In an action sure to inflame some national park visitors, Friends of the Earth and The Wilderness Society have sued the National Park Service to reinstate bans against personal watercraft at Gulf Islands National Seashore and Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.

Fishing in waters of Apostle Islands and Pictured Rocks national lakeshores is going to be a bit more difficult this year, as emergency restrictions are being implemented in an effort to prevent the spread of a deadly fish virus.

The National Park Service and the Grand Portage Band of the Lake Superior Chippewa have agreed to work together on efforts to protect park and tribal fishery resources in Lake Superior from a deadly fish disease known as viral hemorrhagic septicemia, or VHS.

During 2006, 11 homicides were investigated across the national park system. Two involved women who had been pushed off cliffs, one was a suicide, and one was the victim of a DUI accident.

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.

A trio of conservation groups is asking the National Park Service to reinstate bans against personal watercraft in Gulf Islands and Cape Lookout national seashores as well as Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. If the agency balks, the groups say they'll take it to court over the matter.

There are parks across the national park system that have decidedly watery settings: Voyagers National Park, Isle Royale National Park, Channel Islands National Park, Acadia National Park, Biscayne National Park and Dry Tortugas National Park, just to name some of the most obvious. And then there are the national lakeshores.