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12/03/2007 - 6:32amPark History: How the National Seashores Came to BeThis listing deals only with national seashores. Gateway National Recreation Area is an urban park geared to mass recreation as well as natural and cultural resources preservation. Its creation in 1972 was a product of the "parks to the people" movement in the 1970s that yielded a batch of NRAs ...
12/06/2007 - 10:28amPark History: Everglades National ParkHow sad that on this day, exactly 60 years after Pres. Harry Truman signed off on the legislation establishing Everglades National Park, the park is in such sorry shape and has such gloomy prospects. Recent commentary on this state of affairs has centered on the CERP's many shortcomings, and especially ...
12/06/2007 - 4:32pmPark History: Everglades National ParkFrank rightly points out that a forest ecosystem is not destroyed when wildfire burns it to the ground. The forest ecosystem is just temporarily restored to an early stage of ecological succession. After the fire you get weedy-fast growth (grasses, shrubs), and then the seedlings grow into trees, the canopy ...
12/06/2007 - 5:57pmConservation Groups Urge National Park Service to Reinstate Jet Ski BansAnon's lament arises from a popular misconception about what Congress intended the national parks to be. Providing for public access and recreational use of the parks is most emphatically not ancillary to the central mission, it is a central OBLIGATION. Preservation and public use are explicitly identified as co-equal concerns. ...
12/06/2007 - 7:34pmConservation Groups Urge National Park Service to Reinstate Jet Ski BansI just said that the misconception was a popular one, not that it should be ignored as a factor affecting public attitudes toward specific park management decisions. Remember that the Park Service didn't establish the "preserve it absolutely unimpaired, but let the public use it as a pleasuring ground" policy. ...
12/07/2007 - 11:32amPark History: Everglades National ParkRegardless of which specific words we might use to describe the net result of Everglades inundation, I think we can all agree that sea level rise would bring about some pretty dramatic changes in the true Everglades area of the park. The suburban ruins scenario is wonderfully thought-provoking. This is ...
12/09/2007 - 6:50amPark History: Petrified Forest National ParkThe NPCA reports that souvenir-collecting visitors haul away an estimated 12 tons of petrified wood every year in Petrified Forest National Park. I guess if you wait long enough, souvenir hunters, collectors, and thieves will haul away nearly everything of value or interest that isn’t firmly anchored in place and ...
12/12/2007 - 3:45pmRocky Mountain National Park Officials Select "Lethal Reduction" To Help Reduce Elk Herd--UpdatedThere's no escaping it. Whether practiced on elk, bison, feral hogs, or white-tailed deer, the use of firearms for the "lethal reduction" of wildlife populations in or near our parks is a bloody business. Some animals meet a violent end, and even if it is for the greater good, that ...
12/14/2007 - 8:59amConservation Groups Urge National Park Service to Reinstate Jet Ski BansEvery single person who contributes comments to NPT is a resource -- somebody with experiences to share, insights to offer, questions to challenge us with. Consider J Longstreet, for example. Isn't it great that a park superintendent wants to share in our forum? There are fewer than 400 national park ...
12/15/2007 - 9:37amAre The National Parks Not Part of Our Federal Lands?Lone Hiker is right on target with that complaint about government officials using important words like "federal" and "democracy" without due regard for their nuances of meaning. If elected officials or other public servants have so little respect for the English language that they don't even bother to use the ...
12/15/2007 - 3:12pmEconomic Greed Tarnishes Our National Park SystemWhat Gerald seems to be proposing is that the national parks should function like the national forests, national grasslands, and BLM lands when it comes to accommodating recreational use. I submit that Congress knew exactly what it was doing when it ordered the National Park Service to adhere to a ...
12/16/2007 - 5:30amEconomic Greed Tarnishes Our National Park SystemSelfishness. Greed. Consider that these might be exactly the words to use here. They are human dispositions, and for some they are the most powerful driving force in life. Me! Me! Me! Me! More! More! More! More! You have thousands of miles of miles of groomed snowmobile trails that you ...
12/16/2007 - 1:40pmRocky Mountain National Park Officials Select "Lethal Reduction" To Help Reduce Elk Herd--UpdatedHolly, are you arguing for immunocontraception using the PZP vaccine? (PZP stands for "porcine zona pellucida", which is made from pig ovaries.) If so, Can you tell us about results of recent studies? I know that scientists were experimenting with PZP-based immunocontraception back in 2004, but I've not kept up ...
12/19/2007 - 10:00amPark History: Capitol Reef National ParkI like to think that medical doctors will take to heart the dictum “First, do no harm,” even though it is not part of the Hippocratic Oath (which new doctors don’t take, anyway). Similarly, I like to think that park rangers will abide by the dictum” First, love the parks,” ...
12/19/2007 - 4:28pmRobin Winks on the Evolution and Meaning of the Organic ActBecause this is a very long and detailed discussion of the contradiction issue, I suspect that many NPT followers will give it only a quick scan or not read it at all. That's a shame, since it is a very illuminating discourse. If you are one of those who hasn't ...
01/02/2008 - 2:04pmResolutions and the National Parks: What Will You Do?I resolve to spend more time in 2008 working as a volunteer at Congaree National Park. I also intend to recruit at least one more person for the Volunteers-in-Parks program.
01/06/2008 - 7:55amLynx, Long Sought in Yellowstone National Park, Is Caught on FilmIntentionally killing 18 lynx during the winter of 1971-72 was a pretty sorry thing to do, but the size of the trapper take implies that there was a respectable population of lynx in the area back in the early 70s. Road kill can also be interpreted this way. There are ...
01/06/2008 - 2:22pmSegways in the National Parks: Do We Really Need Them?Allowing Segways in our National Parks is one of the dumbest ideas that ever came down the pike. Perhaps a case could be made for allowing disabled people to use them, in which case the Segways should be clearly marked as conveyances for the physically disabled. Being overweight and lazy ...
01/12/2008 - 4:13pmTar Sands Development Could Impact Canyonlands National Park, Dinosaur National Monument, Glen Canyon NRAYou can't blame Big Oil for casting covetous eyes on the heavy oil out there in the western mountains and prairies. The bitumen in the tar sands and the kerogen in the oil shale contain so much oil that the you think "can't possibly be true" when you first see ...
01/14/2008 - 11:24amGreat Basin National Park's Air Could Be Compromised By Proposed Power PlantAnon has got it mostly right. All of us (yes, even Dick Cheney!) should understand that the cheapest, fastest, safest, and most intelligent energy alternative is to "use less energy and waste less energy."
01/16/2008 - 11:57amTar Sands Development Could Impact Canyonlands National Park, Dinosaur National Monument, Glen Canyon NRAIn situ ("in place") processing methods are designed to use steam, solvents, controlled combustion, and related techniques to remove liquid and gaseous fuels, bitumen, wax, and other valuable commodities from tar sands and oil shale deposits while leaving the waste rock and sand right where it sits. Because it eliminates ...
01/28/2008 - 8:33amShould Anything Be Done With Angel's Landing?Park visitors who want to protect their trail-climbing privileges at dangerous places like Angels Landing and Half Dome need to be very careful about the safety measures they demand. The climbing community knows all about the perils of asking for too much. With a few notable exceptions (such as at ...
02/07/2008 - 7:15amModeling Mesa Verde National Park With LasersThis technology can produce amazingly accurate documentation of our civilization's key landmarks, enabling us to reproduce them in the event they're destroyed or severely damaged by natural catastrophes, terrorist attacks, vandalism, or whatever. After the 9/11 attacks the feds rushed to to get this documentation for the Washington Monument, the ...
02/10/2008 - 7:40amCycling at Haleakala National Park Given "High Risk" RatingNOW they tell us! When Sandy and I took this bike ride down Haleakala in 1992, it was a lot of fun and seemed quite safe, even for us relatively inexperienced riders. Some pretty slick advertising had enticed us to sign on for the bike ride -- and get out ...
02/20/2008 - 12:34pmDoes the National Park Service Need a Quota System for Peak Seasons?Anon has a good point about unfair advantages that internationals might enjoy if they were to book their peak-season park visits through tour operators who get a permit allocations without being subject to the lottery. However, advocates of the lottery system might simply point out that international visitors already enjoy, ...
02/20/2008 - 3:46pmDoes the National Park Service Need a Quota System for Peak Seasons?There have been lots of suggestions for increasing carrying capacity, but most of them are unacceptable for obvious reasons. For example, some people advocate installing elevated monorail systems in our big nature-based national parks so that more visitors can be conveyed around and through the parks without unduly damaging the ...
02/26/2008 - 3:44pmPark History: Grand Canyon National ParkThere might be some confusion about just when Grand Canyon National Park became a national park, but it seems perfectly clear why the National Park Service considers 1919 to be the magic year. It was in 1919 that managerial responsibility for the park ("ownership," if you prefer) was transferred from ...
03/28/2008 - 8:59amWhatever Became of the Decommissioned National Parks?Eric, we owe you a vote of thanks for drawing attention to Alan Hogenauer’s article “Gone but Not Forgotten: The Delisted Units of the U.S. National Park System.” It provides an excellent history of sites that have been entirely removed from the national park inventory after having been established. A ...
04/02/2008 - 12:32pmMustang: The Saga of the Wild Horse in the American WestWe tend to think of wild horses as an icon of the West, but we've got feral horses here in the eastern U.S. as well. In fact, at least three national parks in the eastern half of this country have free-roaming wild horse herds. At Cape Lookout National Seashore, regulating ...
04/03/2008 - 3:20pmPark History: Isle Royale National ParkTwo of Nevada Barr’s mystery novels, “A Superior Death” and “Winter Study,” are set in Isle Royale National Park. A Superior Death (“who killed the diver?”) was the second of the 14 books in the park-based series featuring fictional ranger Anna Pigeon. Winter Study, which involves scientists studying Isle Royale’s ...
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