| The Magazine of the CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES |
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Letters to the editor Dogs Can and Dogs Can’t The sidebar, “The Thorny Side of Restoration” (Winter 2003, California Wild) is disinformation. It quotes Rich Weideman and Jake Sigg, but mentions no opponent of the GGNRA’s closure of public land to the public. Indeed, the sidebar reads like a Weideman press release. The public has walked dogs off-leash legally at Fort Funston and Crissy Field since those properties were acquired by the GGNRA from the City of San Francisco. Off-leash recreation was not “an unofficial policy adopted by a citizens’ advisory council.” That is the current GGNRA disinformation campaign. In fact, the off-leash policy was prepared by the GGNRA, presented to the Citizens’ Advisory Committee for endorsement, adopted by the GGNRA, displayed in official NPS brochures and signs, and cited by GGNRA officials when U.S. congresspersons and senators inquired. Now the GGNRA wants to throw the public off this public land. Rather than “managing the GGNRA for most of the people most of the time” (is Colasurdo quoting Weideman, without attribution?), the GGNRA is banning 90 percent of the recreational users of Fort Funston to satisfy a small handful of zealous native plant advocates. Off-leash recreation occurs on only 0.5 percent of the 75,000 acres in the GGNRA. The justification presented by the GGNRA, Weidemann, Sigg, and now by Colasurdo, is totally bogus. Off-leash dogs have no impact on the bank swallows at Fort Funston. Bank swallows don’t use this territory except to fly over it. Signs posted on the planted areas at Fort Funston calling these native plant gardens “bank swallow habitat” are another fiction. (Thus say the professional ornithologists—and it’s the California Academy of Sciences, right?) The GGNRA knows that native plant gardening does not carry the political weight that “protecting the threatened bank swallow” does. Thus the cynical use of a cute poster-bird to justify an unjustifiable land-grab. Weideman and Sigg refer to “protect (ing)” and “preserving” “relatively intact ecosystems.” More fiction. Acres of iceplant are ripped out and replaced with totally new plants. The Fort Funston and Crissy Field projects are attempting, with mixed results, to create ecosystems that don’t exist in those locations. I have been an Academy supporter for years. It is thus doubly disturbing that 1) the Academy comes down on one side of a contentious political issue without talking to Academy members on the other side, and 2) the Academy chooses the side with no scientific foundation. I am accustomed to higher journalistic standards from the Academy, with closer attention to the science. Keith McAllister I was disappointed to find the Academy had fallen prey to the near-fanaticism of the native plant people. The article in the Winter 2003 issue, titled “Life After Iceplant” was in character for the Academy in the main body—a factual description of what is happening in the GGNRA. However, the insert was terribly biased. Birds, plants, cliffs, dogs, and people lived compatibly together for many years at both Ocean Beach and Fort Funston—even for several years after San Francisco yielded control of those areas (which had been part of the city park system) to the National Park Service. The agreement when this occurred stated very clearly that the use of these areas would not change. The policy of allowing dog walkers to have their dogs off leash was not just “an unofficial policy.” The “few” dog walkers referred to in the article were actually several hundred individuals who obtained an injunction against the Park Service for closing off parts of Fort Funston without required public input. Fort Funston is still a delightful place to walk—with or without a dog—but it is shocking to see how much of it is no longer accessible almost entirely because of the bogus claims of the bird and plant people. I have lived in San Francisco since 1955 and have been a member of the Academy for almost that long. My husband and I took our dogs to Fort Funston even before the Army turned it over to San Francisco. I think it is important to note that the name of GGNRA does not include the word “park” at all! It was set aside as an urban Recreation Area. Unlike Yosemite or Yellowstone, it was not set aside to protect a special natural formation. Betty Carman Author replies: The sidebar’s topic is not about whether dogs should run off leash at Fort Funston, it is about the difficulties of managing a large national park near an urban area. Reporting on the science and politics regarding off-leash dogs at Fort Funston and/or elsewhere in the GGNRA would require a feature article; clearly the sidebar is not that! With that in mind: 1) What Mr. McAllister calls “disinformation” is a factual account of the National Park Service’s actions: Dogs used to be allowed off leash in certain areas of the GGNRA, then the park service restricted some of those areas. 2) “Managing the GGNRA for most of the people most of the time” are not Weideman’s or anyone else’s words but mine. 3) Mr. McAllister confuses two very different quotes and misapplies them to iceplant removal at Fort Funston: Weideman refers to protecting habitat for endangered species throughout the park, while Sigg refers to “wild, undisturbed areas” as “living museums.” Neither quote is specifically about Fort Funston. The quotes are used to illustrate the fact that people’s perceptions of open space have evolved over the last two decades. 4) In response to Ms. Carman’s claim that the National Park Service does not have a mandate to protect the GGNRA in the same way as Yosemite or Yellowstone, I would refer her to the National Park Service Organic Act (http://www.nps.gov/legacy/mission.html), which outlines the park service’s mission for all land under its care. A Manzanita By Any Other Name What a wonderful issue (Spring 2003). Just a little something amiss on page 6, with Arctostaphylos hookeri ssp ravenii, the Presidio manzanita, confused with Clarkia franciscana. Werner Schumann |