National Parks Traveler Podcast

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.

Did you know that there are some five and a half million acres of our National Parks that are underwater? There are sunken ships and aircraft. There are remnants of industry and mining. There are coral reefs and underwater caverns. The Submerged Resources Center of the National Park Service is where these water resources are explored and documented. Underwater photography is crucial in the understanding of what lies beneath the surface, and images taken by the SRC Staff are essential not only for mapping and documenting, but to help the parks address issues and solve problems. This week, the Traveler's Lynn Riddick sits down with Bret Seymour, the Submerged Resources Center Deputy Chief and Audio-Visual Production Specialist who has spent some thirty years with the Park Service, photographing the mysteries below the surface.

Podcast discusses upcoming summer travel season in national parks, gratitude for listener support, exploring international parks, updates on park reservations and tips for visitors, challenges faced by park managers including climate change impacts and wild horse management, and underwater treasures in national parks

With the summer vacation season not too far off, no doubt many National Park Service Superintendents are trying to figure out how to manage the crowds and avoid impacts to natural resources in the park system. With Memorial Day weekend just two weeks away, and Congress in its usual battles over how to fund the federal government, we wanted to take a look at how the funding situation looks for the Park Service. To help understand the financial setting across the National Park System, we've asked Phil Francis, from the Coalition to Protect America's National Parks to provide some insights.