Author : John T Jones, Ph.D.
My local rag printed an article by Louis Sahagan of the Los Angeles Times. It seems that the Devil's Hole pupfish have been brought to the point of extinction by the site management of the National Park Service at Death Valley National Monument.The insignificant little pupfish survived since the last ice age by people leaving them alone. Then the environmentalist went crazy in their try to save them. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of pupfish in 1976.You can read the history of Death Valley at http://www.death-valley.us/history.html.Devil's Hole is a 70 x 10 feet pool that is very deep. Divers have dived to 468 feet without finding the bottom. The pool is fenced off and only National Park Forest scientists are allowed to kill the pupfish. Two years ago they killed 80 in one fell swoop.Well, they didn't kill them on purpose, but the Park Service only expects 50 to be alive at the time of the next spawning.What happened was that trapping jars got washed into the pool by a flood. The little fishes swam into the trapping jars and died. That made the Park Service want to toss their cookies. One said, "Oh, S----" (Well, not really. Or maybe.)Now there are other kinds of pupfish in Death Valley. In fact there are five species of fish in Death Valley, soon to become four species. The reason says the Park Service is that Devel's Hole pupfish are no longer sexy and may not bother to breed.Maybe they have been watching too much television. (Not the park rangers, the fish.)You can learn how Death Valley got its name at http://www.death-valley.us/article560.html. Lot's of people have died there and more will. The Park Service tells folks they can die out in that godforsaken hole. The Park Service leaves them alone after that and they die. But what about pupfish? If the Park Service leaves them alone will they survive?I think we should try an experiment. The Park Service has built a fence around the pool to keep people out. Now they need to build another fence around the first fence to keep the Park Service and all others out.In 2076, in commemoration of the Supreme Courts 1976 Decision a fish store owner from Burbank will be allowed to go into the area and take a peek to see if there are any pupfish left.If he sees them he is to say, "DARNED IF I COULD not SEE ANY FISH IN THERE." Very low emphasis is to be placed on "not." By the time his statement sinks in, the scientist will be on their way to Montana to check the grizzly bear population.John T. Jones, Ph.D. (tjbooks@hotmail.com, a retired VP of R&D for Lenox China, is author of detective & western novels, nonfiction (business, scientific, engineering, humor), poetry, etc. Former editor of Ceramic Industry Magazine. He calls himself "Taylor Jones, the hack writer."More info: http://www.tjbooks.comBusiness web site: http://www.dumbincome.com.
Keyword : Pupfish, National Park Service, Death Valley, history, conservation, supreme court, extinction, fish
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