Treesearch

The visual survey methodology of Manning and others (1996) was used to measure visitor response to the number of other floaters encountered on the Niobrara River within the Fort Niobrara Wilderness in Nebraska. An optical scanner and photo-editing software were used to produce 12 composite photographs of the Niobrara River, depicting a range of visitor use levels. In a survey administered to 235 visitors in June and July 1998, respondents were asked to rate the acceptability of each photograph, first from the viewpoint of a recreational experience and second from the standpoint of a...

A conceptual model of fire and forest restoration and maintenance is presented. The process must begin with clearly articulated goals and depends upon derivation of science-driven models that describe the natural or desired conditions. Evaluating the extent to which contemporary landscapes depart from the model is a prerequisite to determining the need for restoration. Model landscapes that include the historical range of variability are commonly used as target conditions in setting restoration objectives. Restoration is a corrective step that ultimately must be replaced by a maintenance...

Changes in forest structure were monitored in areas treated with prescribed fire in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. Five years after the initial prescribed fires, tree density was reduced by 61% in the giant sequoia-mixed conifer forest, with the greatest reduction in the smaller trees. This post-burn forest structure falls within the range that may have been present prior to Euroamerican settlement, based on forest structural targets developed with input from research, historic photos and written accounts. The results from this monitoring program provide an example of prescribed...

Tree-ring reconstructed summer drought was examined in relation to the occurrence of 15 fires in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness Area (SBW). The ten largest fire years between 1880 and 1995 were selected from historical fire atlas data; five additional fire years were selected from a fire history completed in a subalpine forest within the SBW. Results of the analysis indicate summers during the fire year were significantly (p0.05). A significant (p

This paper examines the resultant conditions of Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park’s burn program relative to knowledge about past fire regimes in this ecosystem. Estimates of past fire-return intervals provide management direction and were used to develop approximations of area burned prior to Euroamerican settlement. This information was used to develop simple methods to compare fire management achievements against historic benchmarks. Two analyses were used to evaluate the results of the burn program relative to pre-settlement conditions. These were a reconstruction of annual “area...

Attempts to influence the behavior of wilderness visitors through the use of information are limited by the visitors’ reception of that information. This study examined the information gathering behavior of wilderness visitors and the effect of different information collection styles on visitors’ knowledge of low-impact behavior and attitudes toward wilderness management. Four distinct information collection styles were identified in a cluster analysis procedure. There were small, but statistically significant differences in knowledge of low-impact behavior between individuals using...

Most parks are interested in conveying hiking safety and minimum impact techniques to visitors. At Grand Canyon National Park, providing such information to more than 2000 day use hikers per day has been a longstanding concern whose effort has increased in intensity over the past decade. This study evaluates aspects of the “Heat kills, hike smart” campaign that targeted day use hikers during summer, 1997. The park’s information campaign was able to reach most day use hikers, and affected the behavior of the majority of them. Among various media sources and locations used by the park to...

Emotional/symbolic and functional place attachments were measured on the Green and Colorado Rivers in Canyonlands National Park and at Mount Rushmore National Memorial. Although Canyonlands and Mount Rushmore represent very different recreational settings, it was possible to measure both types of attachment by using 12 place attachment statements. In Canyonlands, river users on the Green and Colorado Rivers demonstrated different motives for taking a river trip and different levels of acceptance for potential management actions, based on respondents’ level of agreement with place attachment...

The Leave No Trace (LNT) educational program has the potential to provide wilderness users with useful minimum impact information. For LNT to be effective, managers need to understand who is most/least aware of minimum impact practices and how to expose users to LNT messages. This study examined LNT knowledge among various user groups at an Eastern wilderness area and assessed which types of magazines they read on a regular basis.Findings indicate that readers of outdoor recreation (consumptive) and equine sports magazines had lower LNT scores than did readers of outdoor recreation...

Findings from fire history studies have increasingly indicated that many forest ecosystems in the northern Rocky Mountains were shaped by mixed-severity fire regimes, characterized by fires of variable severities at intervals averaging between about 30 and 100 years. Perhaps because mixed-severity fire regimes and their resulting vegetational patterns are difficult to characterize, these regimes have received limited recognition in wilderness fire management. This paper presents examples of mixed-severity fire regimes in Glacier National Park, the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex and the...