Featured Articles on National Parks Traveler

Report Shows Visiting National Parks Could be Hazardous to Your Health

Visiting national parks could be hazardous to your health. That's the conclusion that can be drawn from a snapshot of health and safety conditions across the National Park System.

Interior Officials Want to Allow Concealed Carry in the National Parks

Moving at a politically expedient speed, Interior Department officials are proposing to allow national park visitors to carry concealed weapons with them.

Railroad's Tweaking Delays Glacier National Park's Decision Against Bombing Avalanche Chutes

Long after the public comment period closed on Glacier National Park's draft environmental impact statement regarding a railroad's request to bomb avalanche chutes on the park's southern boundary, the railroad apparently has succeeded in tweaking that document.

GYC Explains Value of Latest Agreement for Yellowstone National Park Bison

On April 17, Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer and Yellowstone National Park Superintendent Suzanne Lewis announced that an agreement had been struck that opens up additional habitat for bison north of the park. This deal signifies the biggest step forward for Yellowstone bison in over a decade and will result in bison roaming onto traditional winter habitat over six miles north of Yellowstone National Park

Yellowstone National Park Bison Agreement: How Big A Step Forward Is It?

If the winter of 2008-09 is as severe as this slowly retreating winter, will it matter that 25 Yellowstone National Park bison have been saved from slaughter while another 1,200 or so are trucked to their death? Those paying $2.8 million to gain grazing rights to a ranch just north of Yellowstone think so.

Park Lands For Sale: Can the National Park Service Afford Them?

America's national park system is interwoven with more than 4 million acres of private lands, nearly half of which the National Park Service would love to own, but can't afford. Does Congress, or the American people, care?

Valley Forge: Once Again A Battleground, This Time Pitting History Against Development

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.

National Park Service Revenues Down $1.3 Million On Transition to America The Beautiful Pass

The demise of the beloved National Parks Pass cost the National Park Service more than $1.3 million last year, although agency officials expect revenues to rebound as folks grow accustomed to the America the Beautiful Pass.

Of Geologists, Paleontologists, And Science in the National Park System

Since boyhood I've embraced a vision of the National Park Service as an agency that not only cared for forested mountains, shimmering lakes, foaming cataracts, dusty trails and a wildlife menagerie that stretched from alligators to wolverines, but also as one with a science mission built around these wonders. How accurate is that vision?

Clinton, McCain, Obama Answer Questions on National Parks

Where do the top three presidential candidates stand on the National Park Centennial Challenge? If omission is any indication, only one supports it.

Where Do the Presidential Candidates Stand on America's National Parks?

Where do America's national parks figure in the minds of the presidential candidates? It's a good question, but one that so far hasn't elicited much more than a sound bite.

National Lakeshores Threatened by Non-native Species

Loons, mergansers, cormorants and other waterfowl are dying by the thousands in the Great Lakes due to an invasion of non-native species that are threatening to turn the lakes' ecosystem upside down. At Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes National Lakeshore even piping plovers, a threatened species, are dying.

Climate Change and the National Parks

Climate change slowly is changing the landscape of America’s national parks. As temperatures warm and storm traits alter, ecosystem change is anticipated and expected to carry a range of impacts.

National Park Service Retirees Outline 2008 Goals for Park Service

Science-led decisions. More principled leadership. A halt to fee hikes. Those are some of the things the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees would like to see from the National Park Service this year.

2007's Top National Park Stories

Politics stalked the national park system throughout 2007. From snowmobiles in Yellowstone to off-road vehicles in Big Cypress, it seemed natural resources and careful stewardship were trumped too often.

Robin Winks on the Evolution and Meaning of the Organic Act

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.

Are The National Parks Not Part of Our Federal Lands?

A funny thing seems to have happened to U.S. Senators Max Baucus and Mike Crapo on their way to fighting to keep public lands in the public's hands: They overlooked the 84 million acres of the national park system.

Former Park Service Director Mainella: Interior Department Called Yellowstone Snowmobile Decisions

Former National Park Service Director Fran Mainella says her bosses in the Interior Department in effect tied her hands on the question of recreational snowmobiling in Yellowstone National Park. And now she says science should have the final say in whether snowmobiling continues to be allowed in the park.

Don Barry Describes Starving the Beast

Recently, former assistant secretary at the Interior Department and current executive vice president at The Wilderness Society, Don Barry, spoke at the Association of National Park Rangers' annual conference. He described a right-wing program to systematically shrink the size of the federal government, called "starve the beast," that he says has detrimental effects on land-management agencies.

Video Postcard : Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve

A 3 minute video postcard from a recent visit to the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve in Kansas. Interpreters show the historic house, and lead us on a bus tour of the prairie. Follow along on a short hike as well.

The Yellowstone Precedent

As the latest decision on permitting snowmobiles in Yellowstone National Park draws to conclusion, the question of the impact that decision will have comes up. To those closely following the issue, the National Park Service's stance could have devastating effects across not just the park system, but over all public lands.

How Will National Park Service React To Museum Proposal At Harper's Ferry?

Two-hundred-and-fifty million dollars buys an awful lot of museum. But does that mean the latest proposal to "save" some of the private land surrounding Harpers Ferry National Historical Park from development is a good one?

Big Cypress National Preserve: The Latest Battleground Over ORVs in the Parks

In the not-too-distant future the swampy landscape of Big Cypress National Preserve will become a key battlefield over off-road vehicle use on the national park system.

Director Bomar: Let Science, Not Politics, Decide the Yellowstone Snowmobile Issue

The pledge by Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne and National Park Service Director Mary Bomar to let science prevail in national park management decisions is nearing its defining test. If science is not supported in Yellowstone, where else in the park system will it have the final say?

Is America Failing the World's National Parks Movement?

"America's Best Idea." It is a mantra that has been repeated for decades when talk turns to the United States' national park system, an idea that some proudly say has been exported around the world. But during the National Park Foundation's Leadership Summit in Austin, Texas, at least one participant voiced concern that America is failing the global national parks movement.

Alaska Regional Director Responds To Outrage Over Katmai Preserve Bear Hunt

The Katmai bear video has been one of the most-viewed posts on National Parks Traveler, being watched more than 4,000 times in less than a week. It has generated anguish, anger and controversy. Against this backdrop, Alaska Regional Director Marcia Blaszak has taken a moment to explain the Park Service's viewpoint of how to manage the bear hunt in Katmai National Preserve.

Is the Bear "Hunt" in Katmai National Preserve Sporting or Ethical?

There are places in the national park system where hunting is allowed. That's not the issue with this post. Rather, it's the ethical questions that swirl around the bear "hunt" that the National Park Service has allowed in the preserve portion of Katmai National Park and Preserve in Alaska. Video attached.

Will Greatness Mark the National Park Service's Next Century?

Is the National Park Service's Centennial Initiative as "audacious" as Director Mary Bomar claims it to be? Will it truly prepare the agency for its second century, or is it lacking in its current form some critical aspects that are necessary for the Park Service to attain greatness as protector of arguably the world's best park system?

Biodiversity Studies in the Parks Reveal Previously Unknown Species

Imagine taking the time to go into your backyard, or the nearby woods, or even a pond close to your home, to catalog all the life you found in it. Not just the deer or snakes or fish, but the birds and insects, reptiles, plants and fungi and everything else biological or botanic. Imagine how fascinating that would be. At Great Smoky Mountains National Park they've been working on just that, and what they've found has been incredible.

Centennial Projects: Mountain Biking in Big Bend National Park

Among the 201 projects "certified" to meet the criteria for celebrating the National Park Service's centennial in 2016 is one to establish a dual-use, hiking and mountain biking trail in Big Bend National Park in Texas. What seems odd, though, is that this project made the list at a time when the Park Service is in the middle of a five-year study examining mountain bike use in the park system.