Day 3: June 10th

Today we did our first significant hike. We hiked about 7 miles to Cub Lake in Rocky Mountains National Park. The hike was great, it was my first opportunity to take some great pictures with my new camera. It also was the first time i had ever been out in the wilderness in the West and it was great to know i had much more of it ahead of me with it only being the third day of the trip. During the hike Patrick discussed the wildlife in the park. We learned about the problem with controlled burning in fire management. I had no idea but natual fires don't burn as hot so they are less damaging. According to Patrick most of the landscape in the park was in fact unnatural. This was largely due to poor fire management and an overpopulated elk herd. Many of the forest was too dense with ponderosa pine bringing stress to the trees and causing them to be more vulnerable to pine beatles. The pine beatle damage was evident all throughout the park as well as the elk damage.

 The forests in the park should have been more balanced between aspen and ponderosa pine. But clearly from what I saw it was unbalanced. There were a lot more pine than aspen. The elk feed on young aspen but not the young pine saplings. The park had fenced off areas to deter elk from eating young tree saplings. The fenced off areas were full of aspen stands but just outside the fence was nothing but grass, this gave me a great appreciation of the balance in ecology. Elk populations are high because of a lack of predators. There were once wolves in the park that kept these populations in check. There were also once beavers in the valley but the elk have eaten all the young willows which grow along streams and provide timber for the beaver to build dams. Now there are a shortage of wetlands in the valley, an important habitat for many bird species. Much of the stream was fenced off as well to encourage willow growth, so the possibility of beaver can be reintroduced. The picture shows a great example of the way the valley's streams should look. This was thanks to a fence around the stream. The politics of the park are getting in the way of solving this problem. If hunters were aloud to come in and cure the population, damage could be kept at a minimum. But the park doesn't want tourists to see them being hunted in park boundaries.

We stopped on our hike to talk about the Endangred Species Act. We discussed two species in particular, the lynx and the wolverine. There is prime habitat at the snow capped mountain tops of the Rockies. The wolverine prefers tundra like conditions. Skiing is a huge part of Colorado's tourism and this has effects on the wolverine who is only found in snow and it even has effects on the lynx. Skiing requires places for skiiers to stay, so it is very popular to stay in fancy mountain resorts. Patrick told us the story of the reintroduction of the lynx to Colorado's Rockies. A resort wanted to expand tremendously on the other face if the mountain they were occupying. There location they wanted to expand at was prime habitat for the lynx. The resorts didn't see how this was at all fair due to the fact that fish and wildlife introduced the species. So the resorts decided to pay off the fish and wildlife to reintroduce even more animals so they would be no longer in danger of becoming extinct. This would then allow for them to expand their resort. This was an example of the complexity of the Endangred Species Act and the controvercy it causes. I think it is a great act as it does give full protection to species and I believe it is saving many species regardless of its loopholes. Every law in this country has it's downsides and loopholes.