Park visitation down throughout system

The Voice of America (VOA) reports that visitation rates in the US National Park system are off again, down five percent from last year's rate. This makes for at least two years of declines in visitors: In 2010 park counts were down about seven and a half percent from 2009.

The VOA says the situation has left park officials scratching around under their Smokey Bear hats. Usually with a downturn in the economy, the parks see an uptick in visitation. After all, it's less expensive to visit the parks than to travel elsewhere. But the VOA suggests that the economic downturn is exactly the cause of the fall-off in visitation. It says the high price of fuel used by RVs, "notorious gas guzzlers" is to blame.

While no hard statistics are at hand, park personnel comment on a decrease in the number of visitors from Europe. Since the value of the Euro has fallen with that of the US dollar, the radio network hypothesizes that foreign tourists are spending their currency closer to home.

Bryce Canyon National Park: R&T DeMaris photo.

New study predicts how climate change could affect Yellowstone

What would happen if, as a recent study examined, the temperature of Yellowstone National Park were to rise--in this case a computer model possibility of 9.7 degrees by the end of the century?

By taking the average of sixteen computer models of climate future that were fed data from five different local weather stations, the model indicated that drastic changes could come to the park.

For instance, the elk herds could diminish because the new climate, nearer to what sea level Los Angeles is like rather than at the average of 8,000-foot elevation of the park, would find their food source of grasses drying out too soon in summer cutting off their food supply.

Tree-killing beetles, once kept under control by extremely cold winter nights--that in this model would cease to be as cold--would destroy entire forests (photo) similar to what is happening now in Colorado, and the chilly rivers that flow through the park would become too warm for the native cutthroat trout to survive.

The report, written by Leslie Kaufman for Green, A Blog About Energy and the Environment was published in the New York Times September 27th.