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Rating: 
Summary: Alston Chase Plays God
Review: All you need to know about this book is that Alston Chase has a vendetta against the Park Service. Chase is correct that the Park Service's vision of, and policies for, Yellowstone have changed over time, and have frequently been inconsistent, sometimes silly, and sometimes destructive. But he doesn't grant any leniency for the fact that the earlier, most destructive, policies occurred in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. And after all, the Park Service is a government agency - who in their right mind could be surprised that they've made mistakes? Most important, he damns both the early policy of active management and the present policy of letting most things happen naturally. It's clear that no action of the Park Service could ever satisfy Chase, because he doesn't really know what he wants. Chase has no substantive alternative management policy to propose - he's simply one of those annoying people (and we all know some of them) who never have anything helpful to say but are always quick to criticize.
Rating:
Summary: Alston Chase Plays God
Review: All you need to know about this book is that Alston Chase has a vendetta against the Park Service. Chase is correct that the Park Service's vision of, and policies for, Yellowstone have changed over time, and have frequently been inconsistent, sometimes silly, and sometimes destructive. But he doesn't grant any leniency for the fact that the earlier, most destructive, policies occurred in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. And after all, the Park Service is a government agency - who in their right mind could be surprised that they've made mistakes? Most important, he damns both the early policy of active management and the present policy of letting most things happen naturally. It's clear that no action of the Park Service could ever satisfy Chase, because he doesn't really know what he wants. Chase has no substantive alternative management policy to propose - he's simply one of those annoying people (and we all know some of them) who never have anything helpful to say but are always quick to criticize.
Rating: 
Summary: Why is this guy taken seriously?
Review: Alston Chase's approach to conservation is that the hands-off approach leads to severely damaged ecosystems, and that intensive human management is needed instead. This may very well be true in areas which have known intensive human domination for decades or centuries, but it is certainly not true in wilderness areas or areas of only light human impact like Yellowstone. Chase here is trying to apply a conservation approach which works well elsewhere (such as in wildlife management areas in the eastern U.S.) to Yellowstone, and it just doesn't work. His claim that Yellowstone park is being destroyed because it is being allowed to exist as wilderness is just silly. It's too bad that this viewpoint even has adherents at all. Wilderness has a right to exist for its own sake, and if allowed to do so, it doesn't die, it thrives; if that ecosystem was damaged in the past due to human activities it will heal itself and move toward stasis. Any honest book on conservation biology will drive that point home. Alston Chase's approach would allow for no wilderness, just heavily managed natural areas that are severely altered from what they would be if left alone.That aside, some of the other asects of this book are also distasteful, such as his gratuitous attacks on the "California Cosmologists", which is his attempt to lump wilderness advocates in with New Agers. He has nothing good to say about the Park Service, and I doubt that if they did start following his prescriptions that he would have anything good to say about them.
Rating: 
Summary: God's Playground for Man to Feel in Control
Review: Chase presents an interesting history of Yellowstone National Park and its human destroyers/protectors. Chase shows the reader how good intentions sometimes do pave the way to bad experiences and worse results. Who could have imagined a national park having fences put up to keep wild animals in? Who would have thought that park rangers would decide that the beavers' dams were too destructive? From my own travels, there is still evidence of beavers and their dams, yet at one point this was nill. That's just one example. Wolves were destroyed because they were seen as a horrible threat, yet now wolves have been reintroduced with brand new controversy. When will we stop playing God? Did we ever not play God in this/and other parks? This is a great read for someone who has interest in national parks and the salvation of these "natural lands." Read it with questions forming, and then go find other sources to answer your questions. This is just one person's research/view point, but Chase gives us a lot to consider and look into. When is it right for humans to interfere? Or is it ever right?
Rating:
Summary: God's Playground for Man to Feel in Control
Review: Chase presents an interesting history of Yellowstone National Park and its human destroyers/protectors. Chase shows the reader how good intentions sometimes do pave the way to bad experiences and worse results. Who could have imagined a national park having fences put up to keep wild animals in? Who would have thought that park rangers would decide that the beavers' dams were too destructive? From my own travels, there is still evidence of beavers and their dams, yet at one point this was nill. That's just one example. Wolves were destroyed because they were seen as a horrible threat, yet now wolves have been reintroduced with brand new controversy. When will we stop playing God? Did we ever not play God in this/and other parks? This is a great read for someone who has interest in national parks and the salvation of these "natural lands." Read it with questions forming, and then go find other sources to answer your questions. This is just one person's research/view point, but Chase gives us a lot to consider and look into. When is it right for humans to interfere? Or is it ever right?
Rating: 
Summary: The uncomfortable truth
Review: I first learned of this book when I was working as a volunteer fire fighter in Northern California back in 1989. The subject came up one evening and the dinner table polarized between the Park Service/Forestry workers and the "environmentalist" crowd. (I was just helping out because my house was at risk from the fire and didn't fit into either camp.) The environmentalists hated the book while the professional forestry managers tried to explain to them that Chase had a lot of good points. I was curious enough to seek out the book to read and learned a lot. Chase's main point is that you can't have it both ways - if you don't want to manage these areas actively you are going to end up with the destruction of habitat and species you were trying to avoid - and proves his case in detail using the Yellowstone disaster as an example. His more recent book, In a Dark Wood, provides more evidence (including a depressing acount of how the unmanged elk herds in Yellowstone are destroying entire ecosystems...
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Summary: An ideological tract
Review: It has been almost 15 years since Chase published this book. Over this time it has become an ideological tract for those who dislike the Park Service. In order to understand this line of argumentation, all serious students of public land politics should read Chase. Some of his criticisms are valid, but for those seeking a broader and more objective perspective on Yellowstone, more reading needs to be done. One book that is particularly good, and which comments on the limited number of historical sources Chase used before concluding that early Yellowstone had few large animals, is Paul Schullery's "Searching for Yellowstone." Houghton-Mifflin. 1997. Here is a footnote written to my review above (Sept. 2003). Almost all the deleterious effects of excessive and unamanged elk in Yellowstone which Chase describes have been eliminated by the reintroduction of the wolf. The size of the elk herds have declined somewhat, but of equal or greater importance, willows and aspen are showing rapid growth rather than decline for the first time in many years. The wolves keep the elk moving and out of the dangerous zones (for elk) along the creeks where the willows grow. So the vegetation florishes.
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Summary: Beyond bears and park rangers...
Review: Mr. Chase has written a book that should be required reading for anyone involved in natural resource management, be they agency professionals, activists, or recreationists. As a wildlife biologist, I found the book fascinating; Mr. Chase is able to investigate aspects of resource management that often go overlooked in today's media. Beyond that, Mr. Chase provides a brutally honest account of the evolution of Park Service policy. Whether you have a PhD in resource management or you love the park on a personal, more intimate level, this book is for you.
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Summary: Eat it Park Service
Review: The Park Service should take some notes on this book
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