Efforts to better understand genetic pools held within the Interior Department's roughly 11,000 bison and to bolster conservation and ecological efforts with states and tribes were boosted Thursday when Interior Secretary David Bernhardt announced a decade-long initiative to support that work.

Leading up to the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service back in 2016, there was much discussion about the future of the parks. Perhaps the hallmark was the Second Century Commission's report, prepared following a year of listening sessions, professional input, and discussion. Within its outline for strengthening the Park Service and the national parks in the 21st century were recommendations for better conservation of park resources, both natural and cultural. A decade later, the Park Service remains strapped for funds, overworked, and struggling in some places to manage crowds that impact natural resources and stress staff.

Weather is warming across the country, and desires to get outside and into the National Park System are growing, but exactly how parks will go about reopening continues to be a work in progress not entirely ready for public disclosure. At least one major park concessionaire, unable to safely house workers, announced Tuesday that two of its lodges in Grand Teton National Park are not expected to open this year.

Wyoming officials by month's end plan to ease off on restrictions put in place to slow the spread of coronavirus, but that doesn't mean access to Grand Teton and Yellowstone national parks or other park system units in the state will quickly return.