Hello and welcome to the fifth newsletter of YellowstoneWildernessMag.com! One of my practices over the years has been that of probing front-line National Park Service Rangers as to their knowledge and/or opinion of wilderness designation for Yellowstone’s backcountry. I’ve also noticed there has definitely been a slight shift in opinions expressed by these Park Service employees since this website has been published and people are questioning why Yellowstone’s backcountry has yet to be designated wilderness. Besides this website, there has also been a persistent drumbeat coming from the grassroots conservation group Montanans for Gallatin Wilderness regarding wilderness for the Yellowstone part of the Gallatin Range and it also just so happened that shortly before this website went live, the Superintendent of Glacier National Park also came out publicly in support of wilderness designation for that park, thereby giving more reason to discuss the same for Yellowstone. The differences in responses I’ve noticed before and after these events can be described as follows.

Cinnamon Colored Black Bear, Proposed Wilderness Unit #1, Yellowstone National Park, USA

Pre-website, back when there was no public discussion of wilderness designation for Yellowstone, staff response when asked about it usually fell into one of three categories. The first category of responses was that of misunderstanding my question entirely somehow, requiring a short discourse from me on the Wilderness Act of 1964 and it’s directives towards roadless lands held by the National Park Service to get the ranger up to speed. Experience taught me it’s usually best to avoid this conversation, since an individual who has no knowledge of the wilderness designation situation in Yellowstone offers little in the way of intelligent input on the matter, regardless of the uniform he or she may be wearing.

The second category of responses would be for the ranger to be quite surprised that the backcountry of the park is not yet designated wilderness, as it should be, and seem to be all for wilderness designation. This response is one put forth by sincere rangers, who see the issue clearly and are giving an honest, clear-headed answer, unsullied by the influence or opinion of his or her immediate supervisor. Kudos to those honest, perceptive individuals who put forth these responses.

The last type of response came from rangers who claim to be somewhat knowledgeable on the wilderness issue and who would, in general, assure me that the park was being, “managed as wilderness”, so everything was alright. Trust in their employer, the National Park Service, and all will be well. These were the ‘company line’ responses.

After this website went live, however, and the Yellowstone administration was caught off-guard by their lack of policy on this issue and forced into a defensive posture, responses changed. They no longer follow an unscripted, individual pattern, but rather conform to a single general theme. Near verbatim, that theme is, “we are against wilderness designation because that would be more bureaucracy”. This statement, and slight variations of it, are the norm nowadays when asking about park wilderness. Since I’ve heard this from more than one employee at more than one location, one can only assume that this position statement has been directed from the top down.

What an interesting response, though. Even more interesting is how this response now seems to come from front-line employees who have little or no idea of what the actual definition of wilderness designation even is. They’ve obviously been prepped with this response as deeper inquiries into their reasoning process behind such a position seldom yields substantial results. Which is a nice way of saying that people who parrot this line of baloney don’t even understand what they’re talking about. So, lets examine the “we’re just avoiding more bureaucracy by being against wilderness designation” response in a different light.

Cinnamon Colored Black Bear Near Big Sky Resort

I seldom waste time reading the Livingston Montana local paper, the Enterprise, but the cover story Friday the 13th of September, 2013, caught my attention. The story describes how someone in Yellowstone recently decided that the park needed an official facebook page. In the words of Al Nash, Yellowstone’s Chief Public Affairs Officer, “We need to be where the people are to engage them”. As a result of Yellowstone’s need for an official facebook page, in the ‘face’ of current budget challenges, park administrators created an entirely new paid, full-time position, that of “New Media Specialist”, and hired a young man who had been involved with developing a similar facebook page for Glacier National Park to come down and fill the position. Some may say it’s a stretch to create a brand new full-time position to keep a facebook page going since most of us manage to do it in addition to a full-time job, spending less than an hour a day at it.

And it doesn’t stop with that one employee.

Someone also found it necessary to create a “Social Media Team”, which consists of this New Media Specialist plus a dozen additional team members who are apparently pulled from their other duties on a part-time basis and expected to contribute posts. These are educated, highly-paid professionals which include Yellowstone’s official photographer and others with job titles such as “Publications Program Manager”, “Deputy Chief of Interpretive Planning and Media Development”, “Managing Editor For Science Communications” and “Public Affairs Assistant”, to name but a few. The ‘team’ meets every other week, with the goal of two facebook posts being made by each team member each week. This adult version of finger-painting in art class is being done on the clock at taxpayer expense. Regardless of how one feels about social media, one must admit it seems a little odd that Yellowstone would be able and willing to commit these kinds of paid hours to a facebook page, unless their motive is to completely dominate the facebook conversation regarding Yellowstone. The article didn’t say how long the meetings themselves last, but the agenda didn’t seem too hurried, with discussion topics ranging from things like, “…should I post in the first person ‘I’ or ‘we’? All the way to a free for all series of comments about certain members of the public who were described in a less than flattering way. One begins to get a sense of how big a time-waster this all is when they read that the park’s official photographer finds it necessary to have a photo of a bird that he took examined by a fellow ‘team member’ with a background in ornithology before posting the picture. Apparently accuracy is of the utmost importance. Why the photographer can’t save the ornithologists time by walking to the gift shop and purchasing a guide to Yellowstone’s birds, and consulting the book, is apparently a question only a nosy journalist would ask. The article also didn’t mention if refreshments were served, or more likely, catered. Since there is no ending date on this playtime, one must assume we, the taxpayers and park visitors, will be expected to fund it indefinitely, as part of the Yellowstone budget. What this amounts to folks, is that over time, thousands of hours of future payroll time will be used up by this Social Media Team, all at our expense. All for a facebook page.

Now, in view of this very recent, very real story, let’s examine once again the integrity of a position such as, “We’re against wilderness designation because it would lead to more bureaucracy”.

As wonderful as Yellowstone is, thankfully it isn’t the only national park in the Rocky Mountains. There is this other one down in Colorado known as Rocky Mountain National Park. And guess what? It’s backcountry has been designated wilderness. Really. We can easily look to that park to see what’s actually involved when a national park complies with wilderness designation. To shed more light on this, the YellowstoneWildernessMag.com requested an interview with Rocky Mountain National Park’s Wilderness Coordinator, Dave Pettebone, PhD. Dr. Pettebone graciously obliged and his interview is posted here, verbatim. YellowstoneWildernessMag.com submitted the questions in advance and these responses were received via email on June 17, 2013.

Cinnamon Colored Black Bear Near Big Sky Resort

YWM: Dr. Pettebone, could you please give us your job title and a brief job description?

DR. PETTEBONE: My position title is “Wilderness Coordinator”. The title refers to coordination of our wilderness program and not the actual wilderness…Our  program is mainly in charge of overseeing, monitoring, and maintaining overnight use in Rock Mountain NP. I directly supervise the manager of the backcountry office who issues overnight permits to visitors and provides information about their trip itinerary along with park regulations and ‘leave no trace’ practices. I also supervise our field lead that oversees our project crew that is in charge of maintaining and monitoring the backcountry campsites throughout the park. Finally, I review compliance documents for projects that occur in the parks’ wilderness.

YWM: What are the names of each of Rocky Mountain National Park’s backcountry wilderness areas and how many acres does each one encompass?

DR. PETTEBONE: There are 2 wilderness areas within the park. The first is named, “Rocky Mountain National Park Wilderness” and encompasses 249,126 acres. The other is named, “Indian Peaks Wilderness” and encompasses 2,959 acres. Rocky Mountain NP gained some of the Indian Peaks Wilderness Area in 1980 as part of a boundary adjustment between the United States Forest Service and the National Park Service to follow more natural contours instead of an east-west political boundary.

YWM: I understand these wilderness areas were officially designated and added to the National Wilderness Preservation System in 2009. Can you tell us which bill authorized designation of these lands as federal wilderness?

DR. PETTEBONE: PUBLIC LAW 111-11-MAR.30, 2009.

YWM: Were these lands recommended for wilderness designation as part of the RARE II scoping process back in the 1970’s?

DR. PETTEBONE: No, the RARE II program was specific to the United States Forest Service in the Department of Agriculture, the National Park Service is in the Department of Interior. An Environmental Statement titled “Rocky Mountain Wilderness, Rocky Mountain National Park”, was developed by the Midwest region of the NPS in 1973 and signed by its director J. Leonard Volz. The study recommended 238,000 acres to be proposed for wilderness, about 91% of the park. The recommendation was eventually signed in 1974 by President Richard Nixon.

YWM: Who officially named these wilderness areas?

DR. PETTEBONE: Good question. I suppose it was the writers of Public Law 111-11. The subsection of the law specific to this action is, “Rocky Mountain National Park Wilderness”. Senator Jeff Bingam (D-NM) introduced this bill-Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009.

Cinnamon Black Bear Looking at Gallatin River, Proposed Wilderness Unit #1, Yellowstone Park, USA

YWM: Were significant adjustments necessary, in management departments such as backcountry trail maintenance, invasive species control, fisheries management or law enforcement on the part of RMNP in order to comply with wilderness designation of it’s backcountry?

DR. PETTEBONE: No, the park has been managed as wilderness since it became proposed wilderness in 1974. As such the current programs that operate in the park’s wilderness complete Minimum Requirements Analyses to consider actions that may not be compliant with the Wilderness Act. Moreover, ROMO operates under its most current wilderness management plan that was completed in 2001 and titled, “Backcountry Wilderness Management Plan and Environmental Assesment”. An electronic copy of this document can be found on our website at: http://www.nps.gov/romo/parkmgmt/wilderness backcountry plan.htm

YWM: How many employees does the Wilderness Office keep on staff at RMNP?

DR. PETTEBONE: The wilderness program employs 2 permanent staff, 1 term position, and about 20-25 seasonal employees from May – September depending on funding.

YWM: Given the size of the staff, would it be safe to say that there has been minimal increase in what is commonly referred to as “bureaucracy” at RMNP after it’s backcountry areas were designated wilderness?

DR. PETTEBONE: Our staffing levels in the wilderness program have not been related to the park’s official designation as wilderness. This program existed in some form before the park’s wilderness designation because Rocky Mountain NP has long needed to manage campsites and overnight use and this program was created within the Visitor and Resource Protection Division to address this need.

YWM: Given the mission of the National Park Service to provide for enjoyment of it’s lands for this and future generations while preserving and protecting them at the same time, in your professional opinion as someone who works with these lands, is wilderness designation appropriate for national park backcountry areas?

DR. PETTEBONE: Yes, the goals of the NPS are largely parallel with the purposes of the Wilderness Act which are stated in section 4(b) of the Act,”…Except as otherwise provided in this Act, wilderness areas shall be devoted to the public purposes of recreational, scenic, scientific, educational, conservation, and historical use.”

Blonde-Colored Black Bear, Gallatin River, Gallatin National Forest

Hmmm. Sounds interesting, doesn’t it? Seems like the fact that the backcountry is designated wilderness is a part of everyday life for the good folks down at Rocky Mountain National Park. Also sounds like there is as much bureaucracy getting Yellowstone’s facebook page up and running as there is in the entire wilderness program down at Rocky Mountain, perhaps more, in terms of paid man-hours. Yet, I don’t remember the U.S. Congress ordering Yellowstone’s current administrators to comply with a facebook page. On the contrary, I myself am having a hard time even seeing the justification for spending any effort on a facebook page within the mission of the National Park Service, but maybe that’s just me. Compliance with the Wilderness Act of 1964, however, has been law since 1964. Yellowstone’s administration has no problem with adding more bureaucracy when it comes to something as frivolous as a facebook page, so it’s time to acknowledge the need for wilderness designation accordingly. It’s time all National Park Service employees support wilderness designation, which is their job, not just a committed few. All means all and that means from top administrators on down.

Now, a couple things. To be fair, it’s hard to compare the wilderness program in Rocky Mountain National Park with the future wilderness program (and there will be one) in Yellowstone. There is also a lot of overlap with the backcountry office in both parks and this is a dynamic balance which is perhaps achieved best by each park individually. Staff at Rocky Mountain National Park in the wilderness program were already employed by the National Park Service within the Visitor Resource and Protection Division, according to Dr. Pettebone, which is similar to the staff of Yellowstone’s facebook page, the “Social Media Team”, who were also pulled from existing ranks. Two things are clear, however, and they are that compliance is not difficult and it is appropriate to have wilderness designation for both Yellowstone and Rocky Mountain National Parks.

As well, ‘talking points’ such as the one I am writing about, sometimes linger beyond their intended relevant era, even from one Yellowstone administration to the next. The “wilderness is more bureaucracy” line of reasoning may be lingering from the previous park superintendent, who was known to be against wilderness designation for Yellowstone. To the best of my knowledge, current Superintendent Dan Wenk has yet to publicly weigh-in on the wilderness issue. Not that it’s his decision to make. The decision was made by the U.S. Congress many years ago when it passed the Wilderness Act of 1964. His support, however, would be enormously helpful, since getting anything through Congress these days is a real challenge and a final designation bill is still required. He could lend even more credibility to the effort.

In either case, whether Yellowstone’s managers are for wilderness designation or against it, perhaps it’s time for a new talking point. Bureaucracy as deception simply won’t do.

Patrick Wherritt, Jr.

Publisher

YellowstoneWildernessMag.com

YellowstoneWildernessMag.com Publisher, Patrick Wherritt, Jr. In Custer National Forest