The Benefits of Beavers
Thanks for the fine article, "The Benefits of Beavers"
[January/February 2003], about the enormous natural service of beaver wetlands. Yet, hundreds of thousands of acres of valuable wetlands are needlessly lost each year when their flat-tailed keepers are killed to prevent the flooding of roads and property. Tens of thousands of beavers are still being trapped annually by trappers allied with state or federal agencies. Over 29,000 beavers were eliminated in 2001 by the federal agency Wildlife Services alone.
Happily, the four-footed engineers can co-exist with most of their vital waterworks intact when beaver deceivers, bafflers, or levelers are installed to control water levels. These almost maintenance-free devices are made of wide diameter pipes and/or sturdy fencing. National parks and other public lands are ideal sites for installing and demonstrating them to the public. For example, a beaver deceiver (trapezoidal fence) was installed in 1999 at Rocky Mountain National Park.
Our educational nonprofit (www.BeaversWW.org) has been helping solve beaver conflicts for almost 20 years and can provide more information on such win-win solutions.
Sharon T. Brown
Dolgeville, NY
National Park Service Staff at Risk
Your organization has done a great job lately of informing your readers about threats to our national parks by environmental policies of the current administration, and your State of the Parks Program is an excellent way to provide resource information to policy-makers.
However, there is another threat to the U.S. National Park System (NPS) happening now which the public should learn more about. They can then contact nearby park superintendents and representatives to get the facts and voice their concerns. The threat I am speaking of has the potential to impact about 50 percent of the NPS workforce. Over 9,000 jobs currently held by federal employees doing maintenance, resource management science, or education work may be contracted out to the private sector in the next few years.
The August 1983 Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Circular #A-76 "Performance of Commercial Activities" basically established a formal policy for determining whether activities (jobs) should be under private contract or if the agencies should use government personnel. Congress enacted the Federal Activities Inventory Reform (FAIR) Act in October 1998 to further emphasize the A-76 policy and set target guidelines for a cost-comparison study of federal jobs versus contracting out those positions. Currently, the Department of Interior (DOI) has contracted with private firms to evaluate positions within the NPS. Some parks having positions not identified as "inherently governmental" may, by law, have whole divisions, of up to ten employees, contracted out without the need for a cost-comparison study. What is the definition of an inherently governmental position? According to OMB, it is "a function so intimately related to the public interest as to mandate performance by a government employee."
I believe the visiting public turns to NPS employees for help and information, and these employees are expected to have a wide range of knowledge and an attitude of assistance. Maintenance workers should also understand the cultural history of their site, a law enforcement officer should also be able to name all the currently blooming flowers, and a secretary should also be able to explain to callers the safest route for a hike. I'm not so sure that contracted employees would have the same concern for the resources and the visiting public.
If you believe that NPS should have cost comparisons done only with valid criteria that assures fairness and accuracy and that most Park Service employees might be "inherently governmental," then please contact your representatives and let them know how you feel about this issue.
David Kronk
Munising, MI
Before It's Too Late
We were so impressed with all the information about our national parks in the November/December 2002 issue of your magazine that we feel you should send a few copies to the president and to some of the members of Congress.
We believe President Bush needs to be more sympathetic toward the parks' environment. Perhaps he needs to visit a few during snowmobile season.
Hopefully, our government will soon realize that we must take care of some of the serious matters happening in our own backyard. We are always telling other countries how to run their affairs; perhaps we need to be more diligent about what is happening in the United States.
Dorothy Baldwin
Cranford, NJ
Killing Bison in Yellowstone
The article about bison killing in Yellowstone National Park [January/February 2003] says, "There is no incident of documented transmission of brucellosis between bison and livestock." This is incorrect. Texas A&M researchers placed bison infected with brucellosis in a large fenced area with cattle certified free of the disease. After a period of time, the cattle were checked and found to have brucellosis. Under the controlled conditions of this study, the only way the cattle could have become infected was from the infected bison.
There is no longer any question about whether bison can transmit brucellosis to cattle. The only question is how to prevent the transmission. The answer, I believe, revolves around controlling the number of bison in the ecosystem.
Jim Gerber
St. Anthony, ID
Editorial Reply: The qualifying term for the transmission between bison and cattle is "in the wild." It is true that confined animals have passed the disease to one another, but this has not been documented in the wild.
