Since 2008, a program to return fishers, a small forest carnivore, to Olympic, Mount Rainier, and North Cascades national parks has been an ongoing effort with help from Washington's National Park Fund. Though not an overnight success, some of the relocated animals are sticking around.

After long days at our respective jobs, the gym, fishing, and errands, my husband and I met on our long, brown couch. Balancing dinner on our laps, we fired up the laptop and made a (metaphorical) bee-line to Amazon Prime to watch our month’s long obsession. No, not Game of Thrones, nor catching up on the Avenger’s movies. Instead, we tuned in to Ken Burns’ documentary series “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea.”

There is on the sandy southern tip of Cape Hatteras National Seashore a rather nondescript club-shaped stretch of beach that in summer attracts an astonishing number of piping plovers that seemingly treat South Point as a last refueling stop of sorts before winging off to their wintering grounds.

Bits and pieces of the past, from a chest of drawers that served as an 1894 wedding present to men's trousers and even a seed collection, reside in the Collections Preservation Center just outside Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

When someone says the word, “Alabama,” what do you imagine? For most, the melody of “Sweet Home Alabama” pops into their head, or scenes from the movie by the same name. For me, most of what I pictured stemmed from the popular television show “Hart of Dixie” about a young doctor moving to the state in search of a mystery father – not exactly based on reality. What I didn’t know until I moved into the next-door Florida Panhandle was that Alabama is an ecologically diverse, beautiful state, stretching from sugar-sand coastline to the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains.

White Sands National Monument in New Mexico doesn’t have the elevation of Great Sand Dunes – most of the dunes we hiked on were well under 100 feet high – but it is no less of a cool place. Nestled into the Tularosa Basin just east of Las Cruces, New Mexico, this 275 square miles of white gypsum sand is the largest of its kind in the world.

National Park Week kicks off Saturday, and with Easter falling this coming weekend you can be sure there will be places in the National Park System overrun with visitors. So where should you go, and where should you avoid?

It's not easy to visit Kobuk Valley National Park in Alaska -- you need to take a small plane or river boat to reach it -- but the trek is well worth it if you enjoy sand dunes.

The setting -- North America's tallest sand dunes against a backdrop of the snowcapped Rocky Mountains -- makes Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve both unusual and spectacular.

President Trump clearly exceeded his authority when he lopped 2 million acres off of two national monuments in Utah, according to a law professor who closely examined past modifications to national monuments as well as powers given presidents under The Antiquities Act along with overarching Constitutional authorities and congressional jurisdiction.

A national park vacation can be an expensive endeavor, particularly if you want to stay in a park lodge. Indeed, the cost of a night in a park lodge has been been increasing at approximately twice as much as the Consumer Price Index.

Cape Cod’s surf-sprayed sandy beaches, long the setting for classic summer seaside vacations, have taken on a more menacing appearance with the arrival of one of the planet’s most powerful predators. Is it safe to return to the water?

I remember when my very first Tempestry arrived in the mail. Pulling out the list of instructions, I held the bright, tightly wound balls of yarn in my palm, contemplating the data they would eventually reveal to me. A science and fiber project, each row of each Tempestry represents the high temperature of a single day.

In the midst of political and economic turmoil in Venezuela, some of the world’s most scenic and biodiverse public lands are at risk.

Every year, Yosemite Conservancy supporters help fund projects in the park to restore trails and habitat, protect wildlife, provide educational programs, and more. As you explore Yosemite in 2019, keep an eye out for grant-supported work underway throughout the park, from El Capitan Meadow to high peaks in the Cathedral Range.

A proposed cell phone tower will have significant impact on national historic resources, including views from multiple mountain summits and historic hiking trails in Acadia National Park, within a 4-mile radius.

Many people associate Henry David Thoreau with solitude in the outdoors. But Thoreau understood in the mid-1800s that there was no such thing as nature separate from humans.

From osprey and river otters to maybe even elk, the long-running lake trout invasion of Yellowstone Lake is having far-reaching and surprising impacts on the ecosystem below and above the lake's surface.

Giving threatened and rare plants a chance to thrive. Keeping the big wheel turning at a historic mill. Sharing the photographic history of the Blue Ridge Parkway with the world. These are just a few of the projects the Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation’s Community of Stewards will bring to fruition in 2019.

Who really does manage most national park lodgings? For the big operations in places such as Yellowstone, Yosemite, Grand Canyon, Glacier, and Shenandoah, corporations. Not surprisingly, while many of the 500 management contracts administered by the National Park Service, such as providing firewood or operating a bicycle rental operation, are relatively straightforward, those for large commercial facilities such as lodging in Yosemite or Yellowstone are extremely complicated. David and Kay Scott bring some clarity to this issue in their latest article pertaining to lodging in the National Park System.