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Over the winter, park management and staff kept busy preparing for the upcoming summer season and also assessing ways to maximize staffing efficiencies and streamline operations to meet future budgetary shortfalls. Among the 58 national parks in the National Park Service, Grand Teton ranks eighth for recreational visits. Our budget, however, is one of the smallest in this subset of park units. Therefore, prudent use of our allocated dollars remains a fundamental goal. We’re pleased to be moving forward with implementation of the park’s transportation plan. After completing pre-pathway design this past winter, we began construction in May on an eight-mile section from Dornans to South Jenny Lake. Senator John Barrasso served as the keynote speaker for a groundbreaking ceremony held on May 17 to launch phase one of pathway construction. To celebrate cooperative efforts in support of the conservation and protection of our local pronghorn population, the park—along with Bridger-Teton National Forest and the National Elk Refuge—recently hosted an event to unveil a Path of the Pronghorn wayside exhibit near Kelly Warm Springs. This exhibit, the first of several to be erected, is part of a tangible, proactive effort to educate the public and share with them the remarkable story of this "at-risk" population. The exhibit illustrates the pronghorns’ amazing annual migration between their winter and summer ranges--a route that is as long as 175-330 miles round-trip and as narrow as 100 yards in places. Through wayside exhibits, we hope to communicate the importance of conserving an open migration route for these extraordinary animals. The Laurance S. Rockefeller Preserve Center is scheduled to open to the public this summer. The new facility will help advance Mr. Rockefeller’s vision of inspiring appreciation and reverence for the beauty and diversity of the natural while fostering individual responsibility for conservation stewardship. We believe that visitors will connect on a truly personal level with this special park area. We plan to expand our campaign to spread awareness about bear-human conflicts by increasing seasonal staff to continue our employee and volunteer brigade that enhances our ability to contact people about food storage and responsible wildlife watching. Given that grizzly bear #399’s three cubs are now three-years-old and at weaning age, this family will likely disperse. These changing circumstances bring new challenges for protecting both the grizzlies and enthusiastic visitors. Letting bears behave naturally in their park environment, while keeping an attentive and admiring human audience safe, will be an ongoing concern. As part of our "Be Bear Aware" campaign and educational efforts, we now require campers to use bear-proof food-storage canisters in the park’s backcountry below 10,000 feet. To promote compliance for this new regulation, we are providing canisters free of charge at the Craig Thomas Discovery and Visitor Center, Jenny Lake Ranger Station, and Colter Bay Visitor Center. Mandatory canister use is a key element in effective bear management because counter-balancing food in the backcountry is not always possible or done properly. Last summer, several conflicts occurred in Garnet Canyon and other areas where appropriate trees for hanging camp foods are scarce, and bears got into human foods. Through education in proper food storage and high visitor compliance, we hope to remove opportunities for wild bears to learn about human foods, and greatly reduce the number of bears that require management actions, and improve visitor safety. Lastly, a conference titled 88 and Beyond: Twenty Years after the Yellowstone Fires will be held in Jackson Hole from September 22-27. As a collaborative effort between the International Association of Wildland Fire and the Ninth Biennial Scientific Conference on the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, this symposium should be both informative and interesting. With all the events and programs planned for summer 2008, I hope you will agree that Grand Teton is a place of never-ending fascination and inspiration. Best wishes for a marvelous summer and a glorious fall. I’m looking forward to seeing many of you out enjoying the park throughout the days ahead.
Mary Gibson Scott |
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