Apprentice Noah

The U.S. Secretary of the Interior these days is a kind of super-Noah, charged with rescuing a nearly lost legion of imperiled animal species. Almost 55,000 people--Indians, Eskimos, Aleuts--are also his special wards. He has the duty and considerable power to salvage the vitiated environment: polluted air, desecrated lands and impure water. Yet, when Richard Nixon appointed him to the office, Walter Hickel seemed to many critics to be more of an anti-Noah.

As Governor of Alaska, Hickel had been closely identified with the oil interests. Prior to his extended and embarrassing confirmation hearings before the U.S. Senate Interior Committee, he made such unfortunate observations as: "I think we have had a policy of conservation for conservation's sake." Several Senators and the nation's most potent conservation organizations bitterly opposed Hickel's appointment. In only eight weeks, however, the new Secretary has shown an extraordinary flair for confounding his critics. Michael Mc-Closkey, acting executive director of the powerful Sierra Club, says: "Conservationists remain to be convinced by Hickel, but I think their minds are not closed to welcome evidence."

Systematic Slaughter. That is what they have been getting of late. Last week Hickel make a brief, bravura-like foray into the Florida Everglades to expose an impending natural disaster--the extinction of the American alligator (Alligator mississipiensis). One of 87 species threatened with extermination in the U.S., alligators are being systematically slaughtered by poachers who hunt them for their valuable skins.

Encouraged by the huge profits to be made, 200 full-time and 3,500 part-time poachers kill an estimated 40,000 alligators every year. They work in relative safety, able to lose themselves quickly in the labyrinthine waterways when park rangers come along.

By publicizing the alligator problem, Hickel is bringing powerful pressure to bear on Congress to adopt strong conservationist legislation. He supports a measure that would make it a federal offense to ship across state lines any animal or bird considered to be threatened with extinction, or their skins, pelts or plumage. Carrying with it a maximum penalty of six months in jail and a $1,000 fine, the law might serve to slow down some of the alligator-skin traffic.

While the alligator is one of the most seriously endangered species, there is another vanishing animal that Hickel has moved to protect--Alaska's musk ox (Ovibos moschatus). When Hickel was Governor of the state, the legislature passed a law to permit hunting of the helpless musk ox. Hickel vetoed it. Recently, the Alaska legislature passed a new bill allowing the hapless ox to be hunted. As Interior Secretary, with power over federal acreage, Hickel immediately placed Nunivak Island, the federally owned haven for musk oxen, off-limits to all hunters.-

Ghetto Green Space. Animal protection is not the only area in which Hickel is showing a conservationist's concern. Since the oil-slick disaster off Santa Barbara, Calif., Hickel has drastically curbed drilling in the Santa Barbara Channel. He plans to enlarge the nearby Channel Islands National Monument's federal wildlife sanctuary, which has been kept free of state and federal lessees. He is also considering measures whereby oil leases would not be granted without an opportunity for both congressional approval and public hearings. While the Administration's tough proposed legislation on coal-mine safety and health standards is not Hickel's personal creation, he has testified in favor of it.

One of the most urgent services Hickel can perform is yet to come--not in the wilderness, but in the nation's cities. He speaks of plans for central-city swimming pools, city hiking trails and more vest-pocket parks. "A great national park is a glorious thing," he says, "but the boy sitting on the steps of a ghetto tenement deserves a place where he can discover that the sky is larger than the little hole he can see between the buildings."

Hickel's associates seem impressed with his enthusiasm and drive. What remains to be seen is whether energy can produce results in the most jealously guarded of all federal sanctuaries, the Washington bureaucracy.

-Hunters were also coming under attack in Canada last week for the brutality of the annual seal-pup slaughter (see THE WORLD).

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