My friend Howard Propst is an inspiring speaker, who has made frequent presentations about American exceptionalism, pointing out how we fail to credit the astonishing achievements of a free society. We are introspective, always seeking to improve, but generally looking critically at our own shortcomings. Sometimes it’s all we see.
Howard had great graphics to illustrate his points; one particular picture was a sketch of Uncle Sam, looking in a mirror and seeing the devil sneering back. Unfortunately, that’s how Americans sometimes see themselves. Physician Lewis Thomas wrote, “We are, perhaps, uniquely among the Earth’s creatures, the worrying animal.”
So when we worry about the other animals, Americans instinctively blame themselves for nature’s ills. From extreme weather to endangered species, we’re pretty sure it’s our fault. Sometimes it isn’t. The theory that man causes most environmental problems may be useful, because we can control that. Or so we think.
Twenty years ago the government analyzed various reasons for the decline of certain plants and animals. That report concluded about 67 percent of all listed species were endangered because of factors other than habitat. For example, the lynx was threatened, not because man had destroyed its high-altitude habitat in the Rocky Mountains, but because our ancestors trapped them for the beautiful fur, as with otters and beavers. Other species had been hunted nearly to extinction, like buffalo and wolf. But many others had naturally intermingled with other species, or lost out to migrating competitors.
The Endangered Species Act, among our most well-meaning laws, was intended to save the bald eagle, grizzly bear, and others. It is one of the most powerful laws ever written, but it makes no exceptions for species whose decline may be natural. It is said – possibly in jest – that if a meteor-caused climate catastrophe killed all the dinosaurs today, someone would go to jail. Howard Propst once asked a Fish and Wildlife Service official, “What about evolution? Is nature allowed to kill off a species?” The answer was no. All species survival, under the law, is man’s responsibility.
The incredible resilience of nature, and the heroic exploits of some species, is the subject of a new study of the non-native lake trout in Yellowstone Lake.
Non-native lake trout are common in the Rockies, but they compete with the native cutthroat trout. Several states, including Colorado and Wyoming, have worked hard to restore the native cutthroats. So when lake trout were discovered in Yellowstone Lake in 1994, it was labeled “an appalling act of environmental vandalism,” and the government offered a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the guilty party.
The most common theory is that someone took lake trout from nearby Lewis Lake and dumped them into Yellowstone Lake. That’s a lot of work, though, and it has never been explained why someone would go to all that trouble. Alternatively, lake trout were once displayed in tanks at the old Yellowstone Lake Hatchery, so some people think a few of those might have been released or somehow escaped, though there is no record of it. Another theory was that helicopters fighting the 1988 forest fires had scooped the fish out of Lewis and Shoshone lakes, dropping them near Yellowstone Lake. That’s mostly discredited now, and many fishermen say lake trout have been there for more than a century. They cite a 1904 book on Yellowstone, which reported planting lake trout in the Yellowstone River in 1890.” Park Service officials today deny that, so the debate goes on.
Yellowstone’s chief fisheries biologist, Todd Koel, now suggests the culprit might be the fish themselves – not people. He started investigating after noting how fish have invaded lakes in Glacier National Park. There, the natural invasion proves some fishes’ ability to swim great distances through unfamiliar habitat. He now suggests some of the lake trout washing out of Jackson Lake Dam in Grand Teton may have traveled up Pacific Creek, just below the spillway. From there, they could reach Two Ocean Creek and the unique place called the “Parting of the Waters,” where they could actually cross the Continental Divide into Atlantic Creek and the Yellowstone River.
Seasonally, there is enough surface water for trout. Mr. Koel believes fish could make that 80-mile trip with few real barriers up and down relatively low-gradient streams. “I flew it last year and it was an open system from Jackson Lake all the way over the top.”
More research is needed, and Mr. Koel’s academic paper probably won’t settle the argument. But it might encourage us to take a breath before always jumping to the conclusion that people are fault for every quirk of nature.
A version of this column originally appeared in the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel June 8, 2018.
Comments on this entry are closed.