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.
The eroding banks of the Virgin River in Zion Canyon. Zion NP. Photo by Ralph Maughan. March 2006
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Ralph Maughan
Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University with specialties in natural resource politics, public opinion, interest groups, political parties, voting and elections. Aside from academic publications, he is author or co-author of three hiking/backpacking guides, and he is past President of the Western Watersheds Project.
