Perils in the Parks

By Rex Burress

While “perils in the parks” may have previously been thought of as charging grizzly bears and belligerent moose in Yellowstone National Park, or falling from a cliff [artist Stephan Lyman in Yosemite 1996], or slipping into a boiling hot spring in Lassen, many of the present-day perils involve problematic people.

With the plight of jobless people thrust into an age of machines taking the place of people, a population increase, and inadequate training, the imbalance often equates into homeless people congesting in parks and public places. Perhaps the severe 2015 winter in the east has also sent wanderers wandering west. There's usually a reason for a “hobo.”

The overflow was especially apparent at the Feather River Nature Center area in the winter of 2015. A contingent of homeless gathered around the barbecue pit to build fires with wood they stripped from the adjoining nature park and roughed it along the river. It is said that those who prune their own trees know the true meaning of conservation, as more pride is shown in having a legitimate home and owning trees. Nurturing a nature center and refuge gives the docents a sense of “belonging,” too.

No camping is allowed in 'Bathhouse Park,' but enforcement has been difficult since sleeping “hides” become scattered in the thickets--actually all along the river in Oroville, and also in Bidwell Park in Chico. Jail space is limited, and displacement of trespassers merely means relocation. During the day, the tone was/is “It's a public park, isn't it?” You can't be discriminatory these days.

Renowned park director William Mott was featured in a book, “Prophet of the Parks,” in which he proclaimed that “parks are for people.” Mr. Bill Mott, 1909-1993, who became director of National Parks, hired me for the Oakland Park Nature Center when he was Supervisor there in 1961, and he was an inspiration. Yet, like John Muir who advocated that people “climb the mountains and get their good tidings,” Mott and Muir lived in a different age. I wonder what they would think about the visitor-overrun that has happened since the time they promoted parks. John was thought to be a “tramp.”

To me, it has always been, “parks are for people AND nature.” Mott created the position of “park naturalist” in order to inform people about nature, so even his philosophy is at a cross-roads, but I'm sure he could have made adjustments. Mott was “Mister Outdoors,” as well as Master Park Designer, and he contributed enormously to “America's greatest idea: National Parks,” as well as to parks, monuments, and wildlife refuges of all kinds, as did his first Oakland Naturalist Paul Covel.

The downside of the displaced illegally infiltrating a park is the uneasiness it gives to park visitors, nature hikers, and school groups to have controversial homeless parked in the park. A certain fire-drug-litter-and-vandalism peril is present, too.

One feels sorry for the unfortunate, and various establishments offer aid, including the Butte County North Valley Housing Trust that is providing low-cost homes. About 1600 homeless are in Butte County, a newspaper article states, and who knows how many are in the Bay Area metropolis?

Does providing free services encourage homeless settlement locally and weaken the effort of “getting a job?” It is stated that Kansas and Missouri have tightened up severely on the dependent's use of welfare money. No more tattoos and trifles. So the maintenance of parks are billions of dollars behind, and most park-use fees are to be raised this year...on tax-paying Americans.

But in spite of the deterioration of man-made structures, the essence of parks--animals, plants and minerals--are always there, maybe descendants of the previous, but there is a constant re-freshening continually filling any void. “Nature abhors a vacuum.” You can depend on protected wildlife being there, since nature is the original expression of a self-sustainable environment.

“Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul.” --John Muir