| Great
Prairie & George Catlin |
Robert
Leverett |
| May
20, 2002 15:58 PDT |
Don:
Thanks for the detailed description of the
fire history of the Kaibab. As
paradoxical as it may sound, I see human interevention as
essential to
protecting wilderness areas that would otherwise be adversely
impacted by
human activities on their periphery and from the past
suppression of fire.
We have to be realistic.
As of late, I've been re-reading 'North
American Indians' by George
Catlin as edited by Peter Matthiessen and published by Penguin
Books in
1996. George Catlin was one of, if not the premier artist of
North American
Indians. He was also a fairly good naturalist and historian. He
traveled
among the Indians of the eastern and western U.S., observed
their culture,
and painted their dignitaries. Catlin was born in Wilkes-Barre,
PA in 1796.
he was educated as a lawyer and practiced law in Philadelphia
for a couple
of years before abandoning his profession in 1823 to pursue a
new career as
a portrait painter. He traveled extensively among the western
tribes between
1831 and 1837. He produced over 300 oil painting of notable
Indian leaders
plus 200 oils of other subjects. he collected many artifacts to
great
acclaim in this country and abroad. Catlin died in Jersey City,
NJ on
December 22, 1872 - almost 4 years before the battle of the
Little Bighorn
and near the time of the establishment of Yellowstone NP.
Catlin's understanding of Indian culture
and what to whites was the
inscrutible nature of the Indian personality far exceeded the
understanding
of Native Americans by other whites of Catlin's day. His book
makes for some
of the best reading of authentic descriptions of the West,
Indian nations,
and the real American wilderness, which was fast disappearing.
Catlin's observation of the hunting of
buffalo by the plains Indians is
classic. During the period of observation, there were many
wolves that
roamed the prairies weeding out the sick and old among the
buffalo,
antelope, mule deer, etc. Catlin speaks of the wolves as
commonly of a white
coloration. This fascinates me. I had always assumed that the
wolves were
predominately tawny to gray in color. Apparently, there were
plenty of
wolves of a white coloration, which has set me to thinking. How
many species
of animals and plants that were almost completely extirpated
have undergone
such a genetic reduction, that we have only a faint
understanding of the
range of diversity that we Europeans inherited? Did the giant
White Pines of
New York, New England, and the upper Mid-west reflect a far
broader genetic
heritage? Could the Catskills of New York in the early 1800s
have had
Hemlock forests that would have rivaled those still surviving in
the Great
Smokies of North Carolina and Tennessee? One can speculate
forever.
Catlin's book provides ample food for
thought about the nature of
wilderness in the 1830s and what we have lost. From Catlin's
works, one can
make a strong case that the best role to be fulfilled by our
national parks
and national forests is preservation of the genetic base of as
many species
as we can account for.
Bob
|
| More
on Catlin and Some Summary Thoughts |
dbhguru |
|
May
21, 2002 18:36 PDT |
Ents:
Micro-habitats created by aninals the
size of bison are not to be passed
of lightly. First a description by Catlin of buffalo wallows.
" In the heat of summer these huge
animals, which no doubt, suffer very
much with the great profusion of their long ans shaggy hair of
fur, often
graze on the low grounds in the prairies, where their is a
little stagnant
water lying amongst the grass, and the ground underneath being
saturated
with it, is soft, into which the enormous bull, loweerd down
upon one knee,
will plunge his horns, and at last his head, driving up the
earth, and soon
making an excavation in the ground, into which the water filters
from
amongst the grass, forming for him in a few moments, a cool and
comfortable
bath, into which he plunges like a hog in his mire.
" In this delectable layer, he throws
himself flat upon his side, and
forcing himself violently around, with his horns and his hge
hump on his
shoulders presented to the side, he ploughs up the ground by his
rotary
motion, sinking himself deeper and deeper into the ground,
continually
enlarging his pool, in which he at length becomes nearly
immersed and the
water and mud about him mixed into a complete mortar, which
changes his
color, and drips in streams from every part of him as he rises
up upon his
feet, a hideous monster of mud and ugliness, too frightful and
too eccentric
to be described!
" It is generally the leader of the
heard that taks upon him to make this
excavation; and it is not (but another one opens the ground),
the leader
(who is the conqueror) marches forward and driving the other
from it plunges
himself into it; and having cooled his sides; and changed his
color to a
walking mass of mud and mortar; he stands in the pool until
inclination
induces him to step out, and give place to the next in command,
who stands
ready; and another, and another who advance forward in their
turns, to
enjoy the luxury of the wallow; until the whole band (sometimes
a hundred or
more) will pass through it in turn; each one throwing his body
around in a
similar manner; and each one adding a little to the dimensions
of the pool,
while he carries away in his hair an equal share of the clay,
which dries to
a grey or whitish color, and gradually falls off. By this
operation, which
is done in the space of perhaps half an hour, a circular
excavation of
perhaps of fifteen or twenty feet in diameter, and two feet in
depth, is
completed, and left for the water to run into, which soon fills
it to the
level of the ground.
" To these sinks, the water lying on the
surface of the prairies, are
continually draining, and in them lodging their vegetable
deposits; which,
after a lapse of years, fill them to the surface with a rich
soil, which
throws up an unusual growth of grass and herbage; forming
conspicuous
circles which arrest the eye of the traveler, and are calculated
to excite
his surprise for ages to come.
" Many travelers who have penetrated not quite far enough
into the western
country to see the habits of these animals, and the manner in
which these
'mysterious' circles are made; but who have seen the prairies
strewn with
their bleached bones, and have beheld these strange circles,
which often
occur in groups, and of different sizes- have come home with
beautiful and
ingenious theories (which must 'needs be made'), for the origin
of these
singular and unaccountanble appearances. "
Imagine between 30 and 60 million
of these great shaggy beasts, the
males able to reach weights of 2,000 pounds, roaming for
centuries and
centuries. Add an equal number of pronghorn antelope, many mule
deer, the
Great Plains grizzly, mountain lions, wolves, coyotes, prairie
dogs,
ferrets, prairie rattlers, in places elk, and many other
animals. To this
potent mix add the impacts of fires, of Native Americans village
sites, both
the static and mobile types, locusts. The Great Plains was not a
simple
ecosystem. Yet it bore its abundance until Europeans came with
ideas to
simplify in mind, reducing complex prairie ecosystems to a few
non-competitive species, substituting domestic cattle for
buffalo, wheat and
corn for drought resistant prairie grasses, and creating a very
different
place.
However, with respect to the
conditions of the prairies, I don't hear
agricultural scientists and farmers contending that the prairie
ecosystems
of the past were unhealthy (they may have been considered
wastelands, but
not unhealthy). The abundance of game spoke to balances that
persisted, so
long as numbers of humans didn't grow too great. Neither do I
hear
scientists and others contend that desert systems are somehow
unhealthy. We
accept the deserts as they are. They support what they support
and the
plants seem appropriate and introduction of exotics doesn't make
sense.
I don't hear mariners and fishermen
contend that the lakes, seas, rivers
and oceans are unhealthy in their natural states. We agree that
human
generated pollution and over-fishing create unhealthy conditions
in our
water systems - but not Mother Nature.
I don't hear scientists, aviators,
balloonist, etc. contend that our
atmosphere, when in a natural state, is unhealthy. We agree that
human
generated wastes cause atmospheric degradations.
Now isn't it odd that when it comes to
our forests, where we seek the
wood, many in our society have a very different perspective.
They would have
us believe that the natural forest systems are somehow
unhealthy. I find
these differences of viewpoint with respect to the different
ecosystems very
interesting.
Bob |
| Col
Henry Inman's Accounts |
dbhguru |
| May
23, 2002 16:57 PDT |
Ents:
As of lately,
I've become obsessed with understanding more about
past American landscapes. Part of what drives my obsession is a
need to
understand how others are treating anecdotal material that
support their
views about landscapes of the past. Bonnicksen's book really set
me to
thinking about forests, plains, savannas, deserts, jungles,
swamps, etc. and
how we see them through a lens of intent.
I've often read about the vast herds of
buffalo that once roamed the
Great Plains. Estimates of from 30 to 60 million animals are
commonly cited.
But no modern scientist was around in those days to establish
inventories.
We have to arrive at answers in other ways. Certainly past
descriptions of
good nature observers has been essential to our understanding of
past
landscapes. Colonel Henry Inman was such an observer. He was no
ordinary
Army officer. He had a since of destiny and recognized the need
to describe
the West as he knew it. Consider his description of the buffalo
population
in his excellent book "The Old Sante Fe Trail".
" When I
look back only twenty-five years. and recall the fact that
they roamed in immense numbers even then, as far east as Fort
Harker, in
central Kansas, a little more than two hundred miles from the
Missouri
River, I asked myself, "Have they all disappeared?"
" An idea
may be formed of how many buffalo were killed from 1868 to
1881, a period of only thirtenn years, during which time they
were
indiscriminately slaughtered for their hides. In Kansas alone
there was paid
out, between the dates specified, two million five hundred
thousand dollars
for their bones gathered on the prairies, to be utilized by the
various
carbon works of the country, principally in St. Louis. It
required about one
hundred carcasses to make one ton of bones, the price paid
averaging eight
dollars a ton; so the above-quoted enormous sum represented in
skeletons of
over thirty-one millions of buffalo. These figures may appear
preposterous
to readers not familiar with the great plains a third of a
century ago; but
those who have seen the prairies black from horizon to horizon
with the
shaggy monsters, they are not so. In the autumn of 1868 I rode
with General
Sheridan, Custer, Sully, and others, for three consecutive days,
through one
continuous herd, which must have contained millions. In the
spring of 1869
the train on the Kansas Pacific Railroad was delayed at a point
between
Forts Harker and Hays from nine o'clock in the morning until
five in the
afternoon, in consequence of the passage of an immense herd of
buffalo
across the track. On each side of us, and to the west as far as
we could
see, our vision was only limited by the extended horizon of the
flat
prairie, and the whole vast area was black with the surging mass
of
affrighted buffaloes as they rushed onward to the south."
In explaining his research, Inman had
this footnote.
" These statistics I have carefully
gathered from the freight departments
of the railroads, which kept a record of all the bones that were
shipped,
and from the purchasers of the carbon works, who paid out the
money at
various points. Some of the bones, however, may have been on the
ground for
a longer time, as decay is very slow in the dry air of the
plains."
Remembering that the area of collection
for Inman's numbers was a very,
very small part of the west, it boggles the mind to contemplate
how many
buffalo roamed the vast expanses of western territory and how
very different
the landscape was during those final years of the reign of the
buffalo and
of the plains cultures.
Whatever the role of fire in keeping the
Great Plains a grassland, the
immense herds of herbivores also played a significant part. The
ecosystem
functioned century after century in shifting balances, but
extermination was
not part of the system. One might contemplate the vast
difference between
the great White and Red Pine forests of Michigan, Wisconsin, and
Minnesota
in the pre-settlement period. How very different that landscape
was from
today. If anecdotal accounts are even close to being correct,
the trees were
a sight to behold. Our very best today would have been very
ordinary. One
can extend the upper Mid-west model to other locations, coming
to similar
conclusions about the fecundity of the land and the
impressiveness of the
forests.
Bob |
|