It was more than a year ago when the Natural Resources Defense Council asked the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to see if the whitebark pine, a "stone" pine that grows in the very highest reaches of Yellowstone, Glacier, Rocky Mountain, Yosemite, Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks, was eligible for Endangered Species Act protection. Inaction by the agency has prompted the conservation group to sue it to act on the request.

If all goes as expected, 14 moose that roam Voyageurs National Park soon will be wearing the latest in radio-collar technology. Not only will the collars track the animals' movements, but they're expected to shed some light on how the moose are reacting to climate change, as they'll also keep tabs on the air temperature wherever the moose roam.

Olympic National Park, which has been beaten and battered in recent years by powerful storms, lost a 100-foot section of roadway leading up to Hurricane Ridge when soil saturated by recent heavy rains spurred a mudslide.

Climate-driven change in mountain ecosystems is readily visible across the National Park System. In Glacier National Park rivers of ice are shrinking, in Rocky Mountain National Park bark beetles are ravaging forests, and in Yellowstone National Park atypically warm stream waters in summer are stressing fish. To better gauge the climate's impact on pikas in their park, Grand Teton National Park biologists are working to establish baseline data for these tiny creatures.