National Park Rangers — backed by signs and brochures in many languages — implore visitors to stay on the trail and not feed the animals.
As cute and happy as a cute small rodent, like a squirrel or a chipmunk, looks with a fresh human treat, it is bad for the animals and worse for visitors, rangers say.
If you leave the trail, especially paved ones such as those in Mount Rainier National Park in Washington, footsteps will trample the plants that bloom into the beautiful meadows of color. It seems simple to follow the rules, but scores of visitors don’t. That is why, the park service says, it posts signs and hands out printed rules to everyone who passes into many of our most spectacular public lands.
A park ranger said during a recent ranger-led talk, cute rodents are the most dangerous animals in the park, especially those that have been fed by humans. People who leave the trail to feed these fluffy varmints risk getting bitten, followed by a round of rabies shots. The animals get used to humans and come closer. The animals bite.
Life is also worse for bears who get used to people.
National Parks have changed their attitude about tourists feeding animals in the past half century. Until the 1960s,rangers did not discourage feeding bears, and one of the highlights of the parks was when Yogi and his like descended upon tourist cars for treats. In fact, in Lassen Volcanic National Park, the Sierra Nevada red fox has almost gone extinct from seeking hot dogs that people used to ply them with from their car windows. Cars are their top cause of death, brochures from the park say.
A hot-dog-seeking fox is a dead, red fox. Remember a fed bear is a dead bear. A trampled meadow is a dusty trail of despair.
Why are some trails in national parks paved, while in others, like in the tundra of Alaska’s Denali National Park, do rangers advise visitors to not follow well-trodden paths left by others?
It comes down to the number of visitors and the environment. Tree roots can be damaged by too many footsteps. Meadows can be damaged by wanderers.
“The wide, smooth asphalt protects the fragile flowering plants and allows better access for visitors in wheelchairs or with limited mobility,” BaldHiker website says.
So be sure to follow what seems like an unending number of signs proclaiming “No!” to keep the national parks safe for the next 100 years.
And if you see teenagers off the trail feeding wildlife, appeal to self-preservation. Rather than yelling “GET ON THE TRAIL,” repeat the story of all the people who get bitten not by bears but by chubby chipmunks and their rodent pals.
Share your New Mexico adventure channel, rigs and panorama photos with us atgo@abqjournal.com. It could appear in an edition of the Sunday Journal in the GO! New Mexico weekly outdoors section.
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