Here is a look back at some stories from the national parks in 2019 that deserve another read.
Native alligators grappling with invasive Burmese pythons capture the problem invasive species pose for the national parks/NPS
Traveler Special Report: Invasive Animal Species A Veritable Plague In The National Park System
There has been, for a disturbing amount of time, a slow, creeping invasion of the national parks, one in the form of an ecosystem-upsetting menagerie that poses a significant threat to both native species and the very integrity of the parks.
Summer scene of Jacob Job recording in a forest at Wild Basin, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado/Photo courtesy of Jacob Job
Deep Listening In National Parks Brings Rewards
What do you hear when you visit a national park? Spend some time with Jacob Job, a natural sounds recording specialist, and you'll likely learn to hear much, much more.
Rockets Over Cumberland Island National Seashore Raise Concerns
Cumberland Island National Seashore embraces a bucolic coastal setting on Georgia's longest barrier island. It's a place with rich human history, settings attractive to both birdlife and loggerhead sea turtles, dense maritime forests and ecologically vital salt marshes, and nearly 10,000 acres of officially designated wilderness. It also soon could find itself directly beneath the launch trajectory of a commercial spaceport.
Yellowstone's Wolves: Infusing Wildness Into The Landscape
Next year will mark the 25th anniversary of the wolf recovery program at Yellowstone National Park. Though it's had ups and downs, in sum the program has been highly successful and benefited not only park visitors but the very ecosystem the predators lope through.
Op-Ed | What Is A Park Visit?
Our community of park enthusiasts are avid counters and collectors, of parks, passport stamps, pictures, pins, apparel, and any number of other things. All of us collect experiences and memories. Ask any serious park system aficionado how many parks they have visited, and you are likely to get a reflexive answer, given with the same depth of thought that goes into providing a name. Hi, my name’s Dave, by the way. I am one among fewer than a hundred people known to have claimed visits to all 419 current National Park Service units. We are a small group. But despite devoting much of the past seven years to exploring our nation’s park system at every opportunity, I often feel as if I’ve barely scratched the surface. The more I know and see, the more I must accept the vast unknown and unseen.
Professors Propose Strategies For Improving National Park Service's Fiscal Condition
How hard would it be to vastly improve the National Park Service's financial condition, to make good progress not just on erasing that nearly $12 billion maintenance backlog we constantly hear about, but to greatly improve top-to-bottom fiscal flexibility to improve both the parks on the ground and the national park experience? Two professors have some strategies they believe would quickly enhance the Park Service's fiscal fitness.
The Elephant queen/Mark Deeble and Victoria Stone
The Elephant Queen: An Intimate Story About The Most Majestic Animals In Africa
The Elephant Queen, an hour-and-a-half documentary filmed in part in Tsavo East National Park in Kenya, focuses not only on the close-knit elephant herd led by Athena, a 50-year-old “elephant queen,” but on the various species of wildlife, from killifish and chameleons to bee eaters and even dung beetles, that benefit from the elephants’ presence.
This mug possibly came from Step House. In Nordenskiöld's book, he pictured a mug like this that was taken from a grave found in Step House/National Museum of Finland
Finland Agrees To Return Remains, Some Items Taken From Mesa Verde In 19th Century
You could say that Gustaf Nordenskiöld was one of the first grave robbers in the United States' Southwest. Back in 1891 he returned to Europe with hundreds of items, including human remains, from the lands that became Mesa Verde National Park. Now some of them are heading back to Mesa Verde.
Breaching Cape Lookout National Seashore
A wall of water, perhaps 9 feet high that was spawned by Hurricane Dorian, swept across the northern end of Cape Lookout National Seashore on North Carolina's Outer Banks, swamping historic Portsmouth Village and, overall, slicing up the seashore's barrier islands into islets.
A University of Mary Washington Professor Is uncovering the dark chapter of segregation In national parks/NPS file
How The National Park Service Grappled With Segregation During The 20th Century
Separate campgrounds, dining rooms, picnic grounds, and restrooms. Maps and signs that directed blacks to destinations away from whites. This was the landscape of segregation in some national parks during that divisive chapter of the country’s history. While the signs have been taken down and the separation erased, there remain remnants of that dark period in a number of parks today.
RVing The Parks | Top Tips For National Parks With RV Hookup Campsites
During our 20s and early 30s, we carried a pack into the woods. But after one taste of the RV life, we were hooked. Sleeping on the ground became a thing of the past once my husband and I discovered the joys of camping in spectacular settings with the option to enjoy water, electric and sewer utilities. If you’ve ever considered doing the same, here’s what you need to know about plugging into America’s national parks with RV hookup campsites.
"Three Pines And A Pile Of Rocks"
When Robert Lee Cubbage went to town to record the title to 75 acres his brother, George, sold to him for $100 in 1919, he was carving out yet another family holding on at Cubbage Mountain, as it's known in today in Shenandoah National Park.
Saving Wildlife In Vietnam’s National Parks
Wildlife trafficking long has been detrimental to Vietnam's national parks, but lately efforts have been mounted to raise awareness of the problem and work to better protect wildlife for which the parks often are their only sanctuaries.
Visiting National Parks Could Change Your Thinking About Patriotism
When I took a post-college job as a seasonal ranger at Grand Teton National Park 23 years ago, I noticed right away that my “Smokey Bear” hat carried some serious emotional baggage. As I later wrote in my book, “Reclaiming Nostalgia: Longing for Nature in American Literature,” park visitors saw the hat as an icon of tradition and romance, a symbol of a simpler era long gone.
On the occasion of clear skies, sunsets can be incredible, like this one from Todd Harbor/Robert Pahre
A Park Different: Isle Royale
With the arrival of summer, the national parks begin to fill with RVs, minivans, SUVs, and tour buses. Fifty years ago, Americans in their wood-paneled station wagons might linger in a national park for a week or two, but today many visitors try to tag as many parks as possible on their too-short vacations. Except at Isle Royale, that is.
Little River Canyon National Preserve: Prime Bear Habitat
I expected a Grizzly Adams type when I headed to Alabama to meet the “Bear Whisperer,” but Chris Seals is lean and lanky, his Southern drawl just distinct enough to make him feel familiar to locals. Seals was here because black bears have slowly been returning to northeastern Alabama, where the 15,000 acres of Little River Canyon National Preserve run along the ridge tops, and he let me tag along when word came that one bear had stumbled into a trap.
Returning To Paradise: Restoration And Deferred Maintenance
The National Park System has an almost $12 billion maintenance backlog. Of that backlog, $186 million belongs to Mount Rainier National Park. Contributing photographer Rebecca Latson recently visited Mount Rainier and reports on what kind of projects this national park plans for reducing that backlog while putting a personal face on the term "deferred maintenance."
The Green River from Fort Bottom Overlook/NPS, Neal Herbert
Exploring Canyonlands The River Way
Whether you’re traveling by car or by jeep, the approaches to Utah’s Canyonlands National Park rank among the most scenic in the West. Following Utah Highway 211 down Indian Creek Canyon into the Needles District, or jouncing along a rugged backcountry route into the park’s western side, you’re witness to geologic processes acting on a vast scale. There’s another entrance to Canyonlands, though, which runs at river level, and this is the one my wife and I like best. This spring Bessann and I steered our canoe down the Green River into the northern end of the park, heading for its confluence with the Colorado River 50 miles downstream. It was a slower approach, one which let us savor the sights and sounds along one of the Southwest’s great desert waterways.
Traveler Special Report: The Increasing Cost Of Staying In America’s National Park Lodges
A national park vacation can be an expensive endeavor, particularly if you want to stay in a park lodge. Indeed, the cost of a night in a park lodge has been been increasing at approximately twice as much as the Consumer Price Index.
An impromptu memorial was set up on the beach for Arthur Medici/Davitt Woodwell
Traveler Special Report: Coping With Sharks At Cape Cod National Seashore
Cape Cod’s surf-sprayed sandy beaches, long the setting for classic summer seaside vacations, have taken on a more menacing appearance with the arrival of one of the planet’s most powerful predators. Is it safe to return to the water?
Traveler Special Report: Venezuela's Imperiled National Parks
In the midst of political and economic turmoil in Venezuela, some of the world’s most scenic and biodiverse public lands are at risk.
This is the way to Duck Harbor/Kim O'Connell
An Island Apart
There is a place where you can escape the crowds at Acadia National Park and find solitude in the dramatic setting of coastal Maine. Contributing writer Kim O'Connell was fortunate enough to immerse herself in Isle au Haut for five glorious days.
Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area On The Mend But Enduring Loss
The rain has been doing its magic in Southern California. Green has returned to the fire-blackened Santa Monica Mountains, fresh growth emerging from the ash of the biggest fire ever to sweep the 154,000-acre park that’s hemmed by the Pacific’s white beaches and the sprawl of greater Los Angeles. Tiny seedlings dot many slopes, looking in the distance like a green peach fuzz, and brilliant lime grasses, invasive as well as native, stretch beneath craggy mountains that still wear the charcoal face left by November’s ferocious Woolsey Fire.
Unease Hangs Over National Parks As Partial Shutdown Continues
Sinking morale among the National Park Service ranks and accumulating human waste and garbage are just some of the symptoms of the ongoing government shutdown that has left many national parks open but without adequate staffing. Not so visible are the impacts being suffered in long-term environmental monitoring, work on visitor management plans and environmental impact statements, and even potential setbacks to the hiring of next summer's seasonal rangers.
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