[…] admission fees are charged, they make up a small portion of the cost of the average park visit — just 3 percent according to visitor data from “destination” parks like Yellowstone and Yosemite. For a typical family visit, expenses for transportation, lodging, and food will swamp the cost of park fees. Truly making parks accessible to low-income […]
Grizzly bear with cub in Yellowstone National Park. Courtesy of Frank van Manen / USGS. It comes as no surprise that environmental groups filed a lawsuit in U.S. district court on August 29 to stop delisting of the grizzly bear as a threatened species. According to WildEarth Guardians, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s decision on July […]
[…] hunting. Ultimately, our goal is to stitch together 3.5 million acres of both private and public land in the region—an area more than twice the size of Yellowstone National Park. Once these fragmented public and private lands are connected, the reserve will provide a continuous land area collaboratively managed for wildlife and recreation, the […]
[…] or reduced in size. Especially in the crosshairs of the review were Bears Ears, created by President Obama in 2017 at 1.35 million acres—half the size of Yellowstone—and Grand Staircase-Escalante, created by President Clinton in 1996 at 1.9 million acres—bigger than Glacier. Though his report has not been made public, it is likely to […]
[…] the past 15 years, the organization has acquired and protected 300,000 acres of grassland and hopes to grow the reserve to 3.5 million acres — more than Yellowstone, Yosemite and Grand Teton combined. By working with private property owners rather than against them, these environmental gains are accomplished in a civil manner and are […]
[…] no one,” Zinke said in a speech to Interior Department employees in March. One place the secretary might look for lessons in innovative land management is the Yellowstone-like wonderland in northern New Mexico called the Valles Caldera. Encompassing more than 139 square miles of high country in the Jemez Mountains, the Valles Caldera’s vast […]
[…] here? National parks are incredibly cheap for such incredible and popular attractions. The most visited park—Great Smoky Mountain National Park—is free and a week-long pass to both Yellowstone and Grand Teton is $50 per vehicle. As a point of comparison, Disneyland starts at $100 per person per day. Raising fees could help reduce overcrowding and […]
[…] Prairie Reserve, a non-profit organization working to create a nature preserve that, when completed, will encompass an area of Montana’s northern plains 1.5 times the size of Yellowstone National Park. The reserve raises funds to purchase private lands and also works to obtain leases on public lands. So far, American Prairie Reserve is home […]
[…] efforts to reintroduce large wildlife such as the Smokies elk. Many such strategies have helped mitigate clashes farther west, as with wolves and bison in and around Yellowstone National Park, although the presence of such species remains controversial in many places. The key to ensuring that a successful conservation story doesn’t devolve into spite-killings […]
[…] featuring artwork of wolves were sold for $30 apiece to help raise funds and make the program sustainable. The organization used the same strategy for ranchers near Yellowstone when wolves were reintroduced to that park in the 1990s. More recently, a handful of conservation groups helped pay for fencing for landowners who want to […]