Death Valley is the hottest, driest, lowest, place in North America. It is also home to thousands of desert-dwelling plants, animals, and paleontological artifacts. After the National Park Service took over management of the valley in 1933, park rangers struggled to develop a coherent strategy that would protect it and also allow tourists to visit there in comfort.
This presentation traces rangers' use of research on paleontology, wildlife biology, botany, and geology to accomplish their management goals on a proposed road through a small canyon with hundreds of well-preserved prehistoric footprints. It highlights how resource managers inconsistently translated research into practical policies and discusses how their decisions impacted plants, animals, and the landscape itself. It raises questions about hierarchies of knowledge and what constitutes science. It also invites discussion on how federal agencies engage subject matter specialists as they formulate public policy. The constellation of factors that ultimately led to the road project's abandonment show how the agency interpreted scientific findings and used them to influence the physical shape of Death Valley.
