Stimulating exchange. It is apparent that we have a long way to go in order to bring our positions closer to a meaningful understanding. It is my hope to bring to you a different perspective. I do agree with your basic idea that horse versus human, one on one, the horse has a greater impact on the back country. This impact of one horse is estimated at four times that of one hiker. This statement is from "Wilderness Management" third edition by Hendee & Dawson. Recomended reading! To Sierra Nevada. My data on the number of visitors is from the Yosemite NP official site. The EPA is the sources for the 4LB of garbage per person/day. You say it is less! OK, lets be real here. I am going to stick to the data from Yosemite NP official site again. If it was your only 2 LB/visitor/day, the 4,047.088 Yosemite front country visitors would produce 4,047.88 tons of garbage/year. Also, again at the same your 2 LB of garbage per day the 1,416,758 hikers would produce 1,416.758 tons of garbage/year in the back country. This is simple math remedial with the hope you can grasp the scale of things. How ridiculous is to pick only on the horses! Now I don't know when you've been on the Whitney trail, or any other popular trail for that matter, but when you do, please pay attention as in some locations every movable rock/boulder has toilet paper or candy wrappers under it. It is apparent to me that not all the human garbage is taken out by hikers or packed out by horses. Now as to the human waste you are not implying that human daily waste is less in the back country?? It is still EPA/4LB/day. And using the beloved green solar potties does not make the waste evaporate. It decomposes just like horse waste only slower. To our ranger.
Not withstanding the jab about my pretty little head I respect our ranger's position even if it is wrong. Between the lines I see some awareness and guilt when acknowledging the work done by horses. It comes to mind that criticizing the horses is like biting the hand the feeds you. "There's about 7,000 use nights by stock (in 2008 in all of Sequoia Kings)". What is the source for this info?? For the sake of truth let's stay official on providing references. I believe it is grossly exaggerated. I got your number of 350,00LB/175tons of horse waste in SKNP. Compare the SKNP to the YNP data. For the sake of continuity I will stay with the official numbers from Yosemite NP. Here is more math. In Yosemite NP, 1,416,758 hikers @ 4LB of human waste/day/year would produce 5,667,032 LB of human waste/year in the back country. Per your reference horses produce 50LB of waste/day. Divide 5,667,032 LB by 50LB and get 113,340.64 horses. This means that you would need to have 113,340.64 horses in the back country to produce and equal the amount of human waste. It is funny and ridiculous but true. This never happened and will never happen. Are you getting the scale of things??? Here is a quote from our beloved Wilderness Act. "The following uses (nonconforming, but allowed uses) are expressly permitted in section 4(d): 6. Livestock grazing, were established prior to the act. & 8. Commercial enterprises necessary for activities that are appropriate in wilderness ( e.g. outfitting and guiding)". I know SKNP has a great and successful grazing management in place. I am all for smart management not the exclusion of horses. Please comment.
Sorry Harvey I had to change the wrong numbers. Lucky!
Last edited by lucky; 04/08/12 05:48 PM.
