Eroded banks of the unstable Virgin River. Zion NP

Ralph Maughan

The post on the lack of cougars resulting in damage to the ecology of Zion National Park has prompted a lot of comments.

I thought I’d post a photo I took of the Virgin River in Zion Canyon last March. The streambanks are trampled and bare or are calving off where the silt is deep. Some of the erosion is human, but the deer follow the human trails and vice versa.

Those high scenic photos you see of the Virgin are taken up in “The Narrows” where the walls close, leaving little riparian zone.

virgin-river.jpg
The eroding banks of the Virgin River in Zion Canyon. Zion NP. Photo by Ralph Maughan. March 2006

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Ralph Maughan

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Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University. He was a Western Watersheds Project Board Member off and on for many years, and was also its President for several years. For a long time he produced Ralph Maughan’s Wolf Report. He was a founder of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. He and Jackie Johnson Maughan wrote three editions of “Hiking Idaho.” He also wrote “Beyond the Tetons” and “Backpacking Wyoming’s Teton and Washakie Wilderness.” He created and is the administrator of The Wildlife News.

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