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Brighty, donkeys and conservation in the Grand Canyon
Review
Endeavour
Vol.30 No.3
Brighty, donkeys and conservation in the Grand Canyon John Wills School of History, University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent, CT2 7NX, UK
The Grand Canyon is a vast place. It is almost incomprehensible in size. And yet it can also seem strangely crowded. Millions of tourists flock to the Grand Canyon in northern Arizona every year. In 1999, almost 5 million people visited, the highest figure in Canyon history. And each one of them expected to see a wild, free and untrammelled landscape. Despite the obvious natural resources, this expectation has proved anything but easy to satisfy. The US National Park Service (NPS), responsible for the management of most large North American parks (along with several historic sites and museums), has struggled to make or keep the canyon ‘grand’. Park rangers have grappled with a multitude of issues during the past century, including automobile congestion, drying of the Colorado River and uranium mining inside the park. Conservation has posed a unique set of challenges. On a fundamental level, ‘restoring’ the Grand Canyon to its ‘original’ wilderness setting has proved intensely problematic. In the field of wildlife management, restoring the Canyon to its pre-Columbian splendour has entailed some tough decisions – none more so than a 1976 plan to eliminate a sizeable population of feral burros (wild donkeys) roaming the preserve, animals classified as exotics by the NPS. Introducing donkeys Donkeys (burros) first entered the Grand Canyon as part of a late 19th century mining boom. Burros accompanied prospectors on their search for gold, copper, lead, and asbestos. Resilient, surefooted creatures, able to survive on scant forage and minimal quantities of water, burros appeared ideally suited to the Grand Canyon environment. Lone prospectors appreciated the animals’ companionship as well as their capacity to carry mining paraphernalia. Mining folklore insisted that a wandering burro could bring good luck by leading a prospector to gold (Figure 1). Burros aided in the exploration of the Canyon that Major John Wesley Powell had once famously proclaimed ‘the Great Unknown,’ making it familiar to a growing number of visitors in the late-nineteenth-century [1]. A tourist industry gradually emerged, with mules (larger and stronger than donkeys) carrying people down to the Canyon floor. The Canyon gained national monument status in 1908, by which time the era of lone miners had ended. Corresponding author: Wills, J. ([email protected]). Available online 14 August 2006. www.sciencedirect.com
Released burros nonetheless remained within park borders, thriving in the Arizona desert. One such creature was a tame burro nicknamed Brighty that hung out at the Bright Angel region of the Canyon in the 1910s. Brighty, an amiable animal with a penchant for pancakes, carried water from a local spring to Wylie Way Lodge during the summer months, providing an entertaining sideshow for tourists. Vacationers struggling to interpret or connect with the immense scale of the Canyon that naturalist John Muir called an ‘unearthly’ place appreciated the presence of a friendly creature of more manageable size [2]. By the time the reserve was upgraded to national park status in 1919, Brighty had become one of the Grand Canyon’s premier faunal attractions. He even met President Theodore Roosevelt and reputedly crossed the first suspension bridge linking the north and south ridges before anyone else. Tragically, two ravenous travellers trapped in a cabin during the winter of 1922 ate Brighty, mistaking him for an ‘ordinary’ donkey. Scientific classification and burro status Coincident with the demise of Brighty, from the 1920s on an alternative image emerged of the burro in the Grand Canyon. Recognizing their harmful effect on native vegetation, Park Service staff classified the burro as a pest. Beginning in 1924, rangers engaged in informal burro hunts designed to reduce, and eventually eliminate, the wandering herds in Bass Canyon and other hideouts. The presence of the heavy-hoofed burros contradicted the notion that a national park should be a pristine wilderness. The lack of specific wildlife management guidelines allowed field rangers the freedom to pursue their own killing regimes. ‘It was very simple, straightforward,’ park manager Jim Walters commented on attitudes of the time. ‘[T]hey knew the animal was exotic, so they went out and shot the things’ [3]. Russell K. Grater, a park naturalist from 1931 to 1934, recalled taking rifles out on patrols to ‘kill any wild burros we could find’ [4]. Tinkering with wildlife numbers proved customary across the US National Park system at that time. Park employees promoted favoured species (usually ungulates such as deer and horses) and cast predators such as the grey wolf and the coyote as vermin. Intervening in nature became part of the National Park Service ethos, and resource managers fine-tuned park landscapes according to prevailing scientific dictates. In this management climate, the plan to reduce burro numbers in the Grand Canyon invited little criticism. As the program gained ground in the 1920s, park officials found support for their
0160-9327/$ – see front matter ß 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.endeavour.2006.07.002
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Figure 1. Burro with two boxes, a canteen and other gear (approx. 1905–1920). Grand Canyon National Park Museum Collection 30655/01583.
activities in the developing science of ecology: the donkey hardly fitted notions of primitive wilderness landscapes or ecological balance. Between 1924 and 1931, wardens killed 1467 burros at the Grand Canyon; however, an estimated 50 to 75 burros survived in remote reaches of the national park. Because killings were often carried out in remote areas and during the tourist off-season, periodic burro hunts conducted by park rangers spurred little, if any, public interest. But all this changed in 1953 with the publication of a children’s novel, Brighty of the Grand Canyon (Figure 2). Author and horse enthusiast Marguerite Henry recounted Theodore Roosevelt’s encounter with the famous burro and imagined that Uncle Jim, a local hunter, administered a cold remedy to both the President and Brighty with equal effect. ‘Presidents and burros ain’t so different, after all,’ Jim concluded [5]. In Henry’s lively tale, the inaugural crossing of the Colorado River suspension bridge became a celebratory montage of man, beast, engineering prowess and the American flag, with Brighty leading the way. Brighty, the hero of the story, was capable of outsmarting most humans, including the treacherous villain of the book, Jake Irons. Although in no way a deliberate rebuttal of the wildlife policy of the Park Service, Brighty of the Grand Canyon contradicted official scientific takes on the place of the donkey in US National Parks. Henry described how Brighty, resting on a canyon overhang, ‘seemed part of the dust and the ageless limestone that rose in towering battlements behind him.’ An appended map displayed the Grand Canyon as ‘Brighty’s World’, a desert landscape marked by burro routes, water springs and sumptuous plateau meadows. Henry argued that Brighty could never be tamed – he was of the Canyon, native and where he rightfully belonged, ‘forever wild, forever free’ [6] (Figure 3). Henry’s book reinvented the donkey as native. It also promoted a mythic, historic and wild Grand Canyon of the 1950s and 1960s, at precisely the time when dam projects, traffic fumes and air pollution threatened to tarnish its character. As ex-forest-fire fighter Stephen Pyne noted, ‘Brighty did for the Grand Canyon what Smokey Bear did for the forest fire. The baby boomers that grew up with www.sciencedirect.com
Figure 2. Cover from 1st edition of Brighty of the Grand Canyon.
it learned that, like the burro Brighty, the Grand Canyon should remain ‘‘wild and free’’’ [7]. In 1967, staff at the Grand Canyon Museum received a near-life size sculpture of Brighty by Peter Jepson. Photo shoots captured Park Superintendent Howard B. Stricklin fondling the metal ear of the Brighty sculpture (Figure 4). At the same time, rangers were gunning down feral burros within the park; periodic hunts in the 1940s and 1950s had resulted in a
Figure 3. Marguerite Henry with her ‘Brighty’ burro. Grand Canyon National Park Museum Collection, 5275.
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Figure 4. Superintendent Howie Stricklin with Brighty. Grand Canyon National Park Museum Collection, 5137.
mere 370 kills, whereas between 1956 and 1968, the total reached 771. Staff did their utmost to thin herd numbers, but the equines resisted elimination. The collision of the popular and the scientific By the late 1960s, two contrasting images of the burro in the Grand Canyon had taken root: one in popular culture, with Brighty and his fellow donkeys as adorable, historic envoys of wilderness, and the other in the scientific community, of an exotic and dangerous species. Significantly, the roseate image of Brighty consumed the public mindset, whereas park officials (and conventional wildlife biology) classified the burro as an unwelcome pest. The two images, which for several decades had existed apart from one another, finally collided in the 1970s. Ecological surveys of the Grand Canyon led by Steve Carothers of the Museum of Northern Arizona, working for the Colorado River Research Project, gave fresh impetus to burro control. Studies published in the 1970s highlighted the impact of burros on native vegetation, smaller mammals and archaeological ruins within the canyon [8]: greater ecological diversity existed in areas untouched by burro herds, whereas weeds infiltrated overgrazed hangouts. Grand Canyon officials called for a decisive resolution of the burro problem. The National Park Service responded in May 1976 with a comprehensive burro management plan advocating total elimination. Animal rights groups and equine associations vehemently disagreed with the management plan. The American Horse Protection Association filed suit, arguing that a full environmental impact statement was required before the park service proceeded with plans to eliminate an entire species from the Grand Canyon. And the American Humane Association, together with the newly founded Committee to Save the Grand Canyon Burros, alerted the public to the plight of the wild donkey. Thousands of protest letters followed, and public forums were held for input into policy-making. Between 1976 and 1980 (the time www.sciencedirect.com
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it took the National Park Service to prepare a revised report), a battle raged regarding the rightful place of the burro in the Grand Canyon. Many of those who protested the 1976 management plan belonged to either humane (including animal rights) associations or equine clubs. A significant proportion of letter writers and forum speakers resided in Arizona, whereas others had read about the burro cull in national newspapers such as The New York Times. Having studied Marguerite Henry’s novel at school or seen the 1967 Disney movie based on the same title, a large number of children wrote letters to the NPS during the 1970s (and even after the issue was resolved), pleading for officials not to gun down ‘Brighty’. The ‘save Brighty’ contingent proved most offended by the policy forwarded to shoot all burros within the park. Many of those who wrote to the NPS accepted (some grudgingly) that the burro lacked the necessary credentials to stay in the Grand Canyon but insisted that live removal was the only sensible option. Arguments rested on the humane treatment of animals and that the National Park Service, as guardian of the national wildlife, could hardly be seen gunning down animals. The genetic as well as cosmetic ties with horses led to several equine enthusiasts launching into emotional and sentimental pleas on behalf of the burros. Others pursued more sophisticated analogies, including one comparison between the poor treatment of Native Americans in the region by the federal government and similar plans to persecute burros [9]. Richard Negus, an outspoken burro defender, even predicted that the Park Service was preparing to transform the Grand Canyon State into the ‘bloody canyon state.’ Betraying an anti-federal individualism, in keeping with the Sagebrush Rebellion, Negus exclaimed ‘If we Arizonans were unable to save our asses from the federal government, it would be to our eternal shame.’ Negus even raised the spectre of ‘burrocide’ in the Grand Canyon [10]. The ‘save the burro’ camp promoted an image of the wild donkey that emphasized historic relationships between humans and animals. Donkey advocates spoke at public forums of a resilient, adaptable, innocent and deserving creature. A loyal companion of humankind and valuable working animal, the burro needed a favour in return for all its hardships. Social ecologist Stephen Kellert identified similar responses to the horse in his 1980 study for the US Fish and Wildlife Service on public attitudes towards animals; the horse emerged as the second most liked creature after the dog [11]. In terms of the Grand Canyon, the burro was uniquely tied to local history and identity. The shadow of Brighty lingered in many protesters’ minds. Although most opponents to the management plan focused on animal welfare arguments, a few professionals forged scientific narratives designed to counter evidence provided by the NPS. University of Arizona professors Paul Martin and Kenneth Cole suggested ties between the burro and a small horse-like ass, native to the southwest in the Pleistocene era. Horse fossils dating back 12 000 years had been discovered at Rampart Cave inside the Grand Canyon. Martin and Cole speculated that, ‘theoretically, their return in the form of feral burros is a step in reconstituting
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Figure 5. Trial capture of burro in Grand Canyon, 1970s. The NPS deemed live removal uneconomic. Grand Canyon National Park Museum Collection, 6630.
the lost ecosystem of the ice ages [12].’ Richard Reisman, a member of the American Horse Protection Association, put it more bluntly, suggesting that burros in the Grand Canyon amounted to ‘truly a case of the return of the native [13].’ Mainstream scientific opinion suggested otherwise. Park officials, wildlife biologists and several conservation and wilderness groups (including the Sierra Club) backed the agenda set out in the 1976 management plan. Although burro advocates, in the main, offered personal, emotional, humane and regionalist arguments, those supporting culling focused on the de-personalized, the economic, the rational and the scientific instead. Park officials elaborated on the prohibitively high costs and landscape challenges attached to live removal, thus making killing seem both economic and efficient (Figure 5). They also highlighted ecological data with regard to the impact of the burro on canyon forage. The management plan was situated within a broader NPS policy framework. To attack the plan seemed equivalent to shooting down both the ethos and competence of the premier wilderness guardians of the nation. A degree of elitism could also be detected. Many felt that only wildlife biologists and wilderness veterans could comprehend the burro issue, and that those members of the public who opposed killing knew little about ecology, parks or science. National Parks and Conservation Magazine applauded the National Park Service for displaying scientific acumen, in contrast to the public who ‘demonstrated a lack of knowledge of the burro, the problem, and the options available’ [14]. The magazine doubted whether people unfamiliar with wildlife ecology could be trusted to make the right decision. Park officials, meanwhile, questioned whether emotional attachment to equines had clouded some people’s judgment. At a 1977 burro workshop, Richard W. Behan, of the School of Forestry at Northern Arizona University, warned of the threat to ‘professional, ecological expertise’ posed by ‘the interference of emotional laymen’ [15]. www.sciencedirect.com
Backers of the management plan proved keen to point out that real burros in the Canyon were not Disney-like animals and, most of all, were not Brighty. Jim Walters bemoaned the fact that ‘to many kids, it was Brighty who was going before the guns.’ Park officials countered the groundswell of public sympathy for Brighty by questioning the authenticity of Henry’s book. According to Walters, the novel – with ‘very, very little historical base’ and ‘no practical biological basis’ – had scant application to wildlife policy [16]. Supporters of Park Service policy hinted at the dangers of trying to understand the natural world through juvenile fiction, cartoons and film. Gerald Duncan of the US Fish and Wildlife Service worried that ‘a ‘‘Bambi’’ image was given the burro by the public’ [17]. In an effort to distance the Brighty fable from park policy, staff replaced the famous sculpture of the beloved equine with a science display charting the burro problem. However, behind the scientific rationalism lurked an emotional response to the unfolding burro crisis. Scientists felt angry that their opinions went challenged in public forums. Although donkey sympathisers freely admitted an emotional attachment to the burro, those who supported killing hid their personal views behind raw data but still used loaded language to argue their case. The burro was presented as a ‘pest’ and a ‘curse’, and went accused of land ‘trampling’ and land ‘rape’. Some supporters of NPS policy seemed all too eager to start the culling process and volunteered to go out and hunt down the donkeys at no expense. A compromise measure In 1980, after four years of preparation, the National Park Service released its final environmental impact statement on burro removal and a revised version of the Grand Canyon Feral Burro Management and Ecosystem Restoration Plan. By citing the burro as an exotic species, detrimental to park flora and fauna, the new plan allowed private organizations and individuals to remove burros from the park before the final cull. The NPS had made a valuable compromise. Between July 1980 and September 1981, the Fund for Animals herded and airlifted to safety 577 animals. Park superintendent Richard Marks congratulated the organization on ‘successfully accomplishing the impossible’ [18]. During the winter of 1981–82, park rangers killed the few remaining burros and erected a 2.5-mile fence along the western boundary of the park to prevent wandering burros from entering the Canyon. Ultimately, ecological science had ruled that wild donkeys did not belong in the park, and nobody had successfully countered such a claim. The chief grievance of how to remove the animals had been resolved. The two disparate images of the wild donkey no longer seemed at loggerheads. The tension between public and scientists dissipated. As the real burros disappeared, Brighty was welcomed back to the park. The Grand Canyon Guide featured photographs of early explorers with their loyal equine companions, including Jack Fuss and his amiable burro ‘Jocko’ in 1918. Returned to public view, the Brighty statue greeted visitors to the Grand Canyon Association Bookstore by the late 1990s; a basket at Brighty’s feet contained copies of Marguerite Henry’s novel, along with toy burros, for purchase.
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Acknowledgements I thank Bruce Dinges and The Journal of Arizona History for kind permission to draw on material first presented in the article ‘On Burro’d Time’: Feral Burros, the Brighty Legend, and the Pursuit of Wilderness in the Grand Canyon’ (Spring 2003). I also thank the US National Park Service at the Grand Canyon for its valuable assistance.
9
10 11
References 1 Powell, J.W. (1961) The Exploration of the Colorado River and its Canyons (reprint of Canyon of the Colorado), Dover, p. 247 2 Muir, J. (1898) Wild parks and forest reservations of the west. Atl. Mon. (January): p. 28 3 James E. Walters interview by Julie A. Russell (1981) Grand Canyon National Park oral history project (GCOHP), Grand Canyon National Park Archives (GRCA) 35713, p. 2 4 Mr and Mrs Russell K. Grater interview by Mike Quinn (1995) GCOHP, GRCA 65556, p. 28 and p. 42 5 Henry, M. (1991 [1953]) Brighty of the Grand Canyon, p. 108, Alladin 6 Ibid., p.11, p.13, p.222 7 Pyne, S.J. (1998) How the Canyon Became Grand: A Short History. Penguin, p. 140 8 See Carothers, S. W. (1976) Analysis of age structure and diets in burros in Grand Canyon National Park: final research report and Carothers, S.W. (1977) Biology and ecology of feral burros
12
13 14 15 16 17 18
(Equus asinus) at Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona: final research report. GRCA 68593 and 68649, respectively Heather Bunton remarks, Grand Canyon National Park Burro Management and ecosystem restoration plan (GCMERP) public meeting, Tucson, Arizona, 1 March 1979, GRCA 52804, p. 54 Richard Negus remarks, GCMERP public meeting, Phoenix, Arizona, 28 February 1979, GRCA 52803, p. 24 Kellert, S.S.R. (1989) Perceptions of animals in America. In Perceptions of Animals in American Culture (Hoage, R.J., ed.), pp. 5–24, Smithsonian Institution Martin, P.S. and Cole, K. (1977) The feral burro as a reintroduced natural component in North American ecosystems. Grand Canyon National Park Burro Workshop, 14 October 1977, GRCA 63134 Richard Reisman remarks, GCMERP public meeting, Los Angeles, 8 March 1979, GRCA 52807, p. 18 Blair, G. (1978) The Burro Problem at Grand Canyon. National Parks & Conservation Magazine (March), p. 12 Behan, R.W. (1977) Political dynamics of wildlife management: the Grand Canyon burros. Burro workshop, 14 October 1977 James E. Walters interview by Julie A. Russell (1981) Grand Canyon National Park oral history project (GCOHP), GRCA 35713, p. 19 Duncan, G. (1977) The burro and national wildlife refuges. Burro Workshop, October 14, 1977 Richard Marks to Cleveland Amory, 17 September 1981. Correspondence on burros 1981–1986. GRCA 56983
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Endeavour
Vol.30 No.3
Brighty, donkeys and conservation in the Grand Canyon John Wills School of History, University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent, CT2 7NX, UK
The Grand Canyon is a vast place. It is almost incomprehensible in size. And yet it can also seem strangely crowded. Millions of tourists flock to the Grand Canyon in northern Arizona every year. In 1999, almost 5 million people visited, the highest figure in Canyon history. And each one of them expected to see a wild, free and untrammelled landscape. Despite the obvious natural resources, this expectation has proved anything but easy to satisfy. The US National Park Service (NPS), responsible for the management of most large North American parks (along with several historic sites and museums), has struggled to make or keep the canyon ‘grand’. Park rangers have grappled with a multitude of issues during the past century, including automobile congestion, drying of the Colorado River and uranium mining inside the park. Conservation has posed a unique set of challenges. On a fundamental level, ‘restoring’ the Grand Canyon to its ‘original’ wilderness setting has proved intensely problematic. In the field of wildlife management, restoring the Canyon to its pre-Columbian splendour has entailed some tough decisions – none more so than a 1976 plan to eliminate a sizeable population of feral burros (wild donkeys) roaming the preserve, animals classified as exotics by the NPS. Introducing donkeys Donkeys (burros) first entered the Grand Canyon as part of a late 19th century mining boom. Burros accompanied prospectors on their search for gold, copper, lead, and asbestos. Resilient, surefooted creatures, able to survive on scant forage and minimal quantities of water, burros appeared ideally suited to the Grand Canyon environment. Lone prospectors appreciated the animals’ companionship as well as their capacity to carry mining paraphernalia. Mining folklore insisted that a wandering burro could bring good luck by leading a prospector to gold (Figure 1). Burros aided in the exploration of the Canyon that Major John Wesley Powell had once famously proclaimed ‘the Great Unknown,’ making it familiar to a growing number of visitors in the late-nineteenth-century [1]. A tourist industry gradually emerged, with mules (larger and stronger than donkeys) carrying people down to the Canyon floor. The Canyon gained national monument status in 1908, by which time the era of lone miners had ended. Corresponding author: Wills, J. ([email protected]). Available online 14 August 2006. www.sciencedirect.com
Released burros nonetheless remained within park borders, thriving in the Arizona desert. One such creature was a tame burro nicknamed Brighty that hung out at the Bright Angel region of the Canyon in the 1910s. Brighty, an amiable animal with a penchant for pancakes, carried water from a local spring to Wylie Way Lodge during the summer months, providing an entertaining sideshow for tourists. Vacationers struggling to interpret or connect with the immense scale of the Canyon that naturalist John Muir called an ‘unearthly’ place appreciated the presence of a friendly creature of more manageable size [2]. By the time the reserve was upgraded to national park status in 1919, Brighty had become one of the Grand Canyon’s premier faunal attractions. He even met President Theodore Roosevelt and reputedly crossed the first suspension bridge linking the north and south ridges before anyone else. Tragically, two ravenous travellers trapped in a cabin during the winter of 1922 ate Brighty, mistaking him for an ‘ordinary’ donkey. Scientific classification and burro status Coincident with the demise of Brighty, from the 1920s on an alternative image emerged of the burro in the Grand Canyon. Recognizing their harmful effect on native vegetation, Park Service staff classified the burro as a pest. Beginning in 1924, rangers engaged in informal burro hunts designed to reduce, and eventually eliminate, the wandering herds in Bass Canyon and other hideouts. The presence of the heavy-hoofed burros contradicted the notion that a national park should be a pristine wilderness. The lack of specific wildlife management guidelines allowed field rangers the freedom to pursue their own killing regimes. ‘It was very simple, straightforward,’ park manager Jim Walters commented on attitudes of the time. ‘[T]hey knew the animal was exotic, so they went out and shot the things’ [3]. Russell K. Grater, a park naturalist from 1931 to 1934, recalled taking rifles out on patrols to ‘kill any wild burros we could find’ [4]. Tinkering with wildlife numbers proved customary across the US National Park system at that time. Park employees promoted favoured species (usually ungulates such as deer and horses) and cast predators such as the grey wolf and the coyote as vermin. Intervening in nature became part of the National Park Service ethos, and resource managers fine-tuned park landscapes according to prevailing scientific dictates. In this management climate, the plan to reduce burro numbers in the Grand Canyon invited little criticism. As the program gained ground in the 1920s, park officials found support for their
0160-9327/$ – see front matter ß 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.endeavour.2006.07.002
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Figure 1. Burro with two boxes, a canteen and other gear (approx. 1905–1920). Grand Canyon National Park Museum Collection 30655/01583.
activities in the developing science of ecology: the donkey hardly fitted notions of primitive wilderness landscapes or ecological balance. Between 1924 and 1931, wardens killed 1467 burros at the Grand Canyon; however, an estimated 50 to 75 burros survived in remote reaches of the national park. Because killings were often carried out in remote areas and during the tourist off-season, periodic burro hunts conducted by park rangers spurred little, if any, public interest. But all this changed in 1953 with the publication of a children’s novel, Brighty of the Grand Canyon (Figure 2). Author and horse enthusiast Marguerite Henry recounted Theodore Roosevelt’s encounter with the famous burro and imagined that Uncle Jim, a local hunter, administered a cold remedy to both the President and Brighty with equal effect. ‘Presidents and burros ain’t so different, after all,’ Jim concluded [5]. In Henry’s lively tale, the inaugural crossing of the Colorado River suspension bridge became a celebratory montage of man, beast, engineering prowess and the American flag, with Brighty leading the way. Brighty, the hero of the story, was capable of outsmarting most humans, including the treacherous villain of the book, Jake Irons. Although in no way a deliberate rebuttal of the wildlife policy of the Park Service, Brighty of the Grand Canyon contradicted official scientific takes on the place of the donkey in US National Parks. Henry described how Brighty, resting on a canyon overhang, ‘seemed part of the dust and the ageless limestone that rose in towering battlements behind him.’ An appended map displayed the Grand Canyon as ‘Brighty’s World’, a desert landscape marked by burro routes, water springs and sumptuous plateau meadows. Henry argued that Brighty could never be tamed – he was of the Canyon, native and where he rightfully belonged, ‘forever wild, forever free’ [6] (Figure 3). Henry’s book reinvented the donkey as native. It also promoted a mythic, historic and wild Grand Canyon of the 1950s and 1960s, at precisely the time when dam projects, traffic fumes and air pollution threatened to tarnish its character. As ex-forest-fire fighter Stephen Pyne noted, ‘Brighty did for the Grand Canyon what Smokey Bear did for the forest fire. The baby boomers that grew up with www.sciencedirect.com
Figure 2. Cover from 1st edition of Brighty of the Grand Canyon.
it learned that, like the burro Brighty, the Grand Canyon should remain ‘‘wild and free’’’ [7]. In 1967, staff at the Grand Canyon Museum received a near-life size sculpture of Brighty by Peter Jepson. Photo shoots captured Park Superintendent Howard B. Stricklin fondling the metal ear of the Brighty sculpture (Figure 4). At the same time, rangers were gunning down feral burros within the park; periodic hunts in the 1940s and 1950s had resulted in a
Figure 3. Marguerite Henry with her ‘Brighty’ burro. Grand Canyon National Park Museum Collection, 5275.
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Figure 4. Superintendent Howie Stricklin with Brighty. Grand Canyon National Park Museum Collection, 5137.
mere 370 kills, whereas between 1956 and 1968, the total reached 771. Staff did their utmost to thin herd numbers, but the equines resisted elimination. The collision of the popular and the scientific By the late 1960s, two contrasting images of the burro in the Grand Canyon had taken root: one in popular culture, with Brighty and his fellow donkeys as adorable, historic envoys of wilderness, and the other in the scientific community, of an exotic and dangerous species. Significantly, the roseate image of Brighty consumed the public mindset, whereas park officials (and conventional wildlife biology) classified the burro as an unwelcome pest. The two images, which for several decades had existed apart from one another, finally collided in the 1970s. Ecological surveys of the Grand Canyon led by Steve Carothers of the Museum of Northern Arizona, working for the Colorado River Research Project, gave fresh impetus to burro control. Studies published in the 1970s highlighted the impact of burros on native vegetation, smaller mammals and archaeological ruins within the canyon [8]: greater ecological diversity existed in areas untouched by burro herds, whereas weeds infiltrated overgrazed hangouts. Grand Canyon officials called for a decisive resolution of the burro problem. The National Park Service responded in May 1976 with a comprehensive burro management plan advocating total elimination. Animal rights groups and equine associations vehemently disagreed with the management plan. The American Horse Protection Association filed suit, arguing that a full environmental impact statement was required before the park service proceeded with plans to eliminate an entire species from the Grand Canyon. And the American Humane Association, together with the newly founded Committee to Save the Grand Canyon Burros, alerted the public to the plight of the wild donkey. Thousands of protest letters followed, and public forums were held for input into policy-making. Between 1976 and 1980 (the time www.sciencedirect.com
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it took the National Park Service to prepare a revised report), a battle raged regarding the rightful place of the burro in the Grand Canyon. Many of those who protested the 1976 management plan belonged to either humane (including animal rights) associations or equine clubs. A significant proportion of letter writers and forum speakers resided in Arizona, whereas others had read about the burro cull in national newspapers such as The New York Times. Having studied Marguerite Henry’s novel at school or seen the 1967 Disney movie based on the same title, a large number of children wrote letters to the NPS during the 1970s (and even after the issue was resolved), pleading for officials not to gun down ‘Brighty’. The ‘save Brighty’ contingent proved most offended by the policy forwarded to shoot all burros within the park. Many of those who wrote to the NPS accepted (some grudgingly) that the burro lacked the necessary credentials to stay in the Grand Canyon but insisted that live removal was the only sensible option. Arguments rested on the humane treatment of animals and that the National Park Service, as guardian of the national wildlife, could hardly be seen gunning down animals. The genetic as well as cosmetic ties with horses led to several equine enthusiasts launching into emotional and sentimental pleas on behalf of the burros. Others pursued more sophisticated analogies, including one comparison between the poor treatment of Native Americans in the region by the federal government and similar plans to persecute burros [9]. Richard Negus, an outspoken burro defender, even predicted that the Park Service was preparing to transform the Grand Canyon State into the ‘bloody canyon state.’ Betraying an anti-federal individualism, in keeping with the Sagebrush Rebellion, Negus exclaimed ‘If we Arizonans were unable to save our asses from the federal government, it would be to our eternal shame.’ Negus even raised the spectre of ‘burrocide’ in the Grand Canyon [10]. The ‘save the burro’ camp promoted an image of the wild donkey that emphasized historic relationships between humans and animals. Donkey advocates spoke at public forums of a resilient, adaptable, innocent and deserving creature. A loyal companion of humankind and valuable working animal, the burro needed a favour in return for all its hardships. Social ecologist Stephen Kellert identified similar responses to the horse in his 1980 study for the US Fish and Wildlife Service on public attitudes towards animals; the horse emerged as the second most liked creature after the dog [11]. In terms of the Grand Canyon, the burro was uniquely tied to local history and identity. The shadow of Brighty lingered in many protesters’ minds. Although most opponents to the management plan focused on animal welfare arguments, a few professionals forged scientific narratives designed to counter evidence provided by the NPS. University of Arizona professors Paul Martin and Kenneth Cole suggested ties between the burro and a small horse-like ass, native to the southwest in the Pleistocene era. Horse fossils dating back 12 000 years had been discovered at Rampart Cave inside the Grand Canyon. Martin and Cole speculated that, ‘theoretically, their return in the form of feral burros is a step in reconstituting
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Figure 5. Trial capture of burro in Grand Canyon, 1970s. The NPS deemed live removal uneconomic. Grand Canyon National Park Museum Collection, 6630.
the lost ecosystem of the ice ages [12].’ Richard Reisman, a member of the American Horse Protection Association, put it more bluntly, suggesting that burros in the Grand Canyon amounted to ‘truly a case of the return of the native [13].’ Mainstream scientific opinion suggested otherwise. Park officials, wildlife biologists and several conservation and wilderness groups (including the Sierra Club) backed the agenda set out in the 1976 management plan. Although burro advocates, in the main, offered personal, emotional, humane and regionalist arguments, those supporting culling focused on the de-personalized, the economic, the rational and the scientific instead. Park officials elaborated on the prohibitively high costs and landscape challenges attached to live removal, thus making killing seem both economic and efficient (Figure 5). They also highlighted ecological data with regard to the impact of the burro on canyon forage. The management plan was situated within a broader NPS policy framework. To attack the plan seemed equivalent to shooting down both the ethos and competence of the premier wilderness guardians of the nation. A degree of elitism could also be detected. Many felt that only wildlife biologists and wilderness veterans could comprehend the burro issue, and that those members of the public who opposed killing knew little about ecology, parks or science. National Parks and Conservation Magazine applauded the National Park Service for displaying scientific acumen, in contrast to the public who ‘demonstrated a lack of knowledge of the burro, the problem, and the options available’ [14]. The magazine doubted whether people unfamiliar with wildlife ecology could be trusted to make the right decision. Park officials, meanwhile, questioned whether emotional attachment to equines had clouded some people’s judgment. At a 1977 burro workshop, Richard W. Behan, of the School of Forestry at Northern Arizona University, warned of the threat to ‘professional, ecological expertise’ posed by ‘the interference of emotional laymen’ [15]. www.sciencedirect.com
Backers of the management plan proved keen to point out that real burros in the Canyon were not Disney-like animals and, most of all, were not Brighty. Jim Walters bemoaned the fact that ‘to many kids, it was Brighty who was going before the guns.’ Park officials countered the groundswell of public sympathy for Brighty by questioning the authenticity of Henry’s book. According to Walters, the novel – with ‘very, very little historical base’ and ‘no practical biological basis’ – had scant application to wildlife policy [16]. Supporters of Park Service policy hinted at the dangers of trying to understand the natural world through juvenile fiction, cartoons and film. Gerald Duncan of the US Fish and Wildlife Service worried that ‘a ‘‘Bambi’’ image was given the burro by the public’ [17]. In an effort to distance the Brighty fable from park policy, staff replaced the famous sculpture of the beloved equine with a science display charting the burro problem. However, behind the scientific rationalism lurked an emotional response to the unfolding burro crisis. Scientists felt angry that their opinions went challenged in public forums. Although donkey sympathisers freely admitted an emotional attachment to the burro, those who supported killing hid their personal views behind raw data but still used loaded language to argue their case. The burro was presented as a ‘pest’ and a ‘curse’, and went accused of land ‘trampling’ and land ‘rape’. Some supporters of NPS policy seemed all too eager to start the culling process and volunteered to go out and hunt down the donkeys at no expense. A compromise measure In 1980, after four years of preparation, the National Park Service released its final environmental impact statement on burro removal and a revised version of the Grand Canyon Feral Burro Management and Ecosystem Restoration Plan. By citing the burro as an exotic species, detrimental to park flora and fauna, the new plan allowed private organizations and individuals to remove burros from the park before the final cull. The NPS had made a valuable compromise. Between July 1980 and September 1981, the Fund for Animals herded and airlifted to safety 577 animals. Park superintendent Richard Marks congratulated the organization on ‘successfully accomplishing the impossible’ [18]. During the winter of 1981–82, park rangers killed the few remaining burros and erected a 2.5-mile fence along the western boundary of the park to prevent wandering burros from entering the Canyon. Ultimately, ecological science had ruled that wild donkeys did not belong in the park, and nobody had successfully countered such a claim. The chief grievance of how to remove the animals had been resolved. The two disparate images of the wild donkey no longer seemed at loggerheads. The tension between public and scientists dissipated. As the real burros disappeared, Brighty was welcomed back to the park. The Grand Canyon Guide featured photographs of early explorers with their loyal equine companions, including Jack Fuss and his amiable burro ‘Jocko’ in 1918. Returned to public view, the Brighty statue greeted visitors to the Grand Canyon Association Bookstore by the late 1990s; a basket at Brighty’s feet contained copies of Marguerite Henry’s novel, along with toy burros, for purchase.
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Acknowledgements I thank Bruce Dinges and The Journal of Arizona History for kind permission to draw on material first presented in the article ‘On Burro’d Time’: Feral Burros, the Brighty Legend, and the Pursuit of Wilderness in the Grand Canyon’ (Spring 2003). I also thank the US National Park Service at the Grand Canyon for its valuable assistance.
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References 1 Powell, J.W. (1961) The Exploration of the Colorado River and its Canyons (reprint of Canyon of the Colorado), Dover, p. 247 2 Muir, J. (1898) Wild parks and forest reservations of the west. Atl. Mon. (January): p. 28 3 James E. Walters interview by Julie A. Russell (1981) Grand Canyon National Park oral history project (GCOHP), Grand Canyon National Park Archives (GRCA) 35713, p. 2 4 Mr and Mrs Russell K. Grater interview by Mike Quinn (1995) GCOHP, GRCA 65556, p. 28 and p. 42 5 Henry, M. (1991 [1953]) Brighty of the Grand Canyon, p. 108, Alladin 6 Ibid., p.11, p.13, p.222 7 Pyne, S.J. (1998) How the Canyon Became Grand: A Short History. Penguin, p. 140 8 See Carothers, S. W. (1976) Analysis of age structure and diets in burros in Grand Canyon National Park: final research report and Carothers, S.W. (1977) Biology and ecology of feral burros
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(Equus asinus) at Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona: final research report. GRCA 68593 and 68649, respectively Heather Bunton remarks, Grand Canyon National Park Burro Management and ecosystem restoration plan (GCMERP) public meeting, Tucson, Arizona, 1 March 1979, GRCA 52804, p. 54 Richard Negus remarks, GCMERP public meeting, Phoenix, Arizona, 28 February 1979, GRCA 52803, p. 24 Kellert, S.S.R. (1989) Perceptions of animals in America. In Perceptions of Animals in American Culture (Hoage, R.J., ed.), pp. 5–24, Smithsonian Institution Martin, P.S. and Cole, K. (1977) The feral burro as a reintroduced natural component in North American ecosystems. Grand Canyon National Park Burro Workshop, 14 October 1977, GRCA 63134 Richard Reisman remarks, GCMERP public meeting, Los Angeles, 8 March 1979, GRCA 52807, p. 18 Blair, G. (1978) The Burro Problem at Grand Canyon. National Parks & Conservation Magazine (March), p. 12 Behan, R.W. (1977) Political dynamics of wildlife management: the Grand Canyon burros. Burro workshop, 14 October 1977 James E. Walters interview by Julie A. Russell (1981) Grand Canyon National Park oral history project (GCOHP), GRCA 35713, p. 19 Duncan, G. (1977) The burro and national wildlife refuges. Burro Workshop, October 14, 1977 Richard Marks to Cleveland Amory, 17 September 1981. Correspondence on burros 1981–1986. GRCA 56983
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