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Blake Island: a Hive of Wasps and a "Special Deer"

10/5/2018

20 Comments

 
Park Values on an Island Near Seattle
     While teaching a course called "The History of National Parks" at Eastern Washington University, I am continually impressed with the language of the parks. I have travelled tens of thousands of miles to study parks around the world, and everywhere I go -- from the Norwegian Arctic to the Australian desert, to national and state parks of many descriptions -- I see similar patterns in park management and culture. Around the world, for example, park personnel are wrestling with approaches to invasive plants, endangered species, indigenous peoples, and effective interpretation.

     Recently, for example, I have spent several days in a small sailboat at a dock at Blake Island Maritime State Park in the Salish Sea (aka, Puget Sound) about five miles from Seattle. The entire island is a park with almost a square mile of forest. In the image below, the island is in the lower section of the chart, just above the word "Route."

Picture

     Below is a map of the island from the ​Blake Island Marine State Park web site. As I write this, I am hunkered down in a boat with a cold wind blowing outside. The docks are depicted at the top right hand corner of the map.
Picture
     Here is my floating cabin (bottom right) at dock at Blake Island at nightfall.
Picture

​     During three days at the park, I walked most of the trails -- about ten miles in all. Here is an example:

Picture

     I grew acquainted with some of the residents of the island including:

• a pestle of people
• a herd of deer
• a forest of trees
• a hive of wasps, and
• a gaze of raccoons 
​​ 
A Hive of Wasps          
​     I was particularly impressed that Blake Island was a creature friendly park to critters that might have been 
disparaged, even destroyed, in other places.

     I was intrigued by this sign when I first came ashore. Mounted on a saw horse, it covers a couple of feet of a wooden walk way. It reads: "Emergency Closure--Active Wasp Nest--Please Walk Around."
​
Picture

​     I needed no further coaxing and walked actively around the nest, but I carried with me a curiosity about the sign and the nest. In our National Parks History class we study extensively the evolution of park-friendly approaches to wildlife, including protecting such animals as Dahl sheep in Dinali and reintroducing the wolf and the grizzly in Yellowstone. But wasps?! Have they now acquired standing as natural residents of a park? Or was the sign there to protect visiting tourists rather than resident wasps? I talked to another boater who thought the wasps should be eliminated. But I wasn't sure who or what the park was protecting.

​     Fortunately, I had become acquainted with Alicia Burkey, a park staffer, who helped me dock my boat when I cruised into the harbor off the Salish Sea earlier that day. In the evening after my first walk I sent her an email asking whether the sign was intended to protect the wasps from the visitors or the visitors from the wasps. Here is her answer:

In response to your questions about the wasp nest. Yes to both. The Park Ranger tried to remove the nest earlier this summer, but it was too far under the boards to reach. He decided it would be best to block off the area to protect our visitors and let the nest exist. The wasps would be forced out eventually by the rain if we just let nature run its course and he liked that idea better than causing unnecessary harm to the wasps by forcing them out early. 

     I liked that answer, and it was an introduction to other manifestations at Blake Island of a sensitivity to nature -- letting nature run its course.

A "Special Deer"          

     At Blake Island there is a big open area near the docks with campsites, a horseshoe pit, bathrooms, and in the evenings, lots of deer. Here is one of them, looking particularly noble:
​
Picture

     Ten or fifteen other deer were browsing nearby. I watched them for a while as the sun was sinking, and then I saw this startling sight:


     I imagined that this poor deer must have suffered a recent injury, and in my email to park staffer Alicia Burkey, mentioned above, I sent a copy of this film and wrote: "This evening I noticed a deer near the docks who was having a lot of trouble walking. The park staff may already know about this, but just to be certain, here is a little film I made." In her reply Alicia wrote: 

     "
I see you've spotted our 'special deer'. The staff are delighted when she is brought up, because it reassures us that others are watching out for her as well. She was born last spring with a disability (we think her hips), which is why she walks a little wonky, but she is healthy and thriving on the island. The staff and visitors keep a close eye on her to make sure she has plenty of space to forage without feeling intimidated."

     I take special pleasure in the phrase where Alicia notes the park staff's "delight" that "others are watching out for her as well."

     A couple of days later I was walking in the forest at nighttime, and I came across a mother deer and two fawns. I did my best to capture their pictures in the low light, talking to them in my version of Deerish. Then much to my surprise....

 
     Note to my students in History of National Parks: this story needs a strong conclusion tying the post as a whole into a great quotation on park values from our studies. Please post a suggested conclusion below in the comments. You will receive extra credit in this week's quiz, and I will select the best for the actual conclusion to this post!
-- On further reflection, I liked all of the "suggested conclusions," and so instead of choosing one to post here, I will keep all and any more that appear. So far they are all far "above average"!

​Click here to view a complete list of entries on the American Realities blog...
(You know you want to!)
20 Comments
Steve Schiller
10/16/2018 09:25:05 pm

"[Animals] exist as a link connecting this life with the life of the past ages, just as the records in the rocks show the records of the past ages there before you." Charles Sheldon

Reply
Alex Sains
10/17/2018 04:44:41 pm

Sometimes, I think, people forget that nature exits outside of their day-to-day lives. We tend to get so caught up in ourselves that we forget, when we step outside of our cities to experience nature, we are merely visitors to the ecological systems that house it. As gracious visitors, it is our responsibility to let it run it's course when at all possible.

Reply
Megan Burlingame
10/17/2018 08:19:26 pm

Blake Island and its park staff embody all that which John Muir, Stephen Mather, and others fought to protect. These who serve our public parks provide sanctuary to a thriving population of inhabitants without much recognition. Their joy often stems from service of a purpose higher than themselves and the genuine gladness to be able to witness the wonder of nature.

Reply
J. Paul Espora
10/17/2018 10:34:31 pm

Our first instincts as humans is that "something must be done", but nature has a way of changing itself, better than any way us humans can achieve. So let us allow nature to adapt and kindly keep watch, knowing that we are ultimately insignificant actors in the timeless story of our environment.

Reply
Brooke Nicholson link
10/15/2020 09:34:11 pm

Our flesh and bone tabernacle seems transparent as glass to the beauty about us, as if truly an inseparable part of it, thrilling with the air and trees, streams and rocks, in the waves of the sun - a part of all nature, neither old nor young, sick or well, but immortal. - My First Summer in the Sierra, John Muir 195-196

Reply
Jewell Greedy
10/17/2020 01:52:23 pm

The parks... have a constantly enlarging, revivifying influence on our national life, for which there is no other public agency.... They are our antidote for national restlessness.... They are national character and health builders.... They are giving a new impetus to sane living in this country. -Stephen Mather

Reply
Christian Radcliff
10/17/2020 02:43:01 pm


It is a scientific fact that the occasional contemplation of natural scenes of an impressive character, particularly if this contemplation occurs in connection with relief from ordinary cares, change of air and change of habits, is favorable to the health and vigor of men and especially to the health and vigor of their intellect beyond any other conditions which can be offered them, that it not only gives pleasure for the time being but increases the subsequent capacity for happiness and the means of securing happiness.

Reply
Christian Radcliff
10/17/2020 02:48:36 pm

^ Frederick Law Olmsted (Forgot to add who quoted my above post!)
Here is one more.

"Until recently a tree was seen, for example, only as an obstacle to farming, as board feet of timber, or as shelter for wild beasts and wild men. In the modern world, of course, we have learned to love trees, animals, and landscapes (whether rugged or pastoral) as valuable for adventure and inspiration -- and valuable also in their own right."
Bill Youngs, 2019

Reply
Kaitlyn Haupt
10/18/2020 03:33:32 pm

“We don’t own the planet, we belong to it. And we must share it with our wildlife.” - Steve Irwin, “The Crocodile Hunter: The Incredible Life and Adventures of Steve and Terri Irwin,” 2002.

Reply
Samantha Jackson
10/18/2020 08:47:03 pm

"Any glimpse into the life of an animal quickens our own and makes it so much the larger and better in every way."
John Muir

Reply
Brian O'Riley
10/20/2020 10:54:36 am

"God never made an ugly landscape. All that sun shines on is beautiful, so long as it is wild." John Muir

Reply
Kassandra Thomazin
10/20/2020 02:14:46 pm

Blake Island is a wonderful get-a-way, that I would advise anyone who could appreciate the area to enjoy. It is filled with an abundance of native culture, with a center where you can see native performances and learn about their history. Blake Island is filled with remarkable wild life that the park rangers clearly stay in tune with. Lastly, It is reachable by personal boat or Seattle ferry. I believe this location shows how well people can work with wildlife and have a successfully protected location that many can enjoy.

Reply
Mishayla Blair
10/20/2020 05:47:34 pm

“When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.” - John Muir

Reply
Camille Boyd
10/20/2020 07:08:06 pm

"“Leave it as it is,” said Theodore Roosevelt while visiting the Grand Canyon. “You can not improve on it. The ages have been at work on it, and man can only mar it."" (J. William T. Youngs, Fireside Talk: Rocky Mountain National Park: "Honor the Landscape") Even this particular quote is referencing the land here, I believe that, "leaving as it it is," can be applied to that of wildlife as well in many instances. Such as letting nature take its course too.

Reply
Nicole Wiley
10/20/2020 08:18:58 pm

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
-Margaret Mead
“Like music and art, love of nature is a common language that can transcend political or social boundaries.”
-Jimmy Carter

Reply
Anika Martin
10/20/2020 10:52:47 pm

"But we quickly learn that destruction is creation... Nature is ever at work building and pulling down, creating and destroying, keeping everything whirling and flowing allowing no rest but in rhythmical motion, chasing everything in endless song out of one beautiful form into another." - John Muir

Reply
Erik Ness
10/21/2020 03:53:03 pm

"For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love."
-Carl Sagan

Reply
Elizabeth K Dickson
10/21/2020 05:26:50 pm

“No matter how few possessions you own or how little money you have, loving wildlife and nature will make you rich beyond measure.”
― Paul Oxton

Reply
Noor
10/21/2020 05:40:08 pm

The animals seem very cocky that they are able to walk on the trails and we can't do anything about it. They know we can't go near them, unless they're on a type of path like what Prof. Youngs went through.

Reply
Ben Howard
10/22/2020 08:40:21 pm

A place where animals and humans can coexist without the need to completely change to accommodate the other is a place where humans can become better.

Reply



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