National Parks Traveler Podcast

What is the fate of the critically endangered Kemp's Ridley Sea Turtle? This smallest of the sea turtle species glides among the sea grasses and coral reefs of the Gulf of Mexico, and nests predominantly along the shores of Mexico, with a growing number of turtles nesting on Padre Island National Seashore in Texas. Hopes for this sea turtle's recovery weigh heavily on the national seashore's programs and budgeting, which are also threatened and endangered. Dr. Donna Shaver, one of the world's foremost sea turtle experts, nurtured the seashore's sea turtle science program for the past 22 years. However, for the past five years she's been battling to save the program, and her position, at Padre Island National Seashore. National Park Service officials would not allow us to discuss the plight of the Kemp's Ridley Sea Turtle with Dr. Shaver. Instead, the Traveler's Lynn Riddick talks this week with research scientist Nathan Putman. He's involved in studies of the Kemp's Ridley to understand more about this intriguing species.

During a typical summer day at Yellowstone National Park roughly 3,000 vehicles enter through the North Entrance and head down to Mammoth Hot Springs so their passengers can begin their park adventure. Up until June 2022 their route took them along the Gardner River. But that all changed on June 13, 2022, when a once-in-500-years rainstorm, falling on top of snow cover, sent waters rampaging down the Yellowstone, Lamar, and Gardner rivers. Those flood waters took out sections of both the northeast and north entrance roads in the park. While the gaps in the Northeast Entrance Road were patched relatively quickly, the North Entrance Road through Gardiner Canyon remains closed to traffic. Instead, vehicles are temporarily using the Old Gardiner Road, a stagecoach route that was relatively quickly rehabilitated to handle vehicle traffic. Since the flood, the National Park Service has been looking for a permanent route from Gardiner Montana, to Mammoth Hot Springs that would avoid going all the way through the Gardiner Canyon. Yellowstone Superintendent Cam Sholly joins us today to explain the decision-making that has gone into finding that route.

A dramatic battle is being waged on the flanks of Halealakā National Park to save rare Honeycreeper birds that exist only in Hawaii. It's believed that the 50-odd known living or extinct species of honeycreepers all evolved from a single colonizing ancestor that arrived on Hawaii, the world's most remote island group, some three to five million years ago. Threats to the birds began to surface around 500 A.D., when Polynesian colonists began to settle on the Pacific island chain. They began to clear most of the low elevation forests, inadvertently eating away at the birds' habitat. It's also thought that the Polynesians introduced the Pacific Rat to the islands, a predator that ate the birds' eggs. The arrival of Europeans in the late 18th century accelerated the destruction of the birds' forest habitat. Along with loss of habitat, the honeycreepers are falling victim to avian malaria, which is carried by mosquitoes, and which is almost always fatal to the birds. Today only 17 species of honeycreepers survive in the state, some with fewer than 500 birds remaining, and it's believed that many will be pushed to extinction within a decade if nothing is done. In a bid to slow, if not reverse, the spread of avian malaria, the Maui Forest Bird Recovery Project is working to disrupt the reproduction of mosquitoes. Traveler associate editor Rita Beamish and Editor Kurt Repanshek recently sat down with Dr. Hanna Mounce, program director of the project, to learn about its work.

This year, 2025, likely will go down as the most transitional for the National Park Service. We've seen the loss of nearly a quarter of the permanent workforce, efforts to whitewash history in some parks, and the loss of a grand lodge to wildfire. The past 12 months have been full of news impacting the National Park Service and national parks, not all of it good. It's been a somewhat tumultuous year, leaving many wondering what the new year will bring for the parks and their employees. To help us look back over the past 12 months, we've invited Kristen Brengel, the senior vice president for government affairs at the National Parks Conservation Association, to join us.

A century of seasons has worn the appearance of the log cabin Roy Fure built in present-day Katmai National Park and Preserve in Alaska, but his care of the small cabin, and later National Park Service restoration efforts, have enabled it to stand the test of time. Dovetail-notched spruce logs still sit tightly together, the corrugated metal roof Fure replaced his sod roof with in 1930 and painted red could use a new coat of paint, but otherwise looks rainproof, and the windmill he erected to generate electricity still stands tall. Across the 85+ million-acre National Park System there are tens of thousands of historic structures — 19th-century homesteads, Civil War structures, Civil Rights facilities, presidential homes, artworks and more — but not all receive the same treatment as Fure's cabin. • At Oregon Caves National Monument and Preserve in Oregon, the historic, and once charming, Chateau with 23 rooms has been closed since 2018 due to structural issues and a lack of funding to address them. • In Kansas, the Park Service last year gained title to the First Baptist Church at Nicodemus National Historic Site, but a lack of funding has left the 118-year-old house of worship boarded up. • At Gettysburg National Military Park the David Wills house, where President Lincoln spent the night before delivering his address, has been closed since fall 2024 when a water line burst and flooded the structure. Those are just a very small handful of historic structures in the National Park System that are among thousands competing for scarce rehabilitation dollars. To discuss the situation across the park system we've invited Pam Bowman, the senior director of government relations at the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

After more than 50 years as one of the country's landmark environmental laws, the Endangered Species Act has gone from one of the most popular measures before Congress to one fueling demands that it be revised, if not discarded. The National Parks Traveler is reviewing the Endangered Species Act's work and its record, spotlighting individual species that it's protected, those that it failed, and those that it recovered. The monthslong series comes as ESA champions worry that the push to weaken the law could consign countless animals and plants to the growing list of flora and fauna that, like the Passenger pigeon, are now found only in books and online. The National Park System seems to be the perfect background to explore these questions, as its lands are supposedly the best preserved on the federal landscape. I recently interviewed two wildlife advocates — Jake Li, a vice president with Defenders of Wildlife who spent time working in the Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service before joining the advocacy group, and Stephanie Adams, director of wildlife at the National Parks Conservation Association. Though the interviews were done separately, the questions were largely the same. What follows is a merging of those two conversations.

Haleakalā National Park is deceptively wonderful and rich in biodiversity. But if we're not careful, we could lose some of that biodiversity. Located on the island of Maui in Hawaii, the first thing you notice about this national park is its towering dormant volcano, Haleakalā, which rises from sea level to more than 10,000 feet. While many visitors simply want to head to the top of the volcano to peer into its crater or enjoy a colorful sunrise or sunset, if you take a little time to get to know this park you'll be amazed by what doesn't first come into sight. For instance, there are more than 300 plant and animal species endemic to Haleakalā — found nowhere else in the world — and many species that are being threatened or endangered with extinction. Kurt Repanshek headed to Haleakalā this past week with Special Projects Editor Patrick Cone and Assistant Editor Rita Beamish to learn more about the park and its rare and unique species.

It's Thanksgiving Weekend, usually interpreted as a bountiful time of year when we can all sit back and be thankful. But can many who work for the National Park Service feel thankful in the wake of the staff reductions this year? This year has been hard on the Park Service, what with the loss of roughly a quarter of the full-time workforce and questions around how the agency has long interpreted history. But the Park Service has long struggled with its operations. Funding and staffing never seem to have met the needs of the Park Service to manage its far-flung collection of more than 400 units. We're going to explore the funding and staffing issue of the agency today with John Garder, the senior director of budget and appropriations for the National Parks Conservation Association.

Gazing up at mountains from their valleys down below, it's hard, if not impossible, to detect any change on the top of the mountains. But change is ongoing, especially in recent history as the climate continues to warm. From Tacoma or Seattle in Washington state, the snowy summit of Mount Rainier National Park appears unchanged from how it's always looked. Snowy. But is that truly the case? What would you think if someone told you the top of the summit no longer is 14,410 feet high, that the high point of the park has actually shrunk? Our guests today are Eric Gilbertson, a mechanical engineer and mountaineer from Seattle University, and Scott Hotaling, a watershed sciences professor from Utah State University, who have measured the thickness of the ice cap on the summit of Mount Rainier. What they have to say may surprise you.

The government shutdown has been record-setting in terms of its length. So, too, has been the time that many employees of the National Park Service have been furloughed without pay. How has the shutdown affected the parks, and how have the friends groups that support the parks responded? We're going to discuss that today with Chris Lenhertz from the Golden Gate Conservancy, Jacki Harp from Smokies Life, Eric Stiles from Friends of Acadia, and Cassius Cash from the Yosemite Conservancy.