University of Miami, School of Communication

Search:

Font size: MediumLargeXLarge

Park’s unique plants, trees enrich visitor experience

Deserted isolation: Both blessing and curse

Crime in parks? Mostly minor, officials say

By SUNNY MIDDLETON
School of Communication
University of Miami

Crime in the national parks?

“There is some crime. But, fortunately, there is not much violent or serious crime in the nation’s parks, preserves, and historical sites,” Bill Line, communications officer for the National Capital region, stated.

The National Park Service does face challenges in the areas of environmental crimes, traffic safety, and urban setting crimes in those parks that are in an urban location.

Click on the video at the right to view an audio slideshow about the nature of crime in national parks narrated and prepared by writer Sunny Middleton. Photos courtesy of the National Park Service.

The types of crimes that take place in the parks are generally directly related to the location of the park. Parks in remote locations tend to have drug trafficking issues and environmental crimes such as illegally dumping waste.

Parks in more urban settings such as in the National Capital region deal with theft, traffic violations, and minor violence.

Even those parks that have a seemingly pleasant setting such as Biscayne National Park in South Florida face crime.

At left and next below, diving and boating are very popular in Biscayne National Park, but boaters tend to abuse the activity.  Visitors who leave their cars for long periods of time are susceptible to car break-ins (Photos courtesy of the National Park Service).

One of the most-visited national parks in the United States is Rocky Mountain National Park and with the number of visitors, the park is likely to end up with crime or illegal issues.

“We do not have much crime at Rocky Mountain National Park. The most common type of crime we have is Traffic Violations. Measures we take include traffic enforcement through active patrol, use of radar (both stationary signs and vehicle radar units), signing (speed signs, slow signs, etc.), educational information in publications about winding roads and wildlife and speed, etc.” Kyle Patterson, spokesperson for Rocky Mountain National Park, stated.

Rocky Mountain sees about three million visitors annually and violent crime has never been much of an issue. However, in 2010, there was a violent assault on a trail runner who was luckily able to fight off her attacker. The park increased ranger patrols in the area in which the woman was attacked, according to The Outside Blog.

The park service maintains safety through rangers assigned to law enforcement in each park. These rangers are specially trained and equipped for a wide range of unusual situations that may threaten public safety.

National parks as a whole are prepared for most situations and, if a surprising violent or illegal situation arises, park officials tend to fix the problem immediately by increasing enforcement and or punishing the violators.

According to the 2010 Rocky Mountain National Park facts and figures brochure, there were 1,195 law enforcement incidents including accidents, warnings and citations in 2010. The sheet had no mention of serious crimes that would deter travelers from visiting the park.

The type of crimes in the parks typically coincides with the setting of the park. As for the coastal national parks, most crimes are environmental. Biscayne National Park in Florida faces crimes that have to do with the setting of the park and its general location.

“We have some issues that have to do with why our park is here and what it is here for, and we have some issues that have nothing to do with what our park is about,” Gary Bremen, Biscayne National Park spokesperson and interpretive ranger, stated.

One aspect of crime in Biscayne is the recreational aspect such as fishing, boating and the consequences that follow.

“Law enforcement deals with a variety of things like fishing violations, poaching issues, and boat pollution,” Bremen stated.

Side effects of allowing boats into the park can lead to environmental issues and sometimes environmental crime. Boat leakage is typically not a willed blow on the environment but it can lead to boat owners facing fines.

The other aspect to the recreational activities in Biscayne National Park is reckless boating. The park takes precautions by strategically placing signs in the bodies of water and enforcing boating laws.

However, reckless boating still remains one of the top issues for park rangers. This can include speeding, entering prohibited zones, and/or boating activities like water sports.

The harder to monitor crimes in Biscayne are not necessarily the most common types of crime, but they are dangerous and relational to the setting of the park.

The roads of Rocky Mountain National Park can be quite dangerous during different times of the year, especially winter. Visitors tend to violate traffic law, though, even in good weather conditions.

“On the other hand we have problems with smuggling, people smuggling illegal immigrants. In recent months we have had a lot of car break-ins. Someone will wait for a group to leave their car while they go off to snorkel and will break into their car. My car even got broken in to right here in the parking lot,” Bremen stated.

Some crimes are simply unavoidable in regards to the park enforcement. The most common types of crime can be halted with the help of society and the visitors that choose to visit the national parks. With a bit more precaution and respect, national parks could be near perfect.

Unusual Joshua tree often surprises park visitors

Camping in park offers full desert experience

Bats often maligned, but offer much to parks

By JORDANA LEVINSON
School of Communication
University of Miami

Due to their unique and unfamiliar appearance, bats have been cast by humans as frightening and ugly.

Their nocturnal habits have automatically associated them as dark and evil. Bats can also thank the Romanian legend of Dracula, where a man turns into a bloodthirsty vampire bat at night and flies about pursuing victims. This tale created their ridiculous and completely false impression.

Fear and habitat destruction by human beings has led to the onslaught of these creatures. Moreover, environmental factors, such as the widespread of several diseases, have left the bat populations dwindling in numbers. Even certain bat species that were once flourishing have recently found themselves on the endangered list.

Click on the video at the right to view an audio slideshow about bats in national parks narrated and prepared by writer Jordana Levinson.

Bats account for 20 percent of all mammals in the world with more than 1,000 various species. There are 45 different species of bats in the United States alone.

Many of the bats in the United States live in national parks. Carlsbad Caverns National Park in southeastern New Mexico, has one of the greatest populations of bats in America. This park is home to 17 different species of bats. 

Not only are bats one of the most omnipresent species in the world, but they are also very beneficial to the human race and the environment.

Similar to humans, bats are mammals. They have hair, give birth to live young and nurse babies. However, bats are the only true flying mammals. Their wings are formed by a smooth, elastic membrane of skin that stretches over their arms and legs and continues to their tail.

The place where a bat lives is called its roost. Bats will change locations on a regular basis throughout the year due to their roosting needs.

“Bats live in a variety of habitats,” Dianne Odegard, outreach associate at Bat Conservation, Inc., explained. “Some bats are foliage roosters, which roost in trees. They will hang from a leaf stock and curl up like a leaf.”

At left, habitat destruction, such as human disturbances of caves, is killing bats worldwide (Photo courtesy of the National Park Service). Next, human fear has led to the unjustified onslaught of many innocent bats (Photo courtesy of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service).

“Some roost in hollow trees behind bark, some in caves and some even under bridges,” Odegard continued. “Crevice-dwelling bats easily adapt to several bridge constructions.”

“We have six major canyons with rocks and cliffs, where the bats like to live.” Briana Board, interpretive ranger at Colorado National Monument, said. “Bats can live in any cove or over-hang, whether it be a small crack or rock. They do not always need a cave.”

Habitat destruction, which in turn disturbs bats’ roosts, has been a continuous issue. Many bat species roost in buildings and bridges. Direct threats to bats occur when they are present during construction or demolition of these structures. Most of these destructions are unintentional, but negligent as people are unaware that bats reside there.

“One species, the Southern Yellow Bat, roosts in dead palm leaves,” Odegard said. “Their fur is the same color as the palm fronds. People trim these fronds unaware of the bats roosting.  Suddenly, baby bats are everywhere.”

“There are a lot of bat species that live in caves and mines,” Mark Ohms, physical scientist at Wind Cave National Park, stated. “They hibernate in them, and are very susceptible to a disturbance during this hibernation.”

“If they wake up, their fat reserves are ruined,” Ohms continued. “Then, they can’t make it through the winter and will die.”

The decrease in bat population coincides with the decrease of natural habitats, such as caves, forests and ponds.

Destruction of habitat is most dangerous when it is done because of human fear. Many species of bats roost in large colonies in caves. This makes them very vulnerable because one single destructive act can kill a community of bats.

The largest bat colony in the United States, located in Eagle Creek Cave in Arizona, had 30 million to 50 million inhabitants until the 1960s. Then, human trespassers killed these bats and their habitat, reducing their population to only 30,000.

“There was a case in the South where people went into caves and clubbed bats to death,” Odegard said. “People sometimes willfully destroy habitats.”

Another reason that bats are vulnerable is that they are slow reproducers. They have the slowest reproduction rate for an animal their size. Most bats give birth once a year to only one pup.

“In the past, it’s been mostly loss of habitat and disturbance,” Ohms said. “More recently, it is the white-nose syndrome. If it continues, several bats will face extinction.”

In February 2006, about 40 miles west of Albany, N.Y., a caver saw hibernating bats that had a strange white substance on their noses, whom were surrounded by several dead bats.

By 2007, the New York Department of Environmental Conservation had identified this pandemic as white-nose syndrome, after witnessing bats with white noses, bats behaving irregularly and many dead bats in various caves.

Today, this syndrome has killed more than one million hibernating bat species in more than 15 states. It has been confirmed in at least 11 states and three units of the National Park Service system.

The National Park Service is now establishing protocols to deal with this white-nose syndrome in bat populations. The parks’ protocols range from addressing the issue on its website to informing visitors before they go on cave tours to prevent the spreading of this disease.

Research has shown that affected bats are waking up more often, every three to four days, as opposed to their normal 10 to 20 days. This causes the bats to deplete their fat reserves. About 90 percent of the affected bats die from starvation.

At left, bats live together in places called roosts. They can roost in caves, trees, bridges, buildings and almost any crevices (Photos courtesy of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service). Last, white-nose syndrome, a fungus plaguing bats throughout the country, has resulted in more than one million deaths.

“White-nose syndrome can be carried from cave to cave,” Board explained. “Some public caves have been closed to try to stop the spread of this disease, especially during winters.”

Paula Bauer, management assistant at Carlsbad Caverns National Park, works to debunk the myths about bats.

“There is a myth that bats are blind,” Bauer said. “However, many bat species have eyes and can see, in addition to their echolocation.”

Bats are certainly not blind. Their eyes are adapted for both daylight and UV vision.

However, their sight is not used for hunting insects in the dark. Instead, they have developed a highly sophisticated echolocation system that allows them to catch small insects and avoid obstacles, even in total darkness. Bats’ ability to echolocate is so acute that they can dodge obstacles that are as wide as a piece of thread.

Bats shriek and then listen to the following echoes to determine where they are in relation to their surroundings. Of course, this nighttime shrieking makes them seem even scarier.

“There’s a myth that bats like to get in people’s hair,” Bauer said.  “Now, why would they even do that?”

Urban legends have led people astray. One such myth is that bats like to entangle themselves in people’s hair. In reality, bats are like most animals as they do not attack humans unless they feel threatened. Though bats may fly very close to someone, they are merely trying to eat surrounding insects.

“Another myth is that all bats carry rabies,” Bauer said.  “False. Bats are not necessarily more inclined to carry rabies than any other mammal.”

“People have always associated bats with rabies,” Ohms stated. “However, people are more likely to contract rabies from cats and dogs.”

Less than half of one percent of bats have rabies. Since 1960, there have only been 40 reported cases of humans getting rabies from bats. That is only one or two cases, at most, per year.

Created by the legend of Dracula, the biggest myth surrounding bats is that they are malicious, blood-sucking creatures that prey on human beings.

Only three of the approximately 1,000 species of bats even consume blood. However, these vampire bats are by far the most famous.

The three species of vampire bats are found in Mexico, Central America and South America. There have been no species of vampire bats identified in North America.

Two of these three species only consume blood from birds. The third species drinks blood from mammals such as horses, cattle and pigs. However, it only needs to ingest two tablespoons of blood per day, which it consumes from multiple animals.

Unlike the movies that sensationalize this adaptation, bats do no actually suck blood. Instead, they make a small incision in the skin of a sleeping animal and then lap up the blood from there. Their saliva contains an anesthetic, which prevents the animal from feeling any pain.

Not only are bats less threatening than they appear, they are actually very beneficial to the environment and economy.

“One important service that bats provide to the environment and humans is consuming huge numbers of insects that attack crops,” Odegard explained. “This reduces the use of pesticides.”

“We would also miss that terribly in an economic sense,” Odegard continued. “Studies from the last couple of years have shown that bats save crop growers $3 billion to $50 billion per year.”

About 70 percent of the bat species worldwide feed solely on insects. One bat can eat up to 1,200 mosquitoes and other insects in just one hour. Bats help reduce our usage of insect-killing pesticides, which benefits nature and human health.

A few bat species in the Southwest feed on fruit, nectar and pollen. Fruit bats act as seed dispersers, while nectar-eating bats are important pollinators. Many plant species are dependent on bats for pollination.

Bats have existed in America since the era of dinosaurs. Today they rank atop the list of endangered species. The best way to help these misunderstood creatures is through educating and informing the public.

“One of the main problems facing bats are bad press, a bad reputation that is unjustified and undeserved,” Odegard stated. “People are afraid of bats because they don’t know about them and don’t see them often.”

“One of most important things someone can do for bats is talk to their friends and family about them,” Odegard continued. “Read about bats all over the world. They are very important to us.”

Roosevelt’s home undergoes major rehabilitation

Water pollution continues to threaten parks

By IVANA CRUZ
School of Communication
University of Miami

The greatest concern for environmental protection groups in South Florida, such as Friends of the Everglades, is the introduction of high levels of phosphorus in the waters of the Everglades National Park.

“It only takes a tiny amount of phosphorus to change a lot in the environment in the Everglades,” said Nicholas Aumen, an ecologist at the Everglades National Park.

Click on the video at the right to view an audio slideshow about water pollution in national parks narrated and prepared by writer Ivana Cruz.

Excess phosphorus and sulfur is released into the Everglades from runoffs of farms to the north of the park.

This has become a concern because too much phosphorus creates chemical and biological changes that deteriorate the natural system and harm the native flora and fauna of the area.

“Sulfur and other nuclear electrical infringements are a big concern to us,” said Connie Washburn, current vice president of Friends of the Everglades.

Attempts to regulate phosphorus have been brought up to the Environmental Protection Agency with the phosphorus rule. This rule was proposed by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and would identify provisions of Florida’s Water Quality Standards.
 
The EPA, however, disapproved many provisions of this rule because they were not considered new or revised water quality standards.

The Everglades of South Florida is the largest subtropical wilderness in the United States. Most of the area of Everglades National Park is only accessible by airboat as can be seen in the photo (Photos courtesy of the National Park Service).

This was challenged by a lawsuit filed by the Friends of the Everglades and the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians that resulted in the court’s overturning of the EPA’s decision and the requirement of the EPA to take further action.

There are 30,000 acres of wetlands that serve as storm water treatment areas designed to absorb some of the phosphorus coming in from the farms. Phosphorus, however, still finds its way into Everglades’ water.

Concerns of excess chemicals and gasses in the waters of national parks are not unique to the Everglades.

At Shenandoah National Park, located in Virginia just west of the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area, stream acidification from acid deposition in the form of rain, snow, sleet or hail changes the environment for plants and animals in the park in ways that could turn destructive if levels become to high.

Acid rain occurring in the park is caused by pollutants carried through the air from the outside. Sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide are released when fossil fuels are burned at electrical power generating plants surrounding the park.

The morning blue haze that covers the mountains is not to be confused with the white haze caused by pollution. This haze disappears in the daylight, while the white haze stays and obstruct views.

According to studies published by park researchers, this is especially a concern for Shenandoah since it has one of the highest acid deposition levels amongst national parks, 60 percent of bedrocks in watersheds in the park have low acid buffering capacity and native aquatic organisms in the streams are sensitive to high acidic conditions.

Park staff closely monitors acid deposition levels for these reasons.

“Usually these circumstances have been very episodic and the environment returns to normal after some time. We just monitor the water, we do not take action,” said Caren Beck-Herzog, public affairs officer at Shenandoah National Park.

These same high levels of acidic deposition are found in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee and North Carolina, where the pollutants do not only affect the wildlife of the park but have also grown to hinder the visibility within the park during certain times of the year.

At left, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee and North Carolina is rated second worst for smoggy days. On these days, the average visibility can be anywhere from 20 miles to 120 miles. Below, Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota lies in the heart of the Williston Basin, which is a rich oil and gas development area.

“Most of our streams originate within our boundary so we have few places where outside communities impact the park resources. We do however get acidic deposition, commonly referred to as acid rain, which does have an impact on soils, plants and some animals,” said Glenn Taylor, biologist at the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Acid deposition reaches the park’s streams through the rain, snow and fog that carries the sulfates and nitrates into them. Dry particles and drops of moisture settle on tree leaves and end up in the stream as well when rain washes them into the water.

Acidic water flushes out necessary nutrients in the soil. Some metals that wash into the streams, like aluminum, are toxic to fish and park biologists predict increased die-offs because of it.

Researchers within the park collect water samples from 43 monitoring sites every month to observe the chemical levels in the water and prevent them from getting to damaging levels.

”It is the position of the National Park Service that new emission permits for industries and utilities in the region that will adversely impact the park should be granted only when ‘best available control technology’ is planned and when offset reductions are taken to prevent any net increase in pollutants and impacts. The park service also supports the strictest possible regulations on vehicle and other emissions which contribute to the problem,” says the Great Smoky Mountains National Park Management Folio #2 on Air Quality.

In Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota, concerns over chemical pollution of water result from the numerous oil and gas wells that closely surround the park.

Pipelines from the oil and gas development facilities around the park cross the Little Missouri River and some are located in the river outside of park boundaries.

Produced water is the largest waste related to oil and gas drilling. This water is high in saline and causes chemical imbalances in the water.

Wells are situated within 100 yards or less of park boundaries. This puts park waters at high risk for chemical contamination through a leakage or spill.

National parks accessible for disabled visitors

By EMMA REYES
School of Communication
University of Miami

Disability is not an obstacle for people who want to enjoy what our national parks have to offer.

From the tallest mountain on the U.S. Atlantic Coast to the core of the country and our nation’s Capital, the parks are accessible for everyone.

Although most of the national parks showcase mountains, caves and historical buildings, which are centuries old, the opportunities for a person with a disability are there to enjoy.

Click on the video at the right to view an audio slideshow about disabled accessibility in national parks prepared by writer Emma Reyes.

The National Park Service offers disabled visitors a range of choices to enjoy what our parks have to offer.

One park that can be experienced with ease is the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

According to Bill Line, spokesperson for the National Mall, access is easy.

“The National Mall is fully accessible to anyone in a wheelchair,” he explained.

The Washington National Monument, for example, is completely accessible for a person in a wheelchair to experience.

“The elevators hold approximately 25 to 30 people,” said Line.

The North side of the Independence Hall, part of Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia (Photo by Robin Miller, courtesy of the National Park Service).

The Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia is another fairly accessible park, according to the online guide and Adam Duncan from the public affairs office.

“All our buildings are accessible for wheelchairs,” said Duncan.

Although access is limited in some places, people in wheelchairs can access most of the structures with no difficulty.

 “We offer full exhibit books and photos albums of the second floor at Independent Hall,” added Duncan about the adjustment made to accommodate people in wheelchairs.

The parks not only accommodate people in wheelchairs — people with other disabilities such as blindness or deafness can enjoy the parks, too.

At left, Declaration House in Philadelphia (Photo courtesy of the National Park Service). Below, the south side of the Independence Hall (Photo by Robin Miller, courtesy of the National Park Service). Last below, the Liberty Bell in Liberty Bell Center (Photo by Robin Miller, courtesy of the National Park Service).

At Independence National Historical Park, rangers can provide verbal information about the park. For those with impaired vision, some areas of the park are setup with large-printed park folders.

The park also provides services that allow those who suffer from deafness to experience the park.

“We also offer American sign language with advance notice,” said Duncan.

Duncan also mentioned that feedback is key to improving accessibility in the park.

“We are always looking to better the experience with feedback from visitors comments,” he explained.

The full accessibility guide can be accessed online at http://www.nps.gov/inde/upload/accessibility.pdf.

These are just a few examples of up-to-date historical buildings in the country that are available to everyone to enjoy.

Acadia National Park located in Maine has accessible trails, especially for a person in a wheelchair. Carriage roads include Eagle Lake and Bubble Pond which, according to Park Ranger Wanda Moran, is the main route if in a wheelchair.

“We have many more than 15 trails here, but the carriage roads being mainly the ones that are accessible,” Moran said in an e-mail.

The carriage roads are broken stone packed down paths that are used for walking, biking and horseback riding. The carriage roads lead to Eagle Lake, which leads to three ponds, Breakneck Pond, Half Moon Pond and Witch Hole Pond.

The other road is Bubble Pond and it accesses the carriage roads, which does not limit accessibility until past the pond. Both of the roads have accessible parking and restrooms. 

Samantha Richardson, of the Denver Service Center, National Park Service, explained two specific challenges in the national parks: natural barriers and historic buildings and structures. These are accommodated to the best of the park’s ability.

“With natural barriers, site topography often causes challenges in grading or others means of accommodation with meeting accessible route requirements, especially in areas with cultural landscapes, significant natural areas, hardened geologic areas,” Richardson said in an e-mail.

She added, “With historic buildings and structures, the challenges can vary greatly, but often for accessible route accommodations including doorways (e.g., narrow doors and thresholds), restrooms, interior use spaces (exhibit, viewing, concession, information) [and] multiple floors.”

“Local and state historic preservation offices are always involved with any historic building/structure that is modified to accommodate accessibility
requirements” she explained.

Tennessee resident J.P. Barmers, a person in a wheelchair and paralyzed from the chest down, has experienced one of the national parks with little problems.

“The bathrooms are accessible and me, being in a manual-chair, I was able to go on some trails and campgrounds in Yellowstone National Park. I am more able to [go] through jagged roads,” said Barmers.

The National Park Service also offers a discount option called the Access Pass. This pass can be obtained for free to U.S. citizens and permanent residents with a permanent disability.

The Access Pass offers a 50 percent discount on some fees charged for facilities and services, which include camping, swimming, boat launching and specialized interpretive services. However, the pass doesn’t cover or reduce the special recreation fees or fees charged by the concessioners of the parks.

To obtain the application online go to http://store.usgs.gov/pass/access_pass_application.pdf. The processing cost for obtaining the pass by mail is $10. This is a lifetime pass and the application can also be obtained in person from a federal recreation location.

Parks seek to expand to protect their environments

By INGRID CASTILLO
School of Communication
University of Miami

Looking at the Everglades on a map, one could see the system begin with the Kissimmee River and extend itself all the way down to Florida Bay.

Yet, only one-seventh of this area is known as the Everglades National Park in South Florida.

Click on a video at the left to view an audio slideshow about expansion and growth of existing national parks narrated and prepared by writer Ingrid Castillo.

One of the biggest challenges faced by national parks is the process of land acquisition. Some parks, like the Everglades, seek to acquire land in their surrounding area in order to incorporate it as part of the national park and to preserve and protect regional environments.

When the Redwood National Park in Northern California was established in 1968, Congress failed to take into consideration the impact the surrounding area outside the park would have on the land. Things like construction and logging were having detrimental effects on the redwood forest.

Eventually, the evidence of outside activities and their damaging impact on the park led Congress to expand the park from 56,000 acres to 106,000 acres in 1978.

Though this may seem like a smooth transition, the transition was anything but smooth and a lot went into making that expansion happen.

The area of the Everglades in South Florida known as Frog City (Photos courtesy of National Park Service).

One of the main obstacles with expanding national parks is the issue of money. Funding for land acquisition often comes from private grants, organizations and the Congress.

The NPS’s annual budget, which must be approved each year by Congress, contains a federal land acquisition priority list in which it shows which national parks are set to receive money for land acquisition, how much land they are set to acquire and the amount it would cost to acquire these lands.

When then President Jimmy Carter signed the bill expanding the Redwood National Park in 1978, it provided $359 million for expansion. However, expansion was not the only thing the money accounted for.

Another difficulty faced by national parks is how to acquire land that is privately owned. In the case of Redwood National Park, one of the major opponents to the 1978 expansion was lumber companies.

The lumber companies argued the trees they were cutting did not in any way affect the redwood forest and that, if the park were to be expanded, the lumber companies as well as the community, stood to lose at least 2,000 jobs.

Cascade Canyon and trail with Cathedral Group of Grand Teton National Park in Montana.

Congress eventually felt that the damage done by logging was far too great and decided to expand the park. In exchange, to make up for the job loses, the $359 million had provisions for job creation in park rehabilitation projects.

Though government does play a major role in funding for land acquisition, often times the land is donated by an estate or a private organization.

In 1990, The Richard King Mellon Foundation bought more than 100,000 acres of land in several states and donated to the United States so that national parks could be expanded. At the time the $21 million worth of land was considered one of the biggest private donations.

Most recently, in 2001, the Rockefeller family donated its 1,106 acre ranch in Wyoming to become part of Grand Teton National Park. This came at a time when the Bush administration provided no new park acquisitions for its 2001 budget.

Even if the challenge of acquiring funds is overcome, national parks still face the challenge of opposition from businesses and private citizens.

In the land expansion of 1978, lumber industry employees voiced their opposition by protesting outside of capitol building in Sacramento while the decision to expand the park was being made. They felt the need to protect their assets something that can be seen in a number of cases.

Many businesses see the land not as a conservation site, but as a business opportunity. For example, the lands yet to be acquired by the Everglades National Park are farmlands. The business communities surrounding parks see the expansion often times as having a negative effect economically.

Private citizens that own homes in the vicinity of national parks also feel threaten by a possible park expansion.

For private landowners, there’s a constant struggle between environmentalist, government officials, the public and themselves at which they find themselves as the losing party.

A redwood forest with ferns in Redwood National Park in California.

For the residents near the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore Park, mostly farmers, felt that their rights were being violated by a possible expansion. Though the expansion would leave them their farmhouses, it would immensely reduce their farm sizes. Landowners often feel that their needs are not being heard despite their active participation in the expansion process.

There have been organizations formed in order to find a common ground between landowners and conservationist. Groups like the Texas’s Cameron County Agricultural Coexistence Committee consists of farmers, government officials and environmentalists that work on ways to address issues in a way that ensures every sector involved in conservation is heard.

In the end, national parks despite their struggles for expansion, seem to find a way whether through donations or federal funding to achieve their goals. Not always can a park expand in the time and pace it wishes but so long a park can conserve the area it has, land acquisition can sometimes take a backseat.

Invasive plants harm parks, despite appearance

By JORDAN EMANUEL
School of Communication
University of Miami

In photos, they look like attractive plants you would find in a vase in your living room, but alligator weed, Brazilian pepper trees and water hyacinth are far from the typical house plant.

Alligator weed cause a threat to the economic and environmental states of parks internationally and nationally.

The problem has persisted so badly in places like Australia that $3 million has been spent in attempt to control the weed.

Click on the video at the right to view an audio slideshow about invasive plant species in national parks narrated and prepared by writer Jordan Emanuel. Photos courtesy of the National Park Service).

Alligator weed can be found in 27 states, including Florida, California, South Carolina and Georgia.
 
With the ability to grow in water and dry land, alligator weed covers water masses and blocks waterways and drains. The weed grows on top of water and prevents fish and other plants from getting proper oxygen and water regulation.

Not only do they live in various places, they can live when the sun is at full power or with very little sun at all. And though alligator weed can live in cold winters, the plant dies in freezing temperatures.

New plants grow quite quickly, forming from the stem and seeds.

 “Alligator weed reproduces from roots and seeds so it grows very rapidly and spreads so quickly that it’s hard to maintain and get a handle on the issue,” said Dr. Michael Masser, associate department head and program leader, a professor and Extension Fisheries specialist at the Texas A&M System.

Because of human interaction these plants are spread quite frequently, also contributing to the problem.

An example of how alligator weeds dominant pond and lake surfaces. This makes it difficult for species living underneath to get oxygen (Photo courtesy of Chris Evans, River to River CWMA, bugwood.org).

“They are mainly a problem in aquatic areas, it’s going to be an issue in areas that have recreational use like with boat ramps. Anywhere you are going to be putting something in water, taking them out, and moving them that's how its spread through humans moving it around,” said Rebekah D. Wallace, data coordinator for the Center for Invasive Species and Ecosystem Health at the University of Georgia.

Another rapidly growing invasive plant is the Brazilian pepper tree.

“These peppers have the ability to reproduce and grow very densely and fast, which displace native species’ vegetation and habitats,” said Kenneth A. Langeland, Ph. D, Researcher Associated with the Center for Aquatic and Invasive Plants at the University of Florida.

With birds and other animals being the primary source of distribution, it is hard to get a handle on the spreading of this aggressive species.

“Birds eat it and spread it that way. There have even been studies that says that the invasive food source is of poor quality compared to what the native species usually eat,” said Wallace.

These trees not only alter the food quality of animals, but also create a dense shade that prevents sunlight from getting to plants and creatures that need it to survive.

At left, the vibrant color of these Brazilian pepper trees make it deceiving to those unaware of its destructive capabilities (Photo courtesy of Dan Clark, National Park Service, bugwood.org). Below, a water hyacinth masking its danger to native species and their habitats with the soft lilac and luscious green leaves (Photo courtesy of AquaPlant, a Web site of AgraLife Extension, Texas A&M University System).

Brazilian pepper trees can grow over 30 feet tall and live for 30 years. These pepper trees can form from stems and seeds, which are viable up to two months.

Managing these trees has proved to be a difficult task due to the location of the trees.

“They reproduce very quickly and in such remote areas. It makes it hard to get to where they are,” said Langeland.

Complete elimination of the Brazilian pepper trees are unlikely, but there are ways to get rid of some of them.

“Eliminate is a strong word, but we manage them mainly with crews that apply herbicides some can be applied to bark and the tree will die in place or some cases the trees are cut and the herbicides are applied to the stomp or soil,” said Langeland.

Another invasive plant that is creating trouble in parks is the water hyacinth. This aquatic plant has made its home in the southern states.

The water hyacinth has light blue and purple flowers and deep green leaves. But do not let the attractiveness of it fool you.

This is an aggressive species that forms thick layers that can cover an entire pond or lake surface. Layers can grow as much as an acre and weigh 200 tons.

This invasive blanket of weeds can completely deprive fish from oxygen and sunlight, which kills them. The leaves also have the potential to clog waterways, which would prevent fishing and boating activities.

The water hyacinth is a pleasant site, which is why it does not get removed as it should. “It moves whenever we move. The water hyacinth is a pond plant and people don’t want to get rid of it because it’s pretty,” said Wallace.

So with a tendency to want to keep them around, how can this problem be managed? According to Wallace, education and incentive is the key.

“When focusing on education you have to figure out who your target audience and your approach to figure out how it would impact that group,” said Wallace. “It’s about stressing how you will impact them and what they will lose if it is not dealt with.”

National parks seek balance of preservation and use

By MARI CENTENO-AYALA
School of Communication
University of Miami

At a time when many in our country and around the world are worried about endangered species, both animal and vegetable, world warming and climate change, it is important to stop and think about the reasons for the existence of our National Parks.

What is the impact of tourism and development on these specially designated spaces of our country?

According to the U.S. Travel Association, in 2010 alone more than 70 international tour operators promoted our national parks for their largest market strategy, their Pow Wow, and this was an added promotion to President Obama’s support of the Great Outdoors and National Export Initiative.  

We understand the premise that parks, natural or man-made, are destined for our enjoyment and the park administrators must find a balance between the benefits and the drawbacks of the people who visit the parks.

Click on the video at the right to view an audio slide show about the impact of tourism on national parks narrated and prepared by writer Mari Centeno-Ayala. Photos courtest of the National Park Service.

The ideal morning for any camp-lover visiting Great Smoky Mountains National Park begins early in the day; it’s the best time to explore the park and maybe find a hidden natural treasure.  The picture perfect scene is interrupted by the sudden, choppy sound of a helicopter above carrying the other type of a park tourist.

Noise pollution is just one of the disadvantages The Great Smoky Mountains National Park faces while tourists visit the park.   Imagine taking a hike and not being able to enjoy the sound of running water from the river or the birds chirping in the trees.  Instead, one is met by noise pollution.

However, according the Park’s Managing Assistant Bob Miller, things have improved and under Tennessee State Law companies now offering helicopter tours must be nine miles from park boundaries. 

This alone has greatly improved the area inside the park and has made tourist visits more enjoyable.   The park is visited by more than 9.5 million tourists a year.  During the slower season (September-October) the park is more focused on special events and improving things around the park and during the high season (July-August.) this is hard to accomplish. 

The park is highly visited during spring break and summer months and these high seasons have a big impact on the park. Many of the tourists visiting the park are un-experienced and few take the time to look over park regulations.

A bear roams through Cade's Cove in Great Smoky Mountain National Park in Tennessee (Photo by Susie Neel, courtesy of the National Park Service).

 

Some of the more popular park activities that tourist enjoy are bicycling, horse back riding, picnicking, visiting historic buildings, camping and fishing.

According to Miller, one of the most popular tourist activities is driving through the park and about four million cars pass through the park; the impact caused by this level of traffic not only on the air, but also on the vegetation and fauna of the park is noticeable.

Most visitors are the commuter type, that is they are only visiting the park for a day; they are not camping inside the park. During the high season, this type of tourist creates huge wear and tear on the road and air and garbage pollution in the park.

However, Miller concedes that this high impact of tourist is not always negative. The Great Smoky Mountains National Park receives a lot political support and is highly recognized by the community and in 2010 was ranked the most visited park in the country.

According to Miller, in the last 10 to 15 years, operating costs have increased but considering the high volume of visits in the area and around the park and every one competing for federal funding, budgeting has also been easier. Tourists spend an average of $800 million dollars a year in the park and surrounding areas and this helps the local economy particularly restaurants and hotels.

Miller pointed out that something that is impacting the park is the housing development being built in its vicinity.  Basically it’s affecting the animal population and specifically it affects the bear population because they tend to roam towards the homes and eat the garbage from these houses.

 

Snorkeling around coral reef nurseries is a popular activity for visitors to Biscayne National Park in Florida (Photo courtesy of the National Park Service).

 

One way they are dealing with this is a law in Tennessee that punishes intentional bear feeding outside the Park: people have to be in control of their garbage.  The city of Gatlinburg has an ordinance that requires homeowners to have bear-proof trash containers and they are not allowed to leave the trash out.

As an added note, Miller mentioned the fact that the Great Smoky Mountains National Park is home to the Cherokee Indians; they receive the benefits of the tourist that visit the park, but they also receive the negative impact that comes with them.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park attracts the rugged tourist, the hiker and the mountain climber.  For the tourist that wants more of an aquatic park with underwater exploration of historic treasures, innumerable types of birds and marine creatures, Florida has the perfect choice.

The Biscayne National Park represents a totally different type of natural experience.  We go from a series of mountain ridges in Smoky National Park, to a mostly underwater world.

This National Park was almost lost to eager developers who back in the 1950’s saw the economic potential of using most of the area to create a fantastic city, which they called “City of Islandia.”

 

Traffic in and around Great Smoky Mountains National Park has had a significant impact on the park and surrounding areas (Photo courtesy of the National Park Service).

Luckly, the idea of ecology importance and environmental preservation were already growing strong around the country and the project was stopped.  In 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the law that Congress had passed declaring Biscayne a National Park.

Biscayne National Park covers almost 178.000 acres and only five percent is above water.  This means that most of the tourists visiting this park do it by traveling in boats of many types. 

Matt Johnson, Supervisory Park Ranger/Interpreter, described the Park visitors as people mostly interested in water sightseeing and they have good steady flow of visitors all year.  For the year 2010 it is estimated that around 915 thousand persons visited this park; according to the National Park Service Public Use Statistics Office (NPS-Stats); during that same year, the months that saw most tourist were January through March, with a combined total of 445 thousand visitors. 

One major difference between visitors to this park and those that go to other national parks is the mode of transportation in and around the park.  Walking and boating are the favorite ways for getting around and cars can only go so far, because the swampy terrain is preserved for the conservation of the natural life of the park inhabitants.

The favorite activities are snorkeling in the reefs and trying to find treasures in the sunken ships.  They also go for fishing, kayaking and sailing. One of the characteristics of this park is that visitors come from all over the world and most of them are very concerned with environmental preservation.

The Great Smoky Mountains National Park is the most-visited park in the national system (Photo courtesy of the National Park Service).

Biscayne National Park also has a museum that offers audiovisual information about the park and everything it has to offer.

Johnson stated that one of the biggest concerns for the park administration is promoting education about the importance of taking care of all the park, this includes the coral reef, the fish and other fauna present in the park and the unique vegetation.

He mentioned noise produced by the motors on the boats as one of the biggest problems because it bothers the fauna. Trash left behind by visitors is another big problem. 

Both Rob Miller and Matt Johnson reassured us that even though the tourism impact on our national parks is noticeable, it is not being ignored; both also emphasized the importance of education.

Web cameras take growing role for parks

By NATHAN CURRIE
School of Communication
University of Miami

National parks throughout the United States have begun to make use of webcams to display the attractions they have to offer. It is part of the National Park Service’s initiative to make use of new and developing technology and attract a new audience.

One of the parks that has successfully been using a webcam to make a connection with the public is Denali National Park in Alaska. Over the summer months of 2011 park officials have been running a webcam that allowed viewers to watch the activities and developments of four sled dog puppies in what has become known as “Puppy Cam.”

Click on the video at the right to view an audio slide show about the Denali National Park "Puppy Cam" narrated and prepared by writer Nathan Currie. Photos courtesy of the National Park Service.

It has become extremely popular and has gotten a lot of positive feedback.
“People loved looking at the pictures online,” Jennifer Raffaeli, Denali Kennels manager said. “We got an overwhelmingly positive response.”

“We tend to receive a lot of positive feedback about that,” Jason Reppert, staff member at Denali Kennels agreed, “It was a big hit.”

People have become genuinely attached to the dogs, or a specific dog, by being able to watching them every day. It has led to increased interaction between parks and potential visitors.

“We have a lot of people that call to find out information about a particular dog,” said Reppert.

“I think our overall website traffic was boosted 18 or 20 percent,” Denali National Park Ranger Alex Lindeman said.

“There has been such a good following, especially through Facebook.”

Old Faithful is the main attraction at Yellowstone National Parkand park officials have a Web cam for virtual visits to see the geyser in action (Photos courtesy of the National Park Service).

There is indeed quite a following for the dogs and appreciation for the webcam on Denali’s Facebook page, indicating that the park is succeeding in its attempt to engage more young people and to utilize social media.

The decision to make use of webcams was made in the early part of this year and the puppies were considered to be the perfect faces to put in front of the camera.

“We have a litter of sled puppies pretty much every year so we thought they might be a nice, charismatic subject to focus the camera on,” said Lindeman.

The fact there has been such a large and positive reaction means that the original aim has been satisfied.

“The main idea behind it was to try and get the public more involved,” said Reppert.

Despite the fact the dogs were being viewed by people around the world on a daily basis did not affect the way they were handled or cared for.

“It did not affect the way the puppies were raised at all,” said Reppert. “We knew that anytime we went in there we were being watched. If anything it had more of an effect on our presentation.”

The inaugural “Puppy Cam” is now offline as the puppies have grown to an age where they are spending a lot of time outside the kennels and this means there is much less to view. Due to its success, however, there are plans to bring it back next year.

“We intend to bring the “Puppy Cam” back online next year when we have another litter of puppies,” said Lindeman.

“There are people waiting for us to turn it back on as soon as possible,” said Reppert.

Denali also has two other cameras that will be on all winter long in the hope they can monitor the extreme weather that will occur there.

One camera looks out over the Alaska Railroad Depot which serves as the main entry and exit point for people coming to the park. It also provides a good view to observe.

From left, puppies Koven, Tatum and Carpe became Web celebrities because of their Web cam.

“It also looks out towards the southeast… as we move deeper and deeper into the winter that is where the sunrise really is,” said Lindeman.

The other camera points towards the courtyard of the visitor’s center and the hope is to replicate the success at Glacier National Park, which has a similar project.

The most popular webcam the National Park Service has running, judging by viewer numbers, is one of the cameras that have been in operation the longest. The camera that films Yellowstone’s geyser, Old Faithful, is responsible for one of the most visited web pages in the whole of the National Park Service website.

It was set up in understanding of the parks historic reputation and to try and include people who were unable to visit.

“We understand that Yellowstone is iconic and many people will never have the chance to come here,” Craig Johnson, Web specialist for Yellowstone, said. “It is used to connect to the people.”

It is also used by people who have been to Yellowstone and were impressed or touched by what they saw during their visit.

“When (the visitors) go back home they realize that Yellowstone has made such an important impact on their lives and they want to stay in touch,” said Johnson.

The cameras are also used to show ranger-led programs to show and educate people about aspects of the park.
Johnson emphasizes the National Park Service’s desire to connect to young people but suggests that this is being done by utilizing social media such as Facebook and that the webcams are being used to attract everybody.

Yellowstone is also working on capitalizing on the popularity of their webcams by using them as a way to entice people to visit the entire website.

“The cameras are, in a way, eye candy,” said Johnson.

At right, a picture of Long's Peak in Rocky Mountain National park, which people can view on a Webcam. At right below, a screen shot from Yosemite Conservancy’s Turtleback Dome webcam (Photo courtesy of Yosemite Conservancy).

They are part of an effort to turn the Yellowstone website into a multimedia experience and in that sense they are not the main part site, other content is.

The webcams are not to be thought of as a substitute for the real thing however, a point that Johnson and others are keen to emphasize.

“No, no, not at all a substitute,” said Johnson.

One of the people who agree with Craig Johnson is Jerry Brown, who does media development at Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado.

“It is absolutely not a substitution and I don’t think it is viewed as a substitution,” said Brown. “I think it is viewed as a pre-planning tool, an excitement tool and a curiosity.”

Rocky Mountain has three webcams for people to view the scenery on offer at the park. They were established in response to feedback from visitors.

“We were just being responsive to our visitors,” Katy Sykes, Information Office manager at Rocky Mountain National Park, stated.

There are practical issues to deal with, but viewers help out with them, too.

“Whenever our webcams are down, which happens for whatever reason, maybe they get covered in ice or snow in the winter time,” said Sykes, “We do have people that contact us to say that our webcam is down.”

The Yosemite Conservancy runs four webcams inside Yosemite National Park display the scenery it has to offer.

They also experienced occasional practical problems.

“We had a lot of connection issues and problems due to weather conditions,” said Noel Morrison, Communication manager for Yosemite Conservancy.

Nevertheless they are considered successful and are liked by their audience.

“Generally,” said Morrison, “people are really fond of them.”

Sykes believes that, like other NPS webcams, the three at Rocky Mountain have increased the number of visitors to the website from the number it had been previously.

“I would imagine that that is the case given the feedback we have had,” she said.

Again, these cameras are used to help attract young people who are unfamiliar with the park.

“One of the things we struggle with daily is meeting our target market,” said Brown, “and that would be young people.”

The embracing of new technology for a new generation has been successful and is positively viewed. Not only has it provided a way for people to view the parks without being there it has also helped establish emotional bonds, especially in the case of the “Puppy Cam.”

It is not only for young people, it is for all people and helps include people in the Parks like never before.

Lionfish unwelcome visitor to East Coast waters

By ALEXANDRA HURTADO
School of Communication
University of Miami

In a country known for its free lands and open waters, it seems odd that not all visitors are welcomed.

This is not a reference to tourists with cameras around their necks, but rather the various types of plant and animal species posing a threat to various habitats as a result of invasions.

One of the most recent examples is the Southeast’s unwelcomed guest, the lionfish.

Click on the video at right to view an audio slideshow about invasive lionfish narrated and prepared by writer Alexandra Hurtado. Images courtesy of the National Park Service and The Associated Press archive.

Non-indigenous species have different means of transplanting themselves in non-native areas. Some of these species enter through the exotic pet trade while others like the lionfish enter through the aquarium trade.

“In real estate, it’s location, location, location. With invasive species, it is pathway, pathway, pathway,” Lori Williams, executive director of the National Invasive Species Council, said in October 2011 at the Society of Environmental Journalists conference in Miami.

South Florida is a hot spot for these types of species.

Vanessa McDonough, Ph.D., a fishery and wildlife biologist at Biscayne National Park, explained, “the problem of exotic invasive species in general is a huge problem particularly in South Florida where the climate allows so many non-natives to thrive.”

Lionfish are growing at a large rate since they have no other predators than humans (Photo courtesy of James Morris Jr., U.S. Geological Survey).

At the SEJ meeting, Lad Akins, director of Special Projects for Reef Environmental Education Foundation, said Florida has its share of these species.

“There are over 30 different non-native marine fish in Florida waters,” he stated.

One of these invaders now abundant in South Florida’s coastal waters is the lionfish, which is native to the Indian and Pacific oceans and the Red Sea.

“In some locations, their densities now are seven to 10 times what is known from the native range,” Akins said. “They’ve established themselves across a very broad area in a relative small time period.”

The most likely explanation for the introduction of the lionfish population into the Atlantic Ocean is through the aquarium trade, officials at the U.S. Geological Survey’s program, the Non-indigenous Aquatic Species, seem to believe.

Gary Bremen, spokesperson and interpretive ranger at Biscayne National Park, agreed.

“The aquarium trade is gathering livestock for the purpose of keeping them in a home or commercial aquarium,” he said.

Like Bremen, McDonough believes the most probable reason for the lionfish’s arrival is a result of the aquarium trade, but also due to international ocean-bound shipping.

“Lionfish are most likely here in the Atlantic due to the aquarium trade, where people keep them in their saltwater tanks and then either deliberately or unintentionally released them,” McDonough said.

“An additional possibility, although less likely, is that lionfish were introduced here through the exchange of ship ballast water, these two theories are not necessarily mutually exclusive, although there is much more to support the idea of aquarium releases than ballast water introductions.”

According to a research paper published by James Morris, an ecologist at the National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science, “the first documented capture of a lionfish was in 1985 off Dania Beach, Fla.”

At right, lionfish are occupying waters in the southeast when they are  actually native to the Pacific Ocean and Red Sea (Photo courtesy of James Morris Jr., U.S. Geological Survey). Below, Biscayne National Park (Photo courtesy of the National Park Service).

Bremen explained that it is the red lionfish that is occupying South Florida’s waters, “but that does not mean other species have not been released, too.”

“There are two species of lionfish currently thought to occupy in South Florida, although they are almost impossible to distinguish with the naked eye,” McDonough said. “The species are the red lionfish, Pterois volitans, and the devil firefish, Pterois miles.” 

This species is growing at a fast rate, but it is its severe impact, which is a concern.

“Impacts are the key issue, they are eating a wide variety of prey,” Akins said. “At some heavily invaded sites, there have been significant declines in native prey due to lionfish predation.”

Several adverse effects have resulted from the lionfish invading areas like Biscayne National Park.

“Lionfish are voracious predators that can eat very large volumes of food relative to their body size,” McDonough said. “They are competing for food with our native species, which are already threatened due to poor water quality, coral cover loss, overfishing, climate change, coral bleaching etcetera.”

Dominique Lazarre, a University of Miami graduate student currently writing her dissertation on the lionfish invasion, explained that the lionfish are changing the landscape of the ecosystem.

“A major threat of the lionfish is that they are eating top predators like groupers which help manage the ecosystem,” Lazarre said. “The grouper is a top predator that keeps fish in numbers and with the loss of diversity of fish it throws the ecosystem out of whack.”

Like Lazarre, McDonough believes the lionfish pose an issue to the ecosystem.

 “Our natural ecosystem already has so many challenges that the system may not be resilient enough to handle the lionfish invasion,” McDonough added.
 
This endemic species is growing quickly for a number of reasons, one being that they lack controlling predators… except for humans.

“Lionfish have no natural predators in the Atlantic and they are capable at reproducing at much faster rates than our native species...thus their population is growing at an uncontrollable rate,” McDonough said.

“Their [lionfish] densities on the reefs are increasing rapidly because there is no native species that can keep their numbers in check,” McDonough said. “Our native fish are already in low numbers and now we have lionfish competing with and preying upon our native species...not good at all.”

“It is going to come down to us to minimize the impacts of this invasion,” Akins added.

In order to reduce the lionfish numbers people need to learn of the threats they pose.

“People need to know lionfish are a problem so we need to get the word out in order to reduce their numbers,” Lazarre said.

Lionfish are an edible species so capturing them for food is one method of removing this invasive species.

“People have been trying to start a lionfish fishery so it is important to spread the word that they are edible,” Lazarre explained.
 
A campaign called Habitatitude was established to protect the environment by not releasing unwanted fish or aquatic plants. The Pet Industry Joint Advisory Council, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration coordinate this campaign.

This national public awareness and partnership campaign targets aquarium hobbyists and backyard pond owners to promote invasive species issue awareness and responsible hobbyist behaviors.

“The aquarium trade is a big factor in the introduction of non-native species in our waters,” McDonough said.  “While lionfish represent the first case of a species becoming well-established, dozens of Indo-Pacific reef fish species have been observed (in single or limited numbers) in waters off of Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties.”

Protecting fragile coral reefs is top priority

By ANABELL BERNOT
School of Communication
University of Miami

For Biscayne National Park in Florida, maintaining coral reefs in mint condition is a top priority. Because of this, Biscayne authorities are tightening security in their park with new security cameras and trained personnel to make sure snorkelers are following park rules.

Biscayne is not the only park keeping close watch on coral reef protection, the U.S. Virgin Islands National Park has also taken measures to protect coral reefs by enforcing fishing regulations, working with law enforcement to issue tickets and court for poachers and extending water boundaries to reduce pressure on the corals.

Click on the video at the right to view an audio slideshow about protecting coral reefs in national parks narrated and prepared by writer Anabell Bernot. Images courtesy of the National Park Service.

“Stress on the corals can have a physical and traumatic impact,” said Gary Bremen, an interpretive park ranger and spokesperson for Biscayne National Park in South Florida. “Our job as a national park is to protect an ecosystem without putting up a fence.”

Corals are extremely ancient animals that evolved into modern reef-building forms over the last 25 million years and provide algae with a protected environment necessary for photosynthesis.

They are especially vulnerable to human activities such as trampling and fishing.  Anchoring can physically destroy or kill the coral, resulting in reef death.

In order to keep the coral healthy, Biscayne National Park has put forth a proposal for a general management plan to close a 10,000-acre portion as a marine reserve zone where fishing will be prohibited.

The proposal for the 10,000-acre marine reserve zone in Biscayne Bay will close the area to fishing to allow the fish population to grow and benefit coral reef health (Photos courtesy of National Park Service).

“Our idea is to close this area to fishing so the fish population can grow back,” said Bremen.

“When there are healthy fish in the water that can feed on coral and fertilize, this keeps things in good balance, then coral reefs do better. If things are out of balance it has a negative impact on coral reef health,” he said.

Biscayne National Park was created in 1968 by efforts of a number of organizations, including the Safe Progress Association, to halt the development of an oil refinery on the bay that would have dredged a 40-foot-deep channel that would have also required cutting through the coral reef.

With visitors enjoying attractions like scuba diving, fishing and snorkeling, park personnel have to monitor the coral reefs to make sure that crimes like poaching do not go unnoticed.

“Unfortunately, there is a lot of poaching that goes on so we rely on the public to report a crime since we only have six law enforcement rangers,” said Vanessa McDonough, fishery biologist for the park. “Before people go into the water, our concession operators give them a lecture on the importance of leaving the coral untouched. We also have different signs throughout the park that remind people to ‘look but not touch’.”

Reefs in Biscayne National Park are not diverse ecosystems because they are located on the northern edge of their natural range.

Other than preventing poaching and touching, fishing tickets or a required once-a-month class can be issued for removing undersized fish.

“If people break the fishing rules, I think it’s better to go with the once-a-month class because the curriculum taught stresses the importance of fishing regulations and that can help fishermen avoid trouble in the future,” said McDonough.

At the end of the course, the fishermen fined take a brief 25-question quiz to test their acquired knowledge.

Laurel Brannick, education specialist for the U.S Virgin Islands National Park, said that most of the problems relating to coral reefs are caused by the actions of people, so it is important that park visitors are part of the solution.

Since 1962, U.S Virgin Islands National Park has protected 5,620 acres of submerged land that is home to coral reefs. Today, the park conducts research and develops policies with the goal of protecting these fragile ecosystems.

“Here at the park we do a lot of research and monitoring to see the changes happening on the reefs,” said Brannick. “In order to keep the corals safe, we have expanded our water boundary and added the Coral Reef National Monument to the park. It is a no take, no anchor zone on the south side of the island.”

A porkfish on the coral reef of Biscayne National Park. Fish like this one feed and fertilize the coral, keeping the coral reef ecosystem in balance.

The purpose of the monument is to reduce pressure on the corals that occurs when ships and boats drop their anchors.

“What usually happens is an anchor is dropped and a bleaching event occurs, causing diseases to affect the well-being of the corals,” said Jeff Miller, the park’s fisheries biologist.

U.S Virgin Islands National Park hopes to become an anchorless park in the near future.

Native American burial sites protected within parks

By SAIRA R. SUMBAL
School of Communication
University of Miami

You have made it a goal to visit most, if not all, of the National Park Service’s 397 locations. Ready. Set. And you’re off.

You visit the Hopewell Culture Natural Historic Park in Ohio. You continue your journey to the Effigy Mounds National Monument in Iowa.

Among the scenic sites and greenery, you can’t help but notice the striking mounds that make up a part of these parks. You stand on top of the tallest mound and you can’t help but begin to wonder what happened to the people who carefully crafted these mounds.

Click on the video at the left to view an audio slideshow about Native American burial sites and park policies prepared by writer Saira Sumbal. Photos courtesy of the National Park Service.

You look out into the blue sky, and ponder on the sacredness of these mounds are to the people before you.

“People came together to build these places to solidify ties, so it has a lot to do with building communities. People were very concerned with honoring the dead, and that the ancestors were part of their community,” said Bret Ruby, an archeologist at Hopewell Culture National Historical Park. 

Ohio’s Hopewell Culture National Historical Park mounds are particularly unique, given the geometric patterns in which the mounds were built. The parks mounds were used for ceremonial and social activities and evidence suggests the mounds were built with human hands.

At right, a Native American burial mound at Ohio’s Hopewell Culture National Historical Park. Below, the layout of the Hopewell site (Photos courtesy of the National Park Service, Hopewell Culture NHP, Hopewell Mound Group).

“About 2,000 years ago, groups of people came together and built different types of earthwork for ceremonial purposes, and they had a rich tradition,” said Jennifer Pederson Weinberger, superintendent of Hopewell Culture National Historical Park.

In 1990, the Native American Protection Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) was introduced as a process for museums and federal agencies to ensure that Native American cultural items, such as human remains, funerary objects, and sacred objects, be returned to the appropriate Native American group to which the items were associated. 

Native American mounds in the United States, which are considered sacred burial sites for Native Americans, are subject to NAGPRA regulations. Funerary objects are often buried in mounds. 

“There are two parts of NAGPRA, and the first part is the remains and funerary objects. The second part is what you do when you are excavating and find such objects,” said Catherine Moore, cultural resources program manager for the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA). NPCA is an independent and nonpartisan organization that seeks to protect and address issues of the National Park System (NPS). 

“NAGPRA is a very positive law that has prompted us to reach out and engage Native American tribes,” said Ruby.

NAGPRA has come under criticism over the years, as a program that has been poorly enforced due to a lack of funds and a neglect of the policy by park officials. Some officials, however, have made an effort to ensure that NAGPRA is enforced in their parks.

“Whenever we undertake a major finding effort, we consult with tribes,” said Jim Nepstad, superintendent of Effigy Mounds National Monument.

Effigy Mounds National Monument has approximately 200 Native American mounds. The mounds are considered sacred to the monument’s 12 affiliated Native American tribes.

The beginning of a walkway with educational signage at Hopewell Culture National Historical Park (Photo courtesy of the National Park Service, Hopewell Culture NHP, Hopewell Mound Group). Below, Fire Point at Effigy National Mounds Monument (Photo courtesy of Effigy National Mounds Monument, National Park Service).

Others have seen the positive effects that have surfaced as a result of NAGPRA regulations. Particularly for park services faculty and staff --- the ones that are responsible for the enforcement of NAGPRA.

“In a sense, NAGPRA has made people in parks very sensitive to cultural issues,” said Moore.

Officials in park services did not always treat Native American burials in a culturally sensitive manner. The 19th century proved to be a difficult period for the excavation of Native American objects and artifacts, as poor efforts resulted in the loss of many of these objects.

“In the past, archeologists or scientists have handled contents or artifacts for scientific inquiry and to a degree lost the idea that these are people who lived and died on the land,” said Nepstad.

NPCA has made efforts to ensure that NAGPRA regulations have been enforced. Part of NPCA’s core values is diversity. Part of promoting this value is to preserve the nations diverse heritage by ensuring parks are dedicated to preserving items they find.

“Part of what my team has done for the last 10 years is assessing how well parks are equipped in fulfilling their responsibilities,” Moore said.

NPS’s National NAGPRA program has ensured NAGPRA is enforced, particularly through its training programs that it offers for park officials.

In the training, officials can learn about the background of NAGPRA, notices, grants, and penalties involved with the legislation.

NPS encourages both senior and new national park employees to attend the session. NPS also offers webinars, where employees can receive NAGPRA training without leaving their offices.  

“The national program has a great training program,” said Moore on NPS’s commitment to enforce NAGPRA.

NAGPRA authorizes federal grants to Native American tribes and organizations in an effort to aid with the documentation and repatriation of Native American artifacts. The NAGPRA Review Committee acts as a facilitator to resolve disputes over repatriations under NAGPRA regulations.

“To a degree the passage of NAGPRA was for the parks to reflect on whether it was appropriate to engage in activity. Parks can essentially be cemeteries,” said Nepstad.

Those opposing NAGPRA regulation argue that the legislation hinders the general public’s right to be educated about Native American groups, since artifacts and remains become under the supervision of the relevant Native American group.

A Native American burial mound at Effigy Mounds National Monument.

The mounds are sacred to many, even to those that cannot trace back their lineage to the mounds.

“For me, it’s a window into the past of the people who took the time and effort to make them. I see it as a very special place that needs to be honored today so that other people come and see these different monumental works of art. For me, it just brings back a sense of awe of what could be accomplished 2,000 years ago by groups of people,” said Weinberger.

Childhood dream comes true for Biscayne ranger

Seafood Depot offers history, regional cuisine

Dramatic to view, volcanos pose danger for visitors

By JON SHEAIRS
School of Communication
University of Miami

Volcanoes are nature’s most dramatic and violent phenomena, but these breathtaking landscapes also present visitors to our national parks with some of nature’s most dangerous hazards.

Lava flows, wildfires, landslides, volcanic ash, sudden explosions, and poisonous gases are just some of the hazards volcanoes present.  Each day, park rangers and United States Geological Survey (USGS) scientists monitor park conditions in an effort to protect park visitors.   

The USGS monitors more than 160 volcanoes in the U.S., most of which are found within the Cascades Mountain Range along the West Coast and the Aleutian Range in Alaska. The nation’s most active and dangerous, however, can be found in Hawaii.

Click on the video at right to view an audio slideshow about volcano dangers and safety in national parks narrated and prepared by writer Jon Sheairs. Images courtesy of the National Park Service and U.S. Geological Survey.

Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park, located on the “Big Island” of Hawai’i, is home to Kilauea, the volcano the USGS considers the most dangerous in America.  Kilauea has been erupting continuously since 1983, and consequently it presents major health hazards for visitors to the park.

Lava flows incinerate everything in their path, typically burning at 950 to 1200 degrees Celsius, but they move at speeds around three kilometers per hour and pose more of a threat to property than humans.

It’s when the lava meets the sea that the sparks start to fly.

“When lava meets the sea it’s called a fuel-coolant interaction, said Charlie Mendeville, USGS associate program coordinator for Volcano Hazards. “The heat causes the water to flash boil, generating tremendous explosions that can hurl debris hundreds of meters.”

Besides these explosions, known as tephra jets, lava entering the sea can also cause landslides in which the new land formed by the flow breaks off into the sea.  These can be particularly dangerous and, on April 19, 1993, a man was swept into the ocean by one of these landslides.

Cleveland Volcano in Alaska’s Aleutian Islands erupts on May 23, 2006, sending a plume of volcanic ash 20,000 feet into the atmosphere.  Cleveland is one of the most active volcanoes in the area (Photos courtesy of the National Park Service and U.S. Geological Survey).

Lava isn’t the only hazard, however.  Volcanoes also emit poisonous sulfur dioxide gas, which irritates skin and mucous membranes in the eyes, ears and throat, and can cause respiratory distress.  Since 1986 sulfur dioxide levels in the air on Hawai’i have exceeded Federal Health Standards more than 85 times.

“Beyond sulfur dioxide, volcanoes also emit carbon dioxide, which acts as an asphyxiate, and hydrogen sulfide which can cause paralysis, coma and even death during concentrated, prolonged exposure,” Mendeville explained.  “Unlike sulfur dioxide, these gases are odorless, making them particularly hazardous.”

While the hazards from lava, or “red,” eruption are severe, “black” eruptions, or those in which volcanic ash is hurled into the air, present entirely different threats to visitor safety. 

Volcanic ash, sometimes known as pumice, is not something you’ll find in any fireplace.

At left and below, Kilauea in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park erupts in 1983, spewing lava from its crater. This marked the beginning of an eruption that continues today and is America's most active volcano. Next below, a massive lava flow spills over a cliff while making its way down the volcano.

“Volcanic ash is volcanic rock loaded with flinched glass bone,” Mendeville added. “When the pieces are larger than two millimeters in diameter they’re called pumice.”

This ash creates problems not only for humans, but it also has devastating effects on machinery, and in particular airplanes. 

“Breathing in ash can exacerbate respiratory problems, and irritate the upper respiratory system,” said Mendeville. “Commercial planes move at 300 to 400 miles per hour.  This creates a volcanic sandstorm that abrades cockpit windows, disrupting vision, and can render key flight instruments, such as altimeters and airspeed indicators unusable.  Ash actually plates out on the turbines, causing engine failure.”

Yellowstone National Park has been the site of some of the largest “black” eruptions in history, thanks to its location over the largest volcanic system in the U.S. 

The Yellowstone Caldera, as the volcano is known, hasn’t has a full-scale eruption in more than 640,000 years, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t dangers present.

“The magma underneath the surface is constantly moving,” said Al Nash, chief of affairs at Yellowstone.  ”This fuels our park’s world-famous geothermal activity, but also present risks such as hydrothermal vent explosions and earthquakes." 

With such high risks involved, the USGS makes sure to keep a close eye on all of America’s volcanoes. 

“The USGS monitors 169 volcanoes in the U.S.,” said Clarice Ransom, USGS spokeswoman for natural hazards.  Using the National Volcano Early Warning System the USGS provides monthly assessments of each volcano’s status, ranking the most dangerous. Monitoring is done at five volcano observatories located throughout the nation.” 

The USGS Volcano Hazards Program is the entity responsible for monitoring and assessing volcanoes, as well as responding to volcanic crises and conducting research. The program, along with the Volcano Disaster Assistance Program, ultimately seeks to advance the scientific understanding of volcanism, as well as mitigate its harmful impacts on society.

The USGS monitors volcanoes using a variety of techniques.

Large pieces of volcanic ash called pumice are one of the most dangerous volcanic hazards. Pumice can down an airplane and create respiratory issues if inhaled.

“Using satellite infrared imagery we can assess what gases a volcano is emitting and, using radar, we can track the plume of an eruption” said Mendeville.  “We can also detect the volcano swelling before an eruption using GPS instruments that can detect just a few millimeters of deformation.” 

USGS scientists also test the acidity of local ground water, and use tilt meters to detect changes in the volcano’s slope.  Seismometers also provide valuable information.

“By recording seismic activity, we can detect where earthquakes are causing breakages in the ground, which can help us determine when and where magma will breach the surface,” Mendeville said. 

By monitoring volcanoes for these tell-tale signs of an impending eruption, the USGS seeks to minimize potential casualties of volcanism, but ultimately each park visitor must arm themselves with the ultimate weapon: knowledge.

“Volcanoes pose a great threat to public travel and air quality,” Ransom added. “People who visit them must protect themselves with knowledge of the risks.”

Officials at Hawai’i Volcanoes express similar sentiments.

 “In a typical year we’ll files about 500 incident reports dealing with visitor injuries in the park,” said Cindy Orlando, superintendent of Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park. “About half occur at the Eruption Site, but the rest are usually due to a lack of preparedness on the visitor’s part. Entering the park with insufficient clothing and footwear or without drinking water and a flashlight greatly increases your level of risk.”   

“Knowledge is paramount,” said Mendeville. “Always check with park rangers to check what areas are closed off.  Knowledge is your asset.”

A Kilauea lava flow makes contact with the ocean, creating a massive tephra jet that propels debris high into the air.

Indeed, if it’s information you’re looking for, the USGS provides all you’ll ever need.

Updates to the National Volcano Early Warning System are made every day, and in times of an eruption updates are posted continuously as developments occur.  The USGS also provided extensive in-depth information on its website regarding volcanoes and their hazards so guests aren’t taken by surprise.

Ultimately, guests visiting a national park with volcanoes must take it upon themselves to do the necessary research and stay up to date with USGS and park service status updates. Viewing volcanoes up close may carry risks, but by doing the necessary research visitors can view some of nature’s most spectacular processes while minimizing their risk of harm.

Bleaching threatens coral reefs in national parks

By ALYSSA KARAS
School of Communication
University of Miami

Coral reefs are a hidden beauty found in waters around the globe.

But they are in very serious danger of disappearing within just a few decades. The National Park Service is faced with the challenge of saving 276,671 acres of reefs from countless attackers, and that’s just in the United States.

There are 10 national parks, national historical parks and national monuments that contain coral reefs in the United States, six in the Caribbean and South Florida and four in the Pacific. Biscayne National Park, Dry Tortugas National Park, U.S. Virgin Islands National Park and American Samoa are just a few examples.

Click on the video at the right to view an audio slideshow displaying colorful coral reefs in national parks prepared by writer Alyssa Karas. Photos courtesy of the National Park Service.

Bleaching is the primary indication of a problem in the reefs. Bleaching is the loss of zooxanthellae, or algae, through the discharge of algae from the reef or loss of algae pigmentation, thus the term “bleaching.”

This is caused by stress to the environment—anything that disturbs the coral’s ability to supply the algae with the nutrients used for photosynthesis, like carbon dioxide and ammonium. Algae and coral reefs have a mutualistic relationship, so bleaching starts a cycle that is hard to end.

In a monitoring study done at Buck Island Reef National Monument in the U.S. Virgin Islands, outbreaks of disease were found to be common after bleaching. It is believed that severe bleaching can increase vulnerability to disease.

In June, a report was released by a group of scientists that announced a shockingly small window for the impending danger facing the reefs.

At right, the bleaching and disappearance of coral reefs, like this reef in Biscayne National Park, would negatively affect tourism and the economy (Photos courtesy of the National Park Service). Next, researchers from the National Park Service monitor the presence of coral reefs in parks like Dry Tortuga National Park. Last, many different marine species, such as the sea turtle, depend on coral reefs for protection, food and shelter.

The group, which met at a workshop organized by the International Programme on the State of the Ocean (IPSO), stated that the marine species that make coral reefs could be extinct within a generation. “Unless action is taken now, the consequences of our activities are at a high risk of causing…the next globally significant extinction event in the ocean,” the report reads.

The most attention seems to be focused on the increasingly warming waters. Water that is too warm causes coral bleaching. This is caused by global warming and by the growing population of humans.

The National Park Service created a Coral Reef Community Monitoring program to observe trends in water temperature and bleaching in Biscayne National Park, Buck Island Reef National Monument, Virgin Islands National Park and Dry Tortugas National Park. When the water temperature reached a certain temperature, just above 30 degrees Celsius, there was a noticeable threshold for bleaching.

Overfishing is a problem for reefs, as the balance of the ecosystem is very important. In parks like the National Park of American Samoa, a restriction on fishing has become necessary.

Overfishing has increased the mortality of the young fish, as they require nurturing from their parents in order to grow up healthy.

Destructive fishing practices, like using poison or explosives, are extremely treacherous for coral.

Pollution presents a large problem for reefs, as it easily leads to disease or bacterial infection.

The BP oil spill in 2010 had a shockingly destructive effect on reefs in the Gulf of Mexico.

“Oil will sit on top of the water. There’s a little plant that lives inside that needs sunlight. If it can’t get sunlight, it can’t photosynthesize. If that plant dies, the coral animal can’t survive,” Biscayne National Park Interpretive Ranger Elizabeth Edwards explained.

Runoff, sedimentation, human waste and sewage also are big problems for coral reefs.

Construction is a danger to reefs, but with a different result – immediate destruction. Coral reef is blasted with the rest of sand and marine life that happens to be an obstacle for a construction project.

The Port of Miami has plans to expand and deepen its channel as a means of competition with nearby ports and to continue to host larger ships coming and going through an expanding Panama Canal. Construction is not an issue that national parks must face, but land development near parks can have an effect on the coral reefs as well.

Many factors contribute to the distress of coral reefs and the marine life that inhabit them, and it’s most likely the combination of these factors that make such a detrimental force. The reefs are being attacked from all sides, decreasing the ocean’s overall resilience.

According to Edwards, there is one more danger, a shortage of education.

“Just that people don’t understand that we have reefs. They don’t understand how delicate they are. It’s a lack of awareness.”

The National Park Service, as a result, has set up an Inventory and Monitoring Program, whose role is to keep track of natural resources on NPS lands, including coral reefs.

This program, as well as more specific programs like the Coral Reef Community Monitoring Program, aims to identify trends and causes for the loss of coral.

The NPS often establish themselves as safe marine areas and make restrictions on fishing and water use.

It also looks to establish partnerships with programs like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in order to maximize resources. The IPSO report recommends cutting down on carbon dioxide emissions.

There is a more basic and superficial reason to take action: “the disappearance of something that is just so beautiful,” Edwards said.

The issue of protecting coral reefs is an imminent one. If nothing changes, the striking world below the surface will continue rapidly losing its luster in a matter of years.

Training keeps rescue teams ready for emergencies

By KIMBERLY SEARS
School of Communication
University of Miami

Dave Shade and Jesse Selwyn were climbing in Grand Teton National Park when Selwyn did not think he would be able to continue without injuring himself or worse death.

He activated his SPOT rescue locator and rangers were able to reach him by nightfall and evacuate him from the mountain with a short-haul technique.

National parks take many precautions to ensure that their visitors are safe. The top priority is always safety. Grand Teton, Grand Canyon, Rocky Mountain, and Olympic national parks are all located in the western region of the United States.

Click on the video at the right to see an audio slideshow about search and rescue training at Grand Teton National Park narrated and prepared by writer Kimberly Sears.

The mountainous terrain, unpredictable weather conditions and the level of trail difficulty are three characteristics that these parks share. With a dangerous environment the four parks must provide top search and rescue operations to protect their visitors. 

Grand Teton National Park is located in Wyoming with 310,000 acres and 485 square miles of mountain terrain. Spokesperson Jenny Anzelmo-Sarles said the most common type of rescue that occurs in the park.

Anzelmo-Sarles explained that falling on a climbing route usually caused by visitors who are glissading is a typically rescue rangers perform.

At left, a search team trains in winter weather conditions at Olympia National Park. Next below, an emergency rescue vehicle in service at Grand Canyon National Park (Photos courtesy of the National Park Service).

“Glissading is when you are deceasing the mountain and there is a snowfield people will glissade down the mountain by sliding on their butt, like on a sled, or on their feet, like surfing on the snow, and people will do this with an ice axe to help control their speed,” Anzelmo-Sarles explained. “If they are going to fast they will use their ice axe to catch them to keep them from falling. We have had four or five glissading rescues this summer alone from individuals who fell alone.”

She discussed the two types of search and rescue operations in the park, minor and major, which depend solely on financial characteristics of the effort.

“Any rescue that costs over $500 is a major search and rescue and anything under $500 is a minor search and rescue. In 2011, we have had 33 major search and rescues,” Anzelmo-Sarles said.

The most expensive search and rescues occur when rangers need to bring a helicopter, whether the weather permits it or if the helicopter is able to land.

One technique that is used by a helicopter in search and rescue is called short-haul operations.

A short-haul operation utilizes a long line that hangs under the helicopter and allows a quicker rescue, especially if the helicopter cannot land.

A ranger will be clipped to the line and will be lowered to the injured person.

The ranger clips the injured person in a device and then attaches himself to it as well. They are then carried off to a safer surface or bought into the helicopter. This technique was pioneered in Grand Teton.

Anzelmo-Sarles explained the training that rangers go through to improve this short-haul technique.

“Our dedicated team of climbing rangers or ‘Jenny Lakers’ who do the mountain rescue operations do bi-monthly short-haul helicopter training during the summer season,” she said.

From statistics this year, Anzelmo-Sarles said the total cost for search and rescues will be $200,000. She also said that there have been three fatalities in the park. Seven is largest number of fatalities they had in one year.

Many parks have different issues and different ways of handling search and rescue operations. In Grand Canyon National Park located in Arizona, one mile deep and 277 miles long. The canyon is divided into two parts the North Rim and South Rim.

The Grand Canyon is a beautiful spectacle, yet it is very dangerous if visitors are not prepared. Ken Phillips, chief of Emergency Services at Grand Canyon, discussed the most common and dangerous injury that occurs while visiting is dehydration.

It occurs during our busiest months, which are the hottest months in summer Phillips explained.

Phillips said that there is at least one dehydration rescue that occurs a day during the months May through September. In 2010 there were 148 heat-related injuries that happened in the park.

The park places preventative search and rescue rangers on the trials to help, but when an emergency happens they are managed in a high and low classification.

At left, the steep and forbidding walls of Grand Canyon National Park create potentially dangerous locations for visitors and, at times, these places become difficult rescue sites for park rangers. Below, a deer in Rocky Mountain National Park.

“There are helicopter evacuations when we know where someone is and are injured we will evacuated them by helicopter. We will also do air carry out to get them out of the canyon. Something low risk will be a hydrate assist, they are physically able to get out on their own but need rehydration,” Phillips explained.

Search and rescue teams also use the short-haul technique. Statistics have shown that the Grand Canyon did 157 emergency medical helicopter transports in 2010, the highest out of all the parks in the country, Phillips said.

“Our peak visitation occurs during the hottest time of the year. When people hike down on the fairly cool South Rim which is at 7,000 feet and drops down 5,000 feet the temperature increases 20 degrees, it can be 115 degrees at the bottom,” Phillips explained.

He said people do not realize the temperature difference when they are descending into the canyon. That is why he suggests that people go to the park’s website or stop at the visitors center to look at hiking tips. In 2010, 175 search and rescues occur in the canyon.

However if someone needs a helicopter search and rescue it does not cost the patient anything. The helicopters that are used are twin engines, MD900 NOTAR, which cost $3,345 an hour, which is paid by taxpayers.

“We cannot charge them with a public aircraft. The FAA regulations are such that a public aircraft cannot charge for their services,” Phillips said. “But if they are taken by park service ambulance to the clinic, the ambulance transport is under $1,000.”

In 2010, there were 286 search and rescue operations that occurred in the park. To run search and rescue operations it costs the park $536,677. With such dangerous terrain the search and rescue operations are not taken lightly.

From extreme hot to extreme cold the Rocky Mountain National Park is located in Colorado where mountain elevations range from 8,000 feet to 14,259 feet.

With a huge difference in elevation, spokesperson Kyle Patterson said sophisticated techniques and specialized training procedures are used by rangers.

With more than 350 miles of trail in the park the search and rescue rangers are trained in many different areas and terrains. Patterson discussed the different areas that the rangers will be trained.

“Most of the rangers that respond to search and rescue incidents have a number of training sessions that they do each year. They do one on high angle evacuations for technical lower or raising, we do a lot of technical rescues because of the terrain,” Patterson said. “Our rangers need to be skilled with high elevations and we do a variety of avalanche training.”

There are different types of search and rescue rangers in the park. To distinguish between the different rangers they wear a certain color hat.

“Many of our rangers that are search and rescue wear multiple hats. The rangers dealing with search and rescue incidents are law enforcements rangers. Often times our EMTs and park medics wear different hats,” Patterson explained. This year there have been 250 incidents that range from minor to major rescues. The most common search and rescue have to do with falling. Patterson explained a specific technique that is used to help a fallen individual.

When rangers’ receive a search and rescue call they send a hasty team to the location, they do not have a lot of gear so they can get to the person quickly and will determine the injuries. A technical rescue will be performed if that person is on a steep trial.

“You put them into a litter, a sled almost and you rope them in so they are stationary as possible in this litter and you need to raise them or lower them out of that terrain,” Patterson explained.

Six out of the seven fatalities the park has had in 2010 have been from falling. However, this year there have only been three fatalities, but none were from falls. Two of the fatalities were from heart attacks and one was a suicide.

But with diverse terrain Rocky Mountain park brings in millions of visitors of a year.

A rescue team removes an injured park visitor on a litter in the difficult terrain of snow-covered Rocky Mountain National Park.

Olympic National Park has similar terrain to Rocky Mountain. Olympic is located in an area of Western Washington that runs along the coast providing this park with a unique characteristic. Public Affairs Officer Barbara Maynes, discussed how the coastline affects search and rescue.

Between 10 to 15 years ago there were many fatalities in the park due to people hiking along the coastline and would get trapped by the high tide, which would lead to falls and drowning.

Not only does Olympic search and rescue include helicopters, but it involves the U.S. Coast Guard as well.

“With such a diverse environment in the park we have specific ocean coastline, deep forest, deep-sided mountains, cliffs and glaciers. But our rangers who work out on the coast use inflated boats for search and rescue operations. We also have a number of Coast Guard installations,” Maynes said.

The search and rescue team uses the same basket technique as Rocky Mountain Park except they will also use the Coast Guard to assist with water rescues.

Search and rescue operations cost parks thousands of dollars in equipment and training each year. While the parks are very different they use the same techniques. These parks do not take safely lightly when it comes to protecting their visitors.

Sustaining forests remains a challenge in parks

By KATIE GUEST
School of Communication
University of Miami

Tree populations are declining faster than predicted in multiple national parks due invasive insects, climate change, pollution and human development.

The mass amounts of national parks are covered in forests and some, like Redwood National Park, are known for and named after their tree populations. These forests are considered a natural resources, however since there is demand for focus on other issues in national parks as well as a need to protect them, they are caught in a pull- and-tug of priorities of humans.

Click on the video at left to view an audio slide show about sustainability of forests in national parks narrated and prepared by writer Katie Guest.

“Forests are so important to the national parks and need to be preserved for historic, cultural and natural reasons but we run into the problem of invasive species and human development and forests are too big to protect from these. It is really out of our hands until these factors start to kill entire forests or species of trees. We have preventative method plans for diseases and insects but again, our National Park forests are very big and there are many issues we face,” stated Patricia Rily, an administrative assistant for Resource Protection and Visitor Service Branch at Redwood National Park in California.

“It’s a very frustrating issue because there is no easy answer to protect our trees” she added.

Redwood National Park is famous for its large and ancient species of trees. It’s here that disease and invasive insects are effecting the tree populations. With specific trees being of great historical importance due to size and age, there is more focus on trees in this park.

Redwood is probably the only park where this can be found, unfortunately. Other parks, such as Joshua Tree and Great Smoky Mountain, do not have the same funding or priority in the list of issues for park officials.

Father and son team cutting redwood trees in the Little River tract in California (Photo by Michael Nichols, courtesy of National Geographic).

Joshua Tree National Park in Southern California is starting to see more human development of road building and other activities in recent years and this is affecting the area in which the namesake trees (they are actually a form of cacti) grow.

Similarly to taking an animal’s habitats, when humans invade and take up more space, there is not usually much more space for the wildlife. Since trees also do not evolve nearly as quickly as an animal can, the trees are more likely to die before the populations have time to evolve and move.

Christina Lighter, a recent visitor to Volcanoes National Park, in Hawai’i, she said a damaged or declining forested portion of a park is a disappointment for visitors.

“A lot of people think the forests are fine, but then when you go into the park and there is a big area that is all dead and cleared of trees, you know that’s out of place. Especially in a place like Hawai'i, where our trees and vegetation is everywhere, and is very important to the island and the people that live there, it’s very alarming.”

The death of forested areas in Hawai'i has been found to be caused by the water quality due to pollution in mountain watersheds according to a report by the Forest Service and U.S. agriculture. These forests are extremely unique because of their evolution in complete isolation but this also prevents the situation from dispersing to other trees.

At left, coastal fog covers redwood treetops in the Lady Bird Johnson Grove at Redwood National Park in California (Photo by Michael Nichols, courtesy of National Geographic). Below, new road construction near Hidden Valley Joshua Tree National Park in California (Photo by Bill Hatcher, courtesy of National Geographic).

A majority of other forests in national parks do not have this same protection.

Great Smoky Mountain Park is very large and all of the forested areas are within close enough range of each other that issues such as the Dutch Elm disease as well as invasive (tree- eating beetles) can spread easily between trees, therefore becoming nearly unstoppable.

So far the best and most controlled protection that has been put in place on forests located inside National Parks is the law against cutting and clearing. Within a national park it is illegal for any person or company to cut down, damage or clear any plot of trees stated by Federal Law enforcements.

“In national forests the motto of production and purpose is ‘The Greatest Amount of Good for the Greatest Amount of people in the long run’” said Chief of Forest Service, Gifford Pinchod.

National forest allow cutting and clearing as a balance between the use and protection of the trees, but national parks do not allow any trees to be used.

However, even though national parks trees are not cut, with human development and park use by visitors trees are still damaged and forced to be moved.

Forest declination is the largest spanning issue among the national parks and a very difficult one to solve due to the amount of reasons it is caused.

Invasive species and disease are an issue all on their own not only affecting forests, human development is strictly negotiated through park officials and pollution and climate change are a worldwide problem.

“Park officials at national parks cannot begin to cover the massive land they are asked to protect but with new plans and help from the public they will continue to do their best” stated Joann Cartick, a former parks official.

Safety when viewing wildlife is priority at parks

By CHRIS WITTYNGHAM
School of Communication
University of Miami

The line between the national parks as tourist attractions and the national parks as wildlife preservations is getting ever so thin, a number of park officials believe. 

“People that are coming into the parks are used to a Disney-like environment that are constructed and managed when in fact they are wild,” said Linda Friar, public information officer at Everglades National Park.

Rangers and safety personnel understand that one of the main attractions of coming to a park is to see nature in its purest form, but personnel say that people need to learn to keep their distance and understand what they’re dealing with.

Click on the video at the right to view an audio slideshow about safety around wildlife in the national parks prepared by writer Chris Wittyngham. Photos courtesy of the National Park Service.

“I think that there are many visitors that come to the park and do not recognize that these are dangerous wild animals,” said Nancy Gray, spokesperson for the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Gray says that the biggest source of this is that people wanting to get the great pictures available at the park, particularly of wild animals like bears, deer and elk. Not only is there appeal in photographing these animals, but there is even more excitement and energy about taking pictures of these animals in their native habitats, photos only available at the national parks.

Exotic animals such as the bald eagle found in numerous national parks are one of the main attractions (Photos courtesy of the National Park Service).

“Everybody wants to view these animals and the excitement takes over and they try to get as close as they can to get a photograph and they put themselves in danger,” said Gray. “They’re getting too close to take a wild shot.”

The issue of people getting to comfortable in dangerous areas is a prevalent one in incidents involving injuries at the park. Friar said a visitor at Everglades left their child on a rock close to an alligator.

Bonnie Schwartz has also experienced similar issues at Yellowstone National Park.

“A lot of the people near the old faithful geyser basin walk on a boardwalk and are often perfectly comfortable being three or four feet away from the bison in the area,” said Schwartz, deputy chief ranger at Yellowstone.

At right, elk are one of the many kinds of animals you’ll see in western mountain parks such as Yellowstone, Rocky Mountain, and Grand Teton. Below, wolves are more common in parks today and visitors should keep their distance from these animals.

Yellowstone dealt with a public safety tragedy earlier this year. On two occasions this year, people camping in the park were killed after being mauled to death by bears.

“I’ve been here for 10 years on and off as a ranger. Every year we have medical situations and search and rescue situations,” said Schwartz. “But we hadn’t had any fatalities in 27 years. It was surprising to have two in the same year.”

Great Smoky Mountains Park in Tennessee and North Carolina also deals with these incidents.

Gray reports that there have been incidents where people get puncture wounds and also get chased by bears.

Bears also become even more dangerous when nursing cubs, which was the cause for one of the Yellowstone deaths.

So how do the parks and their rangers straddle the line of safety and tourism? Carefully

“That’s the crux of it all,” said Gray. “That’s why people come to this park. It’s a fine line of people taking responsibility to understand what the consequences are for enjoying a natural park.”

Schwartz agrees.

“It’s a constant challenge. They want to see the bears, the wolves, the deer. And when people get excited, they want to get their picture. Something doesn’t stop them from getting too close” said Schwartz.

The parks have taken two major strategies at trying to ease this tension.

Managers have begun even more intense efforts to educate the public through visitor’s centers and guides and written material, but they’ve also placed a greater emphasis on signage, warnings and in some cases citations.

“We’re always stepping up our messaging,” said Gray. “In the visitors centers, we have a lot of reading material that we recommend our visitors read. We also take advantage any time something is in the news to get the word out on public safety. And we have regulation and signage. It’s a total effort but still an incomplete one.”

Both Yellowstone and the Great Smoky Mountains also deal with hikers and issues along trails. The parks have similar issues.

Whitewater rafting, canoeing, and kayaking is exciting and a popular activity in national parks. But it is a dangerous activity that requires safety regulation and preparation.

“We have 800 miles of trail and there are a lot of injuries when people are slipping on rocks or tripping on tree roots,” says Gray, “But the most trouble happens when people aren’t informed or don’t plan their hikes properly.”

Schwartz knows what kind of struggle educating the masses of visitors to the parks can be. There are 2.2 million acres on Yellowstone’s watch and more than three million visitors per year. A lot of the emphasis is placed on the visitor to know what they’re getting in to and to take responsibility for their own safety.

“The biggest thing is to just educate folks. It’s the main way to prevent these things from happening.”

When in season, fisherman seek elusive stone crabs

Wildfires pose threat to many parks each year

By CHIP BRIERRE
School of Communication
University of Miami

The national parks of our nation are vast and beautiful and open for anyone to visit.

Many visitors travel to these hotspots of nature’s glory to experience a place where the land is not disturbed by the innovations of mankind. The parks are centered on witnessing nature in its purest form. But even nature has ways of erasing the land it has created.

Wildfires are one of the biggest problems. They are common natural events among national parks and they pose threats to people, structures and animals alike.

Click on the video at right to view an audio slideshow  about wildfires in national parks prepared by writer Chip Brierre. Photos and video courtesy of the National Park Service.

According to the U.S. Fire Administration, there were 78,792 fires that burned 5,921,786 acres across the country in 2009.

In a recently released article in Wildfire Today, the National Interagency Coordination Center released statistics that in 2010, there were 71,971 fires, with 3,422,724 acres burned in the process.

In the same article, it stated that “a total of 788 structures were destroyed by wildland fires, including 338 residences, 445 outbuildings and five businesses.”

With so much of nature being scorched from the earth, actions have been taken to hinder rising wildfire levels. Government agencies, park services, and citizens have all implemented fire policies, strategies, and evacuation plans to counter the wildfires.

This small chipmunk can survive a forest fire, but its home will be ravaged and burned down (Photos courtesy of the National Park Service).

Wildfires can start from the smallest of flames, including a spark from a man-made fire. According to the brochure from the National Park Service, “Around the world, 90 percent of all fires are started by people.”

Ron Steffens, an associate professor of communications at Green Mountain College and an investigator of wildfires, believes that most of the wildfires created by man are unintended.

“The majority are accidental fires, whether campfires or working in the woods with chainsaws. Sparks from the sawing can spark a fire easily,” he said.

Deb Schweizer, a fire education specialist at Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks in California, stated that forces that are not human also ignite fires.

At right, these tall redwood trees may seem massive and indestructible, but they are very dry and susceptible to fires. Next below, drylands like these are familiar with fires. However with fewer fuels they don’t burn as intense as a massive forest. Last below, these woods are currently recovering from a wildfire, but the local populace is still thriving.

“Naturally it’s going to be lightning. It also needs to be dry and have the right amount of fuels. Slope comes into factor as well. Simply put, it can all start from a single tree,” she said.

There are other fires that are intentionally started to control crops and forestry, but these also lead to forest fires.

“Farming causes fires because they are trying to control their crops, they let them get out of control and they turn into wildfires,” Steffens commented.

Animals are also in the path of wildfires. But according to Schweizer, they are quite adept  at avoiding fires.

“As a rule, animals will get out of the way. They just move out, chipmunks go underground, birds fly away. Deer and bears hang on the outskirts and monitor the fire,” she commented.

Some animals even take advantage of wildfires, Schweizer added.

“Some animals, such as foxes or wolves, hunt on the edge of the fire to get the animals that were smoked out,” Schweizer explained.

Even as the ecosystem seems to be adapted to these situations, park rangers and government agencies have issued numerous outlines, policies and evacuations to ensure safety for visiting tourists.

The National Park Service’s official wildland fire management policy deals with protecting the environment, but more importantly protects human lives.

“Wildland fires are managed under a sophisticated organization that looks at each fire’s conditions individually when deciding how to respond. While firefighter and public safety are always the top priority, the ecological effects and benefits are also important considerations, especially in wilderness areas,” the park service policy states.

It continues: “The right response may mean anything from monitoring a fire that is helping the landscape to aggressively suppressing a wildfire that threatens people, homes or important resources.”

Mike Lewelling, fire management officer at Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado, explains the policy in his three-bullet model.

“Providing for the safety of the staff and the public. Once we can protect ourselves, we look to protecting the community and park assets. We want to restore and maintain fire-adapted ecosystem,” he said.

Evacuation plans are also being formatted. At Yosemite National Park in California, there is a plan that covers any possible scenario presented by fires. It describes in detail what families should pack in case of evacuation.

Items included are “three changes of clothes and a change of shoes, a three day supply of food and water, important family documents, etc…”

The plan also details the actual exiting of the park during a fierce wildfire, saying, “Residents will be advised to leave the area immediately via the designated traffic control points for North and South Wawona.”

All signs seem to point to a brighter tomorrow, but Schweizer doesn’t seem too optimistic.
 
“We’re really boxed in because of global warming. Fires are going to get bigger, hotter, and more uncontrollable,” she said.

Schweizer continued: “You throw in global warming, invasive species and more fuels and you’ve got a real problem on your hands. And more people are coming in so there are people to protect.”

“You’re getting new fires, ones that animals can’t run away from and ones you can’t outrun yourself. The Cedar Fire of 2003 burned at a football field per second,” she said.

It will take time to see if the policies and evacuation implemented will be effective, but to reassure people concerned about fires, the National Park Service’s brochure on wildfires states as follows:

“As our understanding of fire increases we will be better able to live with fire, which is an integral part of our world.”

Poor air quality diminishes park experiences

By BRANDON LUMISH
School of Communication
University of Miami

Walking through a national park, the last thing a visitor should have to think about is the quality of air that he or she is breathing. This is not the case as air pollution has become a huge issue at national parks throughout the United States.

National parks are natural, semi-natural, or developed land that a sovereign state declares or owns. The first national park ever created was Yellowstone National Park in 1872 in Wyoming, Montana and Idaho.

There are now 397 national parks and other similar protected and preserved areas in the United States.

National parks rely heavily on resources to survive. However, particularly in recent years, funding for these resources has been insufficient.

Click on the video at right to view an audio slideshow about air pollution in national parks narrated and prepared by writer Brandon Lumish.

"New statistics from the World Health Organization show that in the United States, air pollution annually kills nearly twice as many people as do traffic accidents and that deaths from air pollution equal deaths from breast cancer and prostate cancer combined," wrote Tiffany Schauer, executive director of Our Children's Earth Foundation, in an article about the ozone at national parks.

The levels of air pollution in these parks could lead to dead plants and animals and will have a chain effect throughout the rest of the national park and surrounding areas. National park officials are currently trying to limit the number cars or vehicles that travel through parks as they emit air pollutants that are harmful to the plants and animals.

Air pollution affects scenery, vegetation, streams, wildlife and soil throughout parks. Not only does poor air pollution affect the natural features of a park, it also affects the visitors who are trying to enjoy a parks natural beauty. Cases of air pollution affecting national parks have occurred all over the nation.

A wildbird rests at sunset in the Florida Everglades (Photos courtesy of the National Park Service)

A major issue around national parks is the burning of fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas which produces oxides of nitrogen and sulfur that convert into secondary pollutants. These air pollutants travel throughout the entire United States. This as a result makes the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the park with the highest levels of air pollutants in the country.

"In the Great Smoky Mountains, our most polluted national park, ozone pollution exceeds that of Atlanta, Georgia, and even rivals Los Angeles, Calif," said Harvard Ayers, chair of Appalachian Voices, a nonprofit conservation group focused on protecting forests and communities of the Appalachian Mountain region in an article on air pollution in common dreams website.

In the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, elevated levels of nitrogen and sulfur in the air will deposit into the parks system, which will raise the acidification of streams and soils affecting forest health and fish populations.

The ozone levels at this park sometimes exceed health standards, affecting both humans and sensitive plants in the area. Fine particles in the park also exceed health standards and don’t allow for much visibility into the park. These issues could be prevented if this park followed the clean air laws.

Sunlight breaks through cloud cover above the Virginia mountains in Shenandoah National Park.

"Enforcing the nation's clean air laws will help clear the air for the millions of Americans who treasure our national parks," said Kevin Lynch, attorney for Environmental Defense Fund based in Colorado in an article on the Environmental News Service website. "Cleaning up industrial smokestack pollution is one of the single most important steps EPA can take to protect America's health and our national parks.”

Air pollution causes a haze to form over national parks. This haze, affects visitors from being able to see 90 percent of scenic views in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Current summer average visibility in the Gpark is 15 miles. It should be 77 miles but human caused air pollution doesn’t allow much visibility.

At Shenandoah National Park, visibility from the Skyline Drive and Appalachian Trail has shrunk to as little as one mile; visitors used to see up to seven miles on a clear day. The haze seems to affect national parks that are more mountainous and has become very controversial.

At left, the haze in Shenandoah National Park. Below, a rainbow appears over a waterfall at Yosemite National Park in California.

"Family memories of our national parks shouldn't be clouded by polluted haze," said Mark Wenzler, director of Clean Air and Climate Programs at the National Parks Conservation Association in an article about national parks being sued for haze in an article on NBC New York’s website. "EPA needs to take seriously its obligation to ensure clear skies for all Americans who seek out our national parks for healthy vacations."

Other types of air pollution found affecting parks include mercury deposits. This is an issue from the Acadia Park to the Florida Everglades.

“Persistent toxic pollutants, such as mercury, are of particular concern because of their global mobility and ability to accumulate in the food chain,” said Bryan Mckaye, an expert on air pollution for Shenandoah National Park.

These airborne pesticides, can threaten park wildlife and officials fear that emissions released from greenhouse gases causing global warming would have a large effect on these parks.  Many of these emissions are coming from factories or power plants nearby that emit air pollution into the parks.

Since these factories and power plants cannot simply just be removed from near national parks, new air pollution controls on power plants across the United States were put into effect in 2004.

"To the extent that we can be sure, it looks pretty clear that those controls are having a noticeable effect," said Bill Hayden, a spokesperson for Virginia's Department of Environmental Quality in redOrbit’s website.

Air pollution is a very serious and dangerous issue among national parks. To help slow down or stop air pollution, the national parks service is working with parks.

The National Park Service on the website says they want parks to monitor nitrogen, sulfur, ozone, fine particles, haze and mercury to access standards and trends.

They want each park to evaluate the impact of air pollution on ecosystems.

Parks need to work with local and state agencies to reduce air pollution and restore park resources. National Park Service would also like the staff at these parks to create public awareness, using alternative energy sources and environmentally friendly transportation that won’t spread emissions throughout the park.

Climate change impacts sensitive parks in Alaska

By ALEJANDRA ACUNA
School of Communication
University of Miami

National parks in Alaska are responding to the multifaceted issue of climate change through local programs and National Park Service (NPS) programs, monitoring existing changes and utilizing scenario planning to prepare for probable effects of climate change in the future.

“The Arctic is more sensitive to climate change than perhaps any other place on Earth,” said Terry Chapin, a professor of ecology with the Institute of Arctic Biology at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks.

Click on the video at left to view an audio slideshow narrated and prepared by writer Alejandra Acuna. Images and graphics are courtesy of the National Park Service.

Alaska is home to 23 national parks, monuments, preserves, historical sites and other NPS sites. Each park is different than the other, varying not only on the natural features of the land, or the water, but also on the geographic location of each. Climate change affects each park in its own manner precisely because of these different varieties of terrain.

“Warming in the interior has risen seven degrees in the last few decades and this is where we’re located,” said Kris Fister, Denali National Park public affairs officer.

The media have often covered Arctic climate change in the last decades with alarming articles on the dire effects on tourism and the environment. Most of this coverage, however, is convoluted precisely because Alaska is so varied and each area has its own effects to climate change.

“Glacier Bay is in the south,” said Allison Banks, Glacier Bay outdoor recreation specialist. “These glacier fields are different than changes in the Arctic Circle.

Holly Howard is the seasonal interpretive ranger in the Western Arctic National Parkland, which is the administrative unit for four national parks. The office is located in the Arctic, and suffers greatly from the most commonly discussed climate change of the Arctic; the melting ice caps.

The Juneau ice field in the coastal mountains of southeastern Alaska provides an image of what most of southeast Alaska looked like during the late Wisconsin glaciation in the past ice age (Photo by Tom Ager, courtesy of the National Park Service).

“We had to build a seawall to keep the water from coming inland,” said Howard.

Guy Adema is the natural resource team manager in the central office in Alaska, overseeing the management of natural resources in each of the parks, including climate change. He said that things are changing, and that is why NPS is focusing so much on the monitoring.

Jonathan Jarvis, director of the park service, said climate change is highly significant for the future of national parks sites.

The national parks in Alaska are experiencing shifts in vegetation, habitat, and consequently, wildlife distributions. Adema said that large areas are transitioning from frozen tundra to a shrubby landscape in shockingly short periods of time.

Howard was recently involved in installing climate monitoring stations in the four park units. They are part of the Arctic Network Inventory and Monetary Program (ARCN), which she said is meant to build a baseline so future climate can be compared to previous climate, and we can better understand what is going on “out there.”

Banks sees an alternate type of monitoring in Glacier Bay; in fact, she emphasizes the fact that one of the main driving forces for the creation of it was for climate and glaciology scientific research. She explains the multifaceted notion of climate change, what can be accounted for human interference, or what is simply a natural environmental evolution.

The effects of climate change on Columbia Glacier and Araphao Glacier. (Photos courtesy of Tad Pfeffer and the National Park Service).

“One of the reasons Glacier Bay was established was to see these changes,” said Banks. “Glacier Bay has always been changing and it has been difficult since the beginning to tease out what causes these dramatic changes.”

Adema speaks of the subjectivity of the word dramatic. To people in the scientific community, like himself, dramatic changes are occurring over a time period that others would consider a long time, making these effects not so dramatic.

“There is clearly change happening just not on the time scale people are thinking of,” said Adema. “As a whole, I think the climate change [in the media], for me, has probably gone further than it really is.”

Fister explained how the main attraction in Denali is Mt. McKinley, the highest peak in the United States. Within the park, there have not been major effects of climate change in its main attraction nor elsewhere, but that monitoring the environment is essential.

“We haven’t gotten to extreme biological effects yet, but we’re monitoring,” said Fister. “What we do about the effects will be the biggest conundrum.” 

Adema explained the relatively new concept of scenario planning as a tool to calculate and manage futures with high uncertainty and lack of control based on the current data retrieved from monitoring efforts throughout Alaska’s national parks.

Johns Hopkins glacier in Glacier Bay National Park. (Photo by Commander John Bortniak, courtesy of the National Park Service).

“When all the factors are beyond our control, we will have to determine a solution within these restraints,” said Fister.

This is also done through Scenarios Network for Alaska Planning (SNAP), which is a collaborative organization linking the University of Alaska, state, federal and local agencies, and non-governmental organizations.

According to the SNAP website, the primary products of the network are datasets and maps projecting future conditions for selected variables, and rules and models that develop these projections, based on historical conditions and trends

“The key word is unpredictability, what had been the norm has now changed,” said Howard. “The change is real, people in other places may not feel it, but the people here [in the Arctic] are living it every day.”

In fall 2010, the National Park Service published its Climate Change Response Strategy, which gives an overview of how it will address climate change.

Under the section Adaptation, scenario planning is a main concept in which NPS concludes that “scenario planning can help managers explore assumptions, test hypotheses, and ultimately develop robust strategies and actions to manage the uncertainties of climate change.”

The application of scenario planning in Alaska national parks will be able to address the uncertainty to which Howard speaks. There will be data of past and current climate changes and its effects in order to provide statistical information and plausible scenarios based on the statistical analyses and data.

Child safety remains high priority in national parks

By ALLISON GORDON
School of Communication
University of Miami

In every national park across the country, there are important child safety concerns.

And while large numbers of parents and children who visit these parks each year know how to stay safe, there are many people who are unaware of some of the most severe safety concerns posed by national parks.

Yellowstone National Park, located primarily in Wyoming but also extending into Montana and Idaho, is an extremely popular park. When you visit, however, there are certain child safety concerns that you should keep in mind.

Click on the video at left to view an audio slide show narrated and prepared by writer Allison Gordon. Images courtesy of the National Park Service.

According to Al Nash, public affairs officer for Yellowstone National Park, the park has several areas of concern.

“The biggest public safety challenges for Yellowstone surround thermal areas and wildlife in the park,” he explained.

Thermal areas in Yellowstone include hot mud pots and hot springs, and these areas can be dangerous for everyone – especially young children. These areas can be boiling hot and it is important, said Nash, to keep your hands away from the hot water and mud.

It is also extremely important to make sure to stay on the marked trails in the park and keep an eye on children during hikes. There are boardwalks that have been built over the dangerous hot areas, and staying on the boardwalks and trails is integral to staying safe, Nash said.

“People don’t realize that the crust around these thermal areas can be thin – they don’t support weight well,” explained Nash.

The thermal areas in Yellowstone National Park are only the beginning of the safety concerns. Wild animals, especially bears, bison and elk, also give parents a reason to be anxious about the safety of their children.

Standing on the edge of a fence, like this man is doing, is not safe and is setting a bad example for the children watching him (Photos courtesy of the National Park Service).

These animals, however, are not usually dangerous – unless you get too close.

“This is a concern because people sometimes mistake animals not responding immediately to their presence as animals being tame. This is not the case,” described Nash.

Nash described a scenario that happens often: parents driving with children see an animal on the side of the road and stop their car to take pictures.  Naturally, cars behind the first car stop as well and more people begin taking pictures.  This creates a huge traffic jam, and when people start getting out of their cars to take pictures, it really becomes a safety hazard.

These animals, such as bears, moose, elk and bison, are quite large and unpredictable. They can be dangerous and people should stay at least 100 yards (a football field’s length) away from the wild animals explained Nash. Parents really need to set good examples for their children.

Park rangers do roam the park, making sure to keep both parents and children safe. These rangers say it is their primary goal to make sure everyone enjoys the park, however this must be done in a safe way.

According to Nash, the main ways to be safe from wild animals without the park rangers are to travel in groups of at least three, to not carry any smelly foods, and to make loud noises when walking around a corner if you cannot see what is on the other side.

The most extreme way to keep away bears, however, is to carry with you pepper spray.

The boy in this photograph is trying to feed a squirrel and, even though small animals like squirrels are not extremely dangerous, feeding any animals in the national parks is an obvious safety violation.

“It’s not normal pepper spray,” said Nash, “It is a one liter bottle that is sold around the park and it has proved effective with aggressive bears.”

Yellowstone National Park is just one of the many popular national parks in which safety is a major concern. Another very popular park with similar safety issues is the Grand Canyon.

This park creates many safety concerns for parents and children, but not for the reason one would expect.

The biggest safety concern at the Grand Canyon is not, according to Dave Cane, safety manager at the park, parents worrying about their children falling over the canyon’s edge.

“The biggest concern here is people underestimating the canyon and over-exerting themselves on hikes,” said Cane.

The Grand Canyon rim is at a very high altitude, about 7,000 feet, and knowing your personal limit on hikes is important.  Walking down a trail, such as Bright Angel in the South Rim Canyon Village, can take visitors down as much as 5,000 vertical feet. Returning to the rim is challenging for even the best conditioned hikers.

Cane also mentions how important it is to eat and stay hydrated on all hikes you embark on.

Visitors stepping out of their cars to take pictures of a bear is not the best idea, especially this close. It is important to stay at least 100 yards away from wild bears which these people are clearly not doing.

Aside from making sure not to go over your physical limit on canyon hikes, the safety concerns at the Grand Canyon are similar to those of other national parks: Keep a distance between yourself and wild animals encountered, do not wander off the trails, listen to park rangers, and keep a close eye on children.

According to Cane, the search and rescue team at the Grand Canyon is very efficient.

“We have EMS, search and rescue, and helicopters, but what’s a quick rescue is relative. Our team is very proficient, but it takes time to find people when they are lost in the park,” explained Cane.

Staying safe when visiting national parks around the United States is essential in enjoying the national parks, and by listening to park rangers and following common sense, everyone can safely enjoy the parks and what they have to offer.



If You Go

Remember to bring snacks (not smelly) and lots of water if you are planning to go on long hikes.

Remember to listen to park rangers and follow all signs.

Ozone reaching dangerous levels in some parks

By ELY SUSSMAN
School of Communication
University of Miami

Millions of individuals who visited U.S. national parks in 2011 were exposed to dangerous concentrations of ozone (O3).

The Environmental Protection Agency’s National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) for ozone — currently 75 parts per billion — was exceeded on countless occasions during the ozone season. According to the National Parks Conservation Association, this spans from April through October.

The National Park Service considers it an “exceedance” if the maximum eight-hour ozone concentration in a park on any particular day violates the NAAQS. In 2011, 262 total exceedances of the standard were reported, a three-year high.

Click on the video at the left to view an audio slideshow about ozone levels in national parks prepared by writer Ely Sussman. Images are courtesy of the National Park Service.

The NPCA declared “Code Red” days in those instances. This draws attention to “the serious threat they [exceedances] pose to healthy breathing,” Stephanie Kodish of the association’s Clean Air Counsel said in a September press release.

Dr. Jonathan Levy is an adjunct professor of environmental health at the Harvard School of Public Health. Through quantitative research, he assesses the environmental and health impacts of air pollution. He explained that humans are at risk when exposed to high concentrations of ozone.

“There’s a host of different respiratory effects that you might expect to see,” Levy said. “At those levels of exposure over a short term basis, you have lung function impact, general difficulty breathing, symptoms among people with asthma, and other respiratory diseases.”

At right, Giant sequoias trees are a main attraction at Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, but their population is being threatened by a rising mortality rate (Photos courtesy of the National Park Service). Below hiking and other strenuous activities are risky for all individuals if ozone exceeds that National Ambient Air Quality Standard.

“People tended to exhibit declines in lung function, and other respiratory symptoms,” Levy said, even when they are exposed to lesser concentrations of ozone during controlled experiments.

Unfortunately, premature death is possible at high concentrations.

Air resources specialist Annie Esperanza of the National Park Service is stationed at Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. Although she didn’t witness any ozone-induced emergencies at the parks in 2011, she admitted that she “wouldn’t be surprised” if several had transpired in recent months.

After all, exceedances were the norm at Sequoia and Kings Canyon this past visiting season. Both are located in the southern Sierra Nevada in California.

Esperanza cited 2002 and 2008 as examples of “banner years” for ozone exceedances. Although she was relieved that air quality in 2011 wasn’t quite as dangerous, she said that the parks themselves aren’t in control.

“Ozone requires precursors or other chemicals,” she explained, “and most of the chemicals come in from outside the park’s boundary. There’s not a lot we can do in terms of any kind of regulatory actions. We don’t have that kind of power as a national park.”

The Environmental Protection Agency plays an essential role in regulating air quality—it sets the NAAQS, remember? However, the U.S. Congress is beginning to challenge the EPA’s authority.

In September, the U.S. House of Representatives adopted the Transparency in Regulatory Analysis of Impacts on the Nation Act of 2011 (also known as the TRAIN Act).

This piece of legislation requires the president to form a committee whose purpose is to review notable EPA rules. Eight are specifically named in the original bill, including the NAAQS for ozone. Analysis will be performed to determine whether or not these rules are justified. The committee has the power to suspend any rule that it finds unsatisfactory.

Rachel Cleetus is an economist with the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit organization that does independent research to arrive at environmental solutions.

She was critical of the TRAIN Act upon its adoption on September 21. She went as far as calling it “a colossal waste of money” in a UCS press release. Cleetus deemed “EPA regulations critical to protect our health” and “incredibly cost effective.”

Based on information from the Office of Management and Budget, she said that the EPA saved the United States hundreds of billions of dollars in potential health costs between October 2000 and September 2010. This dwarfs the tens of billions it spent on enforcement of regulations during that period.

If anything, the EPA ought to receive more funding because in addition to humans, tree populations across the country are suffering.

Veteran research ecologist Dr. Nate Stephenson of the United States Geological Service is stationed at Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. He has helplessly observed tree mortality rates double for various species at his own parks over the last several decades, as well as in areas of the Rocky Mountains and American Southwest.

The reduced number isn’t apparent to visitors . . . yet. Stephenson imagines, though, that people will be deterred from coming by if and when the absence becomes noticeable.

“If you’re walking through the forest and half the trees are dead,” he said hypothetically, “that’s going to impinge upon your experience.”

The affected sites have all experienced rises in temperature over the years. “We think that it’s more likely to do with climate than it is with ozone,” Stephenson concluded.

However, research from the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science at the University of Maryland, College Park suggests that a relationship exists between the two.

Families can be hesitant to visit national parks because children can be affected by the slightest ozone exceedances.

Dr. Russell Dickerson—an affiliate chemistry professor at Maryland—coordinated the study and published the group’s ultimate findings. Using data from the past 21 years, he approximated that “the slope of the ozone-temperature relationship . . . was about 3.2 ppb O3/C” in rural areas. Therefore, it is clear that to some extent, the EPA can affect climate change and tree populations by regulating surface ozone.

A Southern California native, Stephenson recalled days from his youth when pollutants combined into a “fog.”

“Air pollution was really bad,” he said. “I can remember playing as a kid and feeling this ache in my lung from the pollution.” Thankfully, air quality is no longer so blatantly malignant.
 
Still, conditions could be better. Esperanza said the Clean Air Science Advisory Committee (CASAC) that advises the EPA recommends an ozone standard of 70 parts per billion.

Furthermore, the World Health Organization insists it be lowered to 50 parts per billion. Esperanza did her best to hold back laughter when explaining that “it would almost be impossible to reach that without removing every industrial part of our world.”

“You wouldn’t necessarily see all the health implications go away” at any minimized ozone concentration, said Levy, but one thing is certain—we aren’t as safe as we could be.

As the next ozone season approaches, precautions need to be taken, especially in national parks.

Rock climbing grows in popularity at Joshua Tree

Trust provides support for South Florida parks

Deaths at Grand Canyon should be safety warning

By DANIELA GONCALVES
School of Communication
University of Miami

Beautiful, but deadly, the Grand Canyon holds the lives of many who fall, accidentally or intentionally, over the edge of its awe-inspiring precipices.

Since the 1870s, there have been an estimated 600 deaths for a number of reasons at the Grand Canyon National Park. Two planes collided over the canyon in 1956, killing 128 passengers and adding a large number of victims to the Canyon’s death toll. 

But air accidents are quite rare. The real problem is on the ground. Deaths related to environment factors such as heat stroke and hypothermia and drowning in the Colorado River also add to the number.

Click on the video at the left to view an audio slideshow about safety risks at Grand Canyon National Park prepared by writer Daniela Goncalves.

Even though toppling over the edge is not the only cause of the high mortality rate, according to National Park Service reports, an estimated 101 victims have plummeted to their deaths.  Forty-eight of these were suicides, but 53 were accidental.  People simply wandered too close to the edge for that picture and slipped.  Some have even driven off the edge on narrow cliff-side roads or slippery roads in winter.

Road restrictions are in place because of these statistics, implemented on the park by the Code of Federal Regulations, Title 36.  The plane collision of 1956 caused stricter air restrictions and regulation in the air space above the Grand Canyon. 

Bill Maxwell and his wife, Chris, are experienced climbers and hikers who have gone all over the world in search of interesting climbing spots and now reside in Prescott Valley, Ariz. Being a mere two-hour drive away, they are frequent visitors at the Grand Canyon.

The Grand Canyon’s beautiful landscape brings thousands of tourists to the park (Photos courtesy of Bill Maxwell).

“We go all the time and we see people climb over protective railing to get closer to the edge for a better picture,” Bill Maxwell said.  “Rangers or tour guides stop them, make them come back to the safe areas, but they can’t always be around to monitor people.”

Chris Maxwell remembered a seeing a girl pretend to fall as a joke for her friend and almost actually falling in the process.

“She was lucky her friend was around to grab her just in time.  That could have been a joke with serious consequences.”

Incidents like these happen far too often.  There have been so many that authors Michael P. Ghiglieri and Thomas M. Myers wrote Over the Edge: Death in Grand Canyon, published on May 25, 2001, stating facts and analyzing the statistics. 

These incidents, though seen all over the park, are far more common in some areas than others. Desert View, at the eastern entrance of the South Rim portion of the park, is not necessarily safer, but is less prone to careless visitors.

Some visitors do not realize the danger in getting too close to the edge at Grand Canyon National Park. It’s a long way down.

“I’ve never seen anything that scared me out of my wits, but we see people go way too close to the edge all the time” said Christine Palka, a park guide at the Desert View.

Palka explained that going in restricted areas can also be harmful to the park.

“It’s a complicated issue. We don’t want to restrict people, but it’s also doing damage to park as well. For example, here in Desert View, when people stray from the trails not only are they going in potentially dangerous areas, but they can go into places that are part of the parks conservation efforts and may not be good for the plant life that already gets so little moisture here in the desert,” she explained.

Though Desert View has not really had many serious incidents, Grand Canyon Village on the South Rim is where most visitors stay and explore and this location has had its fair share.

“Basically you’ll see people on ridges and ledges,” Jack Howell, an interpretive ranger at Grand Canyon Village, said.

Narrow roads in winter get icy and slippery. Some cars may swerve off the precipices of the Grand Canyon.

“Two young men in the canyon when out on one of these ridges and in order to get on to where they ended up they had to jump across this little stretch between the edge and the [another] ridge,” said Howell, remembering a particular event in which visitors explicitly ignored warnings and signs.

“One of them made it back but the other one was afraid or unable. I think he might have sprained his ankle jumping over. He had to be rescued and it took several hours. They had to set up a tripod with a cable to bring him back.”

The interpretive ranger added that if the young man had fallen in the gap between the two ridges, it probably would have been a 600-foot fall.

“This puts rangers in harm’s way too when they have to make rescues like this,” Howell said.

Incidents like this one are far too common at the Grand Canyon. There are hundreds of amateur videos on YouTube that depict people doing these kind of “death-defying” jumps and ignoring the safety limits set by the park to show off for the camera.  And those are just what people caught on camera.

The park has set up guardrails and safety information where possible danger lingers most.

“We do have signs, and I tell people we could put a ten foot fences with barbed wire at the top but that kind of defeats the purpose of a national park,” Howell said.

In fact, putting up too many railings or paving roads would be against federal law.

The rock face of the Grand Canyon should be observed from afar. This picture was taken with zoom lens and without the need of jumping over the protective railing.
The Grand Canyon is a beautiful natural wonder. Visitors should be mindful of the dangers and aware of individual limits when exploring this national jewel.

“The 1916 National Park Organic Act dictates that the National Park Service must leave national parks in their natural state.”

The numbers do not lie and neither do signs and safety precautions implemented by the Grand Canyon park managers. Park officials can only do so much. It is up to the park goers to be respectful of the dangers and aware of their individual limits, particularly against the astounding yet unforgiving rock face.

“People get a false sense of being safe here in the park,” Howell said.

“They think that national parks should be safe so they don’t often think that they are literally in the wilderness and then they do put themselves in danger without thinking about it.”

Though the Grand Canyon is mysterious and shockingly beautiful, the natural wonder is no walk in the park.

Creating new parks takes time, Congress’ approval

By ALYSHA KHAN
School of Communication
University of Miami

The arrowhead of the National Park Service (NPS) is a well-known symbol in the United States, enough so that attaining the designation of being a national park is a goal for many parks, monuments, and historic sites.

National parks can only be created by an act of Congress and must be approved by the president.

Currently awaiting approval is legislation to turn the John H. Chafee Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Corridor into a national park. The valley encompasses land in both Rhode Island and Massachusetts and is chiefly known as the site where the first textile mill in the U.S. was built.

Click on the video at the right to see an audio slideshow about creating new national parks prepared by writer Alysha Khan. Images are courtesy of the National Park Service.

As a heritage corridor, the land is supervised by a federally appointed commission and receives some help from the NPS in terms of the administration of the park. 

The corridor also receives some federal funding, but this is limited by legislation to the few years following the initial approval of the park. The corridor has received several extensions on this time limit, the most recent in 2011, but hopes to permanently solve this problem by becoming a national park. 

“We got one last extension for another year until things get sorted in terms of becoming a national park,” said Joanna M. Doherty, community planner at Blackstone River Valley.

Before park advocates and sponsoring legislators can submit a bill to Congress, it must first undergo a special resource study by the NPS to determine if there is a legitimate reason for this area to be designated a national park. The study looks at the national significance of the land, the natural resources contained within, the overall need to protect the area, and the feasibility of maintaining the park.

Once the study is completed, NPS submits its recommendations to Congress. Completing this study can take several years, from getting funding to completing the survey to analyzing the findings.

The study can propose several alternatives to becoming a national park, such as financial assistance from charitable programs; a designation as a national landmark or wilderness; or simply continued management by the current owners.

At Blackstone River Valley, several of its 24 sites have been deemed significant enough to become a national park.

“That study is being completed,” Doherty said, “and the recommendation is that there is a potential for a national park within the region and it would focus on a few different sites that were found to be nationally significant.”

The John H. Chafee Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Corridor is the home of the first textile mill ever built in the US. The park is currently trying to become a national park in order to retain its federal funding (Photos courtesy of the National Park Service).

Even after a park receives a recommendation from the NPS, it can take several years before it’s approved by Congress and the president.

“Maybe one or two new ones are created a year, so it’s not super common,” Doherty said. “There is so much else going on in Congress. We just don’t know if or when it will pass.”

In November 2011, two new national parks came into existence --- the Paterson Great Falls National Historical Park in New Jersey and the Fort Monroe National Monument in Virginia.

Legislation for Paterson was submitted in early 2009 even after the NPS recommended that the falls not become a national park.

“The main reason was that it was already designated a state park,” said Phil Sheridan, the assistant regional director of Communications in the northeast region of the NPS.

Congress, however, ignored the NPS recommendation and named Paterson Great Falls a national park. One stipulation was that the park has to acquire the land from the city of Paterson, N.J., a process that was complicated when the mayor was voted out of office.  

Once a park is created, it must still meet certain criteria set forth by the park service. Paterson Great Falls must now, among other things, build a new visitor’s center and develop new programs for visitors.

“If you go to national parks, there is a commonality of things, from the way we do our maps to the way we do our signs,” Sheridan said. “It’s a consistency that people come to expect.”

Parks also have to go through a public planning process to determine how the park will be run and what services it will provide.

“Are we going to be having kayaks or are we going to be having bikes?” said Kirtsen Talken-Spaulding, superintendent for Fort Monroe. “Are we going to have a campground or are we going to have cave tours? Those are the sorts of things we look at. That then determines what kind of staff we need.”

At Fort Monroe, Talken-Spaulding is currently the only person on staff. Having a staff is important because, aside from supervising the park, they are responsible for bringing in additional grant money to the park.

Visitors stroll around the Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial, which is located in the National Mall at Washington, D.C. The monument took more than two decades to build because of the extensive approval process for new memorials.

“We have probably 80 percent of our budget geared toward staffing,” Talken-Spaulding said. “Not like your usual federal government budget.”

At historic sites, like Fort Monroe, an additional main challenge is the restoration process. This involves returning the buildings in question to way they looked during the time period when they were most historically significant. In order to make this determination, a park needs funding to study the building, generate reports, and implement the restoration.

At Fort Monroe, one building was erected in 1819, but was historically important in 1860s.

“What did the building look like then?” Talken-Spaulding said. “Did it have a front porch back then? Since the 1860s, they have walled in what was the back porch of the building. Do we then take out that walling in and restore it back to the way it was in the 1860s?”

However, the fort currently has no money to fund the renovation of the fort or to hire staff because it did not exist when the federal budget for the 2011-12 fiscal year was created.

“The fiscal year began Oct. 1 and we didn’t exist on Oct. 1,” Talken-Spaulding said. “We can’t request funding for something that’s not on the books yet. We have no budget.”

According to Talken-Spaulding, the NPS is currently siphoning funds from other parks to support Fort Monroe.

 Some new parks are not affected by this problem because ownership of the park is shared with other organizations. The Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial in Washington, D.C., was created in August 2011 and is located within the National Mall and Memorial Parks.

It is managed by NPS personnel, but belongs to the National Mall. NPS money is also used to create educational programs for visitors.

“They care for them and takes care of things like trash and bathrooms and so forth,” said Carol Johnson, a public affairs officer for NPS. “Federal funds maintain the memorial.”

Though the process of becoming a national park is difficult, there are some distinct advantages to being a part of the NPS.

“When you put that national park service arrowhead out, it’s like the Good Housekeeping seal of approval,” Sheridan said. “This is an important place to go visit. It also conveys a good visitor experience.”

Funding is also a key incentive, even as federal budgets are being slashed.

“The park service tends to have funding to spend on things,” Sheridan said. “Do we have enough? Probably not. We have a $10 billion backlog in maintenance across the country, but we are still able to get lots of projects done. We find that we are better funded than a state park and definitely better than a municipal park.”

National parks are also economic engines that can bring additional revenue to an area.

“Nationally, it’s between $4 and $5 into the economy for every dollar invested in the park service,” Sheridan said.

At Blackstone Valley, however, Doherty is concerned that some of the sites that are not slated to become a national park may be upset.

“Some of the communities might feel a loss when we pull back in terms of our activities,” she said.

The Fort Monroe National Monument in Virginia was known as a refuge for slaves during the Civil War and played an integral role during the war. The monument currently does not have the fund to restore its buildings.

National Park Service Unit Designations

The designation of national park is just one of the many titles the National Park Service can give upon an area. Below is a list of the most common designations used, courtesy of the NPS.

National Park: generally large natural places that have a wide variety of attributes, and may be significant historic assets. Hunting, mining and consumptive activities are not allowed.

National Monument: The Antiquities Act of 1906 authorized the President to name any landmarks, structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest situated on lands owned or controlled by the government as national monuments through a public proclamation.

National Preserve: National preserves are areas having characteristics associated with national parks, but in which Congress has permitted continued public hunting, trapping, oil/gas exploration and extraction. Many existing national preserves, without sport hunting, would qualify for national park designation.

National Historic Site: Contains a single historical feature that was directly associated with its subject.

National Historical Park: Generally applies to historic parks that extend beyond single properties or buildings.

National Memorial: A national memorial that commemorates a historic person or episode; it does not have to be located a site historically connected with its subject.

National Battlefield: This includes national battlefield, national battlefield park, national battlefield site, and national military park.

National Cemetery: There are presently 14 national cemeteries in the National Park System, all of which are administered in conjunction with an associated unit and are not accounted for separately.

National Recreation Area: Twelve NRAs are large reservoirs and emphasize water-based recreation. Five other NRAs are located near major population centers. Such urban parks combine scarce open spaces with the preservation of significant historic resources and important natural areas in location that can provide outdoor recreation for large numbers of people.

National Seashore: Ten national seashores have been established on the Atlantic, Gulf and Pacific coasts; some are developed and some relatively primitive. Hunting is allowed at many of these sites.

National Lakeshore: National lakeshores, all on the Great Lakes, closely parallel the seashores in character and use.

National River: There are several variations to this category: national river and recreation area, national scenic river, wild river, etc.

National Parkway:  Refers to a roadway and the parkland paralleling the roadway. All were intended for scenic motoring along a protected corridor and often connect cultural sites.

National Trail: Linear parklands (more than 3,600 miles) authorized under the National Trails System Act of 1968.

Affliated Areas: Comprises a variety of locations in the United States and Canada that preserve significant properties outside the national parks system. Some of these have been recognized by Acts of Congress, others have been designated national historic sites by the Secretary of the Interior under authority of the Historic Sites Act of 1935. All draw on technical or financial aid from the National Park Service.

Other Designations: Some units of the National Park Service system bear unique titles or combinations of titles, like the White House and Prince William Forest Park.

Hidden Valley— Gem at the center of Joshua Tree

Joshua Tree offers hikers unique landscapes to view

Planning key to survival when visiting desert areas

Barker Dam: Path through Joshua Tree history

Palm oases add color to desert of Joshua Tree

Friendly people make Teton lake hike memorable

Horseback riders explore beauty of Joshua Tree

Hikers carve initials, damage park for all of us

Park’s trails appeal to bicyclists of all skill levels

A bit of etiquette at 38,000 feet goes a long way

How to travel light in era of bag size limits, fees

Search and rescue teams offer help when needed

Rugged Tetons offer much for photographers

Autumn is magical in Grand Teton mountains

Visitors drawn to Joshua Tree for stargazing

What’s with the cage in the middle of the desert?

Hidden Valley visit leads to secret dinner treasure

Artists find inspiration living in Big Cypress

Rangers play necessary role in Everglades

Rough weather turns snorkel trip into island tour

Bicycling at Grand Teton popular with park visitors

Jackson Hole: We’re not in Miami, anymore, Toto

Macroalgae exhibit reveals colors of Biscayne Bay

Seasonal wildflowers give color to Teton region

Jackson Hole’s art scene focuses on western theme

Abundant wildlife easily visible in Grand Teton

Colors along U.S. 89 rival New England palette

Trail Ridge Road offers scenic mountain views

Pine beetle problem part of park’s natural process

Parks respond to Deepwater Horizon oil spill

By OMAR ALDAKHEEL
School of Communication
University of Miami

The British Petroleum Corp., known to most people as BP, faced a huge dilemma in April 2010 because of its Deepwater Horizon oil rig that exploded in the Gulf of Mexico. At the time, 11 people died out of 126 people who were on board.

The dilemma was not only the deaths of employees and destruction of a valuable oil rig, but also because of its potential environmental damage to the entire Gulf Coast of the U.S. as well as the tourism- and fishing-based economies of the region.

Several major U.S. national parks that have always presented the cultural and natural sides of their regions to millions of visitors each year were also placed at serious risk.

Click on the video at the right to view an audio slideshow about the park system's response to the oil spill prepared and narrated by writer Omar Aldakheel.

The parks that were affected or potentially affected were Jean Lafitte National Historical Park in Louisiana, the Big Cypress National Preserve, Biscayne National Park, Gulf Islands National Seashore, Dry Tortugas National Park, De Soto National Memorial, and Everglades National Park in Florida.

In fact, the oil spill has affected the species, lands as well as visitors’ usage of the parks’ environments.

Oil was gushing from the rig's well and the National Park Service areas along the Gulf prepared for the potential of large amounts of raw crude oil coming ashore. The NPS sites focused on reducing the impact of the land-bound oil on parks resources as much as possible, putting all of their prevention resources at work.

Since then, NPS staff continued on working closely with the unified response to the oil spill.

“The NPS staff has been doing a great job on protecting the national parks since last year,” said Linda Friar, PR of Everglades National Park. “We will post alerts to visitors on our website if potential danger might come to the Everglades.”

The British Petroleum rig Deepwater Horizon burns after an explosion in the Gulf of Mexico in April 2010 (Photos courtesy of Deepwater Horizon Response Team).

The response included several not-for-profit organizations that helped spread awareness of the oil spill impact on the national parks and that demonstrated how voluntary efforts could help diminishing the largest oil spill damage of the U.S. history.

These organizations and groups include South Florida National Parks Trust, U.S. Fish and Wild Service, and the National Audubon Society.

First of all, the national parks’ response was taking an immediate action to examine water quality and environmental conditions for plant and animal life.

National Park Service staff members help with cleaning beaches and rescuing marine species.

NPS’s expert observers and scientists from around the country came to the Gulf to help shoreline assessment teams check beaches for oil and recommend cleanup methods in order to remove oil without causing further harm to plants, animals, historic buildings or buried pieces.

“The reason why we are so worried about this place at the Everglades National Park and that so many people here concerned about what happen here in the shallow water near the shore is this is the nursery area for all of the species that people eat, such as shrimp and fish, and it is all through the Gulf of Mexico,” said Gary Davis, NPS retired, lead resources advisor for the NPS South Florida oil spill response team.

The South Florida National Parks Trust response was providing more donations to its partner parks in Florida to support resource protection, visitor services, and volunteer activities.

At left, one of the marine birds that was affected by the oil spill is rescued by the National Park Service experts. Next, an expert from the National Park Service is checking on water that was affected by the oil spill. Next, experts from the National Park Service rescue Gulf turtles.

“Since the Trust was established in 2002 our purpose was to support South Florida’s national parks through fund-raising and community outreach,” said Don Finefrock, executive director of South Florida National Parks Trust.

Since its mission is “to work with others to conserve, protect, and enhance fish, wildlife, and plants, and their habitats for the continuing benefit of the American, people,” the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service response was to protecting habitats and sensitive species, leading the survey, rehabilitation of oiled wildlife, supporting the incident command in planning clean up actions, and measuring damage to natural resources.

The National Audubon Society response was sending their Initiative staff to the scene to measure the impacts and help organize the emergency response. 

“As Audubon’s director of Bird Conservation, I’m focused on what Audubon can do to help bird populations over time and how we can help document the loss of birds to the oil spill and their long-term recovery,” said Greg Butcher, director of Bird Conservation for the National Audubon Society.

Finally, the BP responded by agreeing to pay $20 billion in oil spill response fund. Also, BP primarily promised to pay all those affected.

BP Chief Executive Officer Bob Dudley promised to continue long-term financial support for people affected by the catastrophic Deepwater Horizon oil rig spill.

“We have written about 80,000 checks, more than a quarter billion dollars, but we realize this is not perfect and there's more to go," Dudley said at a televised press conference in Biloxi, Miss.

Demand at Yosemite leads to scalping online

By CARMEN RODRIGUEZ
School of Communication
University of Miami

Tickets to a popular rock concert or sporting event might be what most scalpers go after to make a profit, however, in recent weeks, scalpers have caught on to a new attraction: camping sites at Yosemite National Park. 

Campsite reservations and permits to climb the park’s popular Half Dome are being resold on online sites such as ebay.com and craigslist.com for five times their face value or more.

“We understand that there’s not enough supply to meet the demand, but this is just unfair,” said Scott Gediman chief of Media and External Relations for Yosemite.

Click on the video at the right to view an audio slideshow discussing campsite and climbing permits scalping at Yosemite National Park narrated and prepared by writer Carmen Rodriguez.

According to the National Geographic Guide to the National Parks of the United States, Yosemite receives about 3.3 million visitors annually, 90 percent of which stay at the valley where the campgrounds reside. Ranked at the top of the nation’s most-visited national parks, Yosemite campground site reservations have been known to sell out within minutes of going on sale and selling out for up to five months at a time.

The park charges a $20 entrance fee and campground sites cost and additional $20 a night. Scalpers on ebay.com and craigslist.com have sold campground reservations for up to $150 a night.

The park’s permits to climb Half Dome are free at the park with a charge of $1.50 for handling fees. Once sold out, visitors can find them online for up to $100.

“What amazes me the most is that people are paying all this money and all you’re getting is a piece of dirt and a grill, for the same amount, or maybe less, we have very nice hotels,” said Gediman, who has worked at the park for 15 years.

Campground reservations and Half Dome permits are available through reserveamerica.com, an independent contractor that works closely with the National Park Service to offer visitors online ticket sales and acquisition of permits in advance.

Gediman confirmed that these reservations and permits do state that they are non-transferrable, making scalping a clear infringement against reserveamerica.com’s policy.

At left, Yosemite Falls at Yosemite National Park. Next, signs warn campers about risks in Yosemite Valley campgrounds. Last, bicyclists enjoy a recent fall day in Yosemite Valley (Photos by Bruce Garrison).

In the past, visitors who wished to hike up Half Dome would be able to obtain a permit from the park on a first-come, first-serve basis until this year, when demand became too high and began posing safety issues for hikers.

As a response, the park began requiring permits on weekends. Soon after, demand for permits to climb the iconic Half Dome skyrocketed and the park was forced to require visitors to obtain permits any time they wanted to climb.

Though Gediman estimated that only about two to three percent of the park’s revenue comes from campground reservation sales, he said that the funds mostly go towards maintenance costs and that Yosemite does not rely heavily on these monies.

“This is something that’s been going on and we don’t perceive it as ethical and it should be stopped,” said Gerry Gaumer, deputy chief spokesperson for the National Park Service in Washington, D.C.

Gaumer stated that solicitors are still investigating and figuring out the details of how to deal with this situation correctly, but could not comment any further.

“We are aware that this problem has existed for a while now, but now it’s gotten more widespread, we feel that people have gotten into the system, we don’t know…we’re not naïve enough to think we can stop it…we’re trying to look at the big picture and get to the root of the problem,” said Gediman.

Yosemite rangers and officials are working closely with attorneys at the U.S. Department of the Interior and the National Park Service.

Though it is not clear yet whether scalpers can face prosecution or fines park rangers have begun to take matters into their own hands by cracking down on them. Park officials have contacted ebay.com and asked webmasters to flag and prohibit these sales.

Gediman said these companies have been very cooperative, but that people still find loopholes and ways around these preventive measures. By wording their sales creatively, like selling the “Yosemite Experience” instead of the more direct “Yosemite Campgrounds” or “Half Dome Permits” scalpers can avoid being flagged. While ebay has made an initiative to cooperate, craigslist is not as regulated and difficult to control.

Rangers at Yosemite first began to note this scalping problem when visitors began commenting that they got their reservations from scalpers online and paid up to five times as much as they were worth. It wasn’t long before rangers and park officials checked it out for themselves.

Surprisingly enough, Yosemite is the only national park that has had this problem. Nothing remotely similar to scalping turned up when searching ebay and craigslist for any the top 10 most visited national parks.

Some visitors are upset that people are exploiting the park while others don’t mind.

“People are really willing to pay, they just really want to go camping, which is the weird thing, I love to go camping, but I certainly wouldn’t pay that,” said Gediman.

Yosemite National Park officials and rangers are currently brainstorming ways to control the situation and are considering asking to see identification documents at check-in to make sure it matches reservations as well as other preventive measures.

“The system is not intended for this [scalping] to happen. It’s unethical and we’d prefer it not happening,” said Gaumer.


For more information visit:

• http://www.nps.gov/yose/index.htm
• http://www.yosemite.com/
• http://www.yosemitepark.com/
• http://travel.nationalgeographic.com/travel/national-parks/yosemite-national-park/

Climate change brings impact to national parks

By JANNA TSIMPREA-SWALLOW
School of Communication
University of Miami

Thousands of spruce bark beetles, each around the size of half a Tic-Tac, can be found scurrying along tree branches in Alaska's Denali National Park. Together, they all gnaw their way through the bark until the tree is left skinned. Unprotected, white spruce trees are dying at an alarming rate.

Fires blaze through national parks in the Southwest, crackling as they swallow every tree in their path. Forest fires get trapped in a ferocious cycle—higher temperatures causing fires and fires letting off smoke and pollutants that lead to even higher temperatures.

Within the last century, the environment across the globe has faced destruction that is rapidly gaining intensity.

But perhaps the most dangerous effect of climate change isn’t hurricanes blowing over skyscrapers or an overpopulation of insects, but rather land that is disappearing completely.

Glaciers and the snow that covers them have done a vanishing act in the last century. Denali National Park in Alaska and Glacier National Park in Montana clearly display largely puddled landscapes. At the same time, with the north and south of the globe liquefying, the coasts are creeping inward. Biscayne and Virgin Islands are expected to be the first National Parks to drown.

The image at right shows changes in size of Chaney Glacier at Glacier National Park over the past 150 years (Courtesy of the U.S. Geological Survey).

“We’ve certainly seen loss in glaciers,” Kris Fister, spokeswoman for Denali, said. “This impacts everything from micro-vertebrates to spring snow melt to little critters, in terms of habitat changes.”

In the short-term, melting permafrost can mean smaller glaciers and bigger lakes. Contrary to popular belief though, the National Parks Conservation Association says that too much thawing can  lead to lakes disappearing. Many of these bodies of water are on top of underground collections of small rocks or sand. As more water accumulates, it gets heavier, makes contact underground and gets sucked in. The lake disappears.

“And then we’re seeing changes in snow cover, which leads to vegetation changes,” Fister said, “and therefore, changes in wildlife populations because of community types will change what can live there.”
Glacier National Park is seeing many of the same changes as Denali, due to their similar landscapes.

“Because of the melting of the glaciers and the warming of the waters, we’re finding some species—especially aquatic species—are becoming more rare,” said Ellen Blickhan, acting public affairs specialist at Glacier National Park.

The protected Nelchina caribou in Denali live best in the tundra among spruce forests. But as temperatures climb, the tundra is disappearing in the south where it’s warmer. Spruce trees are being eaten alive by spruce bark beetles, which have overpopulated in warmer temperatures. These endangered caribou are moving north, where hunting is allowed.

The National Parks Conservation Association predict that 90 percent of the tundra in Alaska will be gone in 2100 due to climate change.

The first step for the national parks suffering from melting landscapes is to monitor the change closely.

At left, Glacier National Park today. Over the years, the amount of snow has greatly decreased (Photo courtesy of the National Park Service). Below, rising temperatures will not only flood island national parks, but a few degrees difference will kill coral. This will completely change ecosystems in tropical oceans (Photos courtesy of the National Park Service).

“We have basically a lot of temperature and precipitation stations, Fister said. “We look at annual average temperatures and the precipitation that has increased and the evaporation that has increased.”
The U.S. Geological Survey has taken Glacier National Park on as one of their research sites. It is one of their main sites for their Climate Change in Mountain Ecosystems project.

“We have our glacier field stations that are doing a lot,” Blickhan said. “USGS folks are the ones that are finding a lot of really interesting information.”

Glacier monitoring is one of USGS’s main focuses and they use multiple methods to get accurate results. First, they measure the mass of the glaciers and can therefore tell how much water was gained or lost throughout the season. They also take area measurements to see how much the glacier is shrinking. They measure the temperature of the water that is outflowing from the glaciers to know when it changes. Lastly, they take a lot of satellite and regular photographs to monitor changes in shape or composition.

The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that by 2030, Glacier National Park’s glaciers will have disappeared.
The National Parks Conservation Association is coming up with ways to protect what they can while everything shifts.

In Alaska, by monitoring the Nelchina caribou migration into hunting zones, NPCA is able to rezone to protect them. They are also taking measures to try to slow down climate change, like demanding control on state carbon emissions and helping rural towns become more energy efficient.

The effects of thawing glaciers that are seen in the North are only half of the problem. While melted fresh water begins to flow into the ocean, sea levels all throughout the coasts rise. This threatens all people and organisms on the shore, but they can shift their settlements inward.

Unfortunately, this is not a possibility for islands. As sea levels rise, they will go underwater and the environmental occupants won’t have anywhere to go. Biscayne National Park and the Virgin Islands National Park are two of the most threatened.

Most predictions by scientists say that all of South Florida, the Florida Keys included, will be under water in less than a century.

The National Parks Conservation Association is working to prevent too much damage, with places like the beaches sea turtles nest on in mind.

Pressuring the state to implement cleaner energy technologies like wind turbines and solar panels is on the list to prevent rather than protect.

Since this hasn’t been overly successful and because so much of the damage that has already been done is irreversible, they’re also working to plan for disaster.

One of the ideas is for the national parks to attain more protected land further away from the coast. Then, the disappearing coast could link with the new land and the animals could migrate inland to survive. Protecting areas of the ocean would also allow marine animals to swim upwards to cooler water.

Unfortunately, very fragile ecosystems, like the coral reef would still die. A change in just a few degrees will kill coral, which will then harm all the fish that live there.

“I spent two years studying coral reefs,” Alanna Mitchell, author of Seasick, a book on global warming and the oceans, said. “I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t connect with them and feel the passion.”

Much of the excess carbon dioxide floating around, that causes the greenhouse effect, is absorbed by the oceans. This poisons them, killing fish and decomposing shells.

Ecologists are looking into replacing the plants in the ocean that could not survive warmer temperatures and carbon dioxide. This would be an attempt to bring the area back to normalcy but probably only serve as a temporary fix.

The melting and flooding of national parks seems to be unstoppable since the damage to the environment has already been done. Politics and money tangle measures that could have been taken to stop climate change. Although unsure what will happen exactly, specialists from all over are working to keep the national parks in existence.

For more information on the national parks and climate change, visit http://www.nps.gov/climatechange.

Parks offer range of extreme sports activities

By STEPHANIE FLEITAS
School of Communication
University of Miami

A 31-year-old Miami native, Ivette Fernandez is addicted to the thrill of adrenalin.

"Whenever I go on a trip," she said, "I always try to look up what extreme activities I can do in that particular place."

Fernandez, however, has never experimented with the extreme in the United States.

Click on the video at right to view an audio slide show about hang gliding in Yosemite National Park narrated and prepared by writer Stephanie Fleitas.

"I feel like there's not many extreme sports one can experience in the U.S. due to the fact that everyone is always worried about having a lawsuit on their hands."

The “live on the edge” junkie and others who mirror her approach to life, could not be any more wrong.

The national parks of the United States provide a multitude of "hold on tight,” exhilarating activities that can allow one to appreciate the great outdoors and experience life to the absolute extreme.

National parks are filled with more than picnic sites and camping grounds. They have become havens for those who try to push their stamina levels to dangerously new heights.

Hang glider Erik Fair launches off Glacier Point in Yosemite National Park (Photo courtesy of Connie Work, Yosemite Hang Gliding Association).

Sand-boarding, hang gliding, canyoneering, kayaking and canoeing on wild rivers, cross-country skiing, scuba diving, snowshoeing, rock climbing, and hiking across unfathomable landscapes are few of the atypical activities one can engage in when visiting selected national parks. Each has considerable risks if the right precautions are not taken, but for the most part, are enjoyed by many.

Sand-boarding is an unusual extreme sport. It began to gain popularity at Great Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado just around five years ago. It is a sport that combines element of snowboarding, surfing and skateboarding.

“Sand-boarding has a ‘surfy’/‘floaty’ feel to it,” said Marc Pastore a mechanic technician at Kristi Mountain Sports store in Colorado. "It's like going to the beach in the mountains,” he said.

The name explains the sport. One straps his of herself to a board that is similar in composition to a skate board except there are no wheels. When one reaches the top of the sand dune, the fun begins on the ride down.

Sandboarding at Great Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado (Photo courtesy of Chelsea Vittoria).

“The sand dunes are extremely high,” said Vialynn Vittoria, who works at the Oasis sport's Store near Sand Dunes.

Since there are no ski lifts or trucks that leave one at the top of the dunes, the exhaustion one feels while climbing them can be one of the main risks with participating in the sport.

“The climb up takes about 45 minutes to an hour,” said Pastore.

Pastore explains the reasons why adding convenient means of transportation to the top of the dunes is not an option.

At left top, hang glider Mike Meyer launches at Glacier Point in Yosemite National Park. At left bottom, hang glider Connie Work launches over Yosemite Valley (Photos courtesy of Connie Work).

"Our park is a natural, peaceful place... Our dunes are pristine. We are very proud of them... We don't allow cars to get up to the sand dunes unlike other parks...We have native Indian tribes here that consider the sand to be very sacred," he said.

If one does not have experience with boarding and is not careful, as in any extreme sport, the injuries can be catastrophic and in the worst cases, fatal.

"Last year,” said Vottoria, “a group of college guys came into the store carrying their friend because he hurt his neck really badly on the dunes."

For the most part, however, catastrophic injuries are not widely seen in sand-boarding.

"People suffer from broken bones, cracked hips and concussions,” said Pastore.

However, these injuries and their likelihood of occurring are no greater in this extreme sport than in any other boarding activity.

Hang gliding is another extreme sport that is available in America’s backyard. It involves an un-motorized device that is controlled by wind and shifts in the pilot’s body weight.

Hang gliders set up their gliders for flights over Yosemite Valley (Photo courtesy of Connie Work).

Connie Work, president of the Yosemite Hang Gliding Association in California, talked about how she first got involved in the sport when pilots would land their hang gliders onto her property. Since then, she and the sport have become intertwined. 

Unlike sand-boarding, one needs to be certified to hang glide since it is such a technical sport and, of course, the risk is much greater. One needs to be an advanced pilot certified through the USHPA- United States Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association.

According to Work, Yosemite issues specific permits to the association that allow pilots to glide over the park. One amendment to the permit is that the only take off site in Yosemite, for gliders is Glacier Point. The landing zone is in Leidig Meadow.

Information on the USHPA official website shows that hang gliding is not only a local Yosemite phenomenon. There are a multitude of chapters within 12 regions that the Association divided the United States into where people who enjoy the activity can share their passion with others.

The risks that used to taint the sport, such as crashing against trees and the breaking apart of the hang glider, are slowly diffusing. Work said that the equipment and technology involved with building the hang gliders has improved over the last years that the sport has developed, but there are still “inherent risks.”

At left, one of the “extremely high” dune ridge at Great Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado (Photo courtesy of Marc Pastore). Below,  sandboarding in the park (Photo courtesy of Chelsea Vittoria).

Canyoneering may be considered to be in the middle of the spectrum that involves sand-boarding on one end and hang gliding at the other.

It is a sport that, according to Paul Henderson, assistant superintendent at Arches National Park in Utah, “... involves repels and maneuvering through pretty tight slot canyons within the sandstone.”

"People do it for the thrill, the experience and a sense of discovery,” said Henderson.

At Arches National Park, the sport, itself, is not very popular because it is still relatively new and, as Henderson explained, it is “not the best way to explore the primary park resources because a lot of the park’s beauty is above ground.”

Not ignoring that participation in the sport has increased, however, Henderson said that the park administration is currently evaluating the routes and making sure all the resources are being protected.

“We are thinking of a permit system and contact system that allows us to get in contact with people out canyoneering," Henderson also stated. This is for the safety of those who participate in the extreme sport.

Hiking in Haleakala, the national park that stretches across Maui's southern and eastern coasts in Hawaii, is another extreme activity that does not involve as much skill as the other sports.

The entire 37-mile Haleakala Trail can either be walked or ridden on horseback. 
 
Leslie Young, administrative assist at the park, said these hikes are "extreme" because of  the weather and landscape variances.

"There are a lot of weather changes, there are strong winds and very cold temperatures at points,” Young stated.

At the top of the peak, Young also said that one can be exposed to the sight of various lava flows from the volcano.

In order to protect oneself from the elements, Young advises visitors to bring rain gear, food, water and a first aid kit.
 
Resolutely, one can see that it is almost impossible to shy away from adventure in national parks.

Pastore takes up a very spiritual yet athletic point of view when he describes his park.

"I always base it on being a very sacred and natural place where you get endurance and exhilaration," he said.

Development threatens future of many parks

By SERGIO GUARNEROS
School of Communication
University of Miami

Runoff water, humans and wild animals coexisting in the same territory, invasive animal species and invasive plants, coral reefs dying--- all these are affecting our national parks.

 And they are some of the issues that Everglades and Biscayne National Park face when commercial development gets too close. 

“Anytime you have development you reduce the habitat for animals. Some animals are able to adjust even coincide, but for the most part animals suffer from this. Animals that are primarily affected are those who are in need of wetlands to survive. But, when the size of the wetlands is affected so are the animals that need the wetlands,” said Sonny Bass supervisory wildlife ecologist at Everglades National Park

Click on the video at right to view an audio slideshow about development around national parks narrated and prepared by writer Sergio Guarneros.

Can wild animals and humans live side by side or are these accidents just waiting to happen?

Among animals in need of wetlands such as the Everglades are Florida alligators and crocodiles. These are very territorial animals. Baby alligators are neglected and even threatened by their fathers; they are protected by their mothers for the first two years and, after that, the mother will scare them off.

These young alligators now have to find new territory to claim as their own. With property development, these animals’ options become very limited, which in turn affects the animals’ population and causes a negative chain reaction throughout the food chain. These animals then move to lakes and canals near people’s homes, which, in some cases have caused pets to be injured or killed and in extreme cases even humans have been attacked.

At right, pork fish swims past a reef in Biscayne National Park (Photo courtesy of the National Park Service). Below, an alligator walking around a patio (Photo courtesy of Roberto Estrada).

Other issues of property development near the Everglades also affect the park’s water supply whether it’d be because of pollution or simply the use of water.

“Increased development on the east side of the park results in increased urban water use, which results in less water available for environmental purposes. This problem is particularly troublesome during drought periods, like the one we are in right now. Water levels are low enough in the park to adversely impact nesting success of wading birds,” said Nick Aumen aquatic ecologist at Everglades National Park.

Whether the water is used to shower or to drink, the water supply is affected and this has a devastating effect on the ecological system of national parks.

“Property development near the park has affected the habitat and physical environment by altering the natural flow of water into the Everglades ecosystem.

"The complex system of canals and water control structures and the development of the water conservation areas to the north of the park have dramatically decreased the amount of water that flows into the park. The change in water amount and flow timing has affected plant communities, nesting habits and locations of birds and other animals, and the entire natural system as a whole,” said Caryl Alarcon, geographer at Everglades National Park.

Water used for other activities such as watering plants or washing a car can also prove to be devastating to the parks environment. These activities cause runoff water to pollute the natural waters. The water is then in need of refinement in order to avoid pollution.

Unfortunately, this is isn’t the only effect that property development near national parks has had on these environments. Other human activities affect the national parks as well.

 Exotic animals are being released into the wild by people this can prove to be devastating to the native Everglades species as well as having a negative affect the food chain and the whole ecosystem.  The ‘invaders” include the Mediterranean fruit fly, common myna, Burmese python, Tokay gecko, and the Cuban tree-frog. These are some of the invasive species which are changing Everglades’ ecosystem.

Invasive species are not limited to animals there are also plants that are invasive.  Plants such as the “Brazilian pepper,” which produces chemicals can suppress other plants. Other invasive plants include lather leaf, Australian pine, seaside mahoe, which affect the Everglades’ natural habitat by killing off or reducing native species.

Commercial development is a problem that many parks have to face and although the consequences vary from park to park these consequences are slowly changing and affecting our national parks.

At right, a small alligator explores a patio and backyard (Photo courtesy of Roberto Estrada). Below, construction near Everglades National Park (Photo by Sergio Guarneros).

Not far from Everglades National Park in South Florida, Biscayne National Park is a national park that has rare species of coral reefs and is rich in regional history, ranging from pirate ship wrecks to pineapple farmers. In Biscayne National Park, people are allowed to go out boating, picnicking, diving, fishing, and snorkeling. But this also poses a danger to the national park.

“The problems that Biscayne National Park faces are a range full of problems some of which include, runoff water, chemicals, littering and people crashing into the coral reefs,” said Sarah Bellmund, ecologist at Biscayne National Park.

Like Everglades National Park, Biscayne National Park faces similar problems as it pertains to runoff water that affects the organisms that are in need of a certain level of saline water in order to survive.

But bigger issues that the park faces include people littering into the water. This is one of the biggest concerns for ecologist Bellmund because it’s polluting the park as well as affecting the natural habitat of the coral reefs.

Another big issue that the park faces is boaters who crash into the coral reefs. Many of these accidents occur because the boaters are either inexperienced or drunk.

The national park has also taken a huge impact because of people partying in their boats in the park which is responsible for most of the littering and some of the crashes that occur in the park.

“It’s important for people to get out and see the natural beauty in order to appreciate the tropical park we are able to enjoy,” said Bellmund.

Transportation helps visitors enjoy Yellowstone

By AYRAM EDERY
School of Communication
University of Miami

Regarded as a natural wonder and world-renown travel location, thousands of tourists come to visit Yellowstone National Park, the world’s first national park, daily.

The park’s pristine lakes, Redwood and Sequoia trees, mountains, and vivid natural sights have astonished its visitors for more than 135 years. With a commitment to its guests and the environment, Yellowstone has become an iconic destination for its natural beauty, efficiency, quality services and green operations.

Xanterra Parks and Resorts is a privately owned company and the primary authorized concessioner with contracts through the National Park Service.  It is the direct in-park source manages lodging, camping, retail, tours and activities, and transportation for the park service.

Click on the video at right to view a slideshow about the transportation system at Yellowstone National Park narrated and prepared by writer Ayram Edery.

Rob Love, a coordinator for the Yellowstone’s Department of Tourism and Activities, manages the mechanisms for tourist and transportation services at Xanterra.

“We offer the best transportation services, compared to other parks. It is amazing how we can facilitate transportation for the amount of people who come here.”

By driving the grand loop road, visitors can view the park from the comfort of their vehicle and also take a rest at one of the many roadside picnic areas. For the active visitor, the park has thousands of miles of trails from day hikes to longer backcountry explorations.

“The main attractions are all located on the grand loop road,” said Love.

With a highly diversified transportation system, experiencing and traveling through Yellowstone National Park has become painless. Transportation and tours are available in both the summer and winter months. The majority of summer tours end in the middle of September.

At left, one of the buses park in front of this historic Old Faithful Inn (Photos courtesy of Suzann Lankford, Xanterra Parks & Resorts, Yellowstone National Park). Below at right, the Yellowstone National Park bus passes through the mountains of the park. Last, another stop is the Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel.

Services even allow for transportation through the snow.

In the winter months, services continue operation with certain restrictions for the safety of Yellowstone’s visitors. The park roads are closed to wheeled vehicle travel with the exception of Gardiner Montana to Cooke City Montana. Only two lodging facilities, Old Faithful Snow Lodge (OFSL) and Mammoth Hot Springs Springs Hotel (MHS), are open for business from mid-December to mid-March.

Guests can drive their privately owned vehicles to MHS, but must travel over the snow to OFSL in tracked vehicles.  They provide guided transport in tracked vehicles from MHS (the north entrance into the Park), Flagg Ranch (the South Entrance into the Park) and West Yellowstone (the west entrance into the Park) to OFSL.

Day tours from MHS and OFSL are also provided in tracked vehicles as well as on snowmobiles.  Wheeled tours to the Lamar Valley are provided from MHS daily in vans. 

Besides booking tours, guests have the ability to book all of the winter vehicles mentioned plus the motor coaches for private charters. Wheeled vehicles can leave the park, but tracked vehicles are limited to operation in Yellowstone and allowed limited use in West Yellowstone and Gardiner Montana.

Mat Track vehicles are designed to operate on both pavement and snow covered roadways.

“Bombs” are best suited for snow covered roadways, but can operate on bare pavement but must be equipped with a rubber road wheel that attaches to one of the front skis.

These snowcoaches are a specialized passenger vehicle, designed to work over snow or ice, similar to a large, multi-passenger snowcat equipped with bus style seating. These vehicles may have multiple sets of very large low-pressure tires or they may have tracks.

Visitors to Yellowstone National Park during the winter time will be able to experience the park snowcoaches for sightseeing tours or for over snow transportation.

These Bombs may seat among 10, 20 or more passengers. That way this road wheel assists with steering on the paved surface.

Xanterra provides charter services where individuals can choose from a variety of rental vehicles, and private driver/guide are available for periods from 5 hours to multiple days. Tours are offered within the boundaries of YNP and one tour into nearby Grand Teton National Park, which range from 1.5 hours to full day.

Guests that arrive at one of the Park's gateway communities who do not wish to rent a car have the option to charter a vehicles and driver/guides for transport into Yellowstone. Gateway communities include West Yellowstone, Mont., Gardiner, Mont., Cooke City, Mont., Cody, Wy., and Jackson Hole, Wy. To accommodate guest charter requests, visitors can also travel to Bozeman and Billings, Mont.

Transportation services at Yosemite have set the standard for environmental preservation for parks throughout the world. Buses and automobiles have been replaced with fuel efficient and low-carbon emitting vehicles.

Todd Scott, who is other of the coordinator for Xanterra’s Transportation services, said, “To keep the park clean, we have replaced our bus fleet with hybrids.”

Scott, who has worked at Yosemite for more than 20 years, is adamant about keeping the park clean.

“I pushed for change, and so did everyone else here. We practice what we preach, so to speak,” said Scott.

Having started working at Yosemite as a bus driver, he aided in the ways that the park innovates its services.

To encourage fuel conservation, Xanterra introduced an employee business shuttle during the summer of 2008, as well as an employee carpooling policy that requires staff to obtain supervisory approval before traveling solo in a company vehicle.

To assist with conserving fuel and transportation management, Xanterra retires older vehicles with poor gas mileage with new vehicles at the most fuel-efficient in their category according to the DOE website.

“We are committed to helping you find your ultimate Yellowstone experience, while working to protect and preserve the park for the generations to come,” Love said.

In addition to its transportation services, Xanterra manages and maintains the in-park facilities for which they take reservations.

Guests can book tours by calling the Reservations Department located in Mammoth Hot Springs prior to their arrival, or by booking with any Front Desk or at any Activities Desk in person. 

Guests are picked up for their selected tour at various lodging and campground facilities throughout the park.

Leslie Quinn, a guest relation’s representative with Xanterra and environmental advocate, says the company wants to provide good service while protecting the park.

“We are committed to helping you find your ultimate Yellowstone experience, while working to protect and preserve the park for the,” Quinn stated.

With 2,219,789 acres, 2,000 campsites, and 1,100 species of native plants to preserve, Quinn sees a positive future for Yellowstone.

“Yellowstone serves as an example for preservation, conservation, and determination. But we can’t stop here. The challenges we face lets us make this park both a more accessible and natural destination,” said Quinn.

Tour and other information can be found at: http://www.yellowstonenationalparklodges.com.

Marijuana growers bring risk to national parks

By DANIELA VICENTINI
School of Communication
University of Miami

In December 2010, the House of Representatives passed a bill, H. Res. 1540, which was directed to the White House to set up a plan to stop drug cartels from growing marijuana in national parks.

Although there is a 1996 state law in California that authorizes medical marijuana production, most of them are still illegal.

Click on the video at the left to view an audio slideshow about problems related to marijuana being illegally grown in national parks and forests narrated and prepared by writer Daniela Vincentini.

“Our main concern is preserving our parks for the future generations, but unfortunately people keep doing illegal activities for personal gain, and are really hurting the environment and the parks. The traffickers cut down trees and divert waterways, they pollute, and throw trash wherever they please without any concern whatsoever to the surrounding green areas and our mission here is to protect it,” said Yosemite National Park Deputy Chief Ranger Kevin Killian.

The most common problem with growing marijuana in parks is the substantial amounts of toxic pesticides, chemicals and fertilizers that the drug traffickers use.

At right, National park officials use helicopters to airlift trash and confiscated marijuana away from the affected areas (Photos courtesy of the National Park Service).

“Fertilizers are definitely a main concern and the irrigation hoses that go for miles and miles along the parks. Other objects that we find are personal possessions, such as tents, food, trash, and alcohol. Shovels, rakes, any gardening instruments are usually found around the marijuana farms too. What cause pollution are the pesticides, fertilizers, herbicides, propane in cans, and the white gas (camping fuel.) Unfortunately there have been signs of poaching; we have found dead deer and bears in our park. We have also found ammunitions and weapons, which can be hazardous for park visitors,” said Killian.

There is a significant danger in the park due to traffickers, because they place booby traps with live shotgun shells on marijuana plantations, which can be a hazard to any one who comes near, whether it is a person or an animal.

“The first thing we do as a team is a surveillance of the area to make sure there aren’t any armed traffickers in sight. We check for booby traps and any other type of potential hazards to the public and our park rangers,” said Kevin Hendricks, chief park ranger at Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park in California.

At left, drug traffickers destroyed acres of forest to plant marijuana farms on national parks. Next, pollution is one of the greatest problems with marijuana farms. Food and trash left behind by the traffickers. Last, Kevin Hendricks, chief park ranger at Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park, said “our biggest helpers are our choppers.”

“We usually use search teams of people and not with animals such as dogs because they help us find more specific types of drugs such as processed marijuana or even cocaine,” Killian said.

In Oct. 8, 2000, an 8-year-old boy and his father were shot by drug traffickers while hunting in El Dorado National Forest in Northern California.

Another case was on June 16, 2009, were a couple of law enforcement officers with the Lassen County Sheriff’s Department in California, were wounded by gunfire from the traffickers during an investigation of a plantation on Bureau of Land Management property.

“With accidents like these we don’t want visitors getting involved, we want them to extract themselves from the dangers of the situation. They are enough help by reporting any suspicious activity going on. An example could be and excessive foot traffic on an area where there is no visible trail or people carrying tools with suspicious behavior,” said Hendricks.

The traffickers plant the marijuana beneath the bushy areas in parks; pot gardens are hidden inside trailers, closets, attics, basements and spare bedrooms too.

According to Hendricks, “Our biggest helpers are our choppers. We can cover a far more extensive piece of land in less time.”

“For our wildlife the problem is that the traffickers leave out food, so when bears see this food an associate it with people, then they become more aggressive. The consequences of this is that bears then see park visitors and think they have food and might attack them or scare the visitors away and we don’t want anyone getting hurt,” said Killian.

Another one of the problems of growing marijuana is the amount of light needed to grow them indoors. The ones in more rural locations use large diesel generators for power, which are often homemade and are huge risks for fires and spills.

“The thing is that we don’t have much experience with this problem because it has been the only one we have been aware of. It happened only a few years ago in a five-acre lot and this park is over 1.000 square miles.

"Folks are concerned with the environmental impacts that these plantations have caused, but since we haven’t had much of problematic activity then there hasn’t been a notable issue at this moment,” said Roy Zipp an environmental protection specialist at North Cascades National Park in Washington.

The main reason that pot farms are on public land is because it is easy to get away from law enforcements.

“What separates us from other parks is that we are in the border with Canada, so not only do we have park rangers or law enforcements, but we also have border and immigration patrols who are on the highway protecting our parks. They keep the area under constant surveillance and probably cover more area than our rangers,” said Zipp.

Yellowstone volcanic system remains active

By JEFFERY GIBERT
School of Communication
University of Miami

The Yellowstone Supervolcano is supposed to erupt every 600,000 years. It has been 640,000 years since the last eruption.

The year in which the Mayans predicted the world would end, 2012, is right around the corner.

A supervolcano, or super volcanic eruption, is a volcanic eruption, which is an order of magnitude greater than any volcano in historic times (generally accepted to be greater than 200 cubic kilometers). This kind of eruption is typically sufficient to cause a long-lasting change to weather sufficient to threaten the extinction of species, and cover huge areas with lava and ash.

Click on the video at right to view an audio slideshow about the Yellowstone caldera narrated and prepared by writer Jeffery Gibert.

The Yellowstone Supervolcano is believed to lie on top of a hotspot, a volcanic area that forms as a tectonic plate moves over a point heated from deep within the Earth’s mantle, known as the Yellowstone Hotspot.

The Yellowstone Supervolcano has been the source of the last three eruptions from the Yellowstone Hotspot. The first eruption created the Island Park Caldera 2.1 million years ago, the second eruption created the Henry’s Fork Caldera 1.3 million years ago and the last eruption created the Yellowstone calderas.

“No actual volcanic eruption has occurred in the Yellowstone National Park region of Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho since a lava flow poured out about 70,000 years ago, said Steve Brantley,  a U.S. Geological Survey scientist who researches the Yellowstone Volcano.  “However, the area’s many geysers and hot springs indicate that the underlying volcanic system remains active.”

If the Yellowstone Supervolcano does erupt again, many scientists believe that lava filled with gas will shoot from the supervolcano into the air as high as 25 miles up and flow onto the ground, clogging bodies of water and covering landscapes.

Bunsen Peak at Yellowstone National Park, a roughly circular body of intrusive igneous rock, is the eroded remnant of either the "neck" of an Absaroka volcano or a small stock that solidified directly beneath a volcano (Photo courtesy of the U.S. Geological Survey).

It’s like “opening the Coke bottle after you’ve shaken it,” said Bob Christiansen, a U.S. Geological Survey scientist who pioneered research on the Yellowstone volcano in the 1960s.

This will cause ash and debris to rain down onto Earth over a course of hundreds of miles. The ash could stay in the air for anywhere between weeks and months as periodic after blasts occur, emitting pollutants.

As a result, every time that it rains, the rain will be categorized as acid rain because of all of the ash that it encounters on its way to the ground. The ash will also affect the climate because it will be so thick that the sun will be blocked out, causing temperatures to dip dramatically.

“The possible secondary hazards from a potential large caldera-forming eruption at Yellowstone could themselves be greater than the primary hazards from other types of eruption.,” said Robert Christiansen, a U.S. Geological Survey scientist who pioneered research on the Yellowstone volcano in 2007. “Suspended ash would continue to circulate in the upper atmosphere for many weeks, and could, together with volcanic gases associated with the eruption, affect global climate for several years.”

Over time, the land nearby the supervolcano will collapse and a new caldera will be formed.

Everyone within the hundreds of miles radius that is affected by the ash will have a hard time surviving because they will have to stay sheltered, preferably underground, so that they are not affected by the pollution.

At right, an aerial view of Mount St. Helens on May 18, 1980. The eruption sent volcanic ash, steam, water and debris to a height of 60,000 feet (Photos by Austin S. Post, U.S. Geological Survey). Next below, the upper third of Mount St. Helens on May 18, 1980, with the mountain in eruption.

The longer that the after blasts continue to happen, the less chance of survival that these people have because eventually their food and drink supply will run out and they will not be able to restock because coming in contact with the ash filled air and breathing in the toxins will ultimately lead to their death.

To put in perspective just how deadly the Yellowstone supereruption would be, the Mount St. Helens eruption on May 18, 1980, at 8:32 a.m. PDT shocked the world, killing 57 people and destroying 250 homes, 47 bridges, 15 miles of railway and 185 miles of highway. That is nothing compared to the damage that the Yellowstone Caldera could produce.

Christiansen, Jacob Lowenstern, Robert Smith, Henry Heasler, Lisa Morgan, Manuel Nathenson, Larry Mastin, L. J. Patrick Muffler, and Joel E. Robinson are among scientists that predict that the Yellowstone supereruption could possibly be as catastrophic as the eruption at Lake Toba, the largest volcanic lake in the world, in Indonesia.

The eruption at Lake Toba, which occurred 69,000 to 77,000 years ago, had a big effect on global climate. It is believed that the global temperature dropped between three to five degrees Celsius (five to nine degrees Fahrenheit). The supereruption registered an 8 on the Volcanic Explosivity Index, the largest explosive volcanic eruption recorded in the last 25 million years.

It is also believed that the human population dropped to around only tens of thousands as a result of the supereruption, but that statistic is heavily disputed because no evidence has been found of any other animal decline or extinction.

In the movie, 2012, an interpretation of what the Yellowstone Supervolcano eruption could look like is offered. There are huge lava bombs dropping from the big ash cloud created by the supereruption that covers the sky. The bombs are descending at a rapid rate and would surely kill anybody near them.

“Any caldera-forming eruption probably would begin at one or a few individual sites with plinian columns of hot volcanic ash rising into the stratosphere, and likely would spread to encompass a ring-fracture system encircling the newly collapsing caldera,” said Christiansen. 

“Once the eruption developed past the initial phase, areas within and adjacent to the eruptive source would be overrun quickly by lateral flows of mixed volcanic ash, rocks, and gases at temperatures of several hundred degrees Celsius and speeds of a hundred km/h and greater as ash fall continued both within the source area and to great distances, even around the globe. All structures and living things within the areas overrun by ash flows would be destroyed and possibly vaporized.”

The Yellowstone supereruption is somewhat predictable. Many earthquakes (although, just about all of them imperceptible) are recorded around the Yellowstone Hotspot, which causes doming of the land and pressure to build under the land. The higher the magnitude of the earthquakes and the shorter the period of time in between the earthquakes around the hotspot, the more likely a supereruption is bound to happen.

“I think that the system has more or less equilibrated itself,” said the retired Christiansen, “but that’s an interpretation that would not hold up in court.”

Scenic vistas disappearing due to air pollution

By JOANELLE NAVARRO
School of Communication
University of Miami

The scenic vistas that tourists come to see at national parks are gradually disappearing.

These scenic vistas are being affected by degrading air quality caused by several different factors.

Many national parks are surrounded by buildings or factories that are contributing to air pollution. These stationary emission sources can include generators, wastewater treatment plants, and water heating equipment.

Area emission sources, like wood stoves and campfires, and mobile emission sources, such as vehicles and railroads, also contribute to the degrading air quality. All of these emission sources can be monitored or prevented to stop their contributions to air pollution.

Click on the video at right to view a slideshow about air pollution at scenic park vistas prepared by writer Joanelle Navarro.

Only natural emission sources, like wildfires and volcanoes, cannot be prevented.

A combination of all four sources have led to the three effects of air pollution: degrading visibility, ozone and atmospheric deposition.

Degrading visibility is what most tourists visiting national parks are affected by and what is currently affecting the scenic vistas the most.

Visibility levels determine how well and how far visitors can see. 

Such parks as Hawai’i Volcanoes and the U. S. Virgin Islands, experience visibility issues.

Most of them are caused by haze, which is broken into two categories: layered and uniform.

Layered haze is a confined layer of pollutants that leads to a visible discontinuity between that layer and its background.  Uniform haze is just an overall reduction in air quality.

At left, haze at Big Bend National Park in Texas (Photo courtesy of the National Park Service).

According to the 2009 Annual Performance & Progress Report regarding Air Quality in National Parks done by the NPS Air Resources Division, 67 parks, or 43% percent of all U.S. national parks, are currently labeled as having significant visibility concern, which means that the park experiences greater than 80 percent hazier days than with natural conditions.

However, according to the report, 97 percent of all parks show either improvement or no change in trends regarding visibility. 

The ozone is also degrading, which affects human health and native vegetation.

Ozone can lead to the injury or death of tissues in foliage, also known as follar injury, or it can affect the lungs in humans.

Currently, only 35 percent of the parks are in good or moderate condition, with 101 parks labeled as a significant concern. Most of those parks are on the east and west coast, with few near the Great Lakes and East Texas.

Despite that, 100 percent of all the parks showed either improvement or no change in ozone trends in 2009.

At right, smoke arising at Lassen National Park in California. Next below, haze at Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky  (Photos courtesy of the National Park Service).

The final effect of air pollution is atmospheric deposition, which affects ecological health through acidification and fertilization of soil and surface waters.

Atmospheric deposition is when any form of precipitation removes acid from the atmosphere and brings it to Earth. There are two types of deposition the NPS Air Resources Division keeps track of: nitrogen wet deposition and sulfur wet deposition. 

Nitrogen wet deposition currently has only 29 percent of the parks in good or moderate condition, and in fact, three parks who are a significant concern are currently degrading. A currently degrading park is

Sulfur wet deposition fares better with 46 percent if parks being in good or moderate condition, and none of the significant concern parks have a degrading trend.

Yet, 93 percent of all parks in 2009 show improvement or no change in atmospheric deposition trends.

So, how are parks working together to help preserve the scenic vistas?

Through monitoring the parks and by the passing of several air pollution laws. 

“The NPS has a range of approaches they are taking to protect the parks, from monitoring to active involvement in reduction of emissions,” Danielle Foster, an environmental protection specialist at the Hawai’i Volcano National Park, stated.

One such law is, the federal Clean Air Act, which gives federal land managers responsibilities to participate in decisions being made by regulatory agencies, while the Wilderness Act insists that American people get the opportunity to enjoy the wilderness and park system completely unimpaired.

The National Park Service is continuing to monitor the national parks to ensure that current and future visitors have the opportunity to view the scenery of their parks.

Parks must balance visitation, preservation

By NICOLE ORCHARD
School of Communication
University of Miami

National parks attracted more than 280 million visitors in 2010.

As the public steps in and out of these parks, preservation for future generations is at risk. According to the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA), action must be taken to ensure a balance between visitation and preservation in our national parks.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park brought in nearly 10 million visitors in 2010 making it the most visited national park in the United States. With this many people coming in and out of one park, finding a balance between preservation and visitation can be challenging.

Click on the video at right to view a slideshow about national parks preservation and vistation narrated and prepared by writer Nicole Orchard.

An important part to maintaining the national park system is raising awareness about the natural and cultural elements of the parks. This could also mean increasing visitation to reach that goal. However, there has been a significant increase in the number of people visiting the parks, especially in the summer months of July and August.

According to Bob Miller, management assistant at Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the months of July, August, September and October are the busiest months for them.

The annual visitation report provided by Miller shows at five percent increase in the number of people visiting Great Smoky Mountains from 2008 to 2009 but no increase from 2009 to 2010.
   
Although visitation is an important part of maintaining the stature of the national parks system, overcrowding and overuse can damage the cultural and natural aspects of the parks.

At left, visitors come from all over the world to appreciate the picturesque landscapes that are 277 river miles long, up to 18 miles wide and a mile deep (Photos courtesy of the National Park Service).

According to the Greater Yellowstone Science Learning Center, constant visitor activities and the transportation and infrastructure accompanying it have an effect on many resources including air and water quality, the natural soundscape, wildlife habitat, the spread of non-native plants, diseases, and organisms, and the preservation of archeological sites and other cultural artifacts.

“Wildlife harassment, resource damage—people walking, driving, and parking in non-designated areas, litter (yes, hard to believe in this day and age) are just a few concerns we have,” Yellowstone National Park Supervisory Park Ranger, Tami Corchero said in regard to preservation issues caused by visitation.

Some parks, including Great Smoky Mountains and Grand Canyon have taken action to sustain preservation while still maintaining the increasing customer base.
   
Miller said that Great Smoky Mountains paved all of the roads when it was built in the 1930s, in realization that there would be heavy traffic in and out of the park.
   
“Heavy use in the backcountry can have an impact on the trails. When the park was first created they realized that traffic was going to be heavy,” Miller said.

At right, traffic jams are a regular occurrence during the summer months at Yellowstone National Park as it is the busiest time of year for the park. Next below, the Mammoth Recycle Center at Yellowstone National Park acts as a resource to keep the park clean.

Grand Canyon implemented a shuttle bus system to transport visitors from the parking lots to the park itself. The buses run on natural gas and electricity, eliminating the air and noise pollution that accompany motor vehicles and corrosion from road traffic.

According to the National Park Service, many of the buses use compressed or liquefied natural gas, which is a much cleaner burning fuel. Riding the shuttles makes the visitors stay more enjoyable, while reducing pollution and decreasing traffic congestion, a problem many parks encounter.

At Yellowstone National Park, managers concentrate on education and law enforcement to maintain a steady balance between visitation and preservation.

“We try to educate the public on the rules and behavior that needs to be observed in order to protect the park's resources,” Corchero said.

“We do this through a quarterly park newspaper, an extensive Website and interpretive ranger programs.”

However, there’s only so much law enforcement can do when the visitors greatly outnumber the park staff.

“The Law Enforcement Division does just that—enforces the law and issues citations for those visitors who break the rules. Unfortunately the number of visitors is much higher than the number of park staff, so many violations occur without any punishment to those responsible,” Corchero said.

One solution to this problem could be to enforce a quota system and monitor the number of people entering and exiting the park. That way, only a certain amount of visitors would be allowed in the park at one time and preservation would be less at risk.

According to Cochero, Miller, and Tami Blackford, a writer-editor at Yellowstone National Park, neither Great Smoky Mountains nor Yellowstone has a quota system in place.

“We don’t even have entrance stations here. We have 14 entrances: Three main entrances and 11 smaller entrances. About the only thing in the park that does have limits on it are the backcountry shelters, especially on the Appalachian Trail. They’re really popular and they’re not that big. Otherwise, people can come and go as they please,” Miller said.

To assist the National Park Service in complying with the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA), a visitor survey was conducted in units of the National Park Service system. The survey was developed to measure each park unit’s performance related to visitor satisfaction and visitor understanding and appreciation.
   
Ninety-nine percent of Yosemite's visitors are satisfied overall with facilities, services and recreation opportunities and 100 perent of visitors understand the national significance of the park.

In the national parks people find something they enjoy, can identify with, and want to keep. Visitors understand the need for preservation and are complying with the methods parks are using to preserve their resources.

Bringing dogs into national parks can be dangerous

By MARGAUX HERRERA
School of Communication
University of Miami

Bringing pets into national parks may seem like a natural idea to some. After all, where better to take a dog than the great outdoors?

The reality, however, is far from picturesque.

Dogs can be dangerous to wildlife and other visitors, and often find themselves in harm's way.

All national parks have regulations in place for dogs. The rules are strict and do not allow for much freedom for guests who bring in their dogs. For instance, the Mount Rainier National Park policy, posted on the park Web site, states: "Pets are permitted in parking lots, campgrounds, and on paved roads. While in these areas, pets must, at all times, be leashed or crated and with their owners."

Click on the video at right to view a slideshow about national parks dog policies narrated and prepared by writer Margaux Herrera.

Other parks, such as Acadia National Park, offer a little more flexibility. In Acadia, policy on the Acadia Web site states there are "100 miles of hiking trails and 45 miles of carriage roads in the park where pets are permitted," as well as two campgrounds and an island for day hiking. They must, however, be restrained on a leash.

The restrictions have been created over the years in response to incidents reported in the parks. Yellowstone National Park faced one such incident in the 1980s.

According to Linda Miller, Public Affairs office secretary, "some time in the early 1980s, we had an incident of a dog getting loose from a car and diving into a scalding hot spring (clear blue water that looks very inviting on a hot day), the owner dove in after the dog. Both died."

This has happened several times over the years, and while no people have jumped in since, the danger is evident.

At left, a no-dog sign greets hikers on a trail in Joshua Tree National Park in Southern California. On some trails, national parks officials do not permit any pets (Staff Photo). Next below, a park visitor walks her dog in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area on San Francisco Bay (Photo courtesy of the National Park Service). Last, the National Park Service sign noting areas where dogs, even on leashes, are not permitted (Staff Photo).

Because of issues such as these, "bringing dogs to Yellowstone is highly discouraged," said Miller.

Big Bend National Park in Texas has faced similar problems over the years.

"Occasionally (dogs) escape and don't return, and they're presumed to be lost to wildlife," said David Elkowitz, chief of Interpretation at Big Bend.

There are other problems beyond dogs escaping owners' handling. Many sites warn of leaving pets unattended in vehicles. Rocky Mountain National Park states explicitly on its Web site:

"Do not leave pets unattended in vehicles. Interior temperatures of vehicles rise within minutes and pets can quickly overheat and die, even with the windows cracked."

Besides hurting themselves, dogs can be dangerous to wild animals. Dogs are predatory mammals, and as such are likely to chase after other animals. Although many owners believe that their dogs are too well trained for an indecent to occur, that is not always the case.

Rocky Mountain National Park faced an issue with a loose dog several years ago.

According to public information officer Kyle Patterson, the animal ran away from its owners in the middle of Cape's Cove, a mountain valley that is densely populated by wildlife.

"A dog had somehow gotten away from their owners." (It) ran after a herd of elk in one of our large meadows... that was a pretty intense experience. It caused with that group of elk a stampede-like (run)," Patterson said.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park had a similar incident involving a very different wild animal.

In another case of dogs unsecured in their owners' vehicles, this particular canine reacted to the sight of a bear.

"The dog bolted out of the truck and went after a bear. The bear turned onto the dog, the dog thought better of it, and went and hid under the truck," said park spokesman Bob Miller.

"It was kind of a dumb thing. Some people think their dogs are trained and will never jump out," he added.

While no animals or humans died in these incidents (although one elk did fall), the issue remains that these domesticated animals should not be wreaking havoc among wildlife.

Owners should not forget that there are risks other than their pets just chasing other animals. Dogs bark, creating noise that can disturb both wildlife and park visitors alike. They also leave their waste around the park, the scent of which can disturb wildlife, and the sight of which can upset visitors.

Dogs can be dangerous to humans, too. At Golden Gate National Recreation Area in the San Francisco Bay area, there were 35 counts of incident reports involving dogs in 2009 alone, many of which were encounters in which a dog bit someone.

Rocky Mountain, too, had yet another incident, but this time the victim was a person.

"A ranger was coming to a campsite because somebody was complaining about the dog. When he approached the campsite, the dog bit the ranger," said Patterson.

Even if incidents such as these are rare, there is a more practical reason that parks have to be cautious when it comes to dogs.

"Not all people are comfortable with dogs. If someone is hiking and they come across the dog they donít know if the dog is friendly," Patterson said.

For all of these reasons, all parks require that dogs be on leashes that do not exceed six feet in length at all times. This is in order to ensure that owners are in control of their dogs, who, in addition to all other potential problems, could be easily spooked or excited at the sight of a wild animal or even, simply, another dog.

The fact of the matter is, the National Park Service has nothing against dogs. They are just trying to ensure the safety of their land, wildlife and guests.

"Those of us who are dog lovers like to share with the public 'hey, we love our dogs,' but there's a time and place for them," Patterson said.



Things to Remember If You Go:

• Check park regulations for the park you are planning on visiting. If restrictions are too tight and you are set on bringing your dog with you, try exploring different parks.
• Make sure that you have a leash that is less than six feet long. You might even want to bring a spare.
• And be sure to clean up after your dog.
• Don't take your pets into parks if they do not have all of their shots. They could be carrying diseases and infect other animals.

Park bear attacks on decline, but risks remain

By PATRICK RILEY
School of Communication
University of Miami

Imagine wandering along a beautiful creek on a hot summer day. Your son is playing near the water and as the day is drawing to an end. The scene couldn’t be more idyllic.

Then, suddenly, a young black bear appears out of nowhere and starts to attack your child.

While this horrific situation may seem far-fetched it is precisely what happened in August 2008 in Great Smoky Mountains National Park in East Tennessee.

Click on the video at right to view a slideshow about bear attacks in national parks prepared by writer Patrick Riley. Photos courtesy of the National Park Service and U.S. Geological Survey.

“His father pulled the bear off the boy and pretty much saved the boy’s life,” said wildlife biologist Bill Stiver. “He ended up in the hospital with some bite wounds on his head and neck and it could’ve been fatal if it wasn’t for his father.”

But Stiver, who has been working at Great Smoky Mountains National Park for 20 years, puts the reality of bear attacks into perspective when he says it is unlikely such an attack could happen.

“You’re much more likely to get killed in your car driving to this park or trying to get to this park than you are ever to be attacked by a black bear,” he said.

The fact of the matter is that bear attacks in national parks across the U.S. have actually been declining over the past years despite the fact that the number of bears and tourists in parks has been rising.

“The number of injuries has actually decreased,” explained bear management biologist Kerry Gunther, who works in Yellowstone National Park. He points out that more than 3.6 million people visited the park last year, but the park only averages one attack per year.

Black bears are the only bears indigenous to Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Next, Katmai National Park and Preserve in Alaska is known to have one of the highest concentrations of brown bears on earth. Last, Yellowstone National Park is one of the only areas south of Canada that still has large grizzly bear populations (Photo by J. Schmidt, 1977, photos courtesy of National Park Service).

Chief Ranger Neal Labrie from Katmai National Park and Preserve underlines this notion that bear attacks are a rarity when he notes that the park in Alaska, an area that is known to have the highest concentration of brown bears on earth, only has had one documented attack ever.

Stiver, Gunther and Labrie attribute this to the emphasis that has been put on educating park visitors.

“We’ve got a lot of information out and available for visitors on what to do if you encounter a bear.... We have a podcast that’s available on safety in bear country. We have a flyer on what to do if you encounter a bear,” said Stiver.

Generally speaking, it is always best to avoid bears, but in some cases it is too late for that and then the best strategy to employ depends on the type of bear one is encountering and the animal’s motives.

“There is some behavior that a lot of people don’t really understand about bears and that is the difference between what would be an offensive attack and a defensive attack. For black bears, a defensive attack is pretty rare. But for grizzly bears they are much more defensive and so that’s why you read in the literature about playing dead with grizzly bears or brown bears because a lot of the attacks are thought to be defensive,” said Stiver.

“So once the threat is taking care of so to speak then the bear goes on. But with black bears, if they make physical contact with you, you’re supposed to fight back with everything you got, because more than likely it’s a predatory, an offensive attack.”

Besides utilizing educational tools in order to prevent bear attacks, many parks have also adopted additional measures.

“We have bear-proof garbage cans and dumpsters and very strict regulations about how people can store food and garbage while they’re here. So, a big goal of our plan is to prevent bears from becoming conditioned,” said Gunther.

But sometimes all precautionary measures fail and the park organization must take more drastic actions.

Bears that have attacked humans are often times euthanized and then sent off for testing to see if there were any abnormalities that led to the attack. Other times bears that invade human space, especially food-conditioned animals, can be scared away using beanbags and rubber buckshots or relocated.

“Simply the process of being captured and handled is a pretty negative experience for the animal and a lot of times just doing that with some follow-up work, trying to figure out what it’s trying to get, those kind of things, have been pretty successful in keeping bears wild,” explained Stiver.

But although parks across the country are constantly looking for new ways to limit negative interactions between bears and humans, ultimately it is still up to the visitors to make sound decisions in regards to the wildlife surrounding them.

After all it is us humans entering the bears’ domain.

Not the other way around.



How to be Safe in Bear Country

• Respect a bear's personal space.
• Travel with others while in bear country.
• Consistently use the same viewing areas.
• Access viewing areas in a consistent manner that minimizes disturbance.
• Minimize disturbance of bears when viewing them.
• Promote predictable human behavior (do all you can do to be seen and heard by bears).
• Avoid displacing and food conditioning bears (keep food and similar items secured in bear resistant containers).
• Make sure bears do not link people with food (avoid having them get fish from you or other items from your campsite).
• Discourage curious or aggressive bears from approaching you.
• Do not run away or advance on the bear.
• Above all: Do all you can do to be seen and heard to avoid surprising bears.

Safety recommendations courtesy of Chief Ranger Neal Labrie from Katmai National Park and Preserve in Alaska.

Great Smoky Mountains podcast (courtesy of Bill Stiver, Great Smoky Mountains National Park):
http://www.thegreatsmokymountains.org/hike_smokies_challenge_videos/hikethesmokies_2_wildlife.html.

Stanley Hotel ghost tour popular with park visitors

High gas prices bring concern to parks officials

By NICHOLAS MOORE
School of Communication
University of Miami

National park employees may cringe as gas prices keep rising, the economy still struggles to rebound, and the idea of the “staycation” becomes more common among American households.

As of April 2011, the national average for gasoline was $3.879 per gallon of regular unleaded fuel, according to the American Automobile Association. In comparison, the national average a year earlier was $2.858, meaning it has risen more than a dollar since then.

This issue, combined with the continuous ailments within the economy, has led to many concerns for the National Park Service.

Al Nash, chief of Public Affairs at Yellowstone National Park, agrees that this summer could bring a dip in attendance and revenue to Yellowstone and the National Park Service as a whole.

Click on the video at right to view a slideshow about the impact of gas prices on national parks visitation prepared by writer Nicholas Moore. Photos courtesy of the National Park Service.

“Because of the high gas prices and amount of driving it takes to experience a park of our size, it isn’t really the best mix,” Nash said.

According to the attendance numbers at Yellowstone, the park has broken its yearly attendance record three out of the past four years, the holdout being 2008, a year that saw summer gas prices soar above the $4 mark.

Because a significant amount of national parks are in the backcountry of the United States, it is sometimes impossible to reach them without piling the miles on your automobile.

This is particularly true for Crater Lake National Park in Oregon.

Traffic is backed up at Yellowstone National Park. Visitors take a look at the wildlife the park has to offer. Below, a map displays the highways that go throughout Yellowstone (Photo and map courtesy of National Park Service).

“We have several roads that lead into the park, but the nearest major airport is more than two hours away,” said Park Ranger Dave Grimes, who is also the editor of the bi-annual newsletter for the park.

Both Crater Lake and Yellowstone are parks that are frequently driven through, as it can be the fully experience and access the park. Yellowstone has hundreds of miles of roads that are used by recreational vehicles, tour buses and more. Crater Lake has a 33-mile two-lane highway around the rim of the lake.

Officials at Zion National Park in Utah are optimistic about their attendance this summer although the park is located deep within the canyons of Utah and the closest city with an airport of substantial size (Las Vegas) is over about four hours away.

“It’s true that we were worried about attendance in 2008 because of high gas prices but it ended up being a record breaking year for us,” said Zion National Park spokesman Ronald Terry.

Norma and Gary Goldman, teachers in Davie, Fla. and recreational vehicle enthusiasts, are definitely feeling the effects of the higher travel costs this summer as they plan their annual road trip during the summer months.

“We definitely had to cut back on our travelling in 2008 when gas prices sky rocketing, and it’s looking like this summer has the same vibe,” said Norma Goldman.

The couple has visited dozens of national parks over the years by RV, which their current one gets eight to10 miles per gallon. This year however, a shorter trip up the East Coast is being planned and longer stays at campsites are being budgeted.

“With the cost of food, gas, and other travelling expenses, you have to draw the line somewhere. The economy is still not at the point where we feel okay with a cross-country trip while paying $4 a gallon,” said Gary Goldman.

Like the Goldmans, a lot of families are getting smarter this summer and looking for ways to maximize their fun for a low cost.

Crater Lake national park features many roads that enter into the park. The road around the rim of the lake is frequently travelled by visitors (Map courtesy of the National Park Service). Below, a cyclist decides gas prices are too much to handle and tries a different approach to travel. National park employees are fearful that high gas prices will lead to less attendance (Photo by Elaine Thompson).

“Instead of taking the RV, take a fuel efficient car and load it up with camping supplies. Do more fishing and hiking and less sightseeing, really experience the outdoors,” Nash said.

And while some take this advice, others perfect the art of the “staycation” and experience what home has to offer over the summer. State parks, recreation areas, and other attractions hope to capitalize off America’s oil problem.

“We’re still optimistic,” said Grimes, “You can go virtually anywhere in Oregon and find a forest with a river running through it, there is only one Crater Lake.”

Being a $13.3 billion industry, according to the National Park Service, the economy relies heavily on the summer tourism dollars produced by the national parks.

Unfortunately, current economic ailments could further hinder the revenue taken in by national parks.

What the NPS can hope for is a smart traveler that budget their trips and use the current economic turmoil as a reason to escape rather than a motivation to stay at home.


If You Go

• Rent a fuel-efficient car to save money.
• Pack tents and intend to utilize campsites rather than RVs or lodges, it makes for a better outdoors experience as well.
• Plan your trip around a few parks you would like to spend a lot of time in to save on gas money.
• Look for free shuttles and other services that will lessen the cost of driving.

Youth programs educate about history, nature

By STEPHEN KLEIN
School of Communication
University of Miami

Every day children all across the country enjoy the opportunity to explore America’s national parks through a multitude of youth programs.

These programs differ in style, but all have the same main focus: educating children about history and nature.

“Youth programs are key to children’s education,” said Rachelle Daigneault, chief of interpretation and education at Assateague Island National Seashore in Virginia. “They offer children of all ages full immersion in an outdoor experience.”

Click on the video at right to view a slideshow narrated and prepared by writer Stephen Klein. Photos courtesy of the National Park Service.

Youth programs have become an essential part of the national parks, with most having resources dedicated to activities targeted at children. The flagship Junior Ranger Program is offered in more than 200 national parks. In addition, many parks offer their own unique programs for different youth groups.

The Junior Ranger Program offers children the opportunity to explore parks on their own as well as on ranger-guided tours. Upon the completion of the activity booklet kids can receive a patch or badge and a certificate saying that they have completed the program, and are given an oath saying they will protect and conserve the parks.

Each park offers unique experiences for Junior Rangers, ranging from programs dedicated to the historical significance of the park, to ones that focus on nature and conservation in parks. Activities can include games like connect-the-dots, to questions about specific features of the park that children need to answer.

Katie Lawhon, management assistant at Gettysburg National Military Park, hopes that the multitude of options makes their program more appealing to children.

Children take part in a reenactment of Pickett’s charge at Gettysburg National Military Park (Photo courtesy of Gettysburg National Military Park).

“Children have choices on filling out their booklets by visiting different areas of the park.”

Parks hope that by offering diverse choices in programming, they will increase child interest and get them to continue to have a lifelong interest in the national parks.

Another key program for the parks is dedicating time to bring school groups through the parks.

School groups provide the parks with a large group of children at once and allow them to spread the importance of the national parks to all of the children. By tailoring their programs to fit with the school’s curriculum, parks enable teachers to utilize them as a resource to engage the children in the learning process.

“Our programs are based on building on previous activities that happened in the classroom,” Lawhon  said.

The emphasis on programming for the youth can be directly linked to one of the biggest concerns for those who run them, which is that children will grow up and cease to be interested in the national parks when they become the taxpayers.

“It is vitally important to keep telling the story of why Gettysburg is important, it is the best way long-term to keep interest in the park. Young people are eventually going to pay the bills,” stated Lawhon.

Jeffrey Collins, the Education Program manager at Independence National Historic Park in Philadelphia shares a similar view.

At right, a school group arrives for their program at Independence National Historic Site. Below, a ranger shows a whelk egg capsule to children on a nature walk at Assateague Island National Seashore (Photos courtesy of the National Park Service).

“If kids grow up and have no interest in the parks, how are we going to be funded?”

Parks hope that by combating this potential problem head-on, they can instill a love of the parks in children that will stay with them through adulthood.

“The Junior Ranger Program is one of our most well known resources for young people --- the earlier a child has an opportunity to experience the outdoors, the more comfortable they are there,” attested Daigneault.

In order to build love of nature in children, national parks offer additional programs designed to provide different experiences to visitors. These programs include: ranger-led activities, ties to local scout troops, and the WebRangers program.

Parks offering ranger-led programs give both children and adults the opportunity to learn in an environment where they are able to ask questions and participate in bringing history and nature to life. In addition, ranger-led programs are often a requirement for completion of a parks’ Junior Ranger Program.

Local Boy Scout and Girl Scout troops often have ties with national parks as a place for camping and learning about nature. Some parks like Gettysburg actually get tied into the local councils program.

“The local Boy Scout council made a special badge for Gettysburg if boys do one of two hikes,” said Lawhon.

The WebRangers program allows children to learn online about parks and provides another outlet for parks to get their message across.

“It adds an additional platform, an additional way of reaching people,” explained Collins.

But no matter what else happens, the parks’ goal for their youth programs is for kids of all ages to have fun.

Collins has a message for children: “This is your park, please come enjoy it.”

Daigneault agrees but adds one more thing “Kids shouldn’t be afraid to get dirty. Have fun in the outdoors.”

Hiking offers pristine views, glimpses of wildlife

Lightning, smoking bring wildfires into parks

By ARIELE GALLARDO
School of Communication
University of Miami

Each year, thousands of wildfires occur, destroying forests, animal habitats, properties, and even pieces of national parks.

Although the main cause of wildfires is lightning, man-made causes such as campfires and cigarettes are becoming a bigger issue.

Whether from an unattended campfire to an automobile passenger tossing his or her cigarette butt out the window, people are causing these man-made disasters to happen rather than trying to prevent them.

Click on the video at the right to view an audio slideshow about wildfires prepared by writer Ariele Gallardo with photographs from the National Park Service.

“From the years of 1972 to 1998, there were five wildfires caused by cigarettes,” said Greg Bartin, forestry technician at Zion National Park in Utah.

The humidity levels and lack of moisture during fire season, usually from the end of June to the end of October, presents the perfect environment for a cigarette butt to ignite a flame if dropped on grass.

Kendra Mayes, Fire Program assistant at Guadalupe Mountains National Park in Texas, stated that smoking often contributes to fires.

“Tossing cigarette butts out the window of a moving vehicle should not be done. It can easily start a flame with the humidity,” she explained.

At left and below, wildfires and scenery in Zion National Park in Utah and Guadalupe Mountains National Park in Texas (Photos courtesy of National Park Service and Greg Bartin).

Each year, there is approximately $6 billion in damage from wrongly discarded cigarette butts that result in fires. To avoid their properties from being a part of that huge catastrophe, national parks take extra steps to help people prevent a wildfire from occurring.

First of all, national parks are required to adopt the local laws regarding smoking. However, there are certain aspects that each park customizes to help keep the grounds flame-free.

“We do not allow smoking inside public buildings. Smoking is allowed outdoors, except during extreme fire danger periods, when we post restrictions,” stated Greg Caffey, chief ranger at Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona.

National park policies regarding smoking usually differ from park to park; however, the opinion is mutual when the conditions during fire season are present.

Zion’s Greg Bartin stated that there are times when smoking is just not permitted.

“Smoking is allowed. However, it is banned completely when the conditions are severely dry and hot. These conditions change every year based on the amount of moisture that is present,” he explained.

In addition to placing specific smoking restrictions in areas of the park when needed, the gift shops do not sell cigarettes or any type of tobacco product.

“There are no cigarettes or tobacco product sold in the gift shops. Coming to our national park is for education purposes and that is what is sold in the gift shop, educational products and souvenirs,” stated Guadalupe’s Mayes.

Although cigarette butts are not the main cause of wildfires, they are detrimental to the environment and cause a wildfire that can be easily avoided.

Arthur Gonzales, South District fire management officer at Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona, stated that lightning is the real problem. 

“Nine out of 10 wildfires are caused by lightning,” he said.

Unfortunately, that last one has been caused by a cigarette butt or by an unattended campfire. The caused may be obscure but the verdict is clear, it was man- made.

National parks are not the only groups that are cracking down on the issue of man-made fires.

In 2001, a woman from Tampa, Gladys Louise Lewis, was arrested and taken to jail for tossing her cigarette butt out of the window of her vehicle. The arrest may have seemed a bit extreme but the issue of wildfires is very serious and is one that can be easily prevented with awareness.

Awareness about the dangers of wildfires is not something that is restricted within the borders of the United States.

Mike Barre, a citizen from British Columbia, was fined $3,000 for dropping a cigarette near a forest that started a wildfire in 2005.

The year before that in Texas, a discarded cigarette caused a 400-acre wildfire. 

These cases represent how serious a wildfire is and the measures that the government is willing to take to protect properties, forests and, most importantly, people’s lives.

Despite wildfires being a devastating force that destroys hundreds and even thousands of acres of land each year, they are a part of the natural life cycle. Old plants are burned out so new plants can emerge.

“When a wildfire occurs, we allow the fire to take it’s course because it is a natural weather phenomenon as long it is not threatening any life or property,” stated Bartin.

Prevention of wildfires is as easy as using the ashtray in your car, not throwing the butt out of the window, or remembering to extinguish a campfire.

Next time you want to throw your cigarette butt out of the window of your car, say to yourself, do I want to start the next wildfire?

Wildlife plentiful during day’s visit to park

Hostel offers affordable housing near Everglades

Enclosures help manage elk, protect vegetation

When visiting parks, restaurants offer many choices

Robert is Here offers treats for Everglades visitors

Exotic mangroves, extraordinary encounters on bay

South Floridians can enjoy ‘staycation’ by the bay

Snowy playground Hidden Valley offers adventure

Encounters with wildlife risky for visitors, animals

Park offers guided tours of Maritime Heritage Trail

Local pioneer, his family called park island home

Fascell Visitor Center steals park’s spotlight

Treasure trove of wonders await snorkelers

Near the islands, Ventura offers many hidden gems

Trail to Smugglers Cove provides panoramic views

Park fishing offers visitors a chance to slow down

Zion trails provide wide range of scenic experiences

Lodge offers central location for Zion visitors

Channel Islands geology tells of rich history

Paramount Ranch offers look into movie history

Whale watching popular activity in Channel Islands