My local rag printed an article by Louis Sahagan of the Los Angeles Times. It seems that the Devils Hole pupfish have been brought to the point of extinction by the site management of the National Park Service at Death Valley National Monument.

The insignificant little pupfish survived since the last ice age by people leaving them alone. Then the environmentalist went crazy in their try to save them. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of pupfish in 1976.

You can read the history of Death Valley at http://www.death-valley.us/history.html.

Devils Hole is a 70 x 10 feet pool that is very deep. Divers have dived to 468 feet without finding the bottom. The pool is fenced off and only National Park Forest scientists are allowed to kill the pupfish. Two years ago they killed 80 in one fell swoop.

Well, they didnt kill them on purpose, but the Park Service only expects 50 to be alive at the time of the next spawning.

What happened was that trapping jars got washed into the pool by a flood. The little fishes swam into the trapping jars and died. That made the Park Service want to toss their cookies. One said, Oh, S---- (Well, not really. Or maybe.)

Now there are other kinds of pupfish in Death Valley. In fact there are five species of fish in Death Valley, soon to become four species. The reason says the Park Service is that Devels Hole pupfish are no longer sexy and may not bother to breed.

Maybe they have been watching too much television. (Not the park rangers, the fish.)

You can learn how Death Valley got its name at http://www.death-valley.us/article560.html. Lots of people have died there and more will. The Park Service tells folks they can die out in that godforsaken hole. The Park Service leaves them alone after that and they die. But what about pupfish? If the Park Service leaves them alone will they survive?

I think we should try an experiment. The Park Service has built a fence around the pool to keep people out. Now they need to build another fence around the first fence to keep the Park Service and all others out.

In 2076, in commemoration of the Supreme Courts 1976 Decision a fish store owner from Burbank will be allowed to go into the area and take a peek to see if there are any pupfish left.

If he sees them he is to say, DARNED IF I COULD not SEE ANY FISH IN THERE. Very low emphasis is to be placed on not. By the time his statement sinks in, the scientist will be on their way to Montana to check the grizzly bear population.

John T Jones, Ph.D.

Jones was a vice president of a Fortune 500 company subsidiary having the major responsibility for research and development and certain engineering functions. After he retired, he became editor of an international trade magazine. Jones is Executive Representative of IWS, sellers of Tyler Hicks wealth-success books and kits. He is a direct mail and mail order marketer and operates a dozen websites.

He has written three technical books, four novels (Bull, Revenge on the Mogollon Rim, Bone China, and In No Way Guilty), and many published papers on business, marketing, engineering and other topics. Details on many of these topics can be found at his personal web site.

Jones is a hack poet and amateur landscape painter. He lives in Idaho with his wife of 52 years. He has five children, three in medicine, a lawyer, and a portrait artist. The Jones? have thirty-two talented grandchildren (many with special musical talent and skills), and one great grand child.

Jones is a prolific writer which started when he was an engineering professor at Iowa State University (Go Cyclones!). He doesn?t know how to stop.