The Wilderness Warrior
Page 139
* People often mistakenly believe that the Black Hills are only in South Dakota. A third of the ecosystem is in Wyoming. The granite core of the Black Hills crests near South Dakota’s Mount Rushmore National Monument.
* In 1905 the National Committee of Audubon Societies changed its name to the National Association of Audubon Societies for the Protection of Wild Birds and Animals. On October 1, 1940, this would again change to the simpler National Audubon Society (which it remains today).
* According to Bird-Lore, in September 1908 L. P. Reeves, an employee of the South Carolina Audubon Society, was also murdered, in an ambush by plumers.
* Like many of Roosevelt’s federal bird reservations the one at Klamath Lake grew enormously. By 2009, under the designation Malheur National Wildlife Reservation, it was 186,500 acres. In the spring the Malheur Refuge offers stunning concentrations of birds. By April, for example, there are often as many as 300,000 snow and Ross’s geese. Come May the Malheur is overrun with neotropical song-birds.
* The tallest tree ever recorded was a 414-foot Douglas fir discovered in British Columbia during the late nineteenth century. The largest in the United States was an 800-year-old tree called Hyperion in Redwood National Park, 379 feet tall.
* While not dismissing the Michauds’story, Gail Evans-Hatch and Michael Evans-Hatch in Place of Passages: Jewel Cave National Monument Historic Resource Study raise the possibility that Burdett Parks, a cowboy at the nearby X-4 ranch, actually made the discovery first.
* In 1908 British East Africa combined Uganda, Kenya, and Tanganyika (Tanzania).
* Roosevelt and London eventually patched up their differences. London, in fact, endorsed T.R. for president in 1912 believing the Bull Moose Party was a variant of democratic socialism.
* The exception was Midway, which in 1909 was the relay station for the commercial Pacific Cable Company’s trans-Pacific wire.