National Parks Traveler Podcast

So much is happening so quickly to the National Park Service. There have been staff reductions, hiring freezes, spending freezes, orders from the Interior Secretary to make sure that visitors find national parks welcoming, no matter what it takes.  Every week seems to bring something new, and quite frankly dire to the National Park Service. Most recently we've heard about the loss of about 60 employees from the agency's Alaska regional office, and there are concerns the Trump administration is going to push through even greater reductions in force for the Park Service. How are those moves impacting the parks and the Park Service? Our guest today is Kristen Brengel, the Senior Vice President for Governmental Affairs at the National Parks Conservation Association. 

Is green a red and blue construct? Put another way, is there a political partisan divide over the environment? That's a particularly interesting question, no doubt more so in recent years as the country seems to have drifted farther and farther apart because of our political beliefs. To that point, a reader reached out the other day to say our stories shouldn't be negative on the Trump Administration because the national parks are going to need the help of all of us - Democrats, Republicans, Independents, and everything in-between - to survive. But are environmental issues highly partisan? For the Traveler's purpose, we'll define “environmental issues” as those focused on public lands, wildlife, clean air, clean water, and of course the national parks. To help us try to answer that question, our guest today is Caleb Scoville, a professor at Tufts University who has received an Andrew Carnegie fellowship to explore that question.

News around public lands these days seems to revolve entirely around the Trump administration. In the case of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, many of the steps the administration is taking with the operational efficiencies of the National Park Service and other land management agencies certainly are keeping PEER busy.   But what exactly is PEER, and what is their mission? For as long as the National Parks Traveler has been in existence, going back 20 years, stories recounting PEER and its lawsuits against land-management agencies have appeared frequently in our coverage. To explain the nonprofit organization's role, our guest today is Tim Whitehouse, PEER's executive director. 

True birders are some of the most determined and persistent hobbyists out there. If you want to call bird watching a hobby. For many, it's more like a passion. Many look forward to “Big Day” competitions, where individuals and teams strive to see how many different bird species they can spot in a 24-hour period. Many birders log their sightings and identifications in eBird, a smartphone application created by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the National Audubon Society. The good news is that millions of birders use this app. The concerning news is that their bird sightings over a recent 14-year-period point to population declines in 75 percent of North American bird species. To learn more about this news, we've invited Dr. Amanda Rodewald from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Cornell University to join us today.

It's fair to say that the nation's public lands, those managed by the National Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Forest Service and other federal land-management agencies are at risk under the Trump administration. There's no hyperbole in that statement if you pay attention to what the administration already has done in terms of downsizing those agencies' workforces, and when you listen to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum say he wants to open more public lands to energy development and mining. Federal lands in the United States are owned by all Americans, but at various times there have been efforts to wrench those lands away from the government to give to the states or sell off. Walt Dabney spent his professional career protecting public lands during his decades-long stint with the National Park Service and then as director of the Texas State Parks. Now he is working to educate Americans on their vested interest in those lands and what could be lost if Congress or the White House tries to get rid of them. 

The first 100 days of President Donald Trump's second term might be the most tumultuous first 100 days of any president. He certainly came in prepared to move his agenda forward, no matter what barriers to it existed. We don't usually discuss presidential politics, but President Trump has released a blizzard of executive orders and directives touching all corners of the federal government, including the National Park Service. What we have seen so far is the loss of perhaps 2,500 Park Service employees, and along with them some crucial institutional knowledge. Any day we expect to hear of a further reduction in force of the Park Service. The president and the Republican Congress have also taken aim at environmental laws and regulations, determined it seems to weaken the Endangered Species Act, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, among others, and there's been talk about selling off federal lands.  And, of course, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has made it clear he wants to see more coal mined and more oil and gas reserves tapped. The administration also is taking aim at agency responses to climate change, and the president has ordered the militarization of federal lands – including national park lands – along the country's southern border with Mexico. To get a take on what's going on and what the impacts might be, we're joined today by U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman, the ranking Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee.

There has been much upheaval in the National Park Service this year, with firings, then rehires, and staff deciding to retire now rather than risk sticking around and being fired. There have been fears that more Park Service personnel are about to be let go through a reduction in force.  While Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has ordered the Park Service to ensure that parks are properly to support the operating hours and needs of each park unit,” that message said nothing about protecting park resources.  Among all this upheaval the question that goes begging is whether the Interior Department is as concerned about protecting natural resources, including wildlife, as it is about seeing that visitors have a good national park experience? Our guest today is Dr. Michael Soukup, who during his National Park Service career served as the agency's chief scientist. When he joined the Park Service in 1975 Dr. Soukup, a distinguished coastal ecologist, biologist and researcher, brought a clear vision for natural resource stewardship that would be embraced throughout the NPS and supported by visitors and local citizens.    He was directly responsible for launching the Natural Resource Challenge, a $100 million funding initiative that brought the protection of natural resources of the parks to the forefront. 

George Melendez Wright was a brilliant young scientist with the National Park Service back in the 1920s and 1930s. You could say he was ahead of his time, in that he wanted the Park Service to take a holistic role in how wildlife in the parks was managed. While Wright tragically left the world too young when he was killed in a car crash in 1936, his name lives on today in the George Wright Society, a nonprofit organization that is focused on stewardship of parks, protected & conserved areas, cultural sites, and other kinds of place-based conservation. Our guest today is Dave Harmon, executive director of the society. We'll be back in a minute with Dave to learn more about the society and the role it plays.

One of the greatest shows on Earth has been going on now for several months in Hawaii, where the Kīlauea volcano at Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park has been erupting since late December. The Kīlauea volcano is the most active volcano on Earth. It's also a relatively safe volcano in that it spends most of its time simmering and bubbling without any spectacularly explosive eruptions. But lately it has been putting on some incredible shows of lava fountains, with one glowing string of magma soaring about 1,000 feet in the air, a truly spectacular sight to see.  To understand what's going on with Kīlauea and what danger it poses, we're joined today by Matt Patrick, a research geologist with the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory.

There are more stories to be found in the National Park System than one could write in a lifetime. Or several lifetimes. Sometimes those stories can be hard to spot. How many were aware of the factoid from Great Smoky Mountains National Park that Jennifer Bain dug up, that if you stacked up all of the park's salamanders against its roughly 1,900 black bears, the salamanders would weigh more? Talk about national park trivia. We're going to talk about stories in the parks today with Kim O'Connell and Rita Beamish, two long-tenured writers for the Traveler. The ones they're currently working on are pretty interesting.

In this week's podcast we thought we'd take a break from the unsettling news happening in and around our national parks and federal lands regarding park staff reductions and threats of reducing park boundaries to make way for mining.   Instead, the Traveler's Lynn Riddick catches up with a former scientist who's now a comedian to hear about his experiences during his artist-in-residency program at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park on the Big Island of Hawaii.  Selected for the residency by the National Parks Arts Foundation, Ben Miller spent a month with park staff and scientists to absorb as much as possible about Hawaiian culture, landscapes and history. The end result was a comedy routine designed specifically for Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park.

There is, across the country, some upheaval going on as the Trump administration works to reduce the size of the federal government. Whether you support that effort or oppose it, you can't deny there's not upheaval going on. That upheaval has hit all federal government agencies. At the National Park Service, seasonal ranger job offers were rescinded back in January. Roughly 1,000 probationary employees were fired on Valentine's Day. Another 700-1000 Park Service employees took up the administration's offer to resign now, but stay on the payroll through the end of the fiscal year. And this week the Park Service and other government agencies are expected to send their plans for a reduction-in-force to the administration. To discuss these developments, we've invited Rick Mossman, president of the Association of National Park Rangers, to join us.

Across the United States there are hundreds of millions of acres of public lands. Indeed, there are more than 500 million acres of federal lands managed by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Forest Service, and the National Park Service, just to name the three largest land managers in federal government. A majority of those lands, the 245 million acres managed by the BLM and the 193 million managed by the Forest Service, are managed for multiple use. Logging, mining, recreation, and even official wilderness. The National Park Service lands, of course, are primarily managed for conservation of natural resources and enjoyment by you, the visitors. But the Trump administration has an eye on some of those lands for energy development and mining, whether that's oil and gas production or hard-rock mining. To better understand what's at stake under that strategy we're joined today by Dan Hartinger, the senior director of agency policy at the Wilderness Society.

It was just over a week ago, on Valentine's Day, that the Trump administration wiped 1,000 employees off the National Park Service staff without any apparent strategy other than that they were dispensable staff still on probation and so lacking any real protection for being fired without cause. Those cuts swept across the 433 units of the National Park System, taking custodial workers, scientists, even lawyers. Today we're joined by one of the 1,000 who lost their jobs, Angela Moxley, who was just ten days shy of clearing probation when she lost her job at Harpers Ferry National Historical Park in West Virginia. Angela was a botanist, one of the many Park Service employees who you're not likely to encounter in a park, but as you'll hear, one whose job is just as vital as that of the park interpreter who takes you for a hike.

The Trump administration's determination to reduce the size of government regardless of the cost is having a hard impact on the National Park Service.   Last month the agency was forced to rescind job offers to seasonal workers, saw a hold placed on millions of dollars distributed through the Biden administration's Inflation Reduction Act to address climate change, been told to prepare a reduction-in-force list of employees, and ordered  to "hire no more than one employee for every four" let go.   There was a wee bit of good news late last week, with the decision Friday to allow the Park Service to hire 5,000 seasonal workers. But at the same time, the agency was told to fire 1,000 probationary workers.   Discussing these developments and their impact on the parks and the Park Service are Kristen Brengel, senior vice president of government affairs for the National Parks Conservation Association, and Phil Francis, chair of the Coalition to Protect America's National Parks. 

National parks are home to many iconic trees. Bristlecones pines, Whitebark pines, Sequoias, even mangroves. And, of course, redwoods. These trees hold many stories. The size alone of redwoods and sequoias are enough to hold your attention. But there are backstories, as well. In the case of redwoods along the Northern California coast, the backstory can be heart breaking. There are chapters of logging fever, of course, as well as of political machinations, and stories of loss. Greg King presents the stories swirling around Redwoods in his book, The Ghost Forest: Racists, Radicals, and Real Estate in the California Redwoods. One particularly interesting chapter for national park lovers is that Newton B. Drury, the 4th director of the National Park Service, actually worked against the creation of Redwood National Park.

Rising sea levels, stronger storms, eroding shorelines, and sinking terrain are taking a toll on the fragile ecosystems and historic resources at Cape Lookout National Seashore on the Outer Banks of North Carolina.  A new study by the U.S. Geological Survey takes a close look at these threats and predicts how they will impact the national seashore over the coming years.   Climate change impacts are happening across the country, reaching into most, if not all, units of the National Park System. Sea level rise is particularly concerning because you just can't up and move a park, and if that park is on an island, well, high water is coming.   This week the Traveler's Lynn Riddick talks with Cape Lookout Superintendent Jeff West and authors of the USGS study about the challenges the National Park Service faces in creating sustainable coastal management practices for Cape Lookout.

Here we are, a week into the second administration of President Donald Trump. It's certainly a time of change, some of which is expected, and some perhaps not. Do we really need to rename North America's tallest mountain, Denali in Denali National Park and Preserve? There is much going on in the federal government, and not all is good. Hiring freezes are underway. There's much talk about reducing the federal budget, which requires cutting agency funding.  To try to gain some clarity on what's beginning to go on and what impacts it might have on the National Park System and the National Park Service, we're joined today by Kristen Brengel, Senior Vice President of Government Affairs for the National Parks Conservation Association.

There are sounds that wake you up out of a deep sleep, only to be dismissed as you fall back to sleep. And then there are sounds that rivet you, make you sit bolt upright. That was the type of sound that woke us while we were deep in the backcountry of Yellowstone National Park. Sunrise hadn't yet come, yet we were wide awake, listening to one of the most mesmerizing sounds you can encounter in the wilds: The melodious rising and falling howl of a wolf. It was late summer in 2008 when two friends and I were lucky enough to catch that howling. Had it been 20 years earlier, there would have been an audible hole in the park sky because there were no wolves in Yellowstone in 1988.  It was an effort launched early in the 1990s that returned the predators to the park in January 12, 1995 – 30 years ago – when 14 wolves trapped in Canada were brought into Yellowstone to kick off an audacious effort to see healthy wolf packs loping through the park. How have they done? To find out, our guest today is Eric Clewis, the Northern Rockies senior representative for Defenders of Wildlife.

We're five days into 2025, and already there's a lot of news concerning national parks and the National Park Service. Traveler Editor-in-Chief Kurt Repanshek is joined today by Contributing Editor Kim O'Connell to discuss  the Traveler's 4th Annual Threatened and Endangered Park Series and other recent park-related news.

Many of us like to take a walk in our favorite national park, whether it's a short stroll down one of the boardwalks at Yellowstone National Park, the hike to the top of Old Rag at Shenandoah National Park, or up the Mist Trail at Yosemite National Park, we like to get out and experience parks up close. As you might imagine, there are walks in the National Park System, and then there are walks. Kevin Fedarko and his photographic sidekick Pete McBride took one of those “other” hikes in Grand Canyon National Park. And it didn't initially go as planned. While Fedarko raised some serious blisters on his feet that required duct tape to protect, McBride almost needed a medical evacuation from the backcountry.  Still, the hike - or rather hikes - generated a compelling book from Fedarko titled, appropriately enough, “A Walk in the Park: The True Story of a Spectacular Misadventure in the Grand Canyon”.

There are across the country more than 430 units of the National Park System. And no doubt, most of us are only familiar with the so-called name brand parks. Places like Shenandoah, Acadia, Everglades, Yellowstone, Yosemite, the Grand Canyon… But just because you're not already familiar with a park unit doesn't mean you should write it off your to-do list. While I am familiar with the names of most park units due to my day job, I haven't had the chance to visit them all just yet. Being a lover of water and paddling, when I consider going for a break from the keyboard, I often have a requirement that water is required. And while I haven't been there yet, I am intrigued by St. Croix National Scenic Riverway in Wisconsin and Minnesota, and its two rivers.  Today I'm going to learn a little bit more about this interesting park and share with you my conversation with Nate Toering, the park's Director of Communications and Education. 

Elephant seals are not your small, cuddly marine mammals. They are behemoths. Males, known as bulls, can reach 5,000 pounds, while females, known as cows, routinely clock in at around 1,000 pounds or so.   If you're a wildlife watcher, now is the time to check elephant seals off your life list. Between December and March, they come en masse to Point Reyes National Seashore in California to give birth and mate again. But they don't come ashore to simply laze about and soak up the sun when it's shining. Males are building their harems much like bull elk do, and that can sometimes lead to fights between these ponderous animals.   To learn more about elephant seals, how they spend their days, and where you can see them at Point Reyes, we're joined today by Sarah Codde, a marine ecologist at the national seashore.

Most, if not all of us, have bucket lists. Places we want to visit…but don't always get the opportunity.   This is Kurt Repanshek, your host at the National Parks Traveler. One of the destinations on my bucket list is Gates of Arctic National Park and Preserve and the Noatak River that runs through it. A week or two floating the river sounds pretty ideal to me.   While it's debatable whether I'll cross that off my bucket list remains to be seen, today's guest has floated the river more than once and backpacked all over Gates of the Arctic. And Jon Waterman returned from those trips with incredible stories of the places he saw, the people he met, and the wildlife that came in range of his eyes.   But over the course of several decades Jon also has witnessed the impact of climate change to the region, and it hasn't been good. It's the main thread of a story he lays out in his latest book, Into the Thaw.

Change happens…and sometimes it doesn't.   Change certainly is underway in Washington, where the incoming Trump administration is putting its players in position with promises of changing, or maybe upsetting, the status quo.    Against that, the National Park Service continues to face long-standing problems with not enough staff or funding, compounded by National Park System damage from hurricanes, tornadoes, sea level rise, wildfires, just about everything under the sun.   We're going to explore those topics today with Phil Francis from the Coalition to Protect America's National Parks and John Garder and Chad Lord from the National Parks Conservation Association.

As the calendar runs down on the current session of Congress, there are a number of pieces of legislation that would involve or possibly impact the National Park System if they find their way into an omnibus lands bill that gains passage before the session adjourns.   While we haven't seen exactly what might find their way into an omnibus lands bill, among the candidates are legislation that would turn Chiricahua National Monument into a national park, one that would create a “designated operating partner” to oversee the Appalachian National Scenic Trail, and another that calls for a Benton MacKaye National Scenic Trail feasibility study.   There's also pending legislation that would approve expansion of Big Bend National Park by about 6000 acres, one that would transform Apostle Islands National Lakeshore into Apostle Islands National Park and Preserve,  and one that, if passed, would forbid any official wilderness designation to be bestowed on Big Cpress National Preserve.   We're going to take a look at the Big Bend, Apostle Islands, and Big Cypress measures today with Bob Krumenaker, who, during his 40+ years with the National Park Service, was superintendent of both Apostle Islands National Lakeshore and Big Bend National Park and served a stint as acting superintendent of Everglades National Park, which adjoins Big Cypress National Preserve.

The vulnerable red-cockaded woodpecker is known to be found in national park units throughout the southeast.  Big Cypress National Preserve and Everglades National Park in Florida, Cumberland Island National Seashore in Georgia, and Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee are just a few of the parks that either are, or once were, home to the woodpecker. Recently the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service moved to downlist the red-cockaded woodpecker from being an endangered species to being threatened. While that normally would be welcome news, the decision has been criticized as being premature and ignorant of climate-change threats to the species.   This week the Traveler's Lynn Riddick discusses this decision with the southeast program director of Defenders of Wildlife…and the thinking behind that organization's belief that this decision comes at a questionable time.

Humans like to play, right? We play cards, we play baseball and basketball, we go fishing or take a hike into the mountains. It's our play time, time to recharge, refocus, relax.   Did you know animals like to play, too? And many times, our playgrounds infringe on wildlife habitat. But how does that affect their behavior? Does it affect their behavior? Today's guest, Dr. Joel Berger, a wildlife biologist based at Colorado State University but who considers the world's wild places as his playground, joins us today to talk about our human recreation and the impacts it has on wildlife.

Whether this is your first listen of our weekly podcast or number 299, welcome and thank you for listening. We hope you find these episodes interesting and present information or a side to the parks that you previously didn't know about. Frankly, that's the approach that we try to take at the Traveler. Not only to provide newsworthy information, such as National Park Service funding for hurricane impacts, but also to highlight aspects of the National Park System that you may not have been aware of. For example, take Jennifer Bain's story from Oregon Cave National Monument and Preserve, and its collection of purely American Monterey furniture, or Barbara Jensen's article from Cuyahoga Valley National Park and the Ohio and Eerie Canal Towpath there. Or Sharon McDonald's piece on the Eugene O'Neill National Historic Site in California.  Today, we're joined by contributors Kim O'Connell and Lynn Riddick to talk about the unusual, and at times eclectic content that you'll find on the Traveler.

The Natchez Trace Parkway is a scenic byway that rolls 440 miles through Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee. A unit of the National Park Service,  the trace winds its way through lush landscapes, diverse ecosystems and interesting historical sites.    Originally the trace was a foot path for Native Americans and later used by early pioneers and traders. Today it's popular for motorists, cyclists and others seeking adventure, tranquility and a peek into America's past.     Most recently, it was the chosen location for a remarkable initiative by four women interested in promoting living kidney donations. All living kidney donors themselves, these women tackled the parkway's entire 444 miles, beginning in Nashville, Tennessee, and finishing in Natchez, Mississippi….and did it in only four days.     This week the Traveler's Lynn Riddick visits with these donor athletes to learn about their journey that they call ”4Women 4Kidneys 444Miles 4Days” and also to get a sense of what the Natchez Trace Parkway can offer to everyone.

The National Trail System in the United States spans many thousands of miles of foot trail. The crown jewels of that system, of course, are the Appalachian National Scenic Trail, the Continental Divide Trail, and the Pacific Crest Trail. While the adventurous might look at those long trails and set their sights on hiking one end from end, not all manage to complete the journey. Many become disillusioned after days spent hiking in the rain, or because they become homesick, or because of the blisters that sprout on their feet. And some simply vanish. Today we're joined by New York Times Bestselling author Andrea Lankford to talk about her book, Trail of the Lost, the Relentless Search to Bring home the Missing Hikers of the Pacific Crest Trail. It's an incredible story Andrea has researched and woven together around three young men seemingly determined to go end to end on that trail. 

Crime happens, even in national parks, national forests, and other public lands. There are murders, thefts, robberies and all sorts of crime that we'd hope to escape by heading into the kingdom of public lands.   It can be hard to accept that national parks are not immune from criminals and crimes. Just this past Fourth of July there was a horrific incident in Yellowstone National Park when a concessions employees armed with an automatic rifle threatened to go on a killing spree. Law enforcement rangers who responded prevented that from happening, killing the man in the process, but it really underscored the reality that parks are not immune from crime.   To learn more about “crime off the grid,” we're joined today by Tara Ross and Nancy Martinz, former law enforcement rangers in Yellowstone who these days work to educate the public about crime on public lands via their podcast, Crime off the Grid.

Who could have predicted that Hurricane Helene would carry her fury from the Gulf of Mexico and the coast of Florida hundreds of miles north into Appalachia? While there were forecasts calling for the hurricane to be downgraded to a tropical storm and drop quite a bit of rain in the region, the extent of damage in western North Carolina has been breathtaking. Jacqueline Harp had her hands full when she took over as CEO of Smokies Life, a nonprofit organization that works with the National Park Service to develop educational and interpretive materials for Great Smoky Mountains National Park. She had barely settled into that job when Helene reached North Carolina. We've invited Jacki to join us today both to learn how recovery efforts are going in the national park, and to discuss her new role and ambitions with Smokies Life.

The coastal town of Rodanthe, North Carolina is just a small spot on the map, but it's a big place in the hearts of the people who live, own property, and vacation there. Located along Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Rodanthe has been in the national spotlight because of a succession of houses that have fallen into the Atlantic Ocean due to beach erosion. There have been ten houses affected in the past four years, and five this year alone.  As the Traveler and other national media outlets have reported, every time a beach house succumbs to the sea, it creates a massive debris field that is carried down the shore for miles, posing serious hazards to people, flora and fauna alike. Residents have described the phenomenon as a slow-motion hurricane.  In addition to the ongoing discussions about other at-risk houses, there is the very real issue of cleanup. The National Park Service brings in contractors who take out debris in truckloads, but that doesn't mean that local residents are just standing idly by. Recently Traveler correspondent Kim O'Connell had the pleasure of interviewing local Tom Brueckner the day before he was set to join a group of residents to do a big beach cleanup as part of the National Park Service's newly launched Adopt-A-Beach program.

Concessions are the backbone of the National Park System. True, the National Park Service manages the parks and the wildlife and the visitors, but the concessionaires provide you with a bed, or campsite, to sleep in, restaurants to dine in, and gift shops to browse in. Xanterra Parks and Resorts is one of the key players in the national park concessions industry. They operate lodges in Yellowstone, Crater Lake, Death Valley, Glacier, Grand Canyon and, until the end of this year, Zion National Park. A newcomer on the park concessions scene is POWDR Corp., a self-branded adventure company most tied to snow sports. This past January, however, POWDR took over the concessions at Stovepipe Wells Village in Death Valley National Park, and this coming January it'll be operating concessions at Zion National Park.  To learn more about POWDR and why it's seeking opportunities in the National Park System, we've invited Justin Sibley, the company's CEO, to discuss the transition. We'll be back in a minute with Justin.

The National Park System is an incredible reservoir of wildlife, from charismatic animals such as grizzly bears, bison and wolves, to animals such as moose, and pronghorn and sea turtles that, while not usually labeled as charismatic, are indeed just that.   Wolves certainly fall under the charismatic megafauna classification. They're majestic and mystifying, and perhaps even lend some romanticism to your backcountry adventures if you are lucky enough to hear a pack howling in chorus after sundown.    While it's well-known that Yellowstone National Park and Isle Royale National Park have wolf populations, you might not know that Voyageurs National Park also has a resident population of the predators. To learn more about the wolves at Voyageurs National Park and their behavior, we're joined today by Dr. Thomas Gable, the project lead for the Voyageurs Wolf Project. 

It was back in 1967 when the Congress chartered the National Park Foundation to serve as the official charity of the National Park Service, and over the decades it has raised millions of dollars for the parks.   The Foundation is in the midst of its Campaign for National Parks, a billion-dollar campaign that has already raised $815 million. A big chunk of that total came from a recent $100 million grant that greatly moved the foundation closer to its billion-dollar goal.   To discuss the campaign, how the money is raised and where it's being spent, we're joined today by Will Shafroth, the president and CEO of the National Park Foundation.

Have you ever been to Mammoth Cave National Park? It's really not that impressive, is it. Sure, it's more than 425 miles long, but only about 10 miles are open to the public. Mammoth Cave is indeed a big, dark hole in the ground. And apparently there are a fair number of visitors to the national park in Kentucky who are not impressed with the cave and its underground artworks created by dripstones, stalactites, and stalagmites. In fact, a recent survey ranked Mammoth Cave as the third-most disappointing destination in America. Really? To get the park's response, we're joined today by Molly Schroer, the park's management analyst. We'll be back in a minute with Molly.

From Maine to Florida, coastal units of the National Park System are being impacted in various ways by the changing climate. Some of the impacts affect wildlife, some natural resources, and some the human populations who either live in or come to visit these beautiful areas. At the National Parks Traveler. We've been working on a series of stories looking at these changes that are showing up. In recent shows we've discussed impacts to manatees that live in the waters of Everglades and Biscayne national parks as well as Cumberland Island National Seashore, and how sea level rise is impacting salt marshes that are vital for wildlife and which serve as buffers to hurricanes and tropical storms. At Acadia National Park in Maine, the impacts are materializing in various ways.  Rainstorms are becoming heavier and more damaging, invasive species such as the Asian shore crab are showing up in the waters of Frenchman Bay, and the number of bird species that winter on Mount Desert Island have decreased. To take a closer look at these changes, we're joined by Nick Fisichelli, the president and CEO of the Schoodic Institute, a nonprofit science center based on the national park's Schoodic Peninsula to discuss some of the impacts that have arrived and the research being done to better understand them. 

When you hear the word volcano, where in the world do you think of? Mount Vesuvious in Italy? Mount Fuji in Japan? Maybe Cotopaxi in Ecuador? Do you ever think of Lassen Peak?   The National Park System is full of volcanoes. Some active, some dormant, some extinct. They all have fascinating stories to tell.    There was a series of eruptions of Lassen Peak in Northern California between 1914 and 1917, with the 1915 eruption largely playing a role in the establishment of Lassen Volcanic National Park.  Today we're going to be discussing Lassen Peak and its volcanism along with Andy Calvert, the scientist-in-charge of the California Volcano Observatory, and Jessica Ball, the observatory's volcano hazards and communication specialist. 

It's hard to believe, but it's been four years since Congress passed the Great American Outdoors Act and President Trump signed it into law. Under that legislation, the National Park Service has been receiving $1.3 billion a year to pay for tackling the National Park System's maintenance backlog. When the Great American Outdoors Act was passed, it was given a five-year life. That means it will have to be reauthorized next year to keep the program going. It's had wide-ranging impacts, paying for things like roadwork on the Blue Ridge Parkway, new bridges at Yellowstone National Park, improved campgrounds in the park system, and new interpretation. But will the GAOA get renewed, and what's the process to get there? To examine the benefits of the legislation, and talk about the steps being taken to reauthorize the legislation, we're joined today by Eric Stiles, president and CEO of Friends of Acadia, Kristen Brengel, the senior vice president for government affairs at the National Parks Conservation Association, and Phil Francis, chair of the Coalition to Protect America's National Parks. 

Manatees are some of the most unusual looking wildlife creatures that you'll find in coastal units of the National Park System, places like Everglades National Park, Biscayne National Park and Cumberland Island National Seashore.    They are huge – the largest on record reportedly tipped the scales at 3500 pounds and was 13 feet long – and rather bulbous looking.    But manatees are also an endangered species under the Endangered Species Act. There are many threats to manatees along the Southeastern coastline of the United States, from power boaters to shrinking shorelines, and even climate change impacts.   To learn more about these interesting mammals and the struggles they face to build their populations, we're joined today by Tiare Fridlich, a manatee biologist with the Save the Manatee Club. 

What is it about grizzly bears that intrigues us, or scares us? They are magnificent apex predators that long have been vilified by some while admired by others. Enter the National Park System and you often will find yourself in a landscape with bears. In the East you'll find black bears in Great Smoky Mountains, Shenandoah, and Acadia national parks, just to name three destinations with the bruins. Head west and many parks have black bears roaming the countryside, with a few parks also being home to grizzlies. In today's show we're going to be talking bears, mainly grizzly bears, with Kevin Grange, a Wyoming writer who has a book coming in September called Grizzly Confidential. It's an interesting read that opens many windows into bears and their mannerisms and how they interact with humans.

One of the most troublesome aspects of heading out into national parks, national forests, and other federal lands for camping, paddling, or climbing – as well as many other recreational pursuits – is the rising tide of fees to do so.  There are reservation fees, cancellation fees, fees to change the date of your trip, even fees to gain a priority position to pay a fee for a permit.  Are these fees, generated through your use of the recreation.gov website that handles most, if not all, of the transactions, reasonable? It's a question the Traveler has followed for a good number of years now, and it doesn't look like a satisfactory answer will be coming soon. Recently a U.S. senator from California, Alex Padilla, introduced legislation calling for an investigation into the fees these reservations cost the American public. Among the groups hoping that legislation eventually is signed into law is American Whitewater, which advocates for the protection and preservation of whitewater rivers and works to enhance opportunities to enjoy them safely. Joining us today is Evan Stafford, American Whitewater's communication's director, to discuss recreation.gov and explain his organization's interest in this legislation. At the end of the show, if you're interested in seeing Sen. Padilla's legislation move forward, here's the link to the Easy Action page Evan mentioned for contacting your senators.

Along 1,600 miles of the Eastern Seaboard, from Maine to Florida, sea level rise, subsidence, and more potent storms are challenging the National Park Service to figure out how best to protect wildlife and their habitats, as well as historic structures, archaeological sites, modern infrastructure, landscapes, and, of course, visitors. In the coming months, the National Parks Traveler will be examining impacts tied to climate change and how the National Park Service is responding to them. We'll bring you the concerns of residents and communities that are left with the damage from hurricanes and the loss of tax revenues from tourism and trace the strain these events have on the Park Service staff and budget. We'll also talk to experts about how natural landscapes, such as barrier reefs and salt marshes, and wildlife are being impacted. We're going to have one of those conversations today with two experts from The Nature Conservancy: Dr. Alison Branco, TNC's Climate Adaptation Director, and Dr. Nicole Maher, the organization's Senior Coastal Scientist.

There is never a shortage of stories to follow across the National Park System, whether you're in the West at Olympic National Park, the Northeast at Acadia National Park, or the Southwest at Grand Canyon National Park.   This week, Contributing Editor Kim O'Connell is down in North Carolina to spend a few days at Cape Hatteras National Seashore, which has no shortage of news to report on, whether it's leatherback sea turtles nesting, the restoration of Cape Hatteras Light, or the collapse of houses into the Atlantic Ocean at Rodanthe. Kim is working on a number of those stories for the Traveler, and we're going to check in with her today to learn what she's discovering. 

In the remote wilderness of the Brooks Mountain Range in Alaska, where untamed rivers wind through vast expanses of tundra and towering mountains, a peculiar and alarming phenomenon is taking place. Since 2017 at least 75 pristine waterways, which once shimmered with crystalline clarity, have taken on a haunting hue of orange and now contain very concerning toxic metals and minerals. As speculation gives way to investigation, a team of researchers has been looking at the region's rapidly thawing permafrost—a phenomenon they suspect may hold the key to unraveling this disturbing transformation.  This week the Traveler's Lynn Riddick talks with key scientists with the National Park Service and the University of California Davis on their new study that investigates these altered headwater tributaries, including ones in five national parks and a number of other protected areas. Among their findings are impacts to aquatic life, ecosystems, drinking water and the locals who rely on fishing for subsistence.

Have you ever wanted to scratch beneath the surface of a national park and gain a better understanding of the issues the National Park Service is challenged with? Or to see what research is being conducted, or understand what goals are being chased? The staff at Grand Teton National Park just released their 2024 Grand Glimpse of the Park and the many issues and challenges park staff, and even visitors, face. To dive into that report, we're joined by Grand Teton National Park Superintendent Chip Jenkins.

As the National Mammal and a symbol closely tied to the National Park Service and the national parks, bison are highly revered in the United States. But that doesn't mean they're free of controversy. Recently the staff at Yellowstone National Park released the Final Environmental Impact Statement on a bison management plan for the park. The preferred alternative in that plan calls for a bison herd ranging in number between "about 3,500 to 6,000 animals after calving." It also calls for a continuation of the transfer of bison to tribal lands via the Bison Conservation Transfer Program, and continuation of both a "tribal treaty harvest" and public hunting outside the park to regulate numbers. But is that a good plan? We're going to discuss that today with Erik Molvar, the executive director of the Western Watersheds Project which long has followed how the Park Service has managed bison in Yellowstone. 

There is so much rich history across the National Park System, from chapters of the Revolutionary War held in parks in the eastern half of the country to stories from the gold rush that stampeded through Alaska during the late 1890s.   This is Kurt Repanshek, your host at The National Parks Traveler. I've always been fascinated with history. And when you look at parks in the eastern half of the country, the reservoir is so much deeper than in the western half if only for the reason that more was written down.   Michael Aday has a similar passion for history, and has a great job to soak in it. He is, after all, the archivist or librarian at Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Recently he came out with a book, Letters from the Smokies, which is built around 300 years of written down history that's held in the park's archives.

Recently I read “The Wolverine Way”, by Douglas Chadwick. It's a book from 2012 that really dives into the lives of wolverines, a small mammal with a cantankerous reputation that the US Fish and Wildlife Service late last year announced would be a threatened species. The book is a fascinating biography, if you will, of wolverines. Chadwick has an engaging writing style and Glacier National Park provides a fascinating backdrop for the story, two things that keep the story flowing.  One thing that he mentions that struck me is how important Glacier National Park is for the wolverines survival. He notes that the surrounding national forests offer much the same habitat that wolverines need, but points out that the national forests don't provide the same protection from hunting and trapping that national parks do.  Of course, with wolverines gaining protection under the Endangered Species Act as a threatened species, the animals will have the same protections in national forests and other public lands.  Still, do we sometimes take for granted the protections that national parks provide for species that are either losing habitat elsewhere, or don't have the same protections from hunting and development that the parks provide? To continue this discussion, we're joined by Kent Redford, who runs Archipelago Consulting, through which he helps individuals and organizations improve their practice of conservation, and Bart Melton and Ryan Valdez from the National Parks Conservation Association. Bart is a senior director of NPCA's Wildlife Program, while Ryan is the Association's Senior Director for Conservation Science and Policy.