After taking a few days to recover from my vacation, it's back to
the grind. I'm always in a funk for a bit after spending a lot of
time in airports or someplace where I don't have to do anything in
particular.
Everyone is trying to get all wrapped up from their summers' worth
of work - Some of our staff is leaving within the month, and
everyone has something to do. I'm desperately trying to finish all
of the necessary field work by the end of August so I can leave here
feeling like I've completed something grand. Or, failing that, at
least get done what I can during my stay here.
The week was spent at Old Faithful and Canyon, two of the largest
developed areas in the park. It seems like there's always
construction going on somewhere in Yellowstone, and these two places
are certainly no exception. Canyon (home of the Grand Canyon of the
Yellowstone) is getting a new Visitor's Center this year, and half
of the "tourist area" is closed off. This made it a tad bit
difficult to complete our work there, but as with most cartographic
endeavors, it's always a work in progress. Hopefully I'll be able
to finish it next year. Old Faithful recently completed some major
construction, and there is a lot of new water and wastewater
features to GPS and map. We didn't manage to finish all that we
could, but we got a good start and have an idea where we need to go
next trip.
My roommate Lori works for the Bear Management department. On
Thursday, she came home for lunch with a dead black bear (cinnamon
in color) in the back of her pickup truck. It was hit by a vehicle
outside of the park, but the local authorities usually call the Park
Service to take care of such things. He was somewhat bloated and
beginning to stiffen up, so they attached 2x4's to his feet. This
lets them set up the bear to use for bear deterrent practice
(adverse conditioning to make the bears less likely to bother
people). There was an incident last summer where a law enforcement
ranger shot at a problem black bear with a flare (basically a
flash-bang grenade shot out of a shotgun) and hit the bear. It
eviscerated the bear and he ended up dying sometime shortly after.
On subsequent testing, they discovered that these flares could
penetrate plywood from a remarkable distance, something they had not
considered since the flare is supposed to be shot over the bear as a
scare tactic. Park visitors got a little upset about this incident,
so all law enforcement and wildlife management personnel now go
through training on proper use of this equipment.
Next week, more field work and data massaging. The parkwide
softball league regular season ends next week - Hopefully not for
us. We've gotta win next week to go to the playoffs. Here's hopin'...
Nick
