A coalition of groups has asked that the public comment period on how "natural quiet" is defined at Grand Canyon National Park be extended by 30 days beyond the current May 9 deadline.

A bipartisan coalition of five U.S. senators has introduced legislation that would enable the government to fully fund the Centennial Initiative proposed by the Bush administration in honor of the National Park Service's upcoming centennial in 2016.

If you were Interior secretary, how would you respond if seven former National Park Service directors lobbied you on an issue? In the case at hand, Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne is being urged not to allow national park visitors to carry weapons.

Development pressures, cellphone towers, and mining threats are among the concerns that landed the Antietam and Monocacy national battlefields, a portion of Cedar Creek and Belle Grove National Historical Park, and seven other battlefields on the 2008 list of "Most Endangered" Civil War battlefields.

I've told you about private development and Valley Forge National Historical Park, and about private development and Acadia National Park, and about the National Park Service being so poor it has to turn to commercial interests to preserve history. So does it come as any surprise that Congress approved, but failed to fund, expansion of Petrified Forest National Park?

More than two centuries after General George Washington and his Continental Army somehow endured a bitterly cold and exacting winter at Valley Forge, the landscape is again in turmoil. On one side is a national historical park, one that helps preserve the memory of America's birth. On the other, an organization whose questionable motives could sully that landscape.

As the killing of Yellowstone National Park bison continues, a coalition of groups is looking for congressional support to fund a solution.

If a wolf turns up in Rocky Mountain National Park, it will be protected by the Endangered Species Act. But plans by the Bush administration to remove ESA protection from Yellowstone's wolves could make it incredibly hard for the predators to migrate down to Colorado.

Great Basin National Park, which boasts the cleanest air of any park in the Lower 48, could lose that distinction if a coal-fired power plant is allowed to go on-line as proposed just 38 miles northwest of the park.

A surprisingly steady flow of cougar sightings in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore has park officials looking for the big cats, but so far they've managed to elude the searchers.

A draft report Yellowstone National Park officials have prepared on threats to the park has been dubbed "superficial," and even park officials admit it's not overly comprehensive.

Attached is the letter a number of senators sent to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne asking him to overturn the National Park Service's ban on concealed weapons in national parks.

The late historian Robin Winks long has been heralded for his distillation of the National Park Service Organic Act. In this, the latest parks essay from the George Wright Society, his words are recalled. Denis Galvin, a former deputy director of the National Park Service, provides an afterword.

For policy wonks, the accompanying attachment explains how the omnibus spending bill aids the national park system. Within its pages you can find some specific appropriations for historic preservation, construction, and land acquisition.

The omnibus spending bill awaiting full Senate action calls for $2.39 billion for the National Park Service in FY08 (which started this past October).

The growing and diverse nature of recreation on federal lands has increased the challenge of balancing different types of recreation with each other and with other land uses. Motorized recreation has been particularly controversial, with issues centering on access and environmental impacts.

Earlier this summer we had a, shall I say 'spirited,' discussion revolving around how to increase diversity in visitation to the national parks. This topic has resurfaced in an Associated Press article that looks at efforts a group is taking to introduce minorities to the parks.