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Fauna Series No. 2
Part II
Fauna of the National Parks
of the United States
PART II
DIRECTONS FOR FAUNAL RESEARCH
IN THE GREAT SMOKY MOUNTAINS NATIONAL PARK
ISSUED TO THE NATURALIST TECHNICIAN IN CHARGE
Submitted through the Director of the National Park Service, June 4, 1934
Given herewith are a few suggestions outlining necessary research in connection with the faunal problems in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, subjects about which we are very anxious to get specific data.
In your letter of appointment from Dr. Bryant, Assistant Director of the National Park Service, three fundamental points were outlined as indicating the desirable course of your activities. The suggestions given herewith are intended as further amplification of the three main points described by Dr. Bryant.
PROJECTS
1. Since most of the eastern national parks are still in the formative period and definite boundaries have not yet been determined in all cases, it is very essential that information be available in detailed and concise form indicating exactly what boundaries would be necessary for your park in order to provide for all-year habitat and complete and normal existence for the various forms of wildlife native to the park. Particular emphasis should be placed upon territory required as adequate deer winter range. As you are probably aware, most of the western parks now are faced with complex problems resulting from the fact that in practically every ease no suitable quantity of winter range has been included within national-park boundaries to provide for deer, elk, mountain sheep, and other species. We are extremely anxious to avoid this difficulty in the establishment of the newer eastern parks, and now is the time when data pertinent to and descriptive of the necessary winter ranges should be available.
2. An investigation should be made to determine which native species of animals are gone from Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the surrounding region, and which ones advantageously might be reintroduced. For example, if elk were at one time native to the Great Smokies, it is dubious whether or not they could be reintroduced and properly provided for in the face of the now limited territory available and the encroachment of civilization from every side. However, if after your study reintroduction of elk would in your judgment be desirable, we should like to have report upon such project, stating possibilities, requirements, possible conflicts, etc.
3. Determine which native species of wildlife have been abnormally depleted and work out a suggested program for improving their status. In particular, you should concentrate on the study of the abundance, factors affecting, life history, requirements for bear, deer, fur bearers, and wild turkeys, under the particular circumstances arising from the trapping of fur bearers, poaching, hunting in the environs of the park, and any other factors which might affect the welfare and permanent protection of these important species.
4. Make a careful study of the effects of roadside clean-up and other construction activities, as these possibly may be destructive of faunal habitats locally along roadsides and around camps and development centers, noting also the effect of such activities upon soil protection and humus formation, advising means for minimizing such maladjustments where possible. Where you have discovered undesirable effects resulting from necessary development activities, present your findings of the situation to the superintendent and suggest ways and means of avoiding the difficulty if possible. In all such cases, reports should be sent to the Washington office and to the Wildlife Division.
5. In a broad survey of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, determine which areas are "sacred", i.e., particularly valuable for wildlife and indispensable as faunal hinterlands for the park. Indicate these areas in reports to your superintendent, the Washington office, and this office, as being worthy of freedom from all development. In this same broad survey of the faunal possibilities of your park as being impinged upon by the necessary developments, try to determine just how the park could be developed most advantageously from the wildlife point of view, retaining as your objective meanwhile the preservation of the wilderness character of Great Smoky Mountains insofar as that is possible. May I cite an example:
In Yellowstone National Park in 1933 an old highway was to be relocated and improved. This proposed road followed the shore line of a small lake which was valuable as a nesting ground for various rare birds. A reconnaissance of the various species of birds dependent upon this lake was made and the results of the survey presented to the superintendent. After giving this consideration, he issued an order that the road should be relocated so that it would not go anywhere near the lake shore.
Also in Yellowstone there was a small lagoon not far from Yellowstone Lake which was equally important as a duck nesting ground during the breeding season and as a quiet water retreat for numerous waterfowl during migration. A new highway was scheduled to follow the shore of this lagoon and cut across a portion of one end of it. After the matter was considered from all angles by members of the administrative, engineering, and educational staffs, the Branch of Plans and Design, and the Wildlife Division, a route was worked out for the road whereby it might go near to the lagoon and still be hidden from view, by following the far side of a low ridge which shielded the proposed highway from the lagoon. In this manner a satisfactory solution was reached for a problem which at first appeared to be a complete tangle. This is the sort of thing to which I refer under no. 5 of this letter.
Significant of the outlook with which conservationists are viewing construction and clean-up activities in various parts of the country is the following quotation from an article entitled "Conservation Economics", by Aldo Leopold, in the Journal of Forestry, May 1934, p. 540:
There was, for example, the road crew cutting a grade along a clay bank so as permanently to roil the troutstream which another crew was improving with dams and shelters; the silvicultural crew felling the "wolf trees" and border shrubbery needed for game food; the roadside-clean-up crew burning all the down oak fuel wood available to the fireplaces being built by the recreation-ground crew; the planting crew setting pines all over the only open clover-patch available to the deer and partridges; the fire-line crew burning up all the hollow snags on a wildlife refuge, or worse yet, felling the gnarled veterans which were about the only scenic thing along a "scenic road." In short, the ecological and esthetic limitations of "scientific" technology were revealed in all their nakedness.
Equally important to this whole problem is the fact so well expressed by Prof. Walter Mulford, of the Division of Forestry of the University of California:
A forest is the most complex biological society, in both plant and animal life, with which man works in any phase of his land utilization enterprises.
6. Try to gather life-history data on all the important game species of your park. Even though such data may not seem pertinent at the time, it becomes increasingly valuable as it accumulates and is essential for the solution of administrative problems in the future.
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