Guest Column

In this guest column, RL Miller, a California-based attorney who keeps watch on environmental issues on public lands, questions the wisdom of allowing the Coal Hollow Mine to expand to more than 3,500 acres near Bryce Canyon National Park.

Four years ago we brought you a video that touched more than a few nerves. The subject was hunting brown bears in Katmai National Preserve and raised the question of whether it was really sporting or ethical. While the resulting uproar died down, it's creeping up again as Park Service officials seek public comment on a proposal to allow two sport-hunting guide businesses to operate in the preserve.

Spring is a fantastic time to be outdoors. Along with the beauty of plants in bloom, a trip to a national park can reveal mammals emerging from their hibernation and frogs singing up a storm. But the one spring event that brings countless new and life-long nature lovers to our nation’s parks is the return of migratory songbirds.

A tall stoic man stood at the back of his pack, consumed by his own thoughts. He had been listening to an instructor from the Yellowstone Association. For a couple of days, he squinted into roadside spotting scopes and absorbed eloquent discourses on natural history. He was there with family members who arrived to watch wolves together in the Lamar Valley of Yellowstone National Park.

Just imagine if national parks had a marketing program like the one wielded by Disneyworld and other theme parks. Think of the possibilities!

We don’t expect adventure on a flatwater river, but sometimes it just happens.

Much talk has been expended during the past decade concerning the health of Florida's Everglades and Everglades National Park. Now there are substantial signs that real progress is being made in restoring this incredible and unique ecosystem.

Earlier this year the Traveler offered up a post on what priorities we hoped the National Park Service would address in the coming year. Mike Snyder, director of the agency's Intermountain Region, has his own list of issues his region has in its sights this year.

The events of this past week and the advent of a new government cannot help but take our minds back to other times in our history, particularly to 1933. It was in that winter, another troubled time in our national history, that Franklin Roosevelt assumed the presidency. As it does now, the United States in 1933 faced severe and unresolved economic problems.

Images of volunteers filling sandbags in a race against rising waters have unfortunately become commonplace this year, in locations from the Midwest to the Gulf Coast. You don't normally expect to see such scenes in the desert Southwest, but they were repeated last week in Big Bend National Park.

We all love America's national park system, but we often have different expectations about local federal parks than about places farther away. Nowhere is this better illustrated than in arguments about Point Reyes National Seashore.

The park marking the spot where Spanish conquistador Hernando De Soto probably didn’t land in North America in 1539 turns 60 today. On March 11, 1948, Congress created the De Soto National Memorial in the mangrove swamp on Shaw’s Point, in Bradenton, Florida.

Would a change in the national park system's gun laws pose a threat to wildlife? In Alaska, there are some concerns that brown bears at Katmai National Park and Preserve might appear too threatening to some gun owners.

Snowmobiles, off-road vehicles, and personal watercraft are perhaps the most polarizing recreational issues within the national park system. In this guest column, the specter of greater ORV access in Big Cypress National Preserve's Bear Island Unit is examined.

A recent Miami Herald article on manatee research in the Everglades does a good job of identifying some of the questions that still need to be answered with regard to this fascinating but still poorly understood species. However, the question of a major cause of manatee deaths within the boundaries of Everglades National Park is already well documented.