Producer: Ronnie Godeanu
Art Director: Sabina Daley
Graphic Art: Lenny Drozner
Writer: Karen de Seve
Technical Director: Brian Patrick Lee
Scientific Consultant: Gianna Savoie

Thirteen Online is a production of Thirteen/WNET New York’s Kravis Multimedia Education Center in New York City. Anthony Chapman, Director of Interactive & Broadband. Carmen DiRienzo, Vice President and Managing Director, Corporate Affairs.

© 2001 Thirteen/WNET New York

All Rights Reserved

Television Credits

A Mike Birkhead Associates Production for BBC
A Presentation of Thirteen/WNET New York

Funder Credits

Funding for the TV series NATURE is made possible in part by Park Foundation. Major corporate support is provided by Canon U.S.A., Inc., Ford Motor Company, and TIAA-CREF. Additional support is provided by the nation’s public television stations.

For those interested in the subjects shown on GRAND CANYON, we present the following Web sites. All links are valid as of May 24, 2001.

Grand Canyon @ National Geographic
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/media/books/grandcanyon/
An interactive map, facts and figures, and canyon-centered books.

Grand Canyon National Park
http://www.thecanyon.com
The area’s official site, with links to the National Park Service, local tour operators, news, and weather.

Grand Canyon Explorer
http://www.kaibab.org/
Huge, varied site with historical, geological, and travel information, photos, and links to other outdoors sites.

DesertUSA
http://www.desertusa.com/
A monthly online magazine about the American Southwest.

ParkNet
http://www.nps.gov
The homepage of the National Park Service, this is a searchable site with news, travel tips, photos, and links to every park in the system.

Print Resources

We recommend the following print articles for those interested in subjects presented on the program.

——–. “A Day in the Life of a Visitor — Year 2003.” UPLIFT AND EROSION, August 1997.

——–. “Human/Wildlife Interactions.” NATURE NOTES, Spring 1995.

Hamblin, W.K., and Laura Hamblin. “Fire and Water.” NATURAL HISTORY, September 1997, 34-41.

Hart, Stephen. “Rafting Through Time.” SCIENCE WORLD, September 2, 1997, 17-19.

Williams, Ted. “Seeking Refuge.” AUDUBON, May 1996, 34-45.

Zwinger, Ann. “A Landscape of Memory.” AUDUBON, May 1996, 30-31.

A bighorn sheep. It’s not difficult to encounter wildlife in the canyon. Mule deer, bighorn sheep, bobcats, mountain lions, and elk wander the same trails that visitors travel. Seeing animals close up in their natural habitats is breathtaking, but unfortunately, many people forget these creatures are wild. According to Elaine Leslie, a biologist at Grand Canyon National Park, run-ins with wildlife injure about 20 people each year — sometimes seriously. All it takes is a 400-pound deer striking out with a hoof or turning to take a stab with its antlers. However, the trouble begins many times when human visitors don’t respect the animals’ wildness. “I can’t tell you how many people we have who try to put their children on the backs of animals,” Leslie explains.

A bighorn sheep.

But as much as humans need to be careful about themselves, they need to keep the animals’ welfare in mind as well. Even though it’s forbidden to do so in any national park, people love to feed animals. And what creature can resist a tasty treat when it’s offered? The problems arise when the wildlife comes to depend on humans for meals. “The worst-case scenario for the animals is that they lose their ability to forage and strictly seek out handouts,” Leslie says. “We had a population of deer that developed a condition called cachexia, which is literally starving to death.” She explained that fawns acquired the behavior from their parents, never learned to feed themselves, and eventually died. Tragically, the park staff was unable to rescue this group of 30 deer.

An animal autopsy report showed something shocking: about five pounds of trash in one deer’s stomach. “Paper, candy wrappers, plastic bags. Anything associated with food,” Leslie explains. “Every single animal had trash in its stomach.” After a few months, Leslie found that deer began to migrate back into the same area, and the park launched a public awareness campaign to show what happens when visitors ignore the rules. “We have improved the health of the mule deer, and we are using that experience to make sure it doesn’t happen with our elk and bighorn sheep in the area,” Leslie says.

A downy woodpecker.

Another way humans are clashing with native wildlife is by seeing the Grand Canyon in a newly popular way: flying through the gully in a small airplane. Since the 1920s, tourists have marveled at the size of the canyon from a bird’s-eye view, but today more than 100,000 commercial flights per year echo engine sounds off the mile-high walls. While the 30 air tour operators provide a unique view for visitors, the noise pollution they create destroys the natural silence for those on the ground — including the wildlife.

In his 1996 Earth Day speech, President Clinton stated that “the intrusion of such aircraft can interfere with wildlife (including threatened and endangered species), cultural resources and ceremonies, and visitors’ enjoyment of the parks, including the ability to experience natural sounds without interruption from mechanical noise.” Ironically, his voice was temporarily drowned out by a plane as he spoke to the crowd. In 1987, Congress passed the National Parks Overflights Act to control the noise pollution situation. Years later, Congress continues to deliberate over the strictness of this law, and whether or not to make some national parks flight-free.

The Colorado is a major energy source. A journey into the Grand Canyon begins at the headwaters of the Colorado River in the Rocky Mountains. Streams of snowmelt flowing from the hills of northern Colorado collect in the great river basin, which flows another 1,400 miles or so to the Gulf of California.

The Colorado is a major energy source.

Increasingly, this river has become center stage for the ongoing conflict between conservation and development efforts. The Colorado is the major water resource for most of the southwestern United States. The Hoover Dam in Nevada, built in 1936, and the Glen Canyon Dam on the border of Utah and Arizona, constructed in 1963, transform the energy from the Colorado into hydroelectric power for Wyoming, Nevada, Colorado, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and California. These states also receive an allotment of water diverted by the dams and measured in acre-feet. One acre-foot equals about 326,000 gallons — enough water to take a shower every day for 17 years.

The people in the states of the lower basin alone — Arizona, New Mexico, and California — consume an average of 7.5 million acre-feet per year. While the enormous dams mean drinking water, crop irrigation, and electricity for millions of people, this heavy draw on the Colorado has dramatically changed the role the river plays in a task begun millions of years ago: dredging the Grand Canyon.

The river has been eroding the canyon for six million years.

After passing through the Glen Canyon Dam, the slowed-down Colorado enters the north end of the Grand Canyon fifteen miles downstream of the dam. Here, river rafters experience the mile-deep canyon from the bottom up. Closest to the water’s edge are layers of granite and schist (striated rock) that reveal the volcanic origins of the Colorado Plateau. Rafters heading down the gully follow the same route as the sediment and debris that are scraped off the canyon floor, giving the river its name, which is Spanish for “colored red.” But when traveling at the speed of the water, river runners’ main focus is not on the colorful name, but on avoiding collisions with boulders.

An unforgettable view. To see the Grand Canyon for the first time is an experience few people will forget. The canyon vista — with its incomprehensible size, deep color, and rich display of rock layers — is unmatched by any natural display on Earth. But while the rock formations may seem arid and lifeless, the Grand Canyon is home to an astounding variety of creatures. In its mile-deep plunge, the Grand Canyon’s terrain ranges from conifer forest to desert, with river niches in between.

These different habitats allow a great diversity of wildlife to live throughout the canyon. Looking down from the rim, you might spot a bighorn sheep casually walking up a nearly vertical grade or a chuckwalla lizard basking in the sun. At the bottom, you might catch a glimpse of the Colorado River as it rushes along the canyon floor.

The canyon is a monument to its own creation, owed mostly to the mighty Colorado River. Flowing from the Rocky Mountains to the gulf of California, the Colorado River is the carving force behind this 277-mile-long chasm. This water source is also the lifeline for the many animals that live at the base of the Canyon. From there, you can follow the 6,000-foot walls as they rise from the water, a visual chronology of the six million years it took to form the canyon.

From forest above to desert below, the Grand Canyon is made up of environments of the most extreme nature, and both resident animals and visiting humans must adapt to them. Above the canyon, floor birds and bighorn sheep enjoy life on the literal edge as sheer cliffs drop thousands of feet below. Several thousand feet down, Gila monsters hunt for Gambel’s quail nests in order to devour the eggs. Walking the canyon can be more demanding for humans than wildlife, since most visitors have never experienced this kind of dry, thin air, high altitude, and frightening vertical drop. A hike down the rocky steeps is not as easy as it looks from the top. While the rock face is a little more than one vertical mile, the walk is seven miles long.

Switchback trails take the sting out of the slope, but they lengthen the distance to your destination. Add to this a starting elevation of 9,000 feet above sea level on the North Rim (7,000 on the South Rim), and your heart might start racing rather quickly — especially on your return ascent. If you make it to the canyon floor and the river, you are still about 2,500 feet above sea level.

Water is essential — and scarce. Even though the Colorado River can flush thousands of cubic feet of water per second through the canyon, not a drop is potable. The Grand Canyon National Park Service provides water stations during the summer, but recommends that hikers take at least a gallon of water on a day hike, since the dry Arizona air can quickly draw moisture out of a body.

Online content for Grand Canyon was originally posted April 1999.