Science News from the National Parks

I came across a couple interesting stories recently about changes in our national parks.

The first comes from Yellowstone National Park, where biologists have noted the decline and demise of one of the park's historic wolf packs, the "Druid Peak Pack." For more than a decade, the "Druids" were the dominant pack at Yellowstone and the source of much information about wolf behavior. After being subject to disease and competition, the "Druids" have seemingly been replaced by other packs in the area. I found the story about wolf pack history in Yellowstone to be fascinating, and I appreciate the work that biologists are doing to study wolves in the park. I also appreciate that they are letting "nature take its course" in the rise and decline of wolf packs, although the soft side of me feels saddened to hear about wolves facing disease, starvation, and death. To read more, you can check out links from NPR or The Billings Gazette or PBS. You can also read about the Yellowstone wolves on the Yellowstone National Park website.

The second story tells of the loss of two glaciers at Glacier National Park. Once the home of 150 named glaciers, the park now has only 25 named glaciers, and scientists fear that those may be gone by the end of this next decade. Scientists attribute the loss of glaciers to climate change and rising temperatures, although they note that the meltoff does not indicate what is causing temperatures to go up. You can read about the story from CBS, MSNBC, or Discovery News.