Volunteer groups can only do so much; we need our ranger army back in full force!
Well, that we can absolutely agree on! Thanks. And the same goes for you and everyone who volunteers to keep the trails clean and campers educated!
How were the statistics on manure tonnage, etc., arrived at? Did N.P. rangers actually do a scientific study, or are those stats approximations based on guess work? I cannot imagine any ranger willing to carry scales around the mountains to measure poop! Unless the measurements were made closer to the pack stations, where the animals are more likely to take a dump in an uphill section of a trail.
Grad students! Who else? A good statistician could derive the amount of manure per unit distance per animal from this series of studies:
https://science.nature.nps.gov/research/ac/search/iars/Iar?reportId=25190https://science.nature.nps.gov/research/ac/search/iars/Iar?reportId=25192https://science.nature.nps.gov/research/ac/search/iars/Iar?reportId=26817This was a multi year study looking at the potential of pathogens in horse manure in Tuolumne.
But I'm not up for figuring that out. For whatever it's worth, I used a simple calculation based on amount of hay an average horse ate per day (22 lbs). You guys are looping on an angels on-the-head-of-a-pin argument. To worry about this totally misses the point of that statistic (however derived and whatever result it gives). It's still a LOT of manure -- tons. But whatever the actual total, the critical problem is the runoff. Where do the pathogens, nitrates and nitrites go?
Also important is that horses and mules -- unlike people -- are not restricted where they poop. People are actually pretty good about taking a dump > 100 feet from water. There's exceptions, but not a lot. Not so with stock. Stock routinely urinate when stopping at a stream to drink. They graze in meadows all night which, by definition, are riparian habitat and close to running water; almost always less than 100 feet.
Are there any statistics on the environmental impact of two-legged traffic in the backcountry? Tonnage of trash, human waste, trampled meadows, trail erosion, domestic dog messes, etc.? How about a fair comparison?
As Ken says, the discussion started on the HSHA lawsuit over stock use. This is not a zero sum game. That is, because hikers without stock support have (X) environmental impact, does not justify visitors with stock doing (X + 1). The question remains how much impact by both is acceptable? What is the carrying capacity of a wilderness area for the cumulative impact of both? My concern, and that of HSHA and, now, several federal courts is that neither USFS nor NPS have properly taken into account the impacts of visitors using stock.
Again: Stock impact is not held to the same standard that is used to limit foot-only impact.
There's also a social phenomenon going on here. When emphasis on minimum impact started in the early 70s, hikers quickly went along with the program: taking out their trash; making camps farther from streams; smaller or no fires; no soap in streams & etc. I went from taking out about 20+ burlap bags of trash per summer in the 80s to no more than one or two nowadays. I have to say that during this same period, with few exceptions, stock users were resistant and outright hostile to any suggestion that they look for ways to reduce their impact. It was like pulling teeth to get the simplest reductions in impact: don't tie to a single tree for more than the time it takes to load or unload; tie on hardened ground; small fires etc.
With all due respect to the arguments several of you are making, none seem to admit to a significantly greater impact of stock or ways to reduce that impact. It would be great if, instead of living in some romantic 'horses built the west' cowboy novel, stock users would recognize the much greater impacts their animals have on fragile ecosystems. Then, when they travel, make the same concerted effort that hikers have done to reduce those impacts as much as possible.
g.
