The Loma Prietan
December 2001/January 2002
Letters To The Editor
Regarding Le Conte Lodge
Dear Editor:
This letter is in response to the letter sent by Inge Infante in the November Loma Prietan concerning her stay at the volunteer campsite for Le Conte Lodge volunteers in Yosemite. I am the curator
of the Le Conte Lodge and I was saddened to discover that the guest of one of my volunteers was so misinformed concerning the volunteer opportunities at Le Conte and the operation of the Lodge.
My work in Yosemite is a full-time job and the trailer is my home for five months. The trailer is comparable in size to others lived in by people who work in the park, and the generator (one of the quietest on the market) charges the batteries which provide me with electricity to power the lights, the water pump, and the fan for the heater (it can be very cold in May and September).
I keep the Le Conte Memorial open to the public regardless of whether or not I have any volunteers, and sometimes there aren’t volunteers—particularly in May and September when the weather is often wet and cold and people prefer not to camp in tents. I work six days a week and I am often at Le Conte long after it closes, returning phone calls and e-mails and taking care of the administrative work involved in the running of Le Conte.
In addition to working during the day,
I am also at Le Conte at least two hours every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday night. On these nights we provide the park visitors with an evening program. I am responsible for scheduling the speakers for these programs (66 programs during the season), finding a replacement should someone have to cancel unexpectedly, and advertising the programs (just to name a few of my responsibilities as curator).
I may live in Yosemite but I am not on vacation. I work long and hard and I
have a lot of responsibility. For this I am paid minimum wage. My husband is not employed by the Sierra Club and does not receive a salary.
My volunteers usually stay in Yosemite for a week or longer and they work at Le Conte for 3-5 days out of seven. They work a three hour shift during which they greet the visitors and answer their questions. In return, their entrance fee into the park is waived (saving them $20), and they don’t have to pay for the campsite (saving them $18 a night). They also don’t have
to go through the park’s campground reservation system, and they can stay for longer than a week (ordinarily the limit is a total of seven days in the Valley). I also provide the use of a tent for those who don’t have one.
I was a volunteer for six years before I became the curator, and I was always most grateful for the opportunity to volunteer
at Le Conte and stay in the campground. However, as a volunteer I never had any idea how much work the curator did “behind the scenes”. I am ashamed to say that I was under the impression that
she didn’t do much more than I did as
a volunteer. Boy was I wrong!
If I could volunteer for six years and
not have a clue as to how much work and responsibility the curator shouldered, I can understand how someone who was merely a guest at the campsite for a few days could get the wrong idea.
Carolyn Johnson
Curator, Le Conte Lodge
Human-Free Habitat
Dear Editor:
This is a sad time for humanity. But it will be an even sadder time, if we don’t use this opportunity to learn something!
Wherever humans can’t get along and are fighting over a piece of land (e.g. Palestine, Ireland, and Kashmir), there is
a simple, just, and obvious solution staring us in the face: Both sides should withdraw and give the land back to the wildlife from whom we stole it. Since humans already blanket the entire Earth, giving up a bit of land would not be a significant loss. It is a face-saving solution for many human problems.
Why is human-free habitat important? The first thing that children learn about animals is that they run away whenever we approach them. But what do we do with this information? Ignore it—just as we ignore the countless other opportunities that wildlife give us to communicate with them! Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and Birute Galdikas all had the same experience when they studied primates (chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans, respectively): the animals gave them a clear, unequivocal message that they were not welcome.
How can we hope to preserve wildlife, without trying to look at things from their perspective? Maybe not every species is sensitive to the presence of humans (mosquitoes seem to like us), but probably every area contains some that are. Therefore, if we are to achieve our goal of not causing extinctions, it follows that we need to set aside at least some land in every area that is off-limits to humans. That may not be sufficient to protect them (cleaning
up our air and water pollution are also important), but it is clearly necessary.
There are also many other reasons why there needs to be some habitat off-limits to humans. Many animals are too dangerous for us to tolerate. Grizzlies, polar bears, elephants, mountain lions, crocodiles, and poisonous snakes come to mind. At the rate that we are extinguishing species, we don’t have time to discover the precise requirements of every species! The best
we can do is assume they need what they have had throughout most of their existence: human-free habitat. And, of course, it is simply selfish for us to claim the entire earth as our domain.
I am working on creating wildlife habitat that is off-limits to humans (“pure habitat”). Want to help? Contact me at home.pacbell.net/mjvande.
Michael J. Vandeman, Ph.D.