Should children be allowed in the Wilderness Public Lands?

Should children be allowed in the Wilderness Public Lands?

I recall when the Australian Wildlife Expert Steve Irwin took his infant son into the crocodile enclosure and the press was outraged. Why would anyone, they asked, put their child in such danger? What was he thinking? Or WAS he thinking?

 Irwin’s father was a wildlife expert in herpetology, while his mother was a wildlife rehabilitator. Steve Irwin’s parents started the Queensland Reptile and Fauna Park, where he grew up around crocodiles and other reptiles.The controversial incident occurred during a public show when Irwin carried his one-month-old son in his arm while hand-feeding  a crocodile inside an enclosure at the zoo . The infant was close to the crocodile, and comparisons were made in the press to Michael Jackson's dangling his son outside a German hotel window.

A wildlife expert taking his son into a controlled environment is not the same as a young couple taking their kids with them out into the “waste howling wilderness”. How many parents watch their kids and control them on the trail? Based on my observations in some remote places, not many. Just because you can walk out into the middle of a swamp on a boardwalk, and not get your feet wet does not mean that danger isn’t just a misstep away. 

I have helped on more than a few search and rescue missions looking for children. Some of them “just slipped away” while the family was doing something like cooking a meal. No parent would out pace their child while walking down a trail and just leave them behind because they couldn’t keep up. Some parents do let their child “wander around camp”. A child can be out of sight within a few steps in the woods. If not trained to “Hug a tree” and sit still when lost, and trained to shout their parent’s first name or use a whistle, they can wander for miles and days. They may not even realize they are lost, if the child is angry from someone “being mean” to them or even if they are “Playfully hiding”.

In my EMT days, I treated several children that tried to pet wild animals. That cute kitty was a skunk, or a bobcat. And there was a family that was hospitalized because a child beat a hornets nest with a stick. I also treated a pre-teen that was “Tight-rope walking” on a boardwalk handrail within sight of his parents. That was a nasty compound fracture. Being miles from the nearest road is no time to play “Hey Y’all watch this!”

 Wildlife in Parks


But beyond the danger of the wilderness, there is the annoyance. How far can a shout or a crying child’s noise carry thru pristine wilderness? Other people on the trail can be annoyed and disturbed by both the child’s playground voice and the parent shouting corrections at a child just out of their reach. What percentage of graffiti is scrawled by the unsupervised child? Children may contribute over 60% of litter along a trail. While you cannot blame a carelessly discarded disposable diaper on the infant, maybe that child and parent don’t yet belong on the trail. And does every single child in your group need their own trail map and brochure?

“I don’t know why youth is wasted on young people, they don’t appreciate it like I would” quipped Will Rogers. The energy of youth can be the source of both danger and annoyance. Kids running down a boardwalk startle and drive off the wildlife that others are seeking to view. Even with a tripod, running kids can ruin a still shot by vibrating the boardwalk under the camera. And back at camp, a teen dives to catch a Frisbee and lands in the campfire.

Some parents are great at training and monitoring their children. The children learn early in life about the wilderness, like Steve Irwin. Other hikers marvel at the controlled inquisitiveness of the children if they even notice them nearby. Some parents should just consider taking their children to the Zoo instead.

 "NEVER LET NOT KNOWING KEEP YOU FROM TRYING"- Clyde Holcomb Sr.

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