EMIGRANT, Mont.— It is another Earth Day, and as I write this I am looking out across the vast Yellowstone River Valley at mountains so brilliantly beautiful you’d swear God deserves a raise. At night, it can be hard to decipher the major constellations through the veil of a billion other stars. Life here […]
Visitors hiking in Yellowstone National Park. This article was originally published in The Hill. Saturday marks the start of National Park Week, the perfect opportunity to celebrate America’s most magnificent places. From snowy mountain peaks in Denali to desert slot canyons in Zion to the monuments along the National Mall, our parks represent the vast […]
An interview with PBS on predator conservation in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.
[…] when it’s all said and done, would encompass 3.5 million acres of private and public lands along the Missouri River in northeastern Montana, an area larger than Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks combined. The group seeks to remove the livestock that roam much of the landscape today and replace them with bison, elk, […]
Yellowstone National Park This article originally appeared in Outside Magazine. As both political parties trade shots amid the government shutdown, America’s national parks are caught in the crossfire. Under a new policy adopted by the Trump administration, parks have been allowed to remain open with limited staffing during the lapse in appropriations, while some Democratic […]
[…] was the case during the 2013 government shutdown presided over by President Obama. That means many important visitor activities and park operations — from snow-coach rides in Yellowstone run by private concessionaires to guided battlefield tours of Gettysburg — can continue yielding economic benefits for the surrounding communities. This week, the National Park Service […]
[…] the nation. The underlying problem with the fee program is heavy-handed internal controls that agency administrators have imposed on local park staff. In 1996, the superintendent of Yellowstone National Park closed the popular Norris Campground to reduce costs. Visitor fees generated more than enough to operate the site, but the park wasn’t allowed to keep the […]
[…] reflects the core idea behind the Park Service’s current fee program. In fact, the agency’s modern fee authority originated in mid-1990s in response to the closure of Yellowstone’s popular Norris campground due to fiscal constraints—despite the fact that the campground generated more revenue than it cost to operate it. Under the Fee Demonstration Program, […]
[…] prides of lions to Mozambique’s Marromeu Ecosystem. If successful, they will increase the range of the African lion by more than 2.4 million acres—an area larger than Yellowstone National Park—improving the health of not only the species but of a landscape long battered by civil war. The project has its roots in the work […]
[…] financial investments. For the most part, they are not here to harvest trees, graze cattle, or mine for minerals. They come for the anchor public lands like Yellowstone National Park and nearby national forests and wild and scenic rivers. A consequence is more real estate development, which can consume land, splinter wildlife habitats, put […]