With so many organizations clamoring for your charitable dollars, how can you decide which group to give to in support of the national parks? Do your homework, urges Jacqueline Vaughn.

Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area claims the title of "largest urban national park in the country," but it's 150,000+ acres of mountains and coastline in Ventura and Los Angeles counties also include some non-urban wildlife. Biologists recently discovered two mountain lion kittens in the park.

A handful of fires burning in the backcountry of Yellowstone National Park, along with extremely dry conditions, have prompted park officials to close some trails and backcountry campsites and also reinstate fire restrictions.

In the second part of this series Richard West Sellars, a long-time historian for the National Park Service, takes a look back at what precipitated the historic preservation movement in the National Park System.