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Does the National Park Service Need a Quota System for Peak Seasons?

Feb 19th - 14:15pm | Random Walker

My trust of the NPS's ability to use the "best available scientific methods" as the basis of any decision is non existent.

Feb 19th - 12:58pm | Marylander

I hate the idea of the permits, first and foremost. However, they aren't really necessary by the very design of the parks. Take Yellowstone, for example. Yellowstone is one of my favorite parks in the world, but I know if I want to visit it I need to make camping reservations WAY in advance. There are only so many camping spaces and hotel rooms available, hence only so many people can visit.

Grand Canyon National Park Officials Release Transportation Plan EA

Feb 19th - 12:47pm | Anonymous

The shuttle busses will not work. No one will voluntarily give up their car for the bus. They will only work if mandatory like Zion.

Bison Slaughter In Yellowstone National Park Draws Protest Against Park Service

Feb 19th - 11:16am | Anonymous

Jim, how about the word massacre instead of slaughter...sounds more effective! Good input but much like a "term paper"!

Feb 19th - 10:05am | jsmacdonald

The reason for the slaughter of bison officially has nothing to do with carrying capacity, though the IBMP sets an arbitrary number of 3,000 bison for the park, and rules regarding testing and slaughter change at that point.

Feb 19th - 10:00am | repanshek

Anon,

Feb 19th - 08:24am | Anonymous

Good Lord. Is NPT now an advocacy rag? Jim, regardless of your semantic take on the word "slaughter" it still smacks of not only a breach of the shaky objectivity achieved on NPT, it's also sensationalistic and I feel strongly this is like something i might see on FOX or CNN.

Feb 18th - 23:27pm | jsmacdonald

I want to take a shot at answering the last couple of comments, particularly eric's, since he raises some very important ethical questions. eric asked about the proper size of the buffalo herd, and he asked whether it was better for a buffalo to be killed by wolves than by man.

Feb 18th - 11:27am | Anonymous

A few of you have mentioned the real issue here. The Montana beef industry spends millions of dollars lobbying their industry as they should. However they have made themselves so powerful that they can influence what a federal organization (the Yellowstone NPS) does or doesn't do with their management practices.

Feb 18th - 09:45am | eric

My question is, How big of a herd do we want? 4500, 45,000, 45,000,000? If you think we kill alot of buffalo now, wait till we are managing a herd of 1,000,000 or so. Also, I want to know why it is better for a buffalo to be killed by wolves than to be killed by man?

Feb 18th - 09:36am | jsmacdonald

According to any press release you read when a bison is sent to be killed, they ship it "to slaughter." You can find that language in the government's own words on the press release I linked to in the article. They prefer to use the sanitized phrase "Management Operations" to describe what they are doing.

Feb 18th - 08:40am | Bill Roberts

I have a big problem with the use of the word "slaughter". You have already made your point. To use brucellosis as a reason to harvest American bison is absolutly ludicrous. Don't think I'd like to vacinate one though! Sure did lots of cows.

Feb 18th - 02:01am | jsmacdonald

I want to let you all know that in addition to this article, I've also posted an introspective essay that looks not so much at the rally but rather the context of my meeting Buffalo Field Campaign again after so many years. I attended a rally in Washington, DC, in April 2002 (and actually again in 2003, but it was raining so hard, and I barely felt as though I was there).

Feb 17th - 20:25pm | Anonymous

Excerpt From: http://www.yellowstoneparknet.com/articles/bison_2.php Montana will kill bison despite disease report Tests show that 82 percent of slaughtered buffalo not infected by brucellosis. By Rachel Odell, Jackson Hole News 12-23-99

Feb 17th - 13:35pm | Random Walker

From what I have read the bacterium Brucella abortus came to Yellowstone NP around 1917 and now infects a significant fraction of the Yellowstone bison. For the bison it seems to produce little illness or disability. In fact the symptoms in cattle are pretty mild but does cause some infected cows to abort and therefore slow down their milk production.

University Shooting Doesn't Bring A Halt to Interior Department's Review of Weapons Ban in Parks

Feb 19th - 09:22am | repanshek

Joe, Reporting 101: Get your facts right.

Feb 19th - 01:50am | JoeSF

Kurt,

Feb 17th - 22:17pm | Joel

Kurt, sorry for butchering your name. Just to set the record straight as a CCP holder of the state of UT and having taken a course in Springville, UT at Rangemasters. I can tell you that they expressly make aware the gun laws and choice of private business owners to post their own gun rules. This has been enforced by all LDS church buildings and properties.

Feb 17th - 17:42pm | Art

Kurt, I agree that emotion can play a part in any debate around matters of individual freedom, death, etc. That is why it is always best to avoid grappling with these issues in the immediate aftermath of a tragedy. I guess the impulse to wag a finger in someone's face, rightly or wrongly, is just too much for some people.

Feb 17th - 16:40pm | repanshek

Art, I spent 14 years with The Associated Press. From my experience mainstream media does not have an agenda, hidden or otherwise, to minimize the facts. JoeSF,

Feb 17th - 13:26pm | JoeSF

Frank and Kurt get the cheap shot award for using this tragedy to support their absurd claims of constitution change. Steven Kazmierczak had a history of mental illness. He wore tattoos of violent images from movies. By the reasoning of people like Frank and Kurt the amendments that allowed the movies and video games that influenced Steven should also be brought into question.

Feb 17th - 13:15pm | Art

Kurt, You write, "... when was the last time you heard of someone with a concealed weapon, someone who wasn't a security guard or off-duty police officer, step forward in such a situation?"

Feb 16th - 19:12pm | Frank N

Well, I see that, just as is the case of most mass shootings, all of the weapons used at NIU were legally obtained. Guns are just tools, gun advocates tell us. They sure are, I say. Tools of death. Guns don't kill people, they say, people kill people. Wonder how many folks would have died if that fellow had stepped out onto that stage with a couple of baseball bats?

Feb 16th - 18:07pm | cf

I am not sure what prompted this desire to permit folks to bring in concealed guns. The parks have allowed firearms ,broken down,. There are plenty of folks who will be reminded to bring their guns if this law passes. The seasonal staff at most parks has been cut back .

Feb 16th - 14:26pm | repanshek

Dave, as I read Utah law, while the mall could post a sign saying it was a "gun-free zone," that by itself does not prevent those with concealed carry permits from entering:

Feb 16th - 13:36pm | Dave O

Kurt, you fail to mention the Trolley Square Mall is a gun-free zone. No law-abiding citizen would have been carrying a gun in the mall. The off-duty officer was from Ogden, not Salt Lake City, and unless specifically allowed by local law, was violating the gun-free zone.

Feb 16th - 12:00pm | repanshek

Joel, For starters, it's "Kurt." Biased view? I think I've mellowed over the years;-) I quite correctly pointed out that this is an emotionally charged issue, one that folks can't agree on, and lamented the fact that the national parks have been dragged into the fray.

Feb 16th - 10:22am | Joel

At least you don't have a biased view right Kirk? LOL, why is it that the difficulty of carrying a concealed weapon or the stigma associated and created by media types isn’t to blame for their only being an "off-duty cop" who was carrying a weapon.

Bear Grass in Glacier National Park

Feb 19th - 02:03am | MRC

This image is from 2003 near iceberg lake: http://www.nps.gov/archive/glac/images/070503e.jpg

Feb 18th - 15:23pm | feralhiker

I've seen comparable amounts of bear grass flowering in Glacier NP at one point in the last 12 years. Bear grass takes year to flower and so an area may have few flowers for several years and then a mass flowering in one year.

Feb 18th - 07:20am | Anonymous

Is it possible that Bear Grass still grows in the park with the same abundance as shown in the 1920's photograph?? One(ME) has desirable wish that it still does!

Dinosaur National Monument Superintendent Favors Law Enforcement, Maintenance, Interpretation Over Paleontology

Feb 18th - 17:12pm | Anonymous

This is typically what is happening in all parks. Outsourcing and finding other agencies and volunteers to do the jobs employees used to do. Look at Corp of Engineer parks at lakes to see how well it has turned out. This could soon happen in our National Park areas also.

Feb 18th - 17:02pm | D365gt

As someone who has visited Dinosaur numerous times to see the granduer of what was the wall of bones I was deeply saddened to find the building closed that housed this magnificent display. Now the Superintendent is letting the only 2 people who maintained the wall go? How can that be outsourced to the state of Utah and to University students? Why not the research paleontologist?

Feb 18th - 14:50pm | Dale

I agree with Kurt's reading of the situation at Dinosaur. I have worked with the paleo staff as a volunteer for many years. This program actually moved out of the Carnegie Quarry significantly in 1985. The discoveries, excavations, assistance to researchers, cooperation with other agencies and assistance to other NPS units is impressive.

‘Study Group’ Meets to Determine fate of Yellowstone National Park’s East Entrance

Feb 18th - 12:11pm | repanshek

Hmmm, let's see. The Park Service decides through the NEPA process that it's not in its best interest to keep Sylvan Pass open for a relatively few snowmobilers coming in from Cody. They're ready to state that in their preferred winter use alternative, but then Cody and Wyoming officials raise a ruckus over that decision.

Feb 18th - 12:01pm | Anonymous

Ok maybe I'm missing the point here, but didn't you say "portions of the meetings" would be closed to the public? I understand that to mean there were "portions of the meetings" that were also open to the public. I don't think you've really identified what exactly is wrong in this circumstance.

Fall Into Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone Kills California Woman

Feb 18th - 08:04am | wine country tours

The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone seems to be amazing but I heard the park is not considered to be a good destination for mountaineering because of the instability of volcanic rock.

National Park Visitation Debate -- Here We Go Again

Feb 17th - 23:41pm | Anonymous

Steve, That is one problem they could have. There's also issues like a declining middle class, changing family structures, etc... I don't know about any specific reports on adapting park management to the changing US population off the top of my head but I'm writing a dissertation that deals with the question of an aging population's effects on visitor experiences. E.

Feb 15th - 16:14pm | Anonymous

Frank N, your quote "ALL THAT MATTERS IS ME" is slightly bent on the egotistical me-me generation, if not hell bent on pure selfishness. Maybe you can re-clarify your statement for me. What matters to me now, is the holistic sharing and caring about the parks and the general environment by us all...young and old!

Feb 15th - 13:35pm | Jen

Steve, I'd be interested in reading the whole report, too, if you can find it (or a link). "To defrauded town toilers, parks in magazine articles are like pictures of bread to the hungry. I can write only hints to incite good wanderers to come to the feast.... A day in the mountains is worth a mountain of books." -- John Muir

Feb 15th - 11:19am | Steve Sergeant

Erik wrote: wonder if they attempted taking the demographic changes the US has experienced into account in their models. By demographic changes, do you mean the decline of caucasians as majority, or something else?

Memo to Mary: Call Julie Elmore

Feb 17th - 23:03pm | barbara elmore

Don't put down this study just because you have not read it. It is articulate and right on point. The Washington insiders asked her to come to a meeting, on a specific day, and at a specific time, She appeared, and they were gone. Maybe they were afraid their names were in it?

Considering a Hike up Half Dome?

Feb 17th - 20:54pm | Gaby

The cables as they are now, look dangerous to me. It looks like an adult could slip under them if they lose the grip. If I were to go up there I would use my VIA FERRATA harness I bought in Italy a few years back when we went climbing in the Dolomites on the via ferratas (exposed climbs with cables to hold on). A via ferrata harness has 2 ropes with carabiners that clip and unclip easily.

Feb 17th - 08:49am | Anonymous

The risks people are taking aren't just risks to themselves. I've seen people panic on steep trails before, grabbing at the hands of passing strangers. If you want to conquer your fear of heights, do it somewhere that you won't put others' lives at risk in the process. They should definitely limit it to a certain number of climb permits issued for each day, but how do you certify people?

Cycling at Haleakala National Park Given "High Risk" Rating

Feb 17th - 10:24am | Claire Walter

Richard, it's not always about safety concerns. The issues might be physical ability (how many visitors are able to ride up Haleakala in order to ride down?) and even logistics (for the majority who can't ride up, how do they get bikes up to the top, and for that matter, where do they rent bikes with good, well-maintained brakes?).

NPS Retirees Oppose Carrying Guns in National Parks

Feb 17th - 07:30am | Anonymous

I believe the "fools" are already carrying loaded weapons in the National Parks. Laws such as this one don't keep lawbreakers from breaking laws (see the "war on drugs" for an example). This law will affect the law biding citizens who don't carry because it's illegal; these are the same folks who don't rob a liquor store because it's wrong and illegal.

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

Feb 16th - 06:23am | Wayne K

Can we bring back Teddy Roosevelt ?

Feb 15th - 10:14am | Anonymous

The question that I would ask each candidate is: Interpret what the philosophy and the concept of the National Parks stands for and what it personally means to you. Also, what does conservation of our natural resources personally mean to you as well as our natural heritage?

Feb 15th - 09:07am | amwdew

Yes, I agree with Mookie and would take it a step further to ask the candidate where they stand, more generally, on the matter of encouraging/fostering more private funding for the parks (as was proposed in the "matching funds" part of the Centennial Initiative).

Feb 15th - 08:20am | Mookie

One other question I would love to hear answered by the candidates is where they stand on corporate sponsorship for the parks. Most politicians, the higher they rise the more indebted they are to big business and the corporations that line their pockets.

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