Idaho Chapter
of Safari Club
International
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KC Jones' Journal from American Wildlife Leadership School 1:30 PM, July 25, 2003 I have arrived fashionably early for the first day of the American Wilderness Leadership School. I was nominated by Jerry Bullock and sponsored by the Pocatello Chapter of the Safari Club International. Other than that, I know very little about what is to be gained this week. I was told during a meeting with Mr. Bullock that my degree in Wildlife Management was a plus, though some information might be just review. I have nothing against review, as it has been nearly thirty years since I earned the degree. The camp is located on Granite Creek near Granite Hot Springs. The washboard road up the canyon nearly shook the doors off my Suburban, which I parked behind the main lodge. Registration was painless and I was assigned a room in the lodge. I have a room to myself, which is good because I will have time for reflection each evening and will be able to sleep when I want, arise when I want and generally avoid contact. For me, this is more than a course of study. I plan to refresh my senses, replenish my love of nature, and rejuvenate my environmental science lesson plans. Sound selfish? I am here for selfish reasons. I hope to be a sideline participant, watch what goes on from a safe distance, and try not to become a mentor to the many young participants who beat me here and who are now wandering the woods looking for something, perhaps themselves, among the fir and pine. My room is comfortable but not very large. It has bunk beds, though no one is in the top bunk. Inside measurements are ten feet by twelve feet with a four-by-five foot cut out for the entry way and door. It is furnished with a dresser, bed, writing table with lamp, and trashcan. During a physical for participation in fall sports, my son Garrett was discovered to have protein in his urine. He’ll have more tests this week and we’ll know more. My father-in-law will have angioplasty on Thursday. I will return home on the evening of August 1, and leave for Peru on the afternoon of the third. I hope I can remain focused. 6:30 PM, July 25 Just finished an excellent dinner of spaghetti, bread, salad, and corn. We are going for a walking tour of the facility and will be introduced to the staff and program. So far, so good. It is a nice view from the sideline. I hope to stay on the sideline. It seems like every time I go outdoors with a group I am leading or teaching; science camps, scout outings, church groups, even family hikes. Not this week. I am a sideline player. 9:00 PM, July 25 Nice walk, nice staff, nice facility, interesting history of the homestead. It appears that except for a few staff members, I am the oldest one here. That is not uncommon, as I am 51 and should be well-rutted. Many teachers my age do not spend much time learning new techniques, methods, or material. I am trying to avoid the rut. A list of adjectives used to describe the staff: happy, young, team builder, soft-spoken, intelligent, funny, well versed in western issues. Looks like a good week is in store. 12:00 Midnight, July 26 Made a bad mistake. I went to the back deck to ponder. Met others who were going for a hike. We talked of coyotes and cameras, stars and satellites. The others were much younger and came from all across the country; California to Arizona to Virginia, to Minnesota. Being local and familiar with local ecology and geology, I did too much talking, too much teaching. It was a most enjoyable hike. 8:00 AM, July 26 I thought I knew it all, but Gene Decker from the Colorado State University showed me a few new things. Fireweed is also called calendar weed. The flowers open from the bottom up and when the last flower blooms on the top, you had better have your storehouse filled for winter. Horses love to eat horse thistle, and green gentian is a biennial. I should have known those things. I will have to shape up. Gene also reminds me of a few things which I should be teaching with more urgency. What does the aroma of subalpine fir remind you of? Ho! Ho! Ho! Mosaic land patterns are good. Logging can be beneficial. Fire is nature’s tool for habitat management. Diversity of plants equals diversity of life. Water is our most valuable resource and no one makes a penny off of it. A predator is an animal who gets it before you do. Gene is pretty smart. 12:00 Noon, July 26 We just finished some ‘team building’ and ‘get acquainted’ activities. I bet I have participated in at least 50 similar activities. These were the best. I will use them all next spring in Field Science and in my summer classes. They came from an activity booklet called Education in Environmental Involvement Outdoors by Thomas J. Rillo. Bill Watt took us to Granite Creek to study Aquatic ecology. The activity was called "Water Canaries". It is an activity where aquatic insects are identified and used to assess the water quality of a stream. Some insects, it seems, are pollution intolerant and disappear as a stream is impacted by chemical pollutants. Excellent activity! I will use this one. We then spent some time netting fish in the stream. I found it very hard to sit on the sidelines. This stuff is fun!! I was in the water the whole morning. 10:00 PM, July 26. Man! What a day! I am totally exhausted, but at the same time, I can’t sleep. I want to write down all the things we did before I forget. I want to write down all my feelings about the special people I have met. Educators from around the country who are here to learn how better to use nature to teach about nature. Some have never taught outdoors. Some actually teach Fish and Game Management as part of the curriculum. Some of the teachers seem a little afraid . . . afraid of the dark, afraid of the forest, afraid of mountains. How lucky I am to share this experience with them. Heck with sitting on the sidelines. I am into this. Noon, July 27 We experienced lecture and discussion this morning about succession, population growth, and limiting factors. Most in the room cannot comprehend that it is possible to have ‘too many’ deer, or elk, or buffalo, or trout. They seem to readily accept the fact that we can have too many predators like wolves, coyotes, and bears. Are we not educating our educators well? Are we not educating our public well? I am reminded of the Kaibab deer story of the early 1900’s. In an effort to increase deer populations, limiting factors such as predators, competition, and hunting were removed from the land. The deer populations of deer increased exponentially. People did not believe the professionals working on the Kaibab when they warned of overpopulation of deer. They thought, "How could there be too many mule deer, I have never even seen one?" If the knowledge base and background information of the general public is reflected in the educators in this camp, we are in trouble. And what if the lawmakers are not environmentally literate? And what if the lawmakers choose to not listen to the biologists and other scientists. Oh my! This is scary. 10:00 PM, July 27 It never ceases to amaze me how nature brings people together, though I should know by now. It is how Kim Bergeson and I became best friends. Nature is where I fell in love with my wife of 29 years. Nature is what I most enjoy doing with my dad. My most memorable experiences with my sons have come from the outdoors. At this camp, 40 teachers from north, south, east, and west have gathered with only one thing in common, a love of nature. We are becoming best friends. We are sharing a wealth of knowledge and being given so much material. To digest this academic feast will take a few weeks. To assimilate these activities, might take a few years. The Project Wild Aquatic manual is filled, I mean filled to the brim, I mean chuck full of outdoor activities with water. So much to teach, so many activities to use, so little time. 5:00 PM, July 28 We loaded the vans today and drove to Pinedale, Wyoming. There is stark contrast between burned and unburned grazing land. At a sagebrush-steppe site at 7200 feet, we walked through a burned and unburned area. A BLM official talked about issues related to grazing, water, and land management. Many in the group were shocked to see so much public land in one place; shocked even more to find out about the decision making process concerning land use. There is a clear and undeniable need to educate the public. There is a clear and undeniable need to educate the lawmakers. There is a clear and undeniable need to educate the teachers, who ultimately impact all of society. We spent an hour or so looking over a newly opened gas field located in a historically important mule deer winter range. The sagebrush-steppe here at 6200 feet was similar in plant species composition, but was much drier at this elevation than the site we visited earlier in the day. Water is important in these semi-arid high deserts. Natural gas is important too. If a choice is to be made between quality mule deer habitat and gas wells, how will the decision be made? Will decision makers refer to data they receive from gas companies or data they receive from land managers? Will there be a decision that excludes mule deer or natural gas? Given the current trends in society, if I were a mule deer who liked peace and quiet, I would be looking for a new winter home. If current laws allow a well every 40 acres and that is changed to a well every 10 acres, and if part of that ten acres is taken up with platform and pump, and if roads need to be built to every well, and if the decision is made in Washington in stead of Wyoming . . . 11:30 PM, July 28 I just got to my room. The day was full. The food was superb. We had an evening talk from the Wyoming Fish and Game about fish biology and fisheries management. I got the distinct impression that biologists in the area of fisheries do not have to tolerate the menace of lawmakers like the managers of public lands do. My species list grew from 23 to 37 today. That is not bad as most of the sightings were from the van. Many in our party saw their first pronghorn and golden eagle. Sandhill cranes were most popular and put on a good show. We were on task from 6:30 this morning until 11:00 this evening. Full, rewarding, stimulating, motivating. 6:30 AM, July 29 It is early, but I had an interesting thought last night. There is a quote often used in environmental education. It is used to justify our passion for teaching this subject. For me, the author is unknown. The quote goes like this, "In the end we will conserve only what we love. We will love only what we understand, and we will understand only what we have been taught." The reason we teach outdoor education is that we might, by sharing our knowledge, also share our love. Evening, July 29 In his lecture on adaptations, Gene referred to a wild animal as "a bundle of adaptations." Cute, eh? You should have seen the looks on the faces of many of the teachers when Harlan Kredit from Yellowstone National Park told us that there were 4000 bison in the park and the carrying capacity is 3000. How do you solve that? Bison are migratory, but can’t migrate. Hunting can help balance the herd, but you can’t hunt Yellowstone’s bison. Predation could help balance the herd, but the wolves and bears are not eating many bison. Wait until the bison start starving to death near and on the roadways that carry 5 million visitors a year. How will an ill-informed public handle that? How will the under-informed teachers teach about that in current events classes? We are headed for disaster, a head-on collision with the conservation illiterate. Midnightish, July 29 We had a good talk on the deck following the day’s activities. About a dozen teachers sat on the deck following the day’s activities. We talked about stars, wildflowers, moose, antelope, and a variety of other nonessential topics. It is part of our summers off, which members of our profession are accused of taking. Not one person in that crowd is taking the summer off. At least every one was taking this course. Most were involved in other college courses, teaching at summer schools, developing curriculum, or writing grants. Summer off. Sounds good, but the good teacher’s don’t take them. We are scheduled for an early breakfast tomorrow and then off to the National Elk Refuge, Teton National Park and the Gros Vente Slide area. Midnight again, July 30 Oh, my! I am tired! Not physically so tired, or I would not be writing in this journal. Not even emotionally tired, for there has been no drain on emotions. No love, hate, fear, nothing. AWLS is mostly an emotionless experience. Inspirationally and intellectually, wow, I am overdosed. Between the three academic stops on the tour today, and the inspirational lunch on the banks of Jackson Lake at the base of mount Moran, and fly fishing in the Snake River below Jackson. How could a person ask for more? How could I be better fed? How could it get better than this? Only one thing could top this. There is only one way to feel a better exhaustion. That would be to allow my own students the same exposure to intellectual and inspirational stimuli. Let them overdose on natural experiences designed to familiarize them with nature; the flowers, the birds, the bugs, the rocks, wind and sun. Until they know what is out here, they can never appreciate it. 6:00 AM July 31 I awoke to the thought of sounds. I must have dreamt of sounds because I certainly don’t remember hearing any. There is much to be said about sound. I wish I could say it. Bad genetics and excessive shot gunning in my youth have left me with an impaired sense of hearing. I am not deaf, but I have not honed that sense the way I have been forced to hone others. I feel most impaired, though, when I try to describe sounds. Add to that the fact that a single word can be used to describe a variety of sound. Whirrrr! The sound of a hummingbird’s wing beat. Whirrrr! The sound of the kitchen fan removing smoke from the evening’s grillings. Whirrr! The sound of a heliocopter preparing to land. And if writing about sound is not a big enough challenge, try writing about silence. Silence is what I am experiencing right now. Night night! Afternoon, August 1 My son’s urine problem was temporary. My father in law survived his angioplasty and feels great. I am going to Peru in two days. I am refreshed, replenished, and rejuvenated. What a week! I will have to spend some serious time deciding how to use all the information. I feel well-motivated, well-rested, and so glad that I didn’t decide to take a summer off.
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Idaho Chapter of Safari Club International
Copyright 2002. |
