"Bicycles Should Not be Allowed on Footpaths"

In article , Mike Vandeman says...

On 4 Aug 2008 20:38:47 -0700, Bob Berger
wrote:


SNIP

Oh? Exactly how are human-made trails different?

No one can possibly be as dumb as you are pretending to be, so it must
be deliberate. Whst's the difference between bulldozing and walking?!
Ask your mommy to explain it to you.

1. Do critters care how a trail came into existence once it's there?

No, it's too late. Roads and man-made trails are extremely harmful to
wildlife.

Is it then your assertion that it is not possible for wildlife to benefit in any
way from any human-made trail? They're ALL harmful in every aspect to wildlife?

I didn't say "in every aspect". the NET effect is harmful.

Good, I like the term: "Net effect". It implies a summation of good and bad
effects. But, I'm not sure what you're saying. Is it your assertion that the net
effect for each individual species using the trail is always harmful?

Yes. Wildlife didn't evolve with roads.

Here you are back your evolution requirement again. What does evolution have to
do with it?

Wildlife can't learn and pass that knowledge on to following generations?

And why is the net effect of new man-made trail ALWAYS harmful?

SNIP

Your definition please of "destroyed habitat".

That term speaks for itself.

Then why doesn't Google turn up a commonly accepted definition?

Or maybe our definitions of trail differ. To me, any path cut with a bulldozer
is a road, whether motorized vehicles use it or not. For the most part, the
human-made trails around here that are not fire trails or under government
control (as in such places as parks) appear to be the result of human foot
traffic.

So they are illegal?

No, in this state, it's not illegal to walk over public lands (including federal
lands) not closed to public access. But, maybe I misunderstood you. Who/what is
the "they" you're referring to?

The bootleg trails.

If I'm wrong that "bootleg trails" means something other than man-made trails
built where it's illegal to build them, please explain what it does mean to you.

Why, in your opinion, do wildlife not adapt to them?

How will animals and plants adapt to being run over and killed? Maybe
after a million years, they will develop tire-puncturing appendages.
DUH!

1. Wildlife and plants can't be run over and killed on critter-made trails?

No, there are no bikes or other vehicles there. DUH!


Only if by your personal definitions an animal-made trail instantaneously
becomes a man-made trail as soon as the first vehicle ventures over it.

So you have a lot of illegal vehicle use there?

Not that I'm aware of.

You just referred to vehicles on animal-made trails. That's illegal.

Where? Are you claiming that in this country it is universally illegal for
vehicles to use animal-made trails? If so, please provide links to the
laws/statutes involved.

In terms of actual damage to public lands, hikers are
statistically a much greater cause than illegal vehicle users, if for no other
reason than there are vastly more hikers.

But there's a problem with what you said above. Is it not true that both
wildlife and plants can also be run over and killed on critter-made trails by
both hikers, and wildlife?

No one is supposed to be on those trails. What animals do is not our
concern. We don't control that.

"No one is supposed to be on those trails"? According to what governing body?

In another post you used the example of a snake run
over by a mountain bike. What about a snake on an animal-made trail run over by
a moose? Does that not happen, or does that not count?

Irrelevant, since we aren't planning on micromanaging moose.

It's not irrelevant to the critter killed/injured critter.

Or, are you saying that wildlife casualties on roads/trails are only of concern
if they're human caused?

Consider the following real life example. In the late spring of 2005 we had a
strong wind storm here. It blew down lots of trees including a bunch that
blocked the game trail to and from the lake. So, the critters re-routed that
part of their trail... right trough the area's major quail nesting ground. This
resulted in lots of crushed nests and broken eggs, forcing the quail to flee.
And they've never returned. Not so much, I think, because of the ungulates
passing through, but because of their egg and bird eating familiars that follow
after them.

No humans, including mountain bikers, involved. By your definition, does this
qualify as "destroyed habitat"?

It's irrelevant, since it wasn't caused by humans.

Okay, finally, we learn that by your personal definitions it's destroyed habitat
if (and only if) humans do it.

SNIP

How, for example, does the rate of tree spikings compare between mountain
bikers, and say "environmentalists"?

Mountain bikers just cut the tree down, to make their structures.
Google "colonade seattle".

I did. Interesting example; see:

http://www.seattle.gov/parks/propark...5openspace.htm

It's a 7.5 acre combined mountain biking and off-leash pet trail in downtown
Seattle built under an elevated section of the Interstate 5 freeway. See the
following newspaper article on it:

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/getawa...lonnade29.html

which reads in part:

- - - -

Mountain-bike club reclaims a wasteland
By GREG JOHNSTON
P-I REPORTER
Week by week for the past 18 months, a band of local mountain bikers
has turned a dark and scary concrete-covered urban dead zone -- where
perhaps the most popular activities were shooting drugs or chugging cheap
wine -- into a place where regular people actually might want to go...

- - - -

The project was approved by Seattle's Planning Commission, and its
implementation supervised by the Seattle Parks Department and the Washington
State Department of Transportation.

The site, rather than a forest of trees, was/is a forest of reinforced concrete
highway support pillars.

You missed the point. Trees were cut down to build it.

What point? Are you playing a semantics game?

You are aware, aren't you, that the trees in question under that freeway in the
middle of the city were removed at the direction of their owners?

Or, in your opinion, did the trees' owners not have the right to have them
removed? If so, on what do you base that?

By the way, the volunteers who removed those trees also planted new ones.

SNIP

Most of the trails around here aren't "built", in the sense of being planned and
then constructed.

So they are illegal.

Nope. Not around here.... Unless they're made in areas closed to the public.

Even in Yellowstone, the public will from time to time create a new trail
(through use) getting to and from some newly found attraction. And unless said
trail is through a closed area, the NPS looks on it as nothing unusual.

In fact, if that new trail (the NPS like to call them paths) becomes popular
enough, the NPS will often "improve" it.

An example would be the paths tourists (the NPS likes to call them visitors)
made to reach Fantail Geyser when it began having major eruptions in 1986.

SNIP

Am I correct that you're aware of, for example, the use Yellowstone's bison make
of the road from Fountain Flats to Madison Junction, and consider that to be a
bad decision on their part, especially in the winter?

If they get hit by vehicles, or shot by the Forest Service, yes.

Is the percentage hit by vehicles statistically significant

That phrase makes no sense in this context. EVERY death is
significant.

Depends on the point of view.

Isn't YOUR death significant?

Not in terms of the survival of the species.

SNIP

And by the way, wildlife management in Yellowstone is not under Forest Service
jurisdiction. I'm disappointed to learn you didn't know our national parks,
including Yellowstone (the world's first national park), are run by the National
Park Service, a part of the US Department of the Interior; see:

http://www.nps.gov/


The US Forest Service is an agency of the US Department of Agriculture, and
manages public lands in national forests and grasslands; see:

http://www.fs.fed.us/

I'm not there, so I don't know if they were killed on NP land or NF
land. I suspect the latter.

There is no National Forest land in Yellowstone Park; but that's a quibble. I
think I know to what you're referring: the killing of buffalo that leave the
park every spring. That's another (unfortunate) matter. One I'd love to discuss
at length in some other thread, group, or forum.

Animals aren't killed in national parks.

I wish that were true, but it's not. In just the last month, the NPS has killed
two of the park's bears. See: http://www.nps.gov/yell/parknews/08058.htm

And, in 1991 I know for a fact they killed hundreds of bats that had lived for
years in the walls of Old Faithful Lodge cabins 243 and 244 (our favorites)
simply because they frightened some visitors when they (the bats) came out at
dusk through a single nickel size hole in one wall; a nightly event we called
"bat geyser".

You might also want to review Alston Chase's "Playing God In Yellowstone"
starting at about page 170 for information on the job the NPS did on the park's
grizzly population starting in the 1970s when they (the NPS) changed "bear
management" policy.

SNIP

Yes I am implying that they are benefiting from this, just as many of
Yellowstone's critters benefit from the roads and made-made trails there.

You haven't a clue about biology.

There is not a one to one correspondence between disagreeing with your position
and not having a clue about biology. My position is even based in part on actual
field work and observation.

That's not science.

Data gathering is not science?

It's only a part.

You need to assess the NET effect.

You... well, at least most of us, can't "assess the Net effect" until we've
gathered sufficient data.

A simple observation isn't enough.

But it's a start and it's better than nothing or hear-say.

Nonsense. Learn something about research.

I'm beginning to suspect that I've done more field research than you have. I've
previously asked for you to cite examples of field research you've done, but so
far you've not responded.

SNIP

And your absolute "genetic evolution" requirement is definitely a "value
judgment"; one not held by any of the evolutionary and/or wildlife biologists
I've asked about it, except perhaps in the case of "primitive" species not able
to learn from experience and pass knowledge on to offspring.

Biologists are not known for honesty when it comes to discussing
humans! The topic of whether humans are an exotic species is
CONSPICUOUSLY ABSENT from their books and journals. My definition is a
proposal.

Okay, according to you, mountain bikers are immoral, my opinion is worthless,
and biologists are dishonest. The list just keeps on growing.

I suggest that you'll achieve more positive results with those reading your
stuff if you don't paint everyone who disagrees with you as dumb, immoral,
and/or dishonest.

You always focus on the superficial (appearances). What if I'm RIGHT?

That's why I made my suggestion. I was trying to be helpful. :-)

Your posts to this newsgroup (I'm reading rec.backcountry... and no, that's not
wreck.backcountry) are special interest propaganda pieces, not scholarly works.
As such, the reader's favorable opinion of the author is more important in terms
of achieving the desired results than being right. A favorable opinion is not
likely when the author's posts are filled with insults and pejoratives directed
at opponents, even when the opponents are engaging in the same.

SNIP

And, in your article on "pure habitat" you imply that grizzly bears, when they
avoid contact with humans, are demonstrating a behavior pattern uniquely
reserved for humans.

Now you are LYING. I never said any such thing. It is really a waste
of time talking with a liar.

I didn't say you said that; I said you implied that. You may not have intended
to, but that's the way it's likely to come across to the reader. To quote you
(see http://home.pacbell.net/mjvande/india3):

"Outright destruction of habitat (for example, paving it or turning it into
farms, golf courses, housing developments, or parks) is not the only way that an
area can become untenable (useless) as habitat. Anything that makes it
unattractive or unavailable to a given species causes habitat loss. Have you
ever wondered why most animals run away when we come near? It certainly isn't
because they love having us around! Many animals simply will not tolerate the
presence of humans. The grizzly bear and mountain lion are just two examples.
The grizzly needs a huge territory, can smell and hear a human being from a
great distance, and will avoid going near a road."

Now, if you didn't intend this to imply that such avoidance was specially in
reaction to humans, why didn't that sentence read, "The grizzly needs a huge
territory, can smell and hear a human being from a great distance, and will
avoid going near a road, just as they usually avoid other species and even other
grizzlies when they smell or hear them."?

SNIP

But I do sense that there is hope for you. A crack has been opened in
your cocoon.

Or maybe you've discovered that the union of the set of Mike's opinions (M) and
set of Bob's opinions (B) is not null. (M^B) != {}. (This keyboard needs more
symbols).

I think you meant "intersection"?

Right! Damn it, why do I do that? You'd think after 50 years I'd learn to keep
those two terms straight.

Bob

On Jul 17, 6:20 am, Siskuwihane wrote:
On Jul 16, 11:35 pm, Mike Vandeman wrote:

From: [a Marin County resident]
Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2008 15:40:54 -0700
Subject: Mt.bikes on trails

I have lived in Marin County for 50 years, seeing firsthand the rise
of, and impact from, mountain bicycling. I am an equestrian and
hiker.

Animals should not be used as vehicles, especially when people can
always WALK! I have yet to meet ANYONE who cleans up after their horse
deficates in the middle of a path or trail. Why are people so SELFISH,
making an animal carry them?

I don't like horses on trails (they don't let people **** in the woods
but horses are apparently OK). However,from what I understand
equestrians a
1. local
2. rich
Don't **** them off if you want local monetary support for your park.

On 7 Aug 2008 20:09:52 -0700, Bob Berger
wrote:

In article , Mike Vandeman says...

On 4 Aug 2008 20:38:47 -0700, Bob Berger
wrote:


SNIP

Oh? Exactly how are human-made trails different?

No one can possibly be as dumb as you are pretending to be, so it must
be deliberate. Whst's the difference between bulldozing and walking?!
Ask your mommy to explain it to you.

1. Do critters care how a trail came into existence once it's there?

No, it's too late. Roads and man-made trails are extremely harmful to
wildlife.

Is it then your assertion that it is not possible for wildlife to benefit in any
way from any human-made trail? They're ALL harmful in every aspect to wildlife?

I didn't say "in every aspect". the NET effect is harmful.

Good, I like the term: "Net effect". It implies a summation of good and bad
effects. But, I'm not sure what you're saying. Is it your assertion that the net
effect for each individual species using the trail is always harmful?

Yes. Wildlife didn't evolve with roads.

Here you are back your evolution requirement again. What does evolution have to
do with it?

Wildlife can't learn and pass that knowledge on to following generations?

And why is the net effect of new man-made trail ALWAYS harmful?

Because it brings humans and vehicles. DUH!

SNIP

Your definition please of "destroyed habitat".

That term speaks for itself.

Then why doesn't Google turn up a commonly accepted definition?

Because it doesn't need defining!

Or maybe our definitions of trail differ. To me, any path cut with a bulldozer
is a road, whether motorized vehicles use it or not. For the most part, the
human-made trails around here that are not fire trails or under government
control (as in such places as parks) appear to be the result of human foot
traffic.

So they are illegal?

No, in this state, it's not illegal to walk over public lands (including federal
lands) not closed to public access. But, maybe I misunderstood you. Who/what is
the "they" you're referring to?

The bootleg trails.

If I'm wrong that "bootleg trails" means something other than man-made trails
built where it's illegal to build them, please explain what it does mean to you.

Why, in your opinion, do wildlife not adapt to them?

How will animals and plants adapt to being run over and killed? Maybe
after a million years, they will develop tire-puncturing appendages.
DUH!

1. Wildlife and plants can't be run over and killed on critter-made trails?

No, there are no bikes or other vehicles there. DUH!


Only if by your personal definitions an animal-made trail instantaneously
becomes a man-made trail as soon as the first vehicle ventures over it.

So you have a lot of illegal vehicle use there?

Not that I'm aware of.

You just referred to vehicles on animal-made trails. That's illegal.

Where? Are you claiming that in this country it is universally illegal for
vehicles to use animal-made trails? If so, please provide links to the
laws/statutes involved.

It's obvious.

In terms of actual damage to public lands, hikers are
statistically a much greater cause than illegal vehicle users, if for no other
reason than there are vastly more hikers.

But there's a problem with what you said above. Is it not true that both
wildlife and plants can also be run over and killed on critter-made trails by
both hikers, and wildlife?

No one is supposed to be on those trails. What animals do is not our
concern. We don't control that.

"No one is supposed to be on those trails"? According to what governing body?

In another post you used the example of a snake run
over by a mountain bike. What about a snake on an animal-made trail run over by
a moose? Does that not happen, or does that not count?

Irrelevant, since we aren't planning on micromanaging moose.

It's not irrelevant to the critter killed/injured critter.

Or, are you saying that wildlife casualties on roads/trails are only of concern
if they're human caused?

Of course.

Consider the following real life example. In the late spring of 2005 we had a
strong wind storm here. It blew down lots of trees including a bunch that
blocked the game trail to and from the lake. So, the critters re-routed that
part of their trail... right trough the area's major quail nesting ground. This
resulted in lots of crushed nests and broken eggs, forcing the quail to flee.
And they've never returned. Not so much, I think, because of the ungulates
passing through, but because of their egg and bird eating familiars that follow
after them.

No humans, including mountain bikers, involved. By your definition, does this
qualify as "destroyed habitat"?

It's irrelevant, since it wasn't caused by humans.

Okay, finally, we learn that by your personal definitions it's destroyed habitat
if (and only if) humans do it.

BS. I never said that.

How, for example, does the rate of tree spikings compare between mountain
bikers, and say "environmentalists"?

Mountain bikers just cut the tree down, to make their structures.
Google "colonade seattle".

I did. Interesting example; see:

http://www.seattle.gov/parks/propark...5openspace.htm

It's a 7.5 acre combined mountain biking and off-leash pet trail in downtown
Seattle built under an elevated section of the Interstate 5 freeway. See the
following newspaper article on it:

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/getawa...lonnade29.html

which reads in part:

- - - -

Mountain-bike club reclaims a wasteland
By GREG JOHNSTON
P-I REPORTER
Week by week for the past 18 months, a band of local mountain bikers
has turned a dark and scary concrete-covered urban dead zone -- where
perhaps the most popular activities were shooting drugs or chugging cheap
wine -- into a place where regular people actually might want to go...

- - - -

The project was approved by Seattle's Planning Commission, and its
implementation supervised by the Seattle Parks Department and the Washington
State Department of Transportation.

The site, rather than a forest of trees, was/is a forest of reinforced concrete
highway support pillars.

You missed the point. Trees were cut down to build it.

What point? Are you playing a semantics game?

You are aware, aren't you, that the trees in question under that freeway in the
middle of the city were removed at the direction of their owners?

Huh? How can you "own" a tree???

Or, in your opinion, did the trees' owners not have the right to have them
removed? If so, on what do you base that?

By the way, the volunteers who removed those trees also planted new ones.

SNIP

Most of the trails around here aren't "built", in the sense of being planned and
then constructed.

So they are illegal.

Nope. Not around here.... Unless they're made in areas closed to the public.

Even in Yellowstone, the public will from time to time create a new trail
(through use) getting to and from some newly found attraction. And unless said
trail is through a closed area, the NPS looks on it as nothing unusual.

It's still illegal.

In fact, if that new trail (the NPS like to call them paths) becomes popular
enough, the NPS will often "improve" it.

An example would be the paths tourists (the NPS likes to call them visitors)
made to reach Fantail Geyser when it began having major eruptions in 1986.

SNIP

Am I correct that you're aware of, for example, the use Yellowstone's bison make
of the road from Fountain Flats to Madison Junction, and consider that to be a
bad decision on their part, especially in the winter?

If they get hit by vehicles, or shot by the Forest Service, yes.

Is the percentage hit by vehicles statistically significant

That phrase makes no sense in this context. EVERY death is
significant.

Depends on the point of view.

Only one point of view is significant: the organism's.

Isn't YOUR death significant?

Not in terms of the survival of the species.

That's not what I asked.

SNIP

And by the way, wildlife management in Yellowstone is not under Forest Service
jurisdiction. I'm disappointed to learn you didn't know our national parks,
including Yellowstone (the world's first national park), are run by the National
Park Service, a part of the US Department of the Interior; see:

http://www.nps.gov/


The US Forest Service is an agency of the US Department of Agriculture, and
manages public lands in national forests and grasslands; see:

http://www.fs.fed.us/

I'm not there, so I don't know if they were killed on NP land or NF
land. I suspect the latter.

There is no National Forest land in Yellowstone Park;

Across the border there is.

but that's a quibble. I
think I know to what you're referring: the killing of buffalo that leave the
park every spring. That's another (unfortunate) matter. One I'd love to discuss
at length in some other thread, group, or forum.

Animals aren't killed in national parks.

I wish that were true, but it's not. In just the last month, the NPS has killed
two of the park's bears. See: http://www.nps.gov/yell/parknews/08058.htm

And, in 1991 I know for a fact they killed hundreds of bats that had lived for
years in the walls of Old Faithful Lodge cabins 243 and 244 (our favorites)
simply because they frightened some visitors when they (the bats) came out at
dusk through a single nickel size hole in one wall; a nightly event we called
"bat geyser".

You might also want to review Alston Chase's "Playing God In Yellowstone"
starting at about page 170 for information on the job the NPS did on the park's
grizzly population starting in the 1970s when they (the NPS) changed "bear
management" policy.

SNIP

Yes I am implying that they are benefiting from this, just as many of
Yellowstone's critters benefit from the roads and made-made trails there.

You haven't a clue about biology.

There is not a one to one correspondence between disagreeing with your position
and not having a clue about biology. My position is even based in part on actual
field work and observation.

That's not science.

Data gathering is not science?

It's only a part.

You need to assess the NET effect.

You... well, at least most of us, can't "assess the Net effect" until we've
gathered sufficient data.

A simple observation isn't enough.

But it's a start and it's better than nothing or hear-say.

Nonsense. Learn something about research.

I'm beginning to suspect that I've done more field research than you have. I've
previously asked for you to cite examples of field research you've done, but so
far you've not responded.


And your absolute "genetic evolution" requirement is definitely a "value
judgment"; one not held by any of the evolutionary and/or wildlife biologists
I've asked about it, except perhaps in the case of "primitive" species not able
to learn from experience and pass knowledge on to offspring.

Biologists are not known for honesty when it comes to discussing
humans! The topic of whether humans are an exotic species is
CONSPICUOUSLY ABSENT from their books and journals. My definition is a
proposal.

Okay, according to you, mountain bikers are immoral, my opinion is worthless,
and biologists are dishonest. The list just keeps on growing.

I suggest that you'll achieve more positive results with those reading your
stuff if you don't paint everyone who disagrees with you as dumb, immoral,
and/or dishonest.

You always focus on the superficial (appearances). What if I'm RIGHT?

That's why I made my suggestion. I was trying to be helpful. :-)

Your posts to this newsgroup (I'm reading rec.backcountry... and no, that's not
wreck.backcountry) are special interest propaganda pieces, not scholarly works.
As such, the reader's favorable opinion of the author is more important in terms
of achieving the desired results than being right. A favorable opinion is not
likely when the author's posts are filled with insults and pejoratives directed
at opponents, even when the opponents are engaging in the same.

As I said, you are incredibly superficial. You don't care about the
TRUTH of a statement, only what you think of the person saying it.
That's AMAZINGLY stupid.

And, in your article on "pure habitat" you imply that grizzly bears, when they
avoid contact with humans, are demonstrating a behavior pattern uniquely
reserved for humans.

Now you are LYING. I never said any such thing. It is really a waste
of time talking with a liar.

I didn't say you said that; I said you implied that.

No, I didn't.

You may not have intended
to, but that's the way it's likely to come across to the reader. To quote you
(see http://home.pacbell.net/mjvande/india3):

"Outright destruction of habitat (for example, paving it or turning it into
farms, golf courses, housing developments, or parks) is not the only way that an
area can become untenable (useless) as habitat. Anything that makes it
unattractive or unavailable to a given species causes habitat loss. Have you
ever wondered why most animals run away when we come near? It certainly isn't
because they love having us around! Many animals simply will not tolerate the
presence of humans. The grizzly bear and mountain lion are just two examples.
The grizzly needs a huge territory, can smell and hear a human being from a
great distance, and will avoid going near a road."

Now, if you didn't intend this to imply that such avoidance was specially in
reaction to humans, why didn't that sentence read, "The grizzly needs a huge
territory, can smell and hear a human being from a great distance, and will
avoid going near a road, just as they usually avoid other species and even other
grizzlies when they smell or hear them."?

There is no "behavior pattern uniquely reserved for humans", real or
implied. And it's irrelevant.

But I do sense that there is hope for you. A crack has been opened in
your cocoon.

Or maybe you've discovered that the union of the set of Mike's opinions (M) and
set of Bob's opinions (B) is not null. (M^B) != {}. (This keyboard needs more
symbols).

I think you meant "intersection"?

Right! Damn it, why do I do that? You'd think after 50 years I'd learn to keep
those two terms straight.

This will surely hurt your chances for success in life.

Bob
--
I am working on creating wildlife habitat that is off-limits to
humans ("pure habitat"). Want to help? (I spent the previous 8
years fighting auto dependence and road construction.)

Please don't put a cell phone next to any part of your body that you are fond of!

http://home.pacbell.net/mjvande

In article , Mike Vandeman says...

On 7 Aug 2008 20:09:52 -0700, Bob Berger
wrote:

In article , Mike Vandeman says...

On 4 Aug 2008 20:38:47 -0700, Bob Berger
wrote:


SNIP

Oh? Exactly how are human-made trails different?

No one can possibly be as dumb as you are pretending to be, so it must
be deliberate. Whst's the difference between bulldozing and walking?!
Ask your mommy to explain it to you.

1. Do critters care how a trail came into existence once it's there?

No, it's too late. Roads and man-made trails are extremely harmful to
wildlife.

Is it then your assertion that it is not possible for wildlife to benefit in any
way from any human-made trail? They're ALL harmful in every aspect to wildlife?

I didn't say "in every aspect". the NET effect is harmful.

Good, I like the term: "Net effect". It implies a summation of good and bad
effects. But, I'm not sure what you're saying. Is it your assertion that the net
effect for each individual species using the trail is always harmful?

Yes. Wildlife didn't evolve with roads.

Here you are back your evolution requirement again. What does evolution have to
do with it?

Wildlife can't learn and pass that knowledge on to following generations?

And why is the net effect of new man-made trail ALWAYS harmful?

Because it brings humans and vehicles. DUH!

Okay, let's see: the net effect is always harmful. You're asserting that it's a
mathematical certainty? The summation of the positive and negative effects is
always negative? Care to present a proof of that?

SNIP

Your definition please of "destroyed habitat".

That term speaks for itself.

Then why doesn't Google turn up a commonly accepted definition?

Because it doesn't need defining!

I understand that in your role of propagandist definitions are your enemy,
because you're forced to abide by the limits a definition sets. But as a
scholar, you know that rational dialog is not possible if terms aren't defined.
It's not even necessary to agree on the definitions.

So, again, please provide your definition of "destroyed habitat".

Or maybe our definitions of trail differ. To me, any path cut with a bulldozer
is a road, whether motorized vehicles use it or not. For the most part, the
human-made trails around here that are not fire trails or under government
control (as in such places as parks) appear to be the result of human foot
traffic.

So they are illegal?

No, in this state, it's not illegal to walk over public lands (including federal
lands) not closed to public access. But, maybe I misunderstood you. Who/what is
the "they" you're referring to?

The bootleg trails.

If I'm wrong that "bootleg trails" means something other than man-made trails
built where it's illegal to build them, please explain what it does mean to you.

Why, in your opinion, do wildlife not adapt to them?

How will animals and plants adapt to being run over and killed? Maybe
after a million years, they will develop tire-puncturing appendages.
DUH!

1. Wildlife and plants can't be run over and killed on critter-made trails?

No, there are no bikes or other vehicles there. DUH!


Only if by your personal definitions an animal-made trail instantaneously
becomes a man-made trail as soon as the first vehicle ventures over it.

So you have a lot of illegal vehicle use there?

Not that I'm aware of.

You just referred to vehicles on animal-made trails. That's illegal.

Where? Are you claiming that in this country it is universally illegal for
vehicles to use animal-made trails? If so, please provide links to the
laws/statutes involved.

It's obvious.

No it's not obvious unless we know what laws apply. Please provide links to
those laws.

In terms of actual damage to public lands, hikers are
statistically a much greater cause than illegal vehicle users, if for no other
reason than there are vastly more hikers.

But there's a problem with what you said above. Is it not true that both
wildlife and plants can also be run over and killed on critter-made trails by
both hikers, and wildlife?

No one is supposed to be on those trails. What animals do is not our
concern. We don't control that.

"No one is supposed to be on those trails"? According to what governing body?

In another post you used the example of a snake run
over by a mountain bike. What about a snake on an animal-made trail run over by
a moose? Does that not happen, or does that not count?

Irrelevant, since we aren't planning on micromanaging moose.

It's not irrelevant to the critter killed/injured critter.

Or, are you saying that wildlife casualties on roads/trails are only of concern
if they're human caused?

Of course.

But, below you said, "Every death is significant"; and when I then replied,
"Depends on the point of view", you responded, " Only one point of view is
significant, the organisms". So, every wildlife death is significant; but you're
not concerned unless it's human caused. Interesting.

Consider the following real life example. In the late spring of 2005 we had a
strong wind storm here. It blew down lots of trees including a bunch that
blocked the game trail to and from the lake. So, the critters re-routed that
part of their trail... right trough the area's major quail nesting ground. This
resulted in lots of crushed nests and broken eggs, forcing the quail to flee.
And they've never returned. Not so much, I think, because of the ungulates
passing through, but because of their egg and bird eating familiars that follow
after them.

No humans, including mountain bikers, involved. By your definition, does this
qualify as "destroyed habitat"?

It's irrelevant, since it wasn't caused by humans.

Okay, finally, we learn that by your personal definitions it's destroyed habitat
if (and only if) humans do it.

BS. I never said that.

Yes you did, if not in so many words. Here's s bit of dialog between you and
"y_p_w" earlier in this thread on or about July 22nd:

Y_P_W: A bicycle is an inanimate object. Its use by humans is subject to laws
written my humans.

Mike: And the wildlife, whose home it is, have no say whatsoever! Bikes don't
belong in natural areas, no matter what the law says.

Y_P_W: Natural areas? If they were natural areas, human beings wouldn't have
cleared the vegetation, put up signs.

Mike: What do you think trails are? Destroyed habitat!

So, according to you: if it's a (man-made) trail then it's destroyed habitat.

And to quote from just above:

Bob: No humans, including mountain bikers, involved. By your definition, does
this qualify as "destroyed habitat"?

Mike: It's irrelevant, since it wasn't caused by humans.

So, according to you, it's destroyed habitat only if the tail is man-made.

Thus by your definitions it's an IFF (if and only if). Would you prefer
"necessary and sufficient"?

How, for example, does the rate of tree spikings compare between mountain
bikers, and say "environmentalists"?

Mountain bikers just cut the tree down, to make their structures.
Google "colonade seattle".

I did. Interesting example; see:

http://www.seattle.gov/parks/propark...5openspace.htm

It's a 7.5 acre combined mountain biking and off-leash pet trail in downtown
Seattle built under an elevated section of the Interstate 5 freeway. See the
following newspaper article on it:

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/getawa...lonnade29.html

which reads in part:

- - - -

Mountain-bike club reclaims a wasteland
By GREG JOHNSTON
P-I REPORTER
Week by week for the past 18 months, a band of local mountain bikers
has turned a dark and scary concrete-covered urban dead zone -- where
perhaps the most popular activities were shooting drugs or chugging cheap
wine -- into a place where regular people actually might want to go...

- - - -

The project was approved by Seattle's Planning Commission, and its
implementation supervised by the Seattle Parks Department and the Washington
State Department of Transportation.

The site, rather than a forest of trees, was/is a forest of reinforced concrete
highway support pillars.

You missed the point. Trees were cut down to build it.

What point? Are you playing a semantics game?

You are aware, aren't you, that the trees in question under that freeway in the
middle of the city were removed at the direction of their owners?

Huh? How can you "own" a tree???

By your personal definitions, does anyone "own" anything?

Do I own the grass in my front yard? I have legal documents saying I own the
property. Do I own the property?

Am I committing a crime against "my" grass when I mow it?

Or, in your opinion, did the trees' owners not have the right to have them
removed? If so, on what do you base that?

By the way, the volunteers who removed those trees also planted new ones.

SNIP

Most of the trails around here aren't "built", in the sense of being planned and
then constructed.

So they are illegal.

Nope. Not around here.... Unless they're made in areas closed to the public.

Even in Yellowstone, the public will from time to time create a new trail
(through use) getting to and from some newly found attraction. And unless said
trail is through a closed area, the NPS looks on it as nothing unusual.

It's still illegal.

Only in the police state of your dreams (a phrase I'll get back to in a bit);
unless you can cite the laws that make it illegal.

In fact, if that new trail (the NPS like to call them paths) becomes popular
enough, the NPS will often "improve" it.

An example would be the paths tourists (the NPS likes to call them visitors)
made to reach Fantail Geyser when it began having major eruptions in 1986.

SNIP

Am I correct that you're aware of, for example, the use Yellowstone's bison make
of the road from Fountain Flats to Madison Junction, and consider that to be a
bad decision on their part, especially in the winter?

If they get hit by vehicles, or shot by the Forest Service, yes.

Is the percentage hit by vehicles statistically significant

That phrase makes no sense in this context. EVERY death is
significant.

Depends on the point of view.

Only one point of view is significant: the organism's.

Why only one?

Isn't YOUR death significant?

Not in terms of the survival of the species.

That's not what I asked.

Oh. I thought you asked, "Isn't YOUR death significant?"

But, if you insist that's not what you asked, what was it you actually asked?

SNIP

And by the way, wildlife management in Yellowstone is not under Forest Service
jurisdiction. I'm disappointed to learn you didn't know our national parks,
including Yellowstone (the world's first national park), are run by the National
Park Service, a part of the US Department of the Interior; see:

http://www.nps.gov/


The US Forest Service is an agency of the US Department of Agriculture, and
manages public lands in national forests and grasslands; see:

http://www.fs.fed.us/

I'm not there, so I don't know if they were killed on NP land or NF
land. I suspect the latter.

There is no National Forest land in Yellowstone Park;

Across the border there is.

As I said just below, I won't quibble over your error.

but that's a quibble. I
think I know to what you're referring: the killing of buffalo that leave the
park every spring. That's another (unfortunate) matter. One I'd love to discuss
at length in some other thread, group, or forum.

SNIP

Biologists are not known for honesty when it comes to discussing
humans! The topic of whether humans are an exotic species is
CONSPICUOUSLY ABSENT from their books and journals. My definition is a
proposal.

Okay, according to you, mountain bikers are immoral, my opinion is worthless,
and biologists are dishonest. The list just keeps on growing.

I suggest that you'll achieve more positive results with those reading your
stuff if you don't paint everyone who disagrees with you as dumb, immoral,
and/or dishonest.

You always focus on the superficial (appearances). What if I'm RIGHT?

That's why I made my suggestion. I was trying to be helpful. :-)

Your posts to this newsgroup (I'm reading rec.backcountry... and no, that's not
wreck.backcountry) are special interest propaganda pieces, not scholarly works.
As such, the reader's favorable opinion of the author is more important in terms
of achieving the desired results than being right. A favorable opinion is not
likely when the author's posts are filled with insults and pejoratives directed
at opponents, even when the opponents are engaging in the same.

As I said, you are incredibly superficial. You don't care about the
TRUTH of a statement, only what you think of the person saying it.
That's AMAZINGLY stupid.

And that's a pejorative; the very thing I was trying to caution you about.

And by the way, how is what I think of you (assuming I've thought anything much
at all about you) reflected in my half of this dialog?

And, in your article on "pure habitat" you imply that grizzly bears, when they
avoid contact with humans, are demonstrating a behavior pattern uniquely
reserved for humans.

Now you are LYING. I never said any such thing. It is really a waste
of time talking with a liar.

I didn't say you said that; I said you implied that.

No, I didn't.

I think the unbiased reader of this thread will conclude otherwise.

You may not have intended
to, but that's the way it's likely to come across to the reader. To quote you
(see http://home.pacbell.net/mjvande/india3):

"Outright destruction of habitat (for example, paving it or turning it into
farms, golf courses, housing developments, or parks) is not the only way that an
area can become untenable (useless) as habitat. Anything that makes it
unattractive or unavailable to a given species causes habitat loss. Have you
ever wondered why most animals run away when we come near? It certainly isn't
because they love having us around! Many animals simply will not tolerate the
presence of humans. The grizzly bear and mountain lion are just two examples.
The grizzly needs a huge territory, can smell and hear a human being from a
great distance, and will avoid going near a road."

Now, if you didn't intend this to imply that such avoidance was specially in
reaction to humans, why didn't that sentence read, "The grizzly needs a huge
territory, can smell and hear a human being from a great distance, and will
avoid going near a road, just as they usually avoid other species and even other
grizzlies when they smell or hear them."?

There is no "behavior pattern uniquely reserved for humans", real or
implied.

GOOD! Thanks for saying that. We agree that wildlife have no behavior patterns
uniquely reserved for humans. Interactions with humans don't require unique
actions.

And it's irrelevant.

Why? Please explain yourself. Has it occurred to you that what's irrelevant to
you may not be to others?

SNIP

But I do sense that there is hope for you. A crack has been opened in
your cocoon.

SNIP

Mike, this is dragging on and on and not getting anywhere; and I don't think it
ever will. As I see it, the basic problem is that you and I have different views
of man's place in nature. The way I see it, humans are just another species;
we're not somehow "unnatural"; and the more we learn to interact in a
non-threatening way with other species, the less harm we're likely to do each
other.

It's my impression that your view is reflected in the follow from your website:

"One might think that it would be best if humanity rejoined nature as quickly as
possible. With our present billions, that would devastate what little non-human
nature remains. Quite the contrary, we must separate humanity from what is left
of nature. We must quarantine this dangerous species from other life. We are now
starkly different from all other life - truly unique - and will remain so. The
human cultural genie cannot be stuffed back into nature's genetic bottle. Our
presence will forevermore be unnatural and have to be controlled. Haven eaten
the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge, we cannot return to the Garden of Eden
without careful supervision." Russell Merle Genet, The Chimpanzees Who Would Be
Ants, p. 175."

Since you included this on your website without critical comment, I must believe
you agree with it. We are (our presence is) unnatural; we must be quarantined,
we "have to be controlled" and we require carefully supervision. By what/whom?
The "police state" to which I earlier referred; right?

I find it unfortunate that you don't feel you can control yourself in your
interactions other species. And that must be what you feel; otherwise, you're
implying that you can, but others can't. Either way, a depressing world view.

Bob

On Aug 11, 9:37*pm, Bob Berger wrote:
In article , Mike Vandeman says...
Even in Yellowstone, the public will from time to time create a new trail
(through use) getting to and from some newly found attraction. And unless said
trail is through a closed area, the NPS looks on it as nothing unusual.

It's still illegal.

Only in the police state of your dreams (a phrase I'll get back to in a bit);
unless you can cite the laws that make it illegal.

In fact, if that new trail (the NPS like to call them paths) becomes popular
enough, the NPS will often "improve" it.

All depends on the area. Some areas are protected and "social trails"
are specifically prohibited or at least strongly discouraged. Most
National Park Service lands I know of allow off-trail travel. In
Yellowstone a ranger told me it was specifically encouraged, except
where it was prohibited in Yellowstone Canyon, thermal areas, and
specific resource protection areas. The first two catoegories are
primarily because of the chance of injury or death, and not because of
fear of creating a new trail or wildlife protection. Legal off trail
foot travel in Forest Service lands is practically a given. I've seen
maps in Desolation Wilderness showing the overnight quotas for areas
where there were no official trails. People legally go "peak bagging"
on peaks that have no defined trails.

http://www.nps.gov/yell/planyourvisit/norrishike.htm

"Solfatara Creek

The trail follows Solfatara Creek for a short distance to the junction
with Ice Lake Trail, it then parallels a power line for most of the
way to Whiterock Springs. It climbs a short distance up to Lake of the
Woods (difficult to find as it's **off trail** a bit) and passes
Amphitheater Springs and Lemonade Creek (don't drink it)."

An example would be the paths tourists (the NPS likes to call them visitors)
made to reach Fantail Geyser when it began having major eruptions in 1986.

SNIP

Am I correct that you're aware of, for example, the use Yellowstone's bison make
of the road from Fountain Flats to Madison Junction, and consider that to be a
bad decision on their part, especially in the winter?

If they get hit by vehicles, or shot by the Forest Service, yes.

Is the percentage hit by vehicles statistically significant

That phrase makes no sense in this context. EVERY death is
significant.

Depends on the point of view.

Only one point of view is significant: the organism's.

Why only one?

Isn't YOUR death significant?

Not in terms of the survival of the species.

That's not what I asked.

Oh. I thought you asked, "Isn't YOUR death significant?"

But, if you insist that's not what you asked, what was it you actually asked?

SNIP

And by the way, wildlife management in Yellowstone is not under Forest Service
jurisdiction. I'm disappointed to learn you didn't know our national parks,
including Yellowstone (the world's first national park), are run by the National
Park Service, a part of the US Department of the Interior; see:

http://www.nps.gov/

The US Forest Service is an agency of the US Department of Agriculture, and
manages public lands in national forests and grasslands; see:

http://www.fs.fed.us/

I'm not there, so I don't know if they were killed on NP land or NF
land. I suspect the latter.

There is no National Forest land in Yellowstone Park;

Across the border there is.

As I said just below, I won't quibble over your error.

but that's a quibble. I
think I know to what you're referring: the killing of buffalo that leave the
park every spring. That's another (unfortunate) matter. One I'd love to discuss
at length in some other thread, group, or forum.

SNIP

Biologists are not known for honesty when it comes to discussing
humans! The topic of whether humans are an exotic species is
CONSPICUOUSLY ABSENT from their books and journals. My definition is a
proposal.

Okay, according to you, mountain bikers are immoral, my opinion is worthless,
and biologists are dishonest. The list just keeps on growing.

I suggest that you'll achieve more positive results with those reading your
stuff if you don't paint everyone who disagrees with you as dumb, immoral,
and/or dishonest.

You always focus on the superficial (appearances). What if I'm RIGHT?

That's why I made my suggestion. I was trying to be helpful. :-)

Your posts to this newsgroup (I'm reading rec.backcountry... and no, that's not
wreck.backcountry) are special interest propaganda pieces, not scholarly works.
As such, the reader's favorable opinion of the author is more important in terms
of achieving the desired results than being right. A favorable opinion is not
likely when the author's posts are filled with insults and pejoratives directed
at opponents, even when the opponents are engaging in the same.

As I said, you are incredibly superficial. You don't care about the
TRUTH of a statement, only what you think of the person saying it.
That's AMAZINGLY stupid.

And that's a pejorative; the very thing I was trying to caution you about..

And by the way, how is what I think of you (assuming I've thought anything much
at all about you) reflected in my half of this dialog?

And, in your article on "pure habitat" you imply that grizzly bears, when they
avoid contact with humans, are demonstrating a behavior pattern uniquely
reserved for humans.

Now you are LYING. I never said any such thing. It is really a waste
of time talking with a liar.

I didn't say you said that; I said you implied that.

No, I didn't.

I think the unbiased reader of this thread will conclude otherwise.

You may not have intended
to, but that's the way it's likely to come across to the reader. To quote you
(seehttp://home.pacbell.net/mjvande/india3):

"Outright destruction of habitat (for example, paving it or turning it into
farms, golf courses, housing developments, or parks) is not the only way that an
area can become untenable (useless) as habitat. Anything that makes it
unattractive or unavailable to a given species causes habitat loss. Have you
ever wondered why most animals run away when we come near? It certainly isn't
because they love having us around! Many animals simply will not tolerate the
presence of humans. The grizzly bear and mountain lion are just two examples.
The grizzly needs a huge territory, can smell and hear a human being from a
great distance, and will avoid going near a road."

Now, if you didn't intend this to imply that such avoidance was specially in
reaction to humans, why didn't that sentence read, "The grizzly needs a huge
territory, can smell and hear a human being from a great distance, and will
avoid going near a road, just as they usually avoid other species and even other
grizzlies when they smell or hear them."?

There is no "behavior pattern uniquely reserved for humans", real or
implied.

Mikey's comments about bears seem way off from what I've heard has
been reported from wildlife biologists. They might avoid direct
contact, but they are apparently wary and will observe. I've heard of
observers viewing bears with spotting scopes of a grizzly near a
trail. As hikers approached the bear, it moved away, checking out the
hikers (who had no idea the bear was there). When I was in
Yellowstone, I heard about a particular grizzly sow that apparently
didn't mind humans watching it and allowed its cubs to play knowing
humans were watching it.

On 11 Aug 2008 21:37:16 -0700, Bob Berger
wrote:

In article , Mike Vandeman says...

On 7 Aug 2008 20:09:52 -0700, Bob Berger
wrote:

In article , Mike Vandeman says...

On 4 Aug 2008 20:38:47 -0700, Bob Berger
wrote:


SNIP

Oh? Exactly how are human-made trails different?

No one can possibly be as dumb as you are pretending to be, so it must
be deliberate. Whst's the difference between bulldozing and walking?!
Ask your mommy to explain it to you.

1. Do critters care how a trail came into existence once it's there?

No, it's too late. Roads and man-made trails are extremely harmful to
wildlife.

Is it then your assertion that it is not possible for wildlife to benefit in any
way from any human-made trail? They're ALL harmful in every aspect to wildlife?

I didn't say "in every aspect". the NET effect is harmful.

Good, I like the term: "Net effect". It implies a summation of good and bad
effects. But, I'm not sure what you're saying. Is it your assertion that the net
effect for each individual species using the trail is always harmful?

Yes. Wildlife didn't evolve with roads.

Here you are back your evolution requirement again. What does evolution have to
do with it?

Wildlife can't learn and pass that knowledge on to following generations?

And why is the net effect of new man-made trail ALWAYS harmful?

Because it brings humans and vehicles. DUH!

Okay, let's see: the net effect is always harmful. You're asserting that it's a
mathematical certainty? The summation of the positive and negative effects is
always negative? Care to present a proof of that?

SNIP

Your definition please of "destroyed habitat".

That term speaks for itself.

Then why doesn't Google turn up a commonly accepted definition?

Because it doesn't need defining!

I understand that in your role of propagandist definitions are your enemy,
because you're forced to abide by the limits a definition sets. But as a
scholar, you know that rational dialog is not possible if terms aren't defined.
It's not even necessary to agree on the definitions.

So, again, please provide your definition of "destroyed habitat".

Or maybe our definitions of trail differ. To me, any path cut with a bulldozer
is a road, whether motorized vehicles use it or not. For the most part, the
human-made trails around here that are not fire trails or under government
control (as in such places as parks) appear to be the result of human foot
traffic.

So they are illegal?

No, in this state, it's not illegal to walk over public lands (including federal
lands) not closed to public access. But, maybe I misunderstood you. Who/what is
the "they" you're referring to?

The bootleg trails.

If I'm wrong that "bootleg trails" means something other than man-made trails
built where it's illegal to build them, please explain what it does mean to you.

Why, in your opinion, do wildlife not adapt to them?

How will animals and plants adapt to being run over and killed? Maybe
after a million years, they will develop tire-puncturing appendages.
DUH!

1. Wildlife and plants can't be run over and killed on critter-made trails?

No, there are no bikes or other vehicles there. DUH!


Only if by your personal definitions an animal-made trail instantaneously
becomes a man-made trail as soon as the first vehicle ventures over it.

So you have a lot of illegal vehicle use there?

Not that I'm aware of.

You just referred to vehicles on animal-made trails. That's illegal.

Where? Are you claiming that in this country it is universally illegal for
vehicles to use animal-made trails? If so, please provide links to the
laws/statutes involved.

It's obvious.

No it's not obvious unless we know what laws apply. Please provide links to
those laws.

In terms of actual damage to public lands, hikers are
statistically a much greater cause than illegal vehicle users, if for no other
reason than there are vastly more hikers.

But there's a problem with what you said above. Is it not true that both
wildlife and plants can also be run over and killed on critter-made trails by
both hikers, and wildlife?

No one is supposed to be on those trails. What animals do is not our
concern. We don't control that.

"No one is supposed to be on those trails"? According to what governing body?

In another post you used the example of a snake run
over by a mountain bike. What about a snake on an animal-made trail run over by
a moose? Does that not happen, or does that not count?

Irrelevant, since we aren't planning on micromanaging moose.

It's not irrelevant to the critter killed/injured critter.

Or, are you saying that wildlife casualties on roads/trails are only of concern
if they're human caused?

Of course.

But, below you said, "Every death is significant"; and when I then replied,
"Depends on the point of view", you responded, " Only one point of view is
significant, the organisms". So, every wildlife death is significant; but you're
not concerned unless it's human caused. Interesting.

Consider the following real life example. In the late spring of 2005 we had a
strong wind storm here. It blew down lots of trees including a bunch that
blocked the game trail to and from the lake. So, the critters re-routed that
part of their trail... right trough the area's major quail nesting ground. This
resulted in lots of crushed nests and broken eggs, forcing the quail to flee.
And they've never returned. Not so much, I think, because of the ungulates
passing through, but because of their egg and bird eating familiars that follow
after them.

No humans, including mountain bikers, involved. By your definition, does this
qualify as "destroyed habitat"?

It's irrelevant, since it wasn't caused by humans.

Okay, finally, we learn that by your personal definitions it's destroyed habitat
if (and only if) humans do it.

BS. I never said that.

Yes you did, if not in so many words. Here's s bit of dialog between you and
"y_p_w" earlier in this thread on or about July 22nd:

Y_P_W: A bicycle is an inanimate object. Its use by humans is subject to laws
written my humans.

Mike: And the wildlife, whose home it is, have no say whatsoever! Bikes don't
belong in natural areas, no matter what the law says.

Y_P_W: Natural areas? If they were natural areas, human beings wouldn't have
cleared the vegetation, put up signs.

Mike: What do you think trails are? Destroyed habitat!

So, according to you: if it's a (man-made) trail then it's destroyed habitat.

And to quote from just above:

Bob: No humans, including mountain bikers, involved. By your definition, does
this qualify as "destroyed habitat"?

Mike: It's irrelevant, since it wasn't caused by humans.

So, according to you, it's destroyed habitat only if the tail is man-made.

Thus by your definitions it's an IFF (if and only if). Would you prefer
"necessary and sufficient"?

How, for example, does the rate of tree spikings compare between mountain
bikers, and say "environmentalists"?

Mountain bikers just cut the tree down, to make their structures.
Google "colonade seattle".

I did. Interesting example; see:

http://www.seattle.gov/parks/propark...5openspace.htm

It's a 7.5 acre combined mountain biking and off-leash pet trail in downtown
Seattle built under an elevated section of the Interstate 5 freeway. See the
following newspaper article on it:

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/getawa...lonnade29.html

which reads in part:

- - - -

Mountain-bike club reclaims a wasteland
By GREG JOHNSTON
P-I REPORTER
Week by week for the past 18 months, a band of local mountain bikers
has turned a dark and scary concrete-covered urban dead zone -- where
perhaps the most popular activities were shooting drugs or chugging cheap
wine -- into a place where regular people actually might want to go...

- - - -

The project was approved by Seattle's Planning Commission, and its
implementation supervised by the Seattle Parks Department and the Washington
State Department of Transportation.

The site, rather than a forest of trees, was/is a forest of reinforced concrete
highway support pillars.

You missed the point. Trees were cut down to build it.

What point? Are you playing a semantics game?

You are aware, aren't you, that the trees in question under that freeway in the
middle of the city were removed at the direction of their owners?

Huh? How can you "own" a tree???

By your personal definitions, does anyone "own" anything?

Do I own the grass in my front yard? I have legal documents saying I own the
property. Do I own the property?

Am I committing a crime against "my" grass when I mow it?

Or, in your opinion, did the trees' owners not have the right to have them
removed? If so, on what do you base that?

By the way, the volunteers who removed those trees also planted new ones.

SNIP

Most of the trails around here aren't "built", in the sense of being planned and
then constructed.

So they are illegal.

Nope. Not around here.... Unless they're made in areas closed to the public.

Even in Yellowstone, the public will from time to time create a new trail
(through use) getting to and from some newly found attraction. And unless said
trail is through a closed area, the NPS looks on it as nothing unusual.

It's still illegal.

Only in the police state of your dreams (a phrase I'll get back to in a bit);
unless you can cite the laws that make it illegal.

In fact, if that new trail (the NPS like to call them paths) becomes popular
enough, the NPS will often "improve" it.

An example would be the paths tourists (the NPS likes to call them visitors)
made to reach Fantail Geyser when it began having major eruptions in 1986.

SNIP

Am I correct that you're aware of, for example, the use Yellowstone's bison make
of the road from Fountain Flats to Madison Junction, and consider that to be a
bad decision on their part, especially in the winter?

If they get hit by vehicles, or shot by the Forest Service, yes.

Is the percentage hit by vehicles statistically significant

That phrase makes no sense in this context. EVERY death is
significant.

Depends on the point of view.

Only one point of view is significant: the organism's.

Why only one?

Isn't YOUR death significant?

Not in terms of the survival of the species.

That's not what I asked.

Oh. I thought you asked, "Isn't YOUR death significant?"

But, if you insist that's not what you asked, what was it you actually asked?

SNIP

And by the way, wildlife management in Yellowstone is not under Forest Service
jurisdiction. I'm disappointed to learn you didn't know our national parks,
including Yellowstone (the world's first national park), are run by the National
Park Service, a part of the US Department of the Interior; see:

http://www.nps.gov/


The US Forest Service is an agency of the US Department of Agriculture, and
manages public lands in national forests and grasslands; see:

http://www.fs.fed.us/

I'm not there, so I don't know if they were killed on NP land or NF
land. I suspect the latter.

There is no National Forest land in Yellowstone Park;

Across the border there is.

As I said just below, I won't quibble over your error.

but that's a quibble. I
think I know to what you're referring: the killing of buffalo that leave the
park every spring. That's another (unfortunate) matter. One I'd love to discuss
at length in some other thread, group, or forum.

SNIP

Biologists are not known for honesty when it comes to discussing
humans! The topic of whether humans are an exotic species is
CONSPICUOUSLY ABSENT from their books and journals. My definition is a
proposal.

Okay, according to you, mountain bikers are immoral, my opinion is worthless,
and biologists are dishonest. The list just keeps on growing.

I suggest that you'll achieve more positive results with those reading your
stuff if you don't paint everyone who disagrees with you as dumb, immoral,
and/or dishonest.

You always focus on the superficial (appearances). What if I'm RIGHT?

That's why I made my suggestion. I was trying to be helpful. :-)

Your posts to this newsgroup (I'm reading rec.backcountry... and no, that's not
wreck.backcountry) are special interest propaganda pieces, not scholarly works.
As such, the reader's favorable opinion of the author is more important in terms
of achieving the desired results than being right. A favorable opinion is not
likely when the author's posts are filled with insults and pejoratives directed
at opponents, even when the opponents are engaging in the same.

As I said, you are incredibly superficial. You don't care about the
TRUTH of a statement, only what you think of the person saying it.
That's AMAZINGLY stupid.

And that's a pejorative; the very thing I was trying to caution you about.

And by the way, how is what I think of you (assuming I've thought anything much
at all about you) reflected in my half of this dialog?

And, in your article on "pure habitat" you imply that grizzly bears, when they
avoid contact with humans, are demonstrating a behavior pattern uniquely
reserved for humans.

Now you are LYING. I never said any such thing. It is really a waste
of time talking with a liar.

I didn't say you said that; I said you implied that.

No, I didn't.

I think the unbiased reader of this thread will conclude otherwise.

You may not have intended
to, but that's the way it's likely to come across to the reader. To quote you
(see http://home.pacbell.net/mjvande/india3):

"Outright destruction of habitat (for example, paving it or turning it into
farms, golf courses, housing developments, or parks) is not the only way that an
area can become untenable (useless) as habitat. Anything that makes it
unattractive or unavailable to a given species causes habitat loss. Have you
ever wondered why most animals run away when we come near? It certainly isn't
because they love having us around! Many animals simply will not tolerate the
presence of humans. The grizzly bear and mountain lion are just two examples.
The grizzly needs a huge territory, can smell and hear a human being from a
great distance, and will avoid going near a road."

Now, if you didn't intend this to imply that such avoidance was specially in
reaction to humans, why didn't that sentence read, "The grizzly needs a huge
territory, can smell and hear a human being from a great distance, and will
avoid going near a road, just as they usually avoid other species and even other
grizzlies when they smell or hear them."?

There is no "behavior pattern uniquely reserved for humans", real or
implied.

GOOD! Thanks for saying that. We agree that wildlife have no behavior patterns
uniquely reserved for humans. Interactions with humans don't require unique
actions.

And it's irrelevant.

Why? Please explain yourself. Has it occurred to you that what's irrelevant to
you may not be to others?

SNIP

But I do sense that there is hope for you. A crack has been opened in
your cocoon.

SNIP

Mike, this is dragging on and on and not getting anywhere; and I don't think it
ever will. As I see it, the basic problem is that you and I have different views
of man's place in nature. The way I see it, humans are just another species;
we're not somehow "unnatural"; and the more we learn to interact in a
non-threatening way with other species, the less harm we're likely to do each
other.

It's my impression that your view is reflected in the follow from your website:

"One might think that it would be best if humanity rejoined nature as quickly as
possible. With our present billions, that would devastate what little non-human
nature remains. Quite the contrary, we must separate humanity from what is left
of nature. We must quarantine this dangerous species from other life. We are now
starkly different from all other life - truly unique - and will remain so. The
human cultural genie cannot be stuffed back into nature's genetic bottle. Our
presence will forevermore be unnatural and have to be controlled. Haven eaten
the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge, we cannot return to the Garden of Eden
without careful supervision." Russell Merle Genet, The Chimpanzees Who Would Be
Ants, p. 175."

Since you included this on your website without critical comment, I must believe
you agree with it. We are (our presence is) unnatural; we must be quarantined,
we "have to be controlled" and we require carefully supervision. By what/whom?
The "police state" to which I earlier referred; right?

I find it unfortunate that you don't feel you can control yourself in your
interactions other species. And that must be what you feel; otherwise, you're
implying that you can, but others can't. Either way, a depressing world view.

But true.

Bob
--
I am working on creating wildlife habitat that is off-limits to
humans ("pure habitat"). Want to help? (I spent the previous 8
years fighting auto dependence and road construction.)

Please don't put a cell phone next to any part of your body that you are fond of!

http://home.pacbell.net/mjvande

On Jul 30, 9:22*pm, Mike Vandeman wrote:

Sure. A ring-neck snake decided to cross a fire road, and it was the
last thing it ever did. It got run over and killed by an
illegally-riding mountain biker.

Can you tell me where this happened?

Where is this fire road located? Thanks.

On Tue, 12 Aug 2008 10:06:32 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

On Jul 30, 9:22*pm, Mike Vandeman wrote:

Sure. A ring-neck snake decided to cross a fire road, and it was the
last thing it ever did. It got run over and killed by an
illegally-riding mountain biker.

Can you tell me where this happened?

Where is this fire road located? Thanks.

Claremont Canyon Regional Park, Berkeley, CA. The snake is in the
Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, U.C. Berkeley.
--
I am working on creating wildlife habitat that is off-limits to
humans ("pure habitat"). Want to help? (I spent the previous 8
years fighting auto dependence and road construction.)

Please don't put a cell phone next to any part of your body that you are fond of!

http://home.pacbell.net/mjvande