An 11th-hour compromise Saturday averted a shutdown of the federal government for at least 45 days, allowing the National Park System to remain open.

Tourism tied to the National Park System, and the highly popular Fat Bear Week at Katmai National Park and Preseve, will take a blow if a Congressional government funding impasse leads to a shutdown Sunday.

Phase three construction of the Snake River Gateways Project at Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming will require closure of Moose Landing to the public.

A draft plan crafted to see grizzly bears restored to the North Cascades Ecosystem of Washington state proposes to release bears that would be treated as a "nonessential experimental population," a designation that would provide more options for managing the species, which currently is protected under the Endangered Species Act. The last confirmed sighting of a grizzly bear in the U.S. portion of the ecosystem was in 1996.