In a baffling rationale, the National Park Service is willing to let endangered species be trampled by feral horses at Cumberland Island National Seashore because it doesn't see itself liable for what horses do.

Along the windswept northwestern coast of Newfoundland where four ancient cultures once lived off the sea’s bounty, a lone caribou grazed, indifferent to my family’s delight and seemingly safe in the knowledge that it can no longer be hunted in this protected landscape. We held up a card from Port au Choix National Historic Site that warned us to stay at least three bus lengths away from this gorgeous species at risk. There was a thumb-size rectangle cut out of the cardboard.

After going nearly nine years without its topgallant masts, the three-masted Balclutha at San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park has three new masts in place. National Park Service crews on September 14 raised the third and final topgallant mast on the 1886 National Historic Landmark ship.

The fate of feral horses at Cumberland Island National Seashore is in the hands of a federal judge who must decide whether the National Park Service's hands-off approach to the horses and their impacts is justified.