Parkography

The Battle of Bunker Hill

On June 17, 1775, New England soldiers faced the British army for the first time in a pitched battle. Bloody fighting took place throughout a hilly landscape of fenced pastures that were situated across the Charles River from Boston. Though the British were victorious, the psychological toll inflicted by American soldiers from Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Hampshire was staggering. Of the 2,400 British Soldiers and Marines engaged, 1,000 were wounded or killed.
Today on America's National Parks, the Battle of Bunker Hill, and the Bunker Hill Monument, part of the Boston National Historical Park.  

Restoring the Everglades

One and a half million acres of shallow-water marine habitats, freshwater marshes and prairies, saltwater wetland forests, and pine and hardwood forests provide refuge for threatened and endangered animals in the Gulf of Mexico. The green sea turtle, American crocodile, West Indian manatee, Everglade snail kite, and piping plover all depend on critical habitat within Everglades National Park. 1.3 million acres of the park is designated wilderness, making it the largest subtropical wilderness in the United States and the largest wilderness area east of the Mississippi River.

100.Years of Hot Springs, New Filming Rules | National Park News

Visitor statistics have been released for 2020, and visitation to parks was down about 1/3, thanks to park closures. There's a new National Park Service app, new rules for anyone taking video in parks, and Hot Springs National Park is about to celebrate a huge milestone. 

Scandal and Special People of Effigy Mounds

More than a thousand years ago in the Upper Midwest, indigenous people were moving mountains—literally. The Mound Builders changed the landscape by piling earth into tall shapes that could only be truly appreciated from up above. In our time, one Ho-Chunk woman lived a special life in this area, and one National Park Service superintendent went to prison for stealing the bones of her ancestors. 

100 Years at Mount Rainier

This week on America's National Parks, a great mountain of the west, and conservation lessons learned over the course of a century. 

Digging Up Dinosaurs

Much of the western United States was once blanketed in hundreds of feet of sand. The unforgiving sun beat down on the landscape for 20 to 30 million years during the early Jurassic period. Thin layers of rock allowed water to collect even in the dry desert, though sometimes it was hidden a few inches below the surface. Dinosaurs and other animals were able to survive the harsh conditions, and as the sand slowly turned to sandstone, traces of these animals were caught and preserved in the rock, creating fossils.
More than 150 million years later, a man named Earl Douglass was born in Medford, Minnesota in 1862. He didn’t know it yet, but his fate was already entwined with the dinosaurs that once roamed the earth.
This week on America’s National Parks: Earl Douglass and Dinosaur National Monument.

Mask Mandate, Commercial Filming Permits Struck Down | National Park News

It's time for this month's "news from the parks" episode. Today, we cover President Biden's new executive order requiring masks-wearing on federal lands, and a landmark ruling from a judge striking down the National Park Service's commercial film permit rules. 

Wolves of Isle Royale

With wolves decreasing at Isle Royale, the moose population could decimate the forest and vegetation communities. Neither species is native to the island, but a multi-agency wolf translocation strategy may save Isle Royale.