Damage to Joshua TreeThese photos were taken this week in Joshua Tree National Park, California. The

Damage to Joshua TreeThese photos were taken this week in Joshua Tree National Park, California. These were live Joshua Trees, but people visiting the park killed them. Due to a lapse in funding associated with the partial government shutdown, park staff has been at a minimum, but unlike the previous government shutdown where closed park gates were some of the most commonly shared images of the shutdown, the US Federal Government chose to keep the parks open with minimal staff.Other parks have seen huge piles of discarded trash and overflowing toilets, but these images hits home a little bit. At Joshua Tree, once security was no longer present, visitors immediately traveled off road into the desert. Sometimes they cut down trees in order to create new paths. Multiple vehicles drove across areas that were previously desert surfaces, sometimes leading to newly-established, illegal camping sites. There were also reports of vandalism of the facilities and rocks.These desert landscapes take many decades to establish themselves. Joshua trees grow slowly in these desert conditions – if a new tree was planted on one of these sites, it would probably be more than a century before it reached a comparable height, and without humans interfering these trees could very well have lived several more centuries. The newly driven roads will not go away. One wonders if that was someone’s point in establishing them.This park, roughly the area of the state of Delaware, had only 8 rangers on staff due to the shutdown, as opposed to typically a staff of over 100. The park was scheduled to close for repairs and security on Thursday morning, but at the last minute, unnamed higher ups in the federal government intervened and ordered the park to stay open, using funds from concession sales to maintain limited operations (which may or may not be legal) and campgrounds now being cleaned and maintained by volunteers. Perhaps if enough people see what happened while it was left open with too limited of staff, we might be able to reverse that decision.On Thursday, the union of National Parks police filed a grievance/arbitration case against the government for being forced to work without pay as well.-JBBImage credit: NPShttps://www.nationalparkstraveler.org/2019/01/joshua-tree-national-park-close-cleanup-repairs-vandalism-illegal-roadshttp://www.flowersociety.org/JT_Botanical.htmhttps://www.desertsun.com/story/news/local/2019/01/09/joshua-tree-national-park-averts-shutdown-remain-open/2532416002/https://usppfop.org/2019/01/10/usppfop-seeks-damages-for-non-payment-of-wages-to-officers-related-to-govt-shutdown/https://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-joshua-tree-cleanup-20190109-story.html -- source link
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