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Climate Change and National Parks: A Survival Guide for a Warming World -- Caribou in Alaska's Parks and Preserves

Caribou have been on the landscape for more than 400,000 years. For roughly the past 12,000 years, they have been hunted by humans — first the paleo-Indians, now the First Nations’ cultures along with many other Alaskans. Resilience to hunting, to weather, and to predators has enabled the caribou to remain an integral part of both the natural landscape and the human culture. The greatest test of their resilience, though, stands to be climate change.

Search for Human-Habituated Grizzlies in Glacier National Park Ends With Two Dead Bears

A grizzly sow that had come to view humans as a source of food in Glacier National Park has been killed by rangers, who also accidentally killed one of her yearling cubs when they tried to tranquilize it. The killings Monday brought to a close a long-running effort by park rangers to get the sow and her two cubs to rely on their natural food sources and to avoid backcountry travelers.

Climate Change and National Parks: A Survival Guide for a Warming World -- Bighorn Sheep in the Southwest

Canyonlands National Park is one of the most rugged national parks, with a harsh summer sun that bakes the dry, canyon-riddled landscape. But those deep canyons’ steep rocky slopes, which offer ample grasses and shrubs, and an openness that puts predators at a disadvantage, are an optimal environment for bighorn sheep. In fact, Canyonlands’ bighorn population has been so stable that Utah’s wildlife biologists long relied on it for stock to re-establish herds elsewhere in the state.

Sound Advice For Backcountry Travelers in the National Parks

One of my favorite writers is Nicholas D. Kristof, a columnist for the New York Times. He has an incredibly deft ability for crafting an article both informative and entertaining in a surprisingly few number of paragraphs. The other day he wrote on the joys and wonders of hiking in the backcountry, and he made some points well worth sharing.