Two of the most contentious issues in the National Park System are the debate over snowmobiles in Yellowstone National Park and the one over off-road vehicle management at Cape Hatteras National Seashore.
In Yellowstone, the dispute over recreational snowmobiles is moving into its second decade at a cost of more than $10 million to the National Park Service. Sometime next year we should see the latest draft winter-use plan and how it proposes to let visitors enter the park: snowmobiles, snowcoaches, or a mix of the two?
While snowmobile technology certainly has evolved since 2000 -- when this issue became a Ping-Pong ball between conservationists worried about impacts to Yellowstone's air, water, sound, and employee and visitor health and snowmobile enthusiasts who prefer to enjoy winter in the park atop their sleds -- how much those impacts can be resolved or mitigated remains questionable.
Past efforts at solving this conundrum have resulted in lawsuits that succeeded in sending the Yellowstone staff back to the drawing board time and again.
At Cape Hatteras, the debate over when and where those who rely on off-road vehicles to reach preferred spots on the seashore is only a handful of years old. But it is particularly heated with abuse at times heaped on Park Service staff as well as on Defenders of Wildlife and the National Audubon Society, which successfully sued to have the Park Service produce an ORV management plan.
Depending on which side you listen to, the proposed ORV rules would be devastating to local businesses and force surf casters and their families to walk miles toting their gear to reach their preferred fishing spots, or they would go a long way towards restoring healthy populations of endangered and threatened sea turtles and shorebirds.
While, understandably, these issues can have the greatest impact on the economies and livelihoods of those living closest to Yellowstone and Cape Hatteras, these are units of the National Park System, and as such should be important to all who enjoy the national parks, no matter where they live.
So, with that background, which of these two issues is of greater interest to you?
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Comments
YNP4Everyone, I'm referring to the backcountry poaching by some snowmobilers that occurs -- much more infrequently than it used to -- along the western border of the park near West Yellowstone. And there were times when there was "high marking" on hillsides along the Grand Loop Road.
Still, things are indeed much improved and for the most part those are issues largely of the past.
I think if one hunts hard enough they can find some evidence -- and not necessarily overwhelming -- to buttress their respective position, whether it concerns snowmobiles in Yellowstone, ORVs in Cape Hatteras, personal watercraft at Gulf Islands, hunting in the parks, overflights, or any of the other myriad issues that must be settled across the National Park System.
The problem seems to be finding a suitable middle ground, and we need to find a way to reach that point without spending millions of dollars, as has been the case in Yellowstone, on environmental studies and legal fees that could be better spent by the Park Service.
For the sake of comparison, at Assateague Island National Seashore, the beach miles are divided almost half and half between those open to vehicles and those closed to vehicles. The number of vehicles on the beach is strictly limited to 145 at any time in the Maryland part, 48 in the Virginia part. At Cape Hatteras there are no limits on the number of vehicles entering the beach.
Regarding snowmobile use in Yellowstone - since only Best Available Technology (BAT) snow machines are allowed to enter the park, that means they are fitted with clean and quiet 4-stroke engines from cars and motorbikes that enter the park pretty much unrestricted in the summer. So my point is, if the sleds are so bad for the park, then why not ban the cars and bikes as well? It is only logical. That is the point, If the logic to ban sleds is sound and valid, then it also applies to the motor vehicles in the summer. Why not? Same engines, same noise, same emissions. The dirty, smoky, smelly two-stroke sleds have long since been banned. Yellowstone is a PARK, not a WILDERNESS. The management practices of the two are DIFFERENT. As long as cars and motorbikes and motorhomes are allowed to enter the park in the summer, then sleds should be welcome in the winter.