The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2014

by Deborah Blum

  3.

  It can be argued that Dall sheep, as much as 20,320-foot-high Denali (Mount McKinley), grizzly bears, wolves, or vast tundra expanses, are perfect symbols of what the famed biologist Adolph Murie called Denali National Park’s “wilderness spirit.” The snow-white mountain sheep are what drew naturalist-hunter-author Charles Sheldon in 1906. And their preservation, as much as anything, inspired him to seek park status for this wildlife-rich part of Alaska, a quest that led to the creation of Alaska’s first national park—then named Mount McKinley—in 1917.

  Later in the park’s history, severe Dall sheep declines in the 1930s and ’40s caused great alarm and forced park officials to confront wildlife-management policies that favored one species (sheep) over another (wolves). Thanks largely to Murie, the sheep crisis—and the species’ eventual recovery—ultimately led to a strengthening of ecosystem rather than favored-game management in Denali. Here all native species would be protected.

  Nowadays, an estimated 2,500 Dall sheep inhabit Denali National Park and Preserve’s alpine heights; based on 2008–2009 surveys and those done in the mid-1990s, park biologists believe sheep numbers to be “fairly stable.” The large majority live on the park’s northern side, in both the Alaska Range and the Outer Range.

  Because the Denali Park Road borders some of the sheep’s prime habitat, visitors have an excellent chance of seeing these animals, though usually from a distance of several hundred yards to a half-mile or more. They are most often seen as tiny white dots on the upper flanks of tundra-covered hills, though occasionally they can be spotted near or even on the road. Visitors willing to climb hills are more likely to see the sheep up close, though park regulations prohibit people from approaching closer than 75 feet.

  A small percentage of Denali’s Dall sheep actually cross the park road on seasonal journeys between the park’s two mountain ranges. These migratory sheep spend their winters in the Outer Range, where snowfall is light and high winds often keep exposed ridges free of snow. In May or June they form groups of up to seventy animals and cross wide lowlands to reach the Alaska Range’s northern foothills for summer’s green-up. There the sheep remain until autumn, when they retrace their steps. Biologists since Adolph Murie have known that a portion of Denali’s sheep migrate, but it remains a mystery why some do and others don’t.

  4.

  With a nod of thanks to all of those who’ve studied Ovis dalli and shared what they have learned, I’ll now present a potpourri of natural-history facts about the white, wild sheep, which is named after the American naturalist William Healy Dall and inhabits mountain ranges throughout much of inland Alaska and neighboring western Canada.

  Adult male and female members of the species live apart except during the early winter mating season in November and December. Just prior to the rut (and occasionally throughout the year), mature rams butt heads in fierce battles that scientists say determines their place in the band’s social order and, consequently, its breeding order. Facing each other, two rams rear up on their hind legs, then charge and “clash horns” with a loud bang that’s been compared to that of a baseball bat slammed into a barn door. Adult females too will sometimes knock heads, apparently to determine social rankings.

  Ewes produce a single lamb in late May or early June. As the birth approaches, a pregnant ewe will go off by itself and head for steep, rugged terrain where predators are less likely to be. Lambs usually do fine their first summer, when food is abundant, but half or more may die their first winter. Sheep that survive their first couple of winters may live into their teens, though biologists consider twelve to be “very old” for a wild sheep. Mature rams in their prime may weigh 200 pounds or more, ewes 110 to 130 pounds on average.

  Both sexes of adult sheep have horns, though only males grow the large, sweeping, and outward-curling horns so often seen in photos. As rams mature, their horns gradually form a circle when viewed from the side and reach a full circle or “curl” in seven to eight years. The amber-colored horns are male status symbols; large mature rams can sometimes be seen displaying their horns to other sheep as a sign of their dominance. Those of females are shorter, slender spikes that resemble the horns of mountain goats, which sometimes causes people to confuse the two species. But goat horns are shiny black and sharper than sheep horns, and goats also have more massive chests. Besides that, their ranges rarely overlap, goats being most common in coastal mountains and sheep inland.

  Unlike the antlers of moose and caribou, horns are never shed. Their growth occurs only from spring through fall; winters are marked by a narrow ridge or ring. So, much like a tree’s age, the age of a sheep can be determined by counting its “annual rings,” also called annuli.

  Dall sheep are grazing animals that feed on a variety of plants, including grasses, sedges, willows, and herbaceous plants; in winter they survive on lichens, moss, and dried or frozen grass. They prefer to stay up high, in places that combine open alpine ridges and meadows with steep slopes, because their hill-climbing skills make it easier to escape predators in such sheer, rugged, mountainous terrain. Wolves are the most efficient predators of sheep, but grizzlies, coyotes, lynx, and wolverines sometimes successfully hunt the species, and golden eagles prey on young lambs.

  5.

  In the early 1900s, when prospectors and pioneering mountaineers were lured into the Denali region by gold and summit fever, respectively, an easterner, Charles Sheldon, came north to the Alaska Range on a different sort of quest: a big-game hunt. What Sheldon found in 1906 proved far more valuable than any trophy animal. Denali’s wilderness and wildlife sparked the idea for a park-refuge unlike any other in the nation.

  By all accounts a skilled hunter, passionate naturalist, devout conservationist, successful businessman, gifted writer, and astute political lobbyist, the Vermont-born and Yale-educated Sheldon was passionate about all species of mountain sheep, which he believed were the noblest of wild animals. He studied and hunted them throughout their North American range, finally pursuing his passion to the most remote part of the continent, in search of Alaska’s fabled white sheep. For a guide he chose Harry Karstens, a transplanted Midwesterner known to be a first-rate explorer (Karstens would later become the first superintendent of Mount McKinley National Park).

  Accompanied by a horse packer, Sheldon and Karstens lived off the land while they explored the Alaska Range’s northern slopes. By mid-August they had seen hundreds of sheep, but all were ewes, lambs, adolescents, or young adults. Finally, while hiking Cathedral Mountain alone on August 17, Sheldon discovered a band of mature rams, including nine with “strikingly big horns.” In great and dramatic detail, he described his solo stalk of those “big rams!” in The Wilderness of Denali. Here I’ll share a short excerpt that recounts the climax of his hunt:

  Finding a slight depression at the edge [of a canyon that separated him from the sheep] I crept into it and lay on my back. Then slowly revolving to a position with my feet forward, I waited a few moments to steady my nerves. My two-hundred-yard sight had been pushed up, and watching my opportunity, I slowly rose to a sitting position, elbows on knees. Not a ram had seen or suspected me. I carefully aimed at a ram standing broadside near the edge of the canyon, realizing that the success of my long arduous trip would be determined the next moment. I pulled the trigger and as the shot echoed from the rocky walls, the ram fell and tried to rise, but could not. His back was broken. The others sprang into alert attitudes and looked in all directions. I fired at another standing on the brink, apparently looking directly at me. At the shot he fell and rolled into the canyon. Then a ram with big massive wrinkled horns dashed out from the band and, heading in my direction, ran down into the canyon. The others immediately followed, but one paused at the brink and, as I fired, dropped and rolled below.

  A few hundred more words follow, describing Sheldon’s continued killing spree. Then this:

  Seven fine rams had been killed by eight shots—and by one who is an indifferent marksman! My t
rip had quickly turned from disappointment to success.

  The U.S. Biological Survey had entrusted me with the mission of securing the skulls of at least four adult rams, with some of their skins, for the study collection in the National Museum, and I desired four reasonably good trophies (the legal limit) for myself. Most of these were now before me.

  The rain had stopped. I sat there smoking my pipe, enjoying the exhilaration following the stalk, while the beauty of the landscape about me was intensified by my wrought-up senses.

  6.

  Given what I knew of Charles Sheldon—legendary champion of Alaska’s wild sheep and Denali’s wilderness—his account of the killing spree stunned me when I first read it.

  I understand the unfairness of using contemporary standards to judge people who lived in other eras, under different value systems and moral codes. In his time, Sheldon was considered a consummate conservationist. And by most accounts, he worked harder than anyone to get the homeland of these sheep protected. He is celebrated for his wilderness advocacy, especially his role in getting the federal government to establish Mount McKinley National Park, later to become Denali National Park and Preserve. Still, both the actions and the attitude he exhibited that long-ago day disturb me.

  Except for catching and killing fish (and I don’t do much of even that these days), I am what’s called a nonhunter. I don’t directly kill other animals for food, or clothing, or other reasons. But contrary to what some of my Alaskan critics say, I am not an “anti.” I do not oppose the respectful and humane hunting and killing of animals for food or other subsistence purposes. It seems more honest, in a way, and arguably more ethical than buying meat at the store, especially given what we know about the awful lives of most farm animals that become our food. But as I’ve noted elsewhere, over the years I’ve become intolerant of trophy hunting. To me such blood sport is unacceptable, a selfish and harmful act fed by pride and ego.

  Can I accept Sheldon’s behavior? Given the context, I suppose. Yet I’m bothered by his excitement and self-congratulatory tone (I read false humility in the comments about his marksmanship) and especially his cavalier attitude toward the sheep he killed. Sheldon suggests no sense of regret or sadness that he took their lives. Yes, he obeyed the hunting laws. But to kill seven rams for science and personal satisfaction seems the epitome of overkill, no matter how healthy the local sheep population may have been.

  End of commentary, back to Sheldon’s story.

  7.

  To his credit, Sheldon painstakingly recovered the animals he’d killed. One by one he butchered the sheep and hauled their meat, skins, and skulls down the mountain, then treated them for preservation, took measurements, and studied the stomach contents. Once reunited with his companions, he packed his specimens out and returned east. His trip had been a resounding success.

  Sheldon’s main work was now complete. Several of the sheep he’d killed and collected would be studied by scientists and displayed in the American Museum of Natural History. But he recognized the need for a longer stay, to better understand the sheep’s life history. So before leaving, he built a cabin along the Toklat River.

  The following August, Sheldon returned for a ten-month stay. Besides studying sheep, he gathered facts on other species, large and small. He paid close attention to the landscape, the wildlife habitat, and the changing weather and seasons, and he made friends with many year-round residents. He was astounded by the abundant wildlife, but feared that the uncontrolled hunting done by “market hunters” who supplied wild meat to the region’s towns and mining camps would someday threaten Denali’s wildlife riches.

  Along the way, Sheldon fell in love with the Denali region and began to envision a plan for its preservation as a park and game preserve. In a journal entry dated January 12, 1908, he even named this park-refuge: Denali National Park. Though he never again returned to Denali country, it remained an inspiration for this dream.

  Back in New York, Sheldon shared his Denali vision with fellow members of the Boone and Crockett Club, an influential group of big-game hunters and conservationists. His colleagues responded enthusiastically, but momentum for the new park-refuge lagged until 1914, when Congress mandated construction of a railroad from Seward to Fairbanks. The preferred route would pass through the heart of the Denali region.

  Sheldon pursued his dream with new urgency. Joined by equally enthusiastic allies—the newly appointed Park Service director Stephen Mather and the prominent artist-explorer-hunter Belmore Browne among them—Sheldon helped draft legislation establishing Mount McKinley National Park. He also won the backing of Alaska’s lone delegate to Congress, James Wickersham, who realized that such a park could be a major tourist attraction, boosting the territory’s economy.

  With new momentum and little opposition, Congress passed legislation creating the park in February 1917. Later that month, President Woodrow Wilson signed it into law. The original Mount McKinley Park protected 2,200 square miles of prime wildlife habitat, primarily north of the Alaska Range, where Sheldon had met the Dall sheep that would help to define his life and conservation legacy.

  8.

  Traffic slows to a standstill. Cars, pickups, and RVs begin pulling over to the side of the highway. Binoculars and cameras (and, by the second decade of the twenty-first century, smartphones) are grabbed. And a crowd begins to gather, as both tourists and Alaskans maneuver for a better look at the Dall sheep that feed less than 100 feet away.

  The sheep pay little attention to the human spectators. Continuing to feed on grass and willows, they sometimes wander close to the road and show no outward signs of fear, even when people approach to within 30 feet or less. It’s a scene that’s repeated dozens of times each summer, along one of Alaska’s busiest stretches of highway.

  Tens of thousands of Dall sheep inhabit the state’s mountain ranges, from Southcentral Alaska to the Arctic. They’re prized wildlife symbols of three national parks: Denali, Wrangell–St. Elias, and Gates of the Arctic. But nowhere are they so accessible to the public as the Windy Corner area of Chugach State Park, a half-hour’s drive from downtown Anchorage and the only place in the world that people can watch Dall sheep while both are standing near sea level.

  Ewes, lambs, adolescents, and young adult sheep inhabit steep cliffs and grassy meadows above the Seward Highway for much of the year, coming closest to the road between mileposts 106 and 107. Peak viewing occurs in summer, after the ewes have given birth. The best time to see the sheep is usually early morning, though they’re sometimes visible throughout the day. As many as fifty have been spotted from the highway, but twenty or fewer is more the norm. Only rarely are the older, big-curl rams present; they seem to prefer backcountry solitude to busy highway corridors.

  While the sheep’s high visibility is a guaranteed treat for wildlife lovers, it has proved a management headache for Chugach State Park personnel and state troopers. Drivers who slow down or stop to watch and photograph the sheep may ignore designated turnouts and park instead along narrow highway shoulders, despite NO PARKING signs. Or, even worse, they’ll slow almost to a stop on the highway itself. And as crowds gather, people pay less attention to traffic patterns.

  As a former Chugach superintendent, Al Meiners, once described it to me, “When people see wild sheep three feet from the road, they just go nuts. Other senses tend to shut down and you get people doing foolish things, like slamming on their brakes right on the highway. It’s real dangerous, because you have other drivers coming screaming around that curve at fifty, sixty miles an hour, and here’s a traffic jam. I went down there once to study the problem and ended up directing traffic.”

  State officials have talked for years about ways to better address the Seward Highway’s “sheep jams.” Some improvements have been made, but the problems persist. Now I’ve learned that a major highway redesign is in the works. Plans for Windy Corner include a widened road with passing lanes, parking lots on both sides of the highway, informational signs that p
resent responsible wildlife viewing behavior, a pedestrian tunnel, and perhaps some sort of barrier to better separate people and sheep.

  9.

  A few years after becoming the Anchorage Times’s outdoors writer in 1984, I met with Dave Harkness, the state biologist responsible for managing the Anchorage area’s wildlife, to learn more about Windy Corner’s sheep. Dave told me that biologists weren’t absolutely certain why sheep would congregate in such large numbers along a busy highway, but suspected a mineral lick, where they were likely getting salt and other essential minerals from the soil (those suspicions have since been confirmed). He also believed that the cliffs contribute to their tolerance of human traffic: “The sheep know they have an easy escape route if they need it. In a few minutes, or even seconds, they can be out of view.”

  Harkness further noted that the Windy Corner sheep frequent an area that is off-limits to hunting, which would help to account for their “tame” behavior: lambs learn early that people don’t pose a threat. Yet, he added, “Come August and September, the sheep are vastly different creatures; they’re not as accessible or visible. It’s hard to say whether they equate danger with different times of the year.”