grizzly bear to elk, coyote to ground squirrel, bald eagle to trout—some 60 animal species and a possible bird list of over 300 species. Not to mention insects and allied species, from butterflies to spiders, moths to mosquitoes. And ticks. Wildlife going about their lives pretty much as they have done for thousands of years.
Do take time to absorb the scenery, the endless vistas and the small scenes. Fill your eyes and mind with the shining mountains, the snow-capped peaks, the play of light and distance in the forests, the clarity of the waters, the expanse of sky. Or the drops of rain gathering on the leaves and dripping off. Fair days or storms.
     And give thanks for that “best idea.”

Sandhill Crane and Colt	Black bear cubs play on a tree

     Bert Raynes writes a weekly column in the Jackson Hole News & Guide. He has penned five publications covering the birds and animals of Grand Teton and Yellowstone National parks. His latest book, Winter Wings, joins Valley So Sweet and Curmudgeon Chronicles in receiving well-deserved, wide acclaim.

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Copyright 2004 by FPI (Focus Productions, Inc)., P.O. Box 1930, Jackson, Wyoming 83001. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publishers.

Mountain Country is a free visitors’ guide published annually in May and distributed at hundreds of locations throughout Jackson Hole, Cody, and other regional communities. To receive a copy in the mail, send $5 to Mountain Country, P.O. Box 1930, Jackson, Wyoming 83001.

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