Fallout from the victory over snowmobiles-
Groups: Snowmobile use plan still possible. Yellowstone officials say they have no authority to allow machines this year. By Corey Hatch. Jackson Holes News and Guide.
Ralph Maughan
Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University. He has been a Western Watersheds Project Board Member off and on for many years, and also its President. For many years 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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The NPS has dim-witted but dedicated bureaucrats. Dedicated to snowmobiling, that is. For years, the public, science, and the courts have said loud and clear: no snowmobiles in Yellowstone. So NPS bureaucrats respond to the latest “no snowmobile” legal ruling by writing yet another “plan” that will maintain the size of Yellowstone’s bureaucratic empire by allowing snowmobiles in the park this winter.
Ban snowmobiles. Let’s experiment and do some wildlife research. Plow the road from West Yellowstone to Madison Junction. People have talked about it for years. Try it. See what happens.
Close the road from Lake to Canyon for 2 years to snowmobiles and snowcoaches–including administrative use. But send out folks on x-c skis to monitor buffalo. After 2 years, open the road to snowmobiles and see how the buffalo react. This would blow the “buffalo don’t care about snowmobiles” theory all to pieces. The buffalo would go into a total panic when the bubbleheads on snowmobiles reappeared after a two year absence.