Death of a National Park: The Fossil Cycad Story 

Thanks for the suggestion! Glad it turned out and I did it justice. I appreciate your kind words, truly, and am glad to have people like you here supporting the channel. I'll definitely be going back to the well on your comment - some great suggestions on there!

Good eye m8

That's a state park now right? I had it recommended to me when I was in Louisville last year, but couldn't make the trip

@@NationalParkDiaries it’s technically in Indiana, but it’s famous for two things. The rich fossiliferous rock bed that the river flows over and it’s apparently where Louis and Clark began their expedition. There’s a little museum that shows off the natural history side of things. It’s worth a couple hours to stop by and have lunch

@@Grand_History Huh! Gonna have to check it out next time I'm in Louisville!

@@NationalParkDiaries happy to help!

At least people can't carry off the fossil beds themselves, so you can still see a lot of fossils in the solid rock. Bummer, though, Falls of the Ohio was always one of my favorite places as a kid,

Kinda feel like a boomer for saying all this, but I feel like so many people just don't respect public lands, and it makes me sad.

This is the eternal dilemma of the Park Service, isn't it? Required, by law, to protect these places, while at the same time making them accessible to the general public. Generally, I'm in favor of public access for the simple reason that we can't inspire a new generation of conservationists and park protectors without it. But, there's definitely a line and there are absolutely drawbacks to making fragile places more accessible. A fine line to walk, indeed, and it's going to require some very creative thinking going forward with how we balance these two things, especially as visitation continues to skyrocket. Thanks for your comment!

@@NationalParkDiaries I absolutely agree; had it not been for the NPS a lot of these places would be decimated. Petrified Forest NP would’ve likely gone the same way as Fossil Cycad, for instance, and I feel like Niagara Falls is a perfect example of different approaches. The Canadian side is extremely developed but it has the best view of the falls, because the state of NY has protected that area to be really nice in spite of the amount of crowds. The NPS really has an impossible task that really brings up existential questions, and public awareness really is a must.

That's why I was against the creation of Bears Ears NM. I loved poking around in that area. It had some protection as BLM land, but people didn't really know too much about the wonderful beauty of the area and the amazing ancient pueblo Indian art and structures everywhere. You could camp anywhere, not have to pay a fee and just explore. I am so worried that the area around Bluff, Utah will become the same madhouse the Moab area has become. It's just my preference but I prefer BLM land to monument land. BLM land also serves more stakeholders. I don't mind a few cattle or a mining operation if it means real freedom to explore.

@@mattcolver1 I don’t think NMs get nearly as much traffic as national parks typically, unless they’re in populated areas. Bears Ears NM may get a bit more traffic, but I seriously doubt Bluff will get the same level of traffic as Moab, especially considering Moab has not one but *two* national parks. The protection added at the cost of more exposure is worth it, imo.

It's an unfortunate reminder that we can never take these places for granted. Protecting them takes work and advocacy and dedication! Thanks for watching!

If you go bush bashing in Yellowstone you're asking (and probably deserve) to fall into a pool of boiling water.

Whoa! Is it any sort of publicly protected area already? Like a National Forest or BLM land?

@@NationalParkDiaries I don't think so. I was not informed of anything like that when I was shown the place. There were no fences or signs of any kind in the immediate area or the surrounding area. There was a large area full of coprolite not far from there too. So as far as I know, it was just something only a handful of people knew about. It was also 26 years ago. I would love to know if it still exists but I live on the other side of the country now.

@@NationalParkDiaries Maybe I should say something to someone about them. I can't even find an example of focalized trees that are formed in flaky crystalized layers like each ring in the tree was its own crystal structure. So fragile even a lite touch will break peaces off. Have you ever heard of a tree fossilizing in such a way?

@@joshuamann2171 Personally, I have not. But, I'm also no fossil expert lol! The only thing I've heard of that behaves that way is gypsum, but to my (limited) knowledge, it doesn't come in tree shape lol. If any geology people see this, feel free to chime in!

Florrisant

Thanks so much for being here and supporting the channel!

Thanks so much Diego, I truly appreciate it! Glad you're here and can't wait to share more stories with you ❤

I almost couldn't believe that when I read it lol. Surely they couldn't have thought that was a good idea... Thanks for watching Mike!

As someone who visits parks regularly, I can attest to visitors taking plants bugs rock and pictures. Yes it's sickening.

Not saying ranchers are great stewards but the government is just as bad if not worse, look at the commercialization the NPS has been pushing for since Abbey’s time. The “accessibility” is killing the parks.

Thanks so much! Definitely a cautionary tale and I'm grateful to the NPS researchers who did all the legwork to keep this story alive lol!

Thank you, as always, for watching!

Thanks for watching!

Indeed it is!

Just for the sake of clarity, I would point out that OFFICIALLY, Fossil Cycad National Monument no longer exists. If there are fossils there, that's great news, but administratively, there is no "official" protected area for these resources anymore.

@@NationalParkDiaries I needs to be protected. IMO. We have a couple places like this in Utah, there are "rock hounds" that go out in groups and comb the land every time it rains to grab the small pine cone looking fossiles. Breaks a nerds heart.

I think you make some great points here! In the case of Fossil Cycad specifically, I think the NPS being somewhat still in its infancy (only 6 years old at the time of establishment) was a big factor in not only the disorganization, but the lack of institutional support the NPS now has. Early leaders like Mather and Albright had to do a lot of legwork to legitimize the NPS in its early days, and, as you say, I think Fossil Cycad was an unfortunate victim of those early years. Petrified Forest is another one that comes to mind where it could easily have gone the way of Fossil Cycad. Even at Mammoth Cave today, things like stolen gypsum flowers and "historical graffiti," serve as reminders that the Cave hasn't always been "protected" like it is today. I'm in total agreement though, that once protection has been granted, the institutional support has to go along with it. Even today, new NPS units can take YEARS to get things like visitor facilities, staffing, and interpretation materials, and while sites today are not in danger of being "vandalized," there's still a serious need for actual support of these places. Thanks for your comment!

I wonder how many of those caves actually HAD a connection at one point, that caved in or shifted... they are all of them AWFULLY close to each other...

Glad to know we have people like your Grandfather out there!

Hahahaha, thanks! Remarkably, my hair was actually cooperating this video. Most of the time it looks like a squirrel has nested up there 😂

Absolutely. What happened to Fossil Cycad can't have been in vain and we can learn many things from it going forward!

Or maybe you can just not take shit and leave it for others to enjoy as well.

@@baneofbanes People like mementoes. You're not going to stop that.

😢

Indeed. It's so important to learn about these events and be able to change our behavior for the future. Thanks for watching!

Haha, I do have some stories with happy endings coming up!

@@NationalParkDiaries Glad to hear it! Just remember 4:1…

And what is using the website of those people going to do pal? You obviously knew what was going on already, and this video points out how Americans also just got into these situations themselves. Executive and politicians are also workers, you're still blaming everyone they also hired if you think they're so evil. Those corrupt people are still in the US and still holdng on to that cash. The government is more the an capable of taking back currency they make and maintain in the first place. It's people like yourself that get angry wen the government is given an ounce of authority to correct the situation. Look if you want to be a serf for private interests just say that, but don't act as if public services are the issue with the economy.

Unfortunately...

As I understand it, the fossils are stored in a collection at Yale. I'm not sure if they are publicly displayed, but are used for research purposes nonetheless.

The argument from the Park Service had more to do with _surficial_ fossil cycads, rather than ones still unearthed below the surface. Given the Park Service's dual mandate of resource protection and public visitation, and their not being able to fulfill one of those mandates due to the lack of resources for visitors to explore, they made the decision to deauthorize. I think it's also important to keep in mind that the NPS was still in its formative years at this point - only 6 years old - so the agency was still in the process of figuring out what exactly warranted park status. Of course, this doesn't excuse park mismanagement, but can help us understand what went wrong and how we can prevent another Fossil Cycad in the future.

@@NationalParkDiaries As a proferssional who has dealt with Federal Antiquities regulations for decades, and also made recommendations about potential resource significance, the NPS focus on "surface" materials was mistaken - completely. Among other things, the Antiquities Act is not concerned with "surface" values. The Park Service is as a practical matter, and you will see signs forbidding removal of materials from parks all over the country. The Antiquities Act of 1906 was specifically framed to protect resources that had depth as well as surface expression. Surface phenomena have limited scientific value compared what is found in place in the soil or the rock. There has been a long standing confusion among non-professionals over the distinction between paleontology and archaeology, and paleontological resources have frequently suffered because of it. By "non-professionals" I mean people like park administrators whose expertise is commonly budgetary rather than scientific, or regulatory. What the history you recount shows is the distinction between people - both a paleontologist and a geologist - who recognized the scientific value of the park area, and two non-professional administrators who were concerned about spreading federal park money too thinly. The professionals, addressed the scientific value, while the administrators simply didn't _see_ anything cool, and the bobcat cuddler in particular speculated inappropriately, and was even shown to be wrong.

@@theeddorian I agree with you, for the most part. However, I don't think the "professionals" in this case are completely blameless, particularly George Wieland. He advocated for NPS protection and, based on the research I've done, wanted surficial fossils to be displayed as a way of promoting the park (and its protection) to the public, but still willingly and knowingly removed fossils from the site for his own personal and professional use. There's no doubt he cared deeply about these fossils, and clearly saw their scientific value, but again, I don't think he's blameless here because of his professional credentials. Nor are the Park Service, of course. For me, this goes to show how, across the board, among professionals and administrators alike, Fossil Cycad was a failure. It was a collective failure, basically.

@@NationalParkDiaries No one in the account is blameless. The facts about Wieland that indicate his intentions are first, that although, as you note, all the surficial fossils were removed, he still argued for the establishment of a park. You want to consider, if he knew that "nothing was left," why bother with a park? Second, when the Yellowstone bob-cat-cuddler suggested that no fossil bed was even present,, Wieland went out with a CCC crew (oddly, I would have expected the WPA to have been involved rather than the CCC), and tested the hypothesis, falsifying it. That is, in fact, decent science. It is actually still done precisely the same many times every year. When federal permits, licenses, or money is involved, the National Environmental Policy Act requires project effects on cultural and natural resources to be assessed. This includes historical resources including buildings, archaeological resources, both historic and prehistoric, and natural resources, under which fossils and fossil beds are included. This kind of assessment was just staggering into motion at the time the park was formed and then condemned. The WPA and CCC were intensely active during the Depression, building parks, park structures, trails, excavating archaeological remains, doing rescue at dam sites, as well as collecting folk lore and other less expected efforts. What failed was bureaucratic imagination, and probably budgetary limitations due to the Great Depression. The park is still a good idea. The location could still be listed as an important location that contributed to the furtherance of paleontological science under the auspices of NEPA, 36 CFR 800 which protects historically important properties, and 43 CFR Part 49 which is the Paleontological Resources Protection ACT among other regulations. There are very likely state regulations as well. Nothing has to be visible.

@@theeddorian I think we're talking past each other a bit here. I'm not doubting the competency of Wieland's science (I do take issue with his removal of specimens from the site) or the benefits of the Antiquities Act (I have a whole video on it and am a big proponent of its use). The point of this video was not to debate whether or not Fossil Cycad should have been deauthorized or whether or not the site's underground resources still warranted protection, but rather to accept that, rightly or wrongly, the park is no longer here, and use it as an example for us here in the present to not take our National Parks for granted, to always advocate for the highest forms of protection for these places, and to learn from the mistakes that were made when it came to the scientific and administrative mismanagement of this site.

The argument from the Park Service was not that there were no fossils left underground - this was suspected to be the case - but that none were left on the surface and the process of natural erosion would take thousands of years to unearth more. Without any surficial fossils, and the Park Service having a mandate to promote public enjoyment of park resources, the decision was made to deauthorize the park. At only 300ish acres, the park wasn't really big enough to provide any "other" value to visitors, such as for hiking or recreation.

I have two rings with fossils I wear in a daily basis. One is a fossilized trilobite and the other is a 150 million year old wasp or ant in a Baltic Amber globe. I love them both and justify having them by thinking I’ll bury myself with them and they can be rediscovered sometime in the future in a new context.

Big brain time 😂

...flowers don't change into cones, cones don't change into flowers.

If you're interested, I've got a video all about the problems the Everglades are facing. Also, do you have any insight or opinions on how the restoration efforts are going? I know it's a long term project, but I'm wondering if a local has any "on the ground" understanding of how that's going?

@@NationalParkDiaries The damage is done, you would have to relocate a million people and completely end the sugar production in the state

​@@TitoTitoTitoTito The people are going to need to be relocated due to rising sea levels, which will eventually put an end to the sugar production as well. Unfortunately, this will damage the Everglades as well.

Sounds like you fundamentally misunderstand why we need them in the first place.

national parks aren’t keeping that from being a reality, late stage capitalism is.