Speaker 1: You were listening to History on Trial, a production of
Speaker 1: iHeart Podcasts. Listener Discretion advised. Vicky Schlicht and Harry Walker
Speaker 1: were almost back to her dorm when he leaned close
Speaker 1: and asked if he could kiss her. She was pleasantly surprised.
Speaker 1: Boys didn't always ask first, but Harry was thoughtful like that.
Speaker 1: Vicky couldn't believe she'd only known him for two and
Speaker 1: a half days. Their connection felt much deeper than that.
Speaker 1: Maybe it was everything they had in common. Both of
Speaker 1: them were farm kids, away from home for the first time.
Speaker 1: Maybe it was the hours they'd spent talking, sharing stories
Speaker 1: of their families and their likes and dislikes. Maybe it
Speaker 1: was the magical setting midsummer in Yellowstone National the geothermal
Speaker 1: pools gently steaming beside them, the deep, black, star spangled
Speaker 1: night sky stretching above them. Whatever it was, this connection,
Speaker 1: this moment felt special. So Vicky said yes, Harry could
Speaker 1: kiss her. He leaned down and they kissed, holding each
Speaker 1: other tight in the shadow of the tall pines. After
Speaker 1: a minute, Vicky reluctantly pulled back. She had to work
Speaker 1: the next day and needed to get some sleep. Harry
Speaker 1: took her home, then gently kissed her good night. After
Speaker 1: leaving Vicky, Harry walked back to the Old Faithful Inn,
Speaker 1: where his friend Philip Bradbury was waiting at the bar.
Speaker 1: Philip was easy to spot, six feet tall and skinny
Speaker 1: with a shock of red hair. Harry and Philip headed
Speaker 1: out of the inn into the darkness sometime after midnight.
Speaker 1: It was June twenty fifth, nineteen seventy two, a week
Speaker 1: or so earlier when the pair had decided to go
Speaker 1: to Yellowstone. They'd made a plan to hike out into
Speaker 1: the back country and camp there, far from the tourist crowds.
Speaker 1: But then, on June twenty second, while picking up groceries
Speaker 1: in Livingstone, Montana, Harry had met Vicky. She'd given him
Speaker 1: a ride to the park and they'd hit it off.
Speaker 1: Vicky had a summer job at the Old Faithful Inn
Speaker 1: and Harry wanted to stay near her, so Harry and
Speaker 1: Philip had ducked under the barrier ropes by the geothermal
Speaker 1: pools and headed up a forested ridge near Guyser Hill.
Speaker 1: Camping like this near a developed area but not in
Speaker 1: an official campsite wasn't allowed, but lots of people did it.
Speaker 1: Philip and Harry had found a nice flat spot hidden
Speaker 1: amongst the pines and slept there for two nights without incident.
Speaker 1: But tonight there was a problem. They couldn't remember exactly
Speaker 1: where their campsite was. They had had a few drinks
Speaker 1: at the inn with Vicki, and the darkness was impenetrable.
Speaker 1: Harry shone his flashlight at the trees, hoping to spot
Speaker 1: something familiar. They weren't worried. They had nowhere to be,
Speaker 1: nothing to do all the time in the world. Philip
Speaker 1: and Harry walked side by side, singing camp songs and laughing,
Speaker 1: and then suddenly a shadow in the pines, something moving.
Speaker 1: Harry pointed his flashlight at it, but before his brain
Speaker 1: could process what he was seeing, it was on him,
Speaker 1: its teeth and claws and great stinking mass enveloping him
Speaker 1: a grizzly bear. Philip either fell or was struck by
Speaker 1: the bear and began rolling down the ridge. He heard
Speaker 1: Harry scream for help. Philip managed to get to his
Speaker 1: feet and run. When he felt safe, he stopped and
Speaker 1: turned and called Harry, is there a bear up there?
Speaker 1: Harry didn't answer. It took park rangers four and a
Speaker 1: half hours to find Harry's body. He was lying on
Speaker 1: his back one hundred and sixty five feet away from
Speaker 1: his campsite. His face was peaceful, like he was sleeping,
Speaker 1: but his body was a gory mess. The bear had
Speaker 1: eaten his internal organs. An autopsy would later reveal that
Speaker 1: the bear had crushed his throat, likely only moments after
Speaker 1: he screamed. Harry's death was tragic, but it was the
Speaker 1: kind of horrible accident that happens in the wilderness, sometimes
Speaker 1: an unavoidable consequence of the collision between humans and nature.
Speaker 1: That's what Harry's family thought, at least at first. But
Speaker 1: a month after his funeral, they got a strange phone call.
Speaker 1: On the other end of the line. A woman told
Speaker 1: them that Harry's death could have been avoided. According to her,
Speaker 1: Harry's death was quote part of a larger pattern of
Speaker 1: government misconduct and a big cover up. As the walkers
Speaker 1: would soon learn, Harry's death was only the latest in
Speaker 1: a long line of troubling interactions between humans and bears
Speaker 1: at Yellowstone. Over the past five years, the park management
Speaker 1: had radically and controversially changed its bear management policies. Biologists
Speaker 1: and wildlife managers and environmental advocates were locked in a
Speaker 1: heated debate over the policy changes. Critics of the new policy,
Speaker 1: including the woman who who called the Walkers, believed that
Speaker 1: it was dangerous for humans and bears alike, and they
Speaker 1: thought that Harry's death proved their case. What was more,
Speaker 1: they thought that Harry's death could change things. If the
Speaker 1: Walkers were willing to soothe the National Park Service, maybe
Speaker 1: they could bring attention to the bear issue and get
Speaker 1: Yellowstone to switch directions. The Walkers were hesitant. They were
Speaker 1: dairy farmers from Alabama. Could they take on the federal government?
Speaker 1: After thinking it over, they thought maybe they could, as
Speaker 1: long as it meant getting justice for Harry. It would
Speaker 1: take three years for their case to go to court,
Speaker 1: but when it finally did in nineteen seventy five, it
Speaker 1: would draw some of the nation's top wildlife biologists to
Speaker 1: a courtroom in California and help change the conversation of
Speaker 1: about bears forever. Welcome to History on Trial. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Mira Hayward. This week Martin v. United States. At its inception,
Speaker 1: Yellowstone National Park was given two missions. The bill creating Yellowstone,
Speaker 1: signed by President Grant on March first, eighteen seventy two
Speaker 1: tasked the park with being both quote a public park
Speaker 1: or pleasuring ground, and also with quote the preservation from
Speaker 1: injury or spoliation of all natural curiosities or wonders within
Speaker 1: said park and their retention in their natural condition. Quickly,
Speaker 1: it became clear that these two goals might contradict each other.
Speaker 1: The needs of tourists and the needs of nature are
Speaker 1: not always the same. Tourism needs infrastructure, roads, bridges, hotels, campgrounds,
Speaker 1: and bathrooms, all of which require modification of the natural environment.
Speaker 1: There's also the question of what exactly natural means. Is
Speaker 1: the natural condition of Yellowstone the condition that government surveyors
Speaker 1: founded in in eighteen seventy two, or is it the
Speaker 1: condition of the primeval land hundreds or thousands of years before.
Speaker 1: By the eighteen seventies, many species native to Yellowstone, including bison,
Speaker 1: had been nearly eradicated by white settlers. Thus the question
Speaker 1: of restoration versus preservation arose. Should species be reintroduced to
Speaker 1: Yellowstone and should invasive methods be taken to preserve the environment,
Speaker 1: measures like spraying pesticides, administering controlled burns, or culling the
Speaker 1: elkurds that rapidly multiplied after the park's creation. Generations of
Speaker 1: wildlife managers, government officials, and environmental advocates have struggled to
Speaker 1: find the right answer to these questions. There is perhaps
Speaker 1: no issue that exemplifies the debates over people's needs versus
Speaker 1: nature's needs and intervention verse preservation in Yellowstone than the
Speaker 1: issue of bear management. Yellowstone is home to black bears
Speaker 1: and grizzly bears, both of which are omnivorous eaters. In
Speaker 1: the eighteen eighties and eighteen nineties, as the first Yellowstone
Speaker 1: hotels were erected, Yellowstone bears found a delicious new food source,
Speaker 1: human trash. Piles of food scraps discarded by hotel kitchens
Speaker 1: drew swarms of bears. The bears, in turn attracted more
Speaker 1: tourists who loved to watch the giant predators delicately gnaw
Speaker 1: on chicken bones. Being a commercial opportunity, hotels created feeding
Speaker 1: shows makeshift amphitheaters in which tourists could sit on bleachers
Speaker 1: and watch bears eat trash on raised stages. Bears also
Speaker 1: found other ways of getting human food, such as by
Speaker 1: begging tourists who would feed the bears out of their
Speaker 1: car windows. Despite the charming appearance of a begging bear.
Speaker 1: These were still wild animals. Once skittish around humans, Yellowstones
Speaker 1: bears had by the nineteen thirties lost most of their fear.
Speaker 1: Black bears in particular, grew comfortable and even bold around people,
Speaker 1: and in their eagerness for human food, injuries were bound
Speaker 1: to happen. The bears didn't mean to hurt people, they
Speaker 1: were usually just startled or impatient. Between nineteen thirty one
Speaker 1: and nineteen thirty nine, five hundred and twenty seven people
Speaker 1: were injured by bears. Besides the injuries, there were growing
Speaker 1: concerns amongst National Park Service biologists that getting bears hooked
Speaker 1: on human food would be bad for the animals. The
Speaker 1: Service in general had been slowly adopting a more non
Speaker 1: interventionist policy towards wildlife management. In nineteen thirty nine, Park
Speaker 1: Service Director Arno Camera released a policy memorandum declaring that
Speaker 1: quote every species shall be left to carry on its
Speaker 1: existence unaided. Two years later, in accordance with this directive,
Speaker 1: all bear feeding shows at Yellowstone were shut down. But
Speaker 1: by this point the Yellowstone bears were conditioned to expect
Speaker 1: human food when they did not get it at the
Speaker 1: feeding shows, they began prowling campgrounds and scrounging around trash dumps.
Speaker 1: In response, park rangers began killing bears who kept returning
Speaker 1: to human areas, but this couldn't keep every bear away.
Speaker 1: In nineteen forty two, a grizzly bear killed forty five
Speaker 1: year old nurse Martha Henson near the Old Faithful campground.
Speaker 1: Next year, the Park Service hired a biologist to study
Speaker 1: the bear problem. The biologists recommended that the parks shut
Speaker 1: down hand feeding by visitors, but officials were reluctant to
Speaker 1: enforce a hand feeding ban because bear feeding was one
Speaker 1: of the park's largest draws. There was another component to
Speaker 1: the bear problem. The parks had a responsibility not just
Speaker 1: to protect their visitors, but also to protect bears. But
Speaker 1: the park didn't know exactly how many bears it had,
Speaker 1: or where they lived, or what their behaviors were. This
Speaker 1: was especially true of the park's grizzly population, who kept
Speaker 1: to the shadows more than black bears did. By the
Speaker 1: late nineteen fifties, Yellowstone's chief naturalist, David Kahn, decided that
Speaker 1: a comprehensive survey was needed. He hired John and Frank Craighead,
Speaker 1: pioneering wildlife biologists to study yellowstones grizzlies and make recommendations
Speaker 1: for conserving them. John and Frank Craighead were identical twins
Speaker 1: born in nineteen sixteen. They'd grown up outdoors, cultivating a
Speaker 1: love for wildlife and a willingness to get their hands dirty,
Speaker 1: scaling cliffs and reaching into eagles nests while studying birds
Speaker 1: of prey. By age twenty five, they'd been published in
Speaker 1: National Geographic, and their celebrity only rose from there. With
Speaker 1: their handsome, weathered faces, the Craigheads made excellent poster boys
Speaker 1: for the burgeoning field of wildlife management in the nineteen fifties.
Speaker 1: After a stint developing wilderness survival training programs for the
Speaker 1: military and completing their PhDs at the University of Michigan,
Speaker 1: the Craigheads built neighboring laws cabins in Jackson Hole, Wyoming,
Speaker 1: and settled down with their wives and children. The grizzly
Speaker 1: research was the perfect study for the Craigheads. Frank was
Speaker 1: interested in the application of technology to wildlife management, and
Speaker 1: he began developing a radio collar large enough for grizzly bears.
Speaker 1: The first of its kind. In nineteen sixty one, the
Speaker 1: Craigheads fitted their first collar. They also developed a system
Speaker 1: for identifying bears. Before the Craigheads, the standard practice was
Speaker 1: tagging bears ears with small, metallic numbered ear tags, but
Speaker 1: these tags were impossible to tell apart at a distance.
Speaker 1: The Craigheads began using colored plastic ear loops instead. Over
Speaker 1: the next eight years, they would capture and track scores
Speaker 1: of grizzlies, gaining great insight into the bears' lives. In
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty seven, the Craigheads turned in an one hundred
Speaker 1: and thirteen page report to Yellowstone leadership. Besides a collection
Speaker 1: of observations on grizzly behavior, including the fact that they
Speaker 1: had enormous ranges and that they often returned to where
Speaker 1: they came from after they were relocated, the report contained
Speaker 1: recommendations for grizzly management. Many of the Kraigheads recommendations were
Speaker 1: about Yellowstones dumps. In the wake of the Feeding Show's closure,
Speaker 1: dumps had become a major food source for bears, but
Speaker 1: the dumps were unnatural, unsightly, and promoted bears dependence on
Speaker 1: human food. The park wanted to close them. The Cragheads
Speaker 1: agreed that the dumps should be closed, but they advocated
Speaker 1: for a gradual, careful closure plan. They recommended placing elk
Speaker 1: carcasses in the backwoods to attract bears away from the dump.
Speaker 1: They also recommended that all other sources of human food
Speaker 1: be eliminated so that bears would not turn to campgrounds
Speaker 1: or trash cans as subsidance for the dumps. While the
Speaker 1: dump slowly closed, the Craigheads concluded the park should continue
Speaker 1: to carefully monitor and track the grizzlies. These recommendations may
Speaker 1: not seem controversial on the surface, but the atmosphere at
Speaker 1: Yellowstone was very different in nineteen sixty seven than it
Speaker 1: had been when the Craigheads began their study in nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty nine. In nineteen sixty six, Glenn Cole became the
Speaker 1: park's head wildlife manager. Jordan Fisher Smith, in his book
Speaker 1: Engineering Eden, describes Cole as quote a champion of a
Speaker 1: let nature take its course philosophy. This philosophy was shared
Speaker 1: by Jack Anderson, who became Yellowstone superintendent in nineteen sixty seven.
Speaker 1: Cole and Anderson wanted Yellowstone to be as free from
Speaker 1: human influence as possible. Yellowstone's centennial was only five years
Speaker 1: away in nineteen seventy two, and by that year Cole
Speaker 1: and Anderson hoped that the park would be a pristine
Speaker 1: vision of untouched wilderness, minus the hotels and rangers. Of course,
Speaker 1: so the Craighead's idea of gradually closing the dumps was
Speaker 1: a non starter. If they wanted bears to be weaned
Speaker 1: off human food in five years, the dumps would have
Speaker 1: to close now. Cole and Andersen thought. The Craigheads cautioned
Speaker 1: that this could be dangerous. The bears would search for
Speaker 1: other sources of human food, increasing the likelihood of dangerous
Speaker 1: encounters with humans, but Cole and Anderson were convinced that
Speaker 1: they just needed to rip the band aid off. They
Speaker 1: also vetoed continued tracking of the bears. The craigheads garishly
Speaker 1: colored ear loops and bulky radio colors didn't align with
Speaker 1: their vision for the park. Cole and Anderson were not
Speaker 1: alone in their passion for removing human influence from the
Speaker 1: National parks. Non intervention was an increasingly popular philosophy amongst
Speaker 1: ecologists and park managers. In the words of Howard Zoenheiser,
Speaker 1: chief author of the Wilderness Act and Executive Secretary of
Speaker 1: the Wilderness Society. With regard to areas of wilderness, we
Speaker 1: should be guardians, not gardeners. Cole and Anderson also received
Speaker 1: backing from one of the most prominent figures in their field,
Speaker 1: a Starker Leopold. Leopold had not always favored this kind
Speaker 1: of thinking. In nineteen sixty three, Leopold had written a
Speaker 1: report for the federal government's Advisory Board on Wildlife Management
Speaker 1: that had become the guiding document for the ecological management
Speaker 1: of national parks. In it, Leopold had supported intervention as
Speaker 1: long as it was used to simulate earlier, more natural conditions,
Speaker 1: cutting down trees to clear historic viewpoints or using bulldozers
Speaker 1: to recreate buffalo wallows, for example. But by the late sixties,
Speaker 1: after coming under public criticism for certain park practices, including
Speaker 1: the mass killing of elk which had begun to overrun Yellowstone,
Speaker 1: Leopold had softened his views. He was also good friends
Speaker 1: with Glenn Cole. The two went fishing in Yellowstone every year.
Speaker 1: In nineteen sixty nine, after a meeting about bear management
Speaker 1: at the park, Leopold, in his highly influential role as
Speaker 1: head of the Natural Science's Advisory Committee presented a report
Speaker 1: to the National Park Service in which he did not
Speaker 1: take a position on whether fast or slow closure of
Speaker 1: the dumps was better, essentially leaving the decision in Coal
Speaker 1: and Anderson's hands. Leopold did, however, endorse the Craighead's ideas
Speaker 1: about establishing elk bait stations in the back country and
Speaker 1: continuing to track the bears, But Cole and Anderson did
Speaker 1: not set up the bait stations, and they directed rangers
Speaker 1: to remove any colored markings from the bears they captured.
Speaker 1: Over the next three years, Cole and Anderson put their
Speaker 1: dump closure plan into action. They put electric fences around
Speaker 1: some dumps and covered others with dirt. The Craigheads vehemently
Speaker 1: objected and raised their concerns publicly. Tensions between the brothers
Speaker 1: and the park administration grew quickly. In nineteen seventy one,
Speaker 1: Superintendent Andersen refused to renew their Grizzly study contract. To
Speaker 1: underline his point, he bulldozed and burned the Craighead's lab
Speaker 1: in the park. The Craigheads were heartbroken and furious. The bears, too,
Speaker 1: did not seem happy with developments. More and more bears
Speaker 1: were showing up at campgrounds to look for food. Rangers
Speaker 1: tried to tranquilize and relocate these bears, but bears had
Speaker 1: an uncanny knack for quickly making their way back to
Speaker 1: where they'd been picked up. If a bear was an
Speaker 1: habitual offender and refused to stay away, or if it
Speaker 1: threatened visitors, rangers would kill it, But rangers couldn't be
Speaker 1: everywhere at once. All it took was a second for
Speaker 1: a bear to inflict fatal injuries on a human. As
Speaker 1: encounters between bears and tourists increased, many feared that bears
Speaker 1: would not be the only casualty of the new policy.
Speaker 1: It was into this environment that Harry Walker, blissfully unaware
Speaker 1: of anything to do with bears, arrived at Yellowstone in
Speaker 1: the summer of nineteen seventy two. Harry Walker loved the farm,
Speaker 1: but he also desperately wanted to get away from it.
Speaker 1: Harry loved the farm's gently rolling fields, its lush grass
Speaker 1: that people said produced the sweetest milk in Alabama Chocalaca Valley.
Speaker 1: He loved working with animals, delivering calves, and riding his
Speaker 1: horse Comanche. He loved his family. His father Wallace and
Speaker 1: mother Louise, his three sisters, Betty, Carolyn, and Jenny. So
Speaker 1: why did he want to leave? Well, to begin with,
Speaker 1: there was the pressure. Twenty five year old Harry knew
Speaker 1: that his father Wallace expected him to take over the
Speaker 1: farm one day. That was fine with Harry, except that
Speaker 1: before he settled down in Alabama, he wanted to see
Speaker 1: a little of the world first. And then there was
Speaker 1: the work. Running a farm is hard physical labor. When
Speaker 1: Harry was fourteen, a horse had kicked his arm, breaking it.
Speaker 1: The arm had pained him ever since. By early nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy two, Harry could barely lift a glass of iced
Speaker 1: tea without wincing from watching his father stoop and rub
Speaker 1: his aching back. Harry knew that the physical challenges would
Speaker 1: only continue. The work also didn't pay well. The money
Speaker 1: the family made from its milk wasn't enough to pay
Speaker 1: Harry a full time salary, so he had to take
Speaker 1: on part time jobs too, at a pipe foundry, in
Speaker 1: a pool hall, at a construction site in the summer.
Speaker 1: Harry sometimes worked twenty two hours a day, and that
Speaker 1: was on top of his service with the National Guard.
Speaker 1: Because National guardsmen did not serve abroad at this time,
Speaker 1: Joining the National Guard meant that you could avoid being
Speaker 1: sent to Vietnam. The local Guard commander, knowing how much
Speaker 1: Wallace needed Harry at home, had recruited Harry in nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty seven. Harry had a complicated relationship with the Guard.
Speaker 1: He excelled in his first years, winning awards for his sharpshooting,
Speaker 1: but he grew increasingly frustrated with what he saw as
Speaker 1: the Guard's arbitrary rules and regulations. He clashed with a
Speaker 1: new commander in the summer of nineteen seventy one over
Speaker 1: a rule requiring short hair. By nineteen seventy two, Harry
Speaker 1: had reached a breaking point. He started spending more time
Speaker 1: at a friend's house, which had become a sort of
Speaker 1: hippie magnet, drawing in care free kids traveling across the country.
Speaker 1: He stopped showing up at National Guard assemblies and was
Speaker 1: declared absent without official leave. He told his father Wallace,
Speaker 1: that he was thinking about taking a vacation. Wallace supported
Speaker 1: the vacation idea he knew how hard Harry was working.
Speaker 1: He told his son to enjoy some time off and
Speaker 1: promised that he would secure a bank loan so that
Speaker 1: he could begin paying Harry a full time salary. On
Speaker 1: June sixth, Harry hopped in a gray Buick along with
Speaker 1: four other young adults, including his high school classmate Philip Bradbury.
Speaker 1: He hadn't told his mother, Louise that he was leaving
Speaker 1: because he knew she'd try to stop him. The group
Speaker 1: stayed overnight in Louisville with Harry's older sister, Carolyn and
Speaker 1: her husband. Then they drove north with no real plan.
Speaker 1: For the next few weeks, the group bounced across the
Speaker 1: Northeast and Midwest, staying with friends. Eventually they headed to Colorado.
Speaker 1: At a campground outside Aspen, they met a girl who
Speaker 1: told them that they'd just had to see Yellowstone, the
Speaker 1: most beautiful place on Earth. Philip and Harry were sold.
Speaker 1: Harry called his father and asked Wallace to mail his
Speaker 1: camping gear to Cheyenne, Wyoming. He told his father that
Speaker 1: he was as happy as he'd ever been and that
Speaker 1: he wished Wallace could someday see the beautiful Rocky Mountains.
Speaker 1: Philip and Harry split up from the rest of their
Speaker 1: group in Boulder and hitchhiked the rest of the way
Speaker 1: to Cheyenne. Once there, Harry picked up his camping gear
Speaker 1: and called his father once more. Wallace told him that
Speaker 1: the bank loan had come through. That great Daddy, Harry
Speaker 1: said they would never speak again. Three days later, on
Speaker 1: June twenty second, Harry was standing by the side of
Speaker 1: the road in Livingston, Montana, with his thumb stuck out.
Speaker 1: Pretty brunette eighteen year old Vicky Schlicht pulled over. Harry
Speaker 1: said he was hoping for a ride to a nearby
Speaker 1: campground to pick up Philip. Vicky said she could do that,
Speaker 1: and that she could also drive them into Yellowstone after
Speaker 1: where she was working for the summer at the Old
Speaker 1: Faithful Inn. The trio spent much of the next two
Speaker 1: and a half days together. Harry and Vicki hid it off.
Speaker 1: She liked his long eyelashes, his shaggy, light brown hair,
Speaker 1: his kindness, the way he really listened to her. He
Speaker 1: talked about the farm, how he wanted to take her
Speaker 1: there and introduce her to his family and to his
Speaker 1: beloved horse, Comanche. They were cautiously but willingly imagining a
Speaker 1: future together that that future would never come. Shortly before
Speaker 1: one a m on June twenty fifth, not long after
Speaker 1: the pair had their first kiss, a grizzly bear killed Harry.
Speaker 1: The Walker family was devastated by Harry's death. Wallace used
Speaker 1: the money he'd secured from the bank loan to ship
Speaker 1: Harry's body home from Yellowstone. The family's loss was twofold.
Speaker 1: They'd lost their precious son, and they'd lost a future too.
Speaker 1: Wallace and Louise had counted on Harry taking over the farm.
Speaker 1: They had counted on his labor to help support the family.
Speaker 1: In the swipe of a paw, these dreams were gone.
Speaker 1: A month after Harry's funeral, Louise Walker picked up the
Speaker 1: ringing telephone. On the other end was a woman named
Speaker 1: Martha Shell. Martha Shell was a fifty seven year old
Speaker 1: housewife from Kansas City, Missouri. She and her husband spent
Speaker 1: part of the year at their cabin in Colorado and
Speaker 1: took frequent excursions to Yellowstone, where they loved to watch wildlife,
Speaker 1: especially bears. But in the late nineteen sixties they'd notice
Speaker 1: that the bear population seemed to be dropping. The Shells
Speaker 1: weren't the only ones to notice this decline. Visitors to
Speaker 1: Yellowstone were writing complaint letters to the park Service saying
Speaker 1: that they weren't seeing any of the park's fabled bears.
Speaker 1: Once Martha Shell learned that the Park Service was killing
Speaker 1: bears who did not stay away from humans, she was
Speaker 1: certain that this was the cause of the problem. She
Speaker 1: began advocating for policy changes at Yellowstone and eventually connected
Speaker 1: with John and Frank Craighead. When Martha heard about Harry
Speaker 1: Walker's death, she was certain that Glenn Cole and Jack
Speaker 1: Anderson's bear policy was to blame. The abrupted dumb closures
Speaker 1: and the subsequent loss of food she and the Craigheads
Speaker 1: believed had made bears desperate and reckless. On the phone
Speaker 1: to Louise Walker, Martha Shell explained that the Park Service
Speaker 1: was blaming her son for his death. This was true.
Speaker 1: The Park Service had released statements claiming that Harry and
Speaker 1: Philip's choice to leave food out in their campsite and
Speaker 1: to camp illegally were the reasons Harry had died. Martha
Speaker 1: also told Louise that her son was not the first
Speaker 1: casualty of the Park Service's mismanagement of bears. In nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty seven, two young women, Michelle Coons and Julie Helgeson,
Speaker 1: were killed in separate attacks on the same night in
Speaker 1: Glacier National Park in Montana. The Park Service had blamed
Speaker 1: coons and helgeson for their fates, too, saying that the
Speaker 1: women were menstruating attracting bears. But investigative journalist Jack Olsen
Speaker 1: had discovered that before the attacks, there had been numerous
Speaker 1: incidents with grizzlies at the park, especially in areas where
Speaker 1: humans were feeding bear. Olsen's book about the incident, Knight
Speaker 1: of the Grizzlies, received national attention upon its publication in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty nine. Martha Shell told Louise Walker that she
Speaker 1: was going to send her Olsen's book. After all. The
Speaker 1: Walkers had read the book and been horrified by what
Speaker 1: they learned. They asked Shelle what to do. Sue, she said,
Speaker 1: sue the Park service for the wrongful death of your son.
Speaker 1: When Louise said she wouldn't even know how to find
Speaker 1: an attorney, Martha told her not to worry about it.
Speaker 1: She had an attorney in mind. His name was Steven Zetterberg,
Speaker 1: Martha said, and he was an expert in national park cases.
Speaker 1: Thirty years earlier, there had been no such thing as
Speaker 1: a national parks case. That was because before nineteen forty six,
Speaker 1: private citizens could not sue the federal government. The only
Speaker 1: avenue for compensation if you suffered loss or harm due
Speaker 1: to a federal employee's actions was getting Congress to pass
Speaker 1: a private relief bill. But in nineteen forty six, motivated
Speaker 1: by public pressure, the Federal Tort Claims Act was enacted,
Speaker 1: allowing private citizens to sue the federal government. Two years later,
Speaker 1: the law had its first application to a bear incident.
Speaker 1: In nineteen forty eight, twenty three year old William Claypool
Speaker 1: sued the National Park Service after a grizzly seriously injured
Speaker 1: him in a campsite near Old Faithful. The night before
Speaker 1: Claypool and his family had arrived in Yellowstone, a grizzly
Speaker 1: bear had injured several people at the same campground, but
Speaker 1: rangers told the Claypools that the site was safe. A
Speaker 1: judge ruled that the Park Service employees had failed to
Speaker 1: adequately warn Claypool of the danger opposed by bears, and
Speaker 1: awarded him five thousand dollars. Over the next twelve years,
Speaker 1: the claims against the Park Service for bear injuries would
Speaker 1: total nearly a million dollars. Stephen Zetterberg, a tall Lean
Speaker 1: lawyer in his late fifties, with curly gray hair and
Speaker 1: an affinity for underdogs, took on his first National Parks
Speaker 1: case in nineteen sixty four. Four years earlier, then ten
Speaker 1: year old Smitty Parrot had been mauled by a grizzly
Speaker 1: bear in Glacier National Park. Smitty had lost an eye
Speaker 1: and a lung and endured years of reconstructive surgeries and
Speaker 1: physical rehabilitation. His medical bills had nearly bankrupted his family.
Speaker 1: Zetterberg filed a demand letter asking for three hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty nine thousand dollars arguing that Glacier Rangers should have
Speaker 1: closed the trail Smitty was mauled on after a bear
Speaker 1: attack on the same trail ten days earlier. The case
Speaker 1: was assigned to Assistant United States Attorney William Spivac and
Speaker 1: was eventually settled out of court for one hundred thousand
Speaker 1: dollars close to a million dollars today. Zetterberg faced speedback
Speaker 1: again later that year, filing suit on behalf of a
Speaker 1: boy named Mark Vaughn, who had fallen into an improperly
Speaker 1: marked thermal pool in Yellowstone and suffered horrific burns. Again,
Speaker 1: the case settled out of court this time for fifty
Speaker 1: six thousand dollars. Zetterberg and Speedback, a methodical man in
Speaker 1: his mid thirties, would be facing off again in the
Speaker 1: Walker case, but this time they were going to trial.
Speaker 1: They would be arguing their case in the United States
Speaker 1: District Court in Los Angeles. You might be wondering why
Speaker 1: was the death of an Alabama man in Wyoming being
Speaker 1: argued in Los Angeles. This was due to some complicated
Speaker 1: legal maneuvering on Stephen Zetterberg's part. After speaking to the
Speaker 1: Walkers in nineteen seventy two, Zetterberg had agreed to take
Speaker 1: their case, but he could only practice law in Calais.
Speaker 1: To get the case moved to California, he appointed one
Speaker 1: of his associates, Dennis Martin, as administrator of Harry Walker's estate.
Speaker 1: Dennis Martin then submitted documents saying, in essence, the estate
Speaker 1: plans to sue the government. If we win, the winnings
Speaker 1: will go to the estate. Because I, the administrator of
Speaker 1: the state am in California, the case should be decided here.
Speaker 1: Jordan Fisher Smith describes this logic as quote a mobius
Speaker 1: strip a snake eating its own tail. But it worked.
Speaker 1: Martin's role in administering the estate is why this case
Speaker 1: is called Martin v. United States. As with the Parrot
Speaker 1: and Vaughan cases, Zetterberg was using the Federal Torts Claim
Speaker 1: Act to try to get compensation for his clients. In
Speaker 1: his suit, he explained how he believed the actions of
Speaker 1: federal employees had caused Walker's death. The open garbage operations
Speaker 1: were closed, the suit charge, and the bears, which hitherto
Speaker 1: had congregated there were forced to seek other food sources.
Speaker 1: Not being able to support themselves on their natural fodder
Speaker 1: and being used to scraps from the tables of humans,
Speaker 1: Grizzly bears increasingly invaded visitors campsites. The closure of the
Speaker 1: dumps was negligent, and that defendant knew or should have known,
Speaker 1: that it would substantially increase the number of grizzly bear
Speaker 1: attacks on visitors. Defendants' activities constituted an ultra hazardous activity.
Speaker 1: On January ninth, nineteen seventy five, Steven Zetterberg, accompanied by
Speaker 1: Wallace Walker, arrived at Judge Andrew Hawk's courtroom to begin
Speaker 1: the trial. There would be no jury for this trial,
Speaker 1: only a judge. The Walkers, Wallace Louise and their youngest daughter, Jenny,
Speaker 1: had flown to Los Angeles for the trial, their first
Speaker 1: time on an airplane. Zetterberg's wife had taken Louise and
Speaker 1: Jenny sightseeing, but Wallace wanted to be in the courtroom.
Speaker 1: Shortly after proceedings began, though Zetterberg asked Wallace to leave.
Speaker 1: He was submitting Harry's autopsy into evidence and didn't want
Speaker 1: the grieving father to have to hear the details. Zetterberg
Speaker 1: had a specific reason for admitting the autopsy. He wanted
Speaker 1: to point out that though Harry had been torn apart,
Speaker 1: there were no puncture marks indicative of large canine teeth,
Speaker 1: which you would usually see with a bear attack. The
Speaker 1: day after Harry's death, Yellowstone Rangers had set up a
Speaker 1: number of cage traps around the campsite. One of these
Speaker 1: cages caught a female grizzly Rangers using the small numbered
Speaker 1: metal tag in her ear. The only form of grizzly
Speaker 1: tracking at this point, identified the bear as number seventeen
Speaker 1: ninety two, twenty two years old, elderly in grizzly terms,
Speaker 1: seventeen ninety two's canine teeth were worn down to stumps,
Speaker 1: rangers shot the bear, and a necropsy uncovered human hair
Speaker 1: in her digestive track and on her claws. Identifying Bear
Speaker 1: seventeen ninety two as Harry's killer was important for Zetterberg's
Speaker 1: case because it was, in his view, another example of
Speaker 1: mismanagement by the park. Bear seventeen ninety two had first
Speaker 1: been identified in October nineteen seventy, when she had repeatedly
Speaker 1: been found scavenging behind a cafe near Old Faithful. Rangers
Speaker 1: had trapped and tranquilized her, and then transported her via
Speaker 1: helicopter into the back country. This was standard practice for
Speaker 1: bears who were found by human food, but according to
Speaker 1: Frank Craighead in his testimony in the trial, this was
Speaker 1: not a sustainable method of relocating grizzlies his research had found.
Speaker 1: He explained on the stand that grizzlies would almost always
Speaker 1: return to the spot from which they had been captured.
Speaker 1: Frank Craighead had quite a bit more to say about
Speaker 1: Yellowstone's management. He laid out for Judge Hawk how he
Speaker 1: and his brother had raised their concerns about the abrupt
Speaker 1: closure of the dumps, but the park, he said, had
Speaker 1: not been receptive. Even more than that craig had claimed,
Speaker 1: the park's management had warned the brothers to keep quiet
Speaker 1: about potential risks. In August nineteen sixty eight, Glacier National
Speaker 1: Park released a report into the deaths of Michelle Coon's
Speaker 1: and Julie Helgeson. This report claimed that the bears may
Speaker 1: have been attracted to the victim's menstrual blood and their
Speaker 1: perfumed cosmetics. I'll note here that later studies have shown
Speaker 1: that there is no correlation between menstruation and bear attacks,
Speaker 1: but at the time it was both a commonly believed
Speaker 1: myth and a helpful way for the park service to
Speaker 1: divert blame for the deaths. Glen Cole, Yellowstone's chief biologist,
Speaker 1: admitted to Frank Craighead per Craighead's testimony, that the Glacier
Speaker 1: report was quote whitewash. Nevertheless, Cole told Craighead that he
Speaker 1: and his brother needed to publicly back the report's finding.
Speaker 1: If they didn't, Cole threatened the Craigheads would be kicked
Speaker 1: out of Yellowstone. This story hinted at doubts over the
Speaker 1: park's policy within Glen Cole himself, but he was only
Speaker 1: willing to admit this doubt in private. In public, he
Speaker 1: presented the policy of dumb closure as a total success.
Speaker 1: In December nineteen seventy one, Glen Cole had announced at
Speaker 1: a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of
Speaker 1: Science that no human being had been injured by a
Speaker 1: grizzly that year in Yellowstone. This Cole said was proof
Speaker 1: that their bear management program was working. Speback submitted the
Speaker 1: zero injury record at trial to show that the Park
Speaker 1: Service did not need to warn visitors, including Harry Walker,
Speaker 1: of unusual danger from bears, but argued that only considering
Speaker 1: injuries resulted in an incomplete image of the bear situation.
Speaker 1: To prove his point, he asked Frank Craighead to analyze
Speaker 1: Yellowstone's bear logs from nineteen sixty six to nineteen seventy one.
Speaker 1: These were ledgers maintained by rangers in each district of
Speaker 1: the park which recorded bear incidents. The term incident includes
Speaker 1: many kinds of bear activity, from property damage to threatening behavior, relocations,
Speaker 1: and injuries. The bear management logs showed the scope of
Speaker 1: bear activity in Yellowstone. There may have been no injuries
Speaker 1: by grizzlies in nineteen seventy one but that did not
Speaker 1: mean that there were no grizzly encounters. Craighead showed Judge
Speaker 1: Hawk that rangers in the district closest to one of
Speaker 1: the closed dumps had logged one hundred and one incidents
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy one, and that was only in one district.
Speaker 1: In the two years preceding the closure of the DYEP
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty six and nineteen sixty seven, the district had
Speaker 1: logged an average of only twenty one incidents a year.
Speaker 1: Despite Cole and Anderson's public proclamations of success, bear incidents
Speaker 1: in the park had only risen in recent years. The
Speaker 1: more grizzlies that came into contact with humans, the greater
Speaker 1: the chance of an injury or killing. But the government
Speaker 1: claimed that it wasn't policy that had caused Harry Walker's death,
Speaker 1: it was Harry Walker. In a deposition, Glenn Cole stated
Speaker 1: that improperly stored food and an illegally established campsite attracted
Speaker 1: the bear, and that the bear was apparently defending this
Speaker 1: food when it attacked. The government called on Canadian grizzly
Speaker 1: biologist Andrew Pearson to support this point about Walker's responsibility
Speaker 1: to store his food safely wherever grizzlies occur. Pierson testified
Speaker 1: it is essential that precautions be taken by campers and
Speaker 1: developers to keep garbage and other potential bear foods inaccessible,
Speaker 1: because the presence of such an alternative food source may
Speaker 1: predispose a bear, through no fault of its own, to
Speaker 1: an encounter with a human. Food safety wasn't the only
Speaker 1: area where the government believed that Harry Walker had been negligent.
Speaker 1: William Spivack argued that the park would have warned Harry
Speaker 1: Walker about the danger of bears if he had properly
Speaker 1: engaged with park authorities during his visit instead of visiting
Speaker 1: a ranger station and getting a camping permit. When they
Speaker 1: arrived at the park, Harry and Philip had camped illegally,
Speaker 1: and when Vicki Schlicht had driven Harry and Philip into Yellowstone,
Speaker 1: the park ranger at the entrance gate had seen the
Speaker 1: employee sticker on her car, assuming that Harry and Philip
Speaker 1: were also employees, he hadn't given the young men the
Speaker 1: standard lecture about the dangers of bears in geothermal pools,
Speaker 1: nor the accompanying brochures. Steven Zetterberg argued that even if
Speaker 1: Harry had received these warnings, they wouldn't be enough. The
Speaker 1: Park Service's message in these communications, Zetterberg said, had more
Speaker 1: to do with leaving bears alone, not feeding them or
Speaker 1: harassing them. It said nothing about the fact that a
Speaker 1: bear might attack you unprovoked, and unlike at other parks,
Speaker 1: including Glacier, there were no signs in high traffic grizzly
Speaker 1: areas at Yellowstone to warn visitors of increased risk. Even
Speaker 1: though the government was arguing that the dump closure policy
Speaker 1: had nothing to do with Harry's death, several witnesses still
Speaker 1: made a point of defending the policy. Glen Cole said
Speaker 1: that the grizzlies visited the area around Old Faithful to
Speaker 1: quote prey upon the elk population that also frequents the area,
Speaker 1: implying that bears would be in the area even without
Speaker 1: the dump closures. Also testifying in defense of the policy
Speaker 1: was Starker Leopold, one of the highest profile, most powerful
Speaker 1: figures in wildlife ecology. Leopold testified that the danger to
Speaker 1: humans was greatest when the dumps first closed, but that
Speaker 1: over time the risk decreased because quote, young bears were
Speaker 1: not learning to eat garbage. Leopold believed that this theory
Speaker 1: had been proven right, given that there had been no
Speaker 1: bear injuries in nineteen seventy one, although he had not
Speaker 1: seen the bear incident logs. On cross examination, Zetterberg pushed
Speaker 1: Leopold for his true feelings about bear management. He asked
Speaker 1: Leopold if bears could really be weaned from garbage. Quickly,
Speaker 1: Leopold said they could. Looking down at a piece of paper,
Speaker 1: Zeterberg read aloud quote, bears conditioned by years of human
Speaker 1: handouts can hardly be expected to abandon their old handouts
Speaker 1: on command. Now, He asked Leopold, would you agree with
Speaker 1: that statement? Leopold admitted that he did agree. He had
Speaker 1: to because he was the one who had written that
Speaker 1: statement two years earlier. Zetterberg also got Leopold to admit
Speaker 1: that he had disagreed with some of the Cole and
Speaker 1: Anderson's other decisions. Leopold had recommended, in accordance with the Craigheads,
Speaker 1: that backcountry bait station should be set up. Colan Anderson
Speaker 1: had not done so. Leopold had also recommended that monitoring
Speaker 1: of bears, including radio callers, should continue after the dumb closures.
Speaker 1: Col and Anderson had ended all radio tracking and removed
Speaker 1: visible markings from bears so that, in Zetterberg's words, bears
Speaker 1: would look spruced up for the centennial. Is that worth
Speaker 1: the price of bad figures and bad results in terms
Speaker 1: of record keeping? Zetterberg asked Judge Hawk had a similar
Speaker 1: question about Cole and Anderson's cost benefit analysis. He asked
Speaker 1: Frank Craighead how much one of the radio callers cost
Speaker 1: about three thousand dollars per animal. Craig had said, whatever
Speaker 1: the cost, Hawk replied, I suspect that radio collaring grizzlies
Speaker 1: might be considerably cheaper than paying off bereaved families of
Speaker 1: bear attack victims. In court, Hawks certainly seemed sympathetic to
Speaker 1: Zetterberg's case. Frank Craighead's testimony, as well as emotional testimony
Speaker 1: by Harry's sister Jenny, who explained how she now planned
Speaker 1: to forego college in order to help her parents keep
Speaker 1: the farm running, made for a compelling narrative. But William
Speaker 1: Spovac still had a few legal tricks up his sleeve,
Speaker 1: and he planned to deploy his strongest points during closing arguments,
Speaker 1: which began on February twenty fourth, nineteen seventy five, Stephen
Speaker 1: Zetterberg presented his closing. First, he spoke about Harry's hard working,
Speaker 1: friendly nature and about how much Harry's family missed him.
Speaker 1: He talked about all the times that the part could
Speaker 1: have warned visitors about the increased danger from grizzlies, about
Speaker 1: how there were no signs discussing the danger, no literature
Speaker 1: on it, only warnings not to feed bears from their cars.
Speaker 1: The point is, this said, the government was taking a
Speaker 1: risk by closing the dumps and sending bears hungry into
Speaker 1: the park. That risky decision had killed Harry Walker. It
Speaker 1: had devastated the Walker family, and unless the park changed course,
Speaker 1: they might not be the last family to suffer in
Speaker 1: this way. I hope your Honor will send a message
Speaker 1: to the Interior Department via a substantial award, Zetterberg concluded,
Speaker 1: so that this kind of thing will never happen again.
Speaker 1: William Spivack had a message of his own to send,
Speaker 1: but his was for future campers. If you obey the rules,
Speaker 1: Spevack argued, you will be safer. If Harry and Philip
Speaker 1: had gone into a ranger's office and gotten a camping permit,
Speaker 1: like they were supposed to. They would have been advised
Speaker 1: by a ranger to hang their food in a tree,
Speaker 1: not stored on the ground of their campsite like they had.
Speaker 1: There is a brand new visitors center open at Old
Speaker 1: Faithful if Harry and Philip wanted to be informed responsible visitors,
Speaker 1: Spevac said they could have gone in at any time.
Speaker 1: Spevac had a theory for why they hadn't. Before Harry
Speaker 1: had left Alabama, he had been marked absent without official
Speaker 1: leave a wall by the National Guard. At the time
Speaker 1: a wall, guardsmen who were located were sent to the
Speaker 1: regular Army, and this might mean being shipped to Vietnam.
Speaker 1: Harry Walker wasn't a young man on one last vacation
Speaker 1: before he settled down. Spevac said he was a man
Speaker 1: on the run from military service. He had avoided the
Speaker 1: park rangers in Spevak's portrayal because he was afraid of
Speaker 1: getting caught. Spevac had one last argument to make. The
Speaker 1: nineteen forty six Federal Torque Claims Act had a discretionary
Speaker 1: function exception. This exception, broadly speaking, states that the government
Speaker 1: is not liable for policy related actions that government employees
Speaker 1: choose to take If this seems confusing and vague to you,
Speaker 1: I agree. Courts have long debated over how to define
Speaker 1: this exception, but generally, as long as a federal employee's
Speaker 1: action was an exercise of their own judgment and was
Speaker 1: not mandated by a federal statute, policy, or regulation, it
Speaker 1: is seen to be discretionary. In this case, Spevac argued
Speaker 1: the decision to close the dumps was a discretionary function
Speaker 1: of the Park Service and thus exempt from liability. It
Speaker 1: would be up to Judge Hawk to determine if the
Speaker 1: dump closure decision was indeed exempt. He didn't make the
Speaker 1: lawyers wait. Shortly after closing arguments concluded, Judge Hawk said,
Speaker 1: I will never know any more about this case than
Speaker 1: I do right now. I am ready to rule. In
Speaker 1: the case of Martin v. United States, Judge Andrew Hawk
Speaker 1: had found that in the wrongful death of Harry Eugene Walker,
Speaker 1: the National Park Service was responsible. Judge Hawk's ruling was
Speaker 1: not just a victory for the Walkers, it was also
Speaker 1: a victory for the Craigheads. Hawk had agreed with all
Speaker 1: of their findings, stating that the park had been warned
Speaker 1: about the dangers of abruptly closing the dumps, but had
Speaker 1: not adequately notified visitors of these dangers. Yellowstone officials had
Speaker 1: also failed to take precautions, such as establishing backcountry base
Speaker 1: stations or monitoring the bear population with radio callers. After
Speaker 1: his ruling, Judge Hawk awarded the Walker family eighty seven thousand,
Speaker 1: four hundred and seventeen dollars and sixty seven cents, equivalent
Speaker 1: to about half a million dollars today, an amount meant
Speaker 1: to encompass the life value of Harry's work on the farm,
Speaker 1: the loss of Harry's companionship, and his burial expenses, but
Speaker 1: the Walkers would never receive this money. The government appealed
Speaker 1: the decision, and in December nineteen seventy six, an appellate
Speaker 1: court reversed Judge Hawk's decision. This court ruled that Speback's
Speaker 1: argument that the decision to close the dumps was a
Speaker 1: discretionary function immune from liability was correct. Further, they found
Speaker 1: that Harry had contributed to his own death. This appeals
Speaker 1: case was determined using Wyoming law, not California law as
Speaker 1: in the first case, and under Wyoming law, anyone who
Speaker 1: contributed at all to their own injury or death could
Speaker 1: not collect money. Stephen Zetterberg tried to appeal the case
Speaker 1: to the Supreme Court, but in nineteen seventy seven, the
Speaker 1: court declined to hear the case. Knowing that the money
Speaker 1: was crucial for the Walker to keep their farm running,
Speaker 1: Zetterberg lobbied for a relief bill in which the government
Speaker 1: would directly grant the walker's money. Alabama Senator John Sparkman
Speaker 1: introduced the relief bill. It should have been an uncontroversial
Speaker 1: bill that passed easily, but a former Yellowstone ranger named
Speaker 1: Jerry Tayes, who now worked for the Park Services Legislative Office,
Speaker 1: thought that the bill was wrong. Tays believed that Harry,
Speaker 1: not the Park, was the one responsible for his death.
Speaker 1: Tays raised his concerns to Wyoming Senator Malcolm Wallop. Wallops
Speaker 1: strongly opposed the bill, seeing it to be an unjust
Speaker 1: government handout, and raised objections to it. Junior Alabama Senator
Speaker 1: James Allen planned to defend the bill on the Senate
Speaker 1: floor in the summer of nineteen seventy eight, but the
Speaker 1: day before the debate, he died of a heart attack.
Speaker 1: The bill never passed. Without the money, the Walkers could
Speaker 1: not afford to maintain their farm, they sold off the
Speaker 1: land acre by acre until by nineteen seventy seven, as
Speaker 1: Jenny Walker told the Aniston Star newspaper quote, there was
Speaker 1: nothing else to sell. The loss wasn't only financial. Wallace
Speaker 1: Walker told the Star that after Harry's death, the joy
Speaker 1: had gone out of farming for him. He helped so much.
Speaker 1: Wallace said, it was the kind of help only a
Speaker 1: sun could give. With both of us working, it wasn't
Speaker 1: bad at all. It was fun then, but now it's murder.
Speaker 1: As the Walkers struggled to keep their heads above water,
Speaker 1: the Park Service continued to struggle with bears. Shortly after
Speaker 1: the Walker verdict, in July nineteen seventy five, grizzly bears
Speaker 1: were named as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act,
Speaker 1: granting them new protections. The Forest Service brought John and
Speaker 1: Frank Craig Head in to help with grizzly management and
Speaker 1: agan work on a project to map grizzly habitats in Montana.
Speaker 1: At the same time, public criticism of the Park Services
Speaker 1: bear management was growing. Harry Walker's death and the subsequent
Speaker 1: trial helped raise awareness of the issue, as did Jack
Speaker 1: Olsen's book on the Glacier deaths, as well as horrifying
Speaker 1: photographs of a mass grave of black bears killed by
Speaker 1: rangers at Yosemite. Starter Leopold sent a graduate student of
Speaker 1: his named David Graeber to help with the bear situation
Speaker 1: at Yosemite, and Graber would soon make a simple intervention
Speaker 1: that changed everything. Graber developed a bear proof food storage box.
Speaker 1: The first boxes were installed in nineteen seventy seven in
Speaker 1: Yosemite and are now common at campsites across the country.
Speaker 1: With easy access to food, shut off, bears stopped frequenting campgrounds.
Speaker 1: The combination of improved bear monitoring and a sustained solution
Speaker 1: to keeping bears away from popular human areas meant good
Speaker 1: things for human safety. Bear injuries and deaths still occur,
Speaker 1: though rarely in the national parks, but very few of
Speaker 1: these deaths occur due to bears seeking out human food.
Speaker 1: These changes were also good for grizzlies, though grizzly populations
Speaker 1: continued to decline through the nineteen seventies and eighties, reaching
Speaker 1: a low of an estimated ninety nine bears in the
Speaker 1: Greater Yellowstone ecosystem in nineteen ninety. Their populations have rebounded.
Speaker 1: As of twenty twenty two, the ecosystem is home to
Speaker 1: an estimated nine hundred and sixty five grizzlies. Back in Alabama,
Speaker 1: the Walker daughters rallied around their parents. All three girls
Speaker 1: and their families got houses nearby, and eventually Jenny and
Speaker 1: her husband bought the farm, moving into a mobile home
Speaker 1: next to the farmhouse so that Wallace and Louise could
Speaker 1: stay put. Wallace Walker died in September two thousand and four.
Speaker 1: Louise followed him less than a month later. Today, thanks
Speaker 1: to the intervention of conservationists, much of the farm makes
Speaker 1: up part of the Chocalaca Creek Watershed Alliance, a protected
Speaker 1: wildlife refuge. One of the conservationists involved in the creation
Speaker 1: of the alliance was Harry's niece, Renee Simmons Rainey, an
Speaker 1: environmental educator whose career path was inspired by Harry's life
Speaker 1: and death. In twenty sixteen, she spoke about her memories
Speaker 1: of Harry to the Anniston Star quote, I'm standing hand
Speaker 1: in hand with Harry and walking around the farm as
Speaker 1: he identified animal tracks and talked to me about the
Speaker 1: hawks and what they were doing. He was always paying
Speaker 1: attention to the habitat. If there's a lesson from Harry
Speaker 1: Walker's story, says Geordan Fisher Smith, it's to be like
Speaker 1: Harry to always pay attention to our habitats. Everybody's personal
Speaker 1: story exists in a biological context, Smith says, and nature
Speaker 1: and its fate is connected to our fates. That's the
Speaker 1: story of Martin v. United States. Stay with me after
Speaker 1: the Break to hear about lawyer Stephen Zetterberg's battle with
Speaker 1: one of America's most infamous politicians. In nineteen forty eight,
Speaker 1: thirty two year old Stephen Zetterberg was very worried. There
Speaker 1: were only six weeks left in the primary for California's
Speaker 1: twelfth congressional district, and there was no Democratic candidate on
Speaker 1: the ballot. If no one stepped up, the seat's incumbent,
Speaker 1: a Republican, would cruise to reelection. Zetterberg didn't want that
Speaker 1: to happen. This incumbent had showed, in Zetterberg's mind a
Speaker 1: concerning willingness to align himself with the tyrannical anti communist
Speaker 1: House on American Activities Committee. Zetterberg asked the seat's former occupant,
Speaker 1: a Democrat, to try to run again when this man declined,
Speaker 1: Zetterberg decided he'd just have to do it himself and
Speaker 1: declared his candidacy. Zetterberg was new to campaigning. He threw
Speaker 1: square dances to drum up support. His opponent, a seasoned pro,
Speaker 1: took a more aggressive approach. In California, at the time,
Speaker 1: candidates could cross file or register under both parties for
Speaker 1: primary elections. Zetterberg's opponent did just that, listing himself as
Speaker 1: both a Democrat and a Republican and sending mailers that
Speaker 1: described himself as a Democrat to Democratic voters despite his
Speaker 1: true Republican affiliation. As a result, he won both the
Speaker 1: Republican and Democratic primaries that spring, guaranteeing him reelection in
Speaker 1: the fall. Two years later, this representative ran for the
Speaker 1: Senate and employed the same cross filing strategy that he'd
Speaker 1: perfected against Zetterberg. This time people took notice. Democrats coined
Speaker 1: a nickname for this man, Tricky Dick. But Tricky Dick
Speaker 1: wasn't one to be dragged down by name calling. He
Speaker 1: won the election, and that was only the start. The
Speaker 1: man star kept rising, and in nineteen sixty eight he
Speaker 1: was elected President of the United States. Stephen Zetterberg's primary opponent,
Speaker 1: as you may have guessed by now, was none other
Speaker 1: than Richard Nixon. Thank you for listening to History on Trial.
Speaker 1: My main sources for this episode were Jordan Fisher Smith's
Speaker 1: book Engineering Eden, The True Story of a violent Death,
Speaker 1: a Trial, and the Fight over Controlling Nature, as well
Speaker 1: as coverage of the story by Harry Walker's hometown newspaper,
Speaker 1: The Aniston Star. For a full bibliography, as well as
Speaker 1: a transcript of this episode with citations, please visit our
Speaker 1: website History on Trial podcast dot com. History on Trial
Speaker 1: is written and hosted by me Mira Hayward. The show
Speaker 1: is edited and produced by Jesse Funk, with supervising producer
Speaker 1: Trevor Young and executive producers Dana Schwartz, Alexander Williams, Matt Frederick,
Speaker 1: and Mira Hayward. Learn more about the show at History
Speaker 1: on Trial podcast dot com and follow us on Instagram
Speaker 1: at History on Trial and on Twitter at Underscore History
Speaker 1: on Trial. Find more podcasts from iHeartRadio by visiting the
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