New Jersey Bear Hunt

According to state Department of Environmental Protection spokesman Larry Ragonese, as of Saturday night, the kill tally for New Jersey's six-day bear hunt was 464 bears. (Last year was 592.) That number represents about 13 percent of the state-estimated population of 3,400 bears in areas north of Interstate 78 and west of Interstate 287. One of the bears killed weighed 829 pounds (!), a new New Jersey state record.More info here.

TAKING MONEY FROM THE NPS

As Rocky points out, most national park employees are majorly underpaid, often using their masters degrees while working seasonally for decades before a permanent job opens. Perhaps that's the reason that Lydia L. White, age 48, of Hooper, Colorado, allegedly stole $750,000 from Great Sand Dunes National Park from March 2007 through December 2010. She is charged with 145 counts of theft of government property and 53 counts of money laundering. That one didn't make it onto The Morning Report. More info at National Parks Traveler.What about the NPS stealing from us? As I'm sure many of you have noticed while traveling through some our country's great public lands, there seems to be quite a few structures that might not have been the best allocation of federal money. Did Yellowstone need a $27 million Visitor Center? Maybe? I'm not sure.MP3: Frank Sinatra - Sleep Warm

The Fate of Heaven

"Yosemite: The Fate Of Heaven":

"Yosemite--The Fate Of Heaven" is a stunning film portrait of Yosemite National Park. Breathtaking cinematography graphically depicts the fragile wonder of the place naturalist John Muir once called "a great temple lighted from above." The film illustrates how our passion for Yosemite's beauty jeopardizes the very wilderness we love so much.Read by Robert Redford, the film's narration is taken from the diaries of Lafayette Bunnell, a doctor who accompanied the Mariposa Battalion in 1851 on a mission to "hunt down Indians." The campaign brought soldiers for the first time into the sacred valley home of the Ahwahnechee tribe in the Sierra Nevada. "My astonishment was overwhelming,'' wrote Bunnell of the valley's grandeur. "Here before me was the power and glory of the Supreme Being." Bunnell understood immediately that his small band would be the first and last white men to see the natural wonder of the valley unspoiled.More than 130 years later, tens of thousands trek to the park from all over the world to enjoy the valley's magnificent landscapes and wildlife. The film introduces us to hikers and campers for whom Yosemite is a true shrine, including a free-hand rock climber who "dances" up walls of sheer granite and a woman whose family survived the depression by camping at the park and fishing its rivers. Vintage photographs and observations from Bunnell's eloquent diary remind us that America's love affair with Yosemite is well over a century old.Wrote Bunnell on leaving Yosemite. "Those scenes of beauteous enchantment I leave to those who remain to enjoy them.'' Today Yosemite is a protected national park, but that may not be enough to guarantee its future. The continual onslaught of nature lovers--over 1,000 cars a day--only intensifies the conflict between preservation and public enjoyment. Sanitation workers remove 25,000 pounds of trash a day. Work crews toil to repair natural trails damaged by wear. Park rangers protect tourists from roaming bears, and curious deer from potato chip hand-outs. Nature rules here, but human beings, we learn, are both the biggest threat to the park's future and its best hope.

Watch the entire thing, just like I'm doing now, over at The Creak of Boots.

Dave Foreman

"Well, if I was a rich Republican pulling down $100,000 a year as executive director of the Sierra Club or the National Wildlife Federation, I'd call Earth First terrorists too...The terrorists are the National Park Serivce, the U.S. Park Service and their corporate masters."Watch Dave Foreman, co-founder of Earth First, being interviewed at a rally in 1986 after the jump.