Two Glacier Views

As a six-year veteran National Park Service ranger, I read with dismay the caption on the “Brave chipmunk” photograph with your “Bear Afoot in the Park” article (June 15) on Glacier National Park.

Feeding of any animal within a national park is prohibited by federal law. This is no bureaucratic statute intended to deprive park visitors from the joy of interacting with park animals. Rather, it is a sensible law that protects visitors from the unpredictable behavior of wild animals and, more importantly, protects park animals from the problems associated with habituation to food handouts from park visitors.

The same animals who are fed by summer visitors will likely starve during the cold winter months due to their failure to stockpile winter food and the absence of “generous visitors.”

Please encourage your readers to refrain from feeding park animals for their own safety, and for the health and well-being of the animals.

ALAN S. FRAZIER

Lake Clark National Park

and Preserve, Alaska

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Regarding “Bear Afoot in the Park”: My wife and I just returned from a delightful round-trip to Seattle aboard Amtrak’s Coast Starlight. Had we wished, we could have transferred at Portland to the Empire Builder, which stops at East Glacier Park.

The equipment, service and special features of the Starlight are far superior to the much-remembered Daylight of prewar years.

I cannot understand why a travel section is not up on its hind legs in the campaign to provide Amtrak with sufficient funds to operate more efficiently--to have more trains like Starlight.

There are hordes of us who are willing to pay more to escape being “serviced” in airline coach--plus enjoying the trip instead of enduring it.

CHUCK NEWTON

Del Mar