A while ago, I came across a little tidbit about Nimbus, the new cat that has been adopted by the staff of the Mount Washington Observatory, on the summit of the mountain purported to have the “world’s worst weather.”
Ever since the observatory was founded on Mount Washington in 1932, cats have been a part of the family of scientists who reside there. The most recent feline-in-residence, Marty, had become known to thousands of visitors from around the world. After his passing, Summit Operations Manager Rebecca Scholand worked with the Conway Area Humane Society to find a new resident cat.
“With the passing of Marty in late 2020, we started the search for a new cat knowing it would have big paws to fill,” Scholand said. “The summit cat is such a special part of our living environment on the summit, making it feel much more like a home on our week-long shifts.”
Indigenous Perspectives
Yesterday’s newsletter told part of the story, quoting from David Treuer’s Atlantic article in which he made the argument that the United States should turn over the operation of its national parks to the native Americans who originally lived on that land. Those had been considered sacred lands and Treuer suggested that returning them to the indigenous inhabitants would provide at least as good a stewardship of the parks as the federal government, protecting them “from partisan back-and-forth in Washington,” as he put it, while also continuing to guarantee that they are available to all Americans to enjoy and appreciate.
For an understanding of how the national parks and national monuments came to be, there is a documentary series by Walpole resident Ken Burns that tells the story of the give-and-take that went on to protect those places from greed and exploitation.
Deb Haaland, the new U.S. Secretary of the Interior, is the first indigenous person to become a cabinet secretary, and her role makes her the nation’s top public lands official. Haaland, a 35th generation New Mexican of the Laguna and Jemez Pueblos, also has deep roots in Bears Ears, a national monument in Utah whose twin buttes form a silhouette that resembles a bear’s head. She visited the site in April as part of her oversight of 244 million acres of land across the country.
President Joe Biden asked Haaland to look into requests to change the boundaries and the management of the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante in Utah, and the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument off the coast of Maine as part of his efforts at addressing climate change. President Barack Obama had created the 1.35-million-acre Bears Ears National Monument in 2016 and established a five-person commission that included one seat for each of the Four Corners tribes to help manage the monument.
When ranchers, miners, and Utah’s political leadership claimed government overreach in establishing the monument, President Donald Trump shrank its acreage by 85 percent. Trump Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke gave coalition members just one hour in a Salt Lake City conference room to make their case for keeping the monument intact. In short, it was just the sort of “partisan back-and-forth” that Treuer was describing.
“My message is really very simple: I’m here to listen, I’m here to learn,” Haaland said. The ultimate decision on the future of the monuments lies with the new president, she added.
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