Free Republic

POINT REYES STATION, Calif. — It seems a perfect marriage of nature and commerce. As boats ferry oysters to the shore, pelicans swoop by and seals pop their heads out of the water. But this spot on the Point Reyes National Seashore has become a flashpoint for a bitter debate over the limits of wilderness and commercial interest within America’s national parks. The National Park Service has said it cannot renew the permit to farm oysters in a tidal estuary here, which lapses in 2012, because federal law requires it to return the area to wilderness by eliminating intrusive commercial...

An excited group of naturalists and wildlife scientists is in Saskatchewan's Grasslands National Park, releasing black-footed ferrets back into the wild. The Friday event was the culmination of several years of work to breed black-footed ferrets in various zoos and condition the animals to survive in the wild. Grasslands National Park, in Saskatchewan's southwest, was selected as the site for introducing 34 animals back to their natural habitat. A recovery plan for the species includes releasing more animals to the park in 2010. The black-footed ferret is the only species of ferret indigenous to North America. Populations fell to near-extinction...

Bethea said federal officials tested the river and found the E. coli bacteria level was 42 times greater than the highest safe level. “There is no way you want to get in or even touch water [this dirty],” Bethea said. “I’ve never seen the water so filthy. It was just filthy, and it didn’t smell very good in some places.” The river tour also found massive shoreline damage, including collapsed banks and fallen trees. --snip-- The U.S. Park Service on Wednesday shut down use of portions of the Chattahoochee, citing the dumping of raw sewage from broken sewage lines in...

I just got done watching the Ken Burns National Parks special. This is a show by, for and about tree huggers. They must have said five or six times how much better the parks are in Government hands than being run by private enterprise. They made everyone that tried to keep the parks in private hands to be nothing but evil. This even extended to keeping the parks away from the states and in the hands of the feds. Nothing but socialist drivel.

SNIP In other words, the entire origin of the national park system, whose most passionate backer was a Republican, Teddy Roosevelt, is based on a firm belief in -- Glenn Beck, cover your ears, please -- government intervention to regulate an out-of-control free-enterprise system. In fact, one of the more dramatic moments in Burns' documentary involves the battle to create a park in the Great Smoky Mountains, while logging companies bankrolled anti-park ads and were "frantically cutting the old-growth forests to extract everything they could before the land was closed to them." In some ways, Burns' new series sounds like...

The Drug Enforcement Administration Friday announced that it found 14,500 marijuana plants growing in a Colorado national park, authorities say are linked to Mexican drug cartels...... they have seen an increase in outdoor marijuana operations run by Mexican drug cartels. In the most recent Colorado case, the marijuana was found in "the remote, rugged terrain" of Pike National Forest, which is about 60 miles southwest of Denver. "The persons who were involved in this criminal activity had no regard for the damage caused to the forest and environment by the waste they left behind," said Jeffrey D. Sweetin, special agent...

Forty-four percent (44%) of American adults think admission to U.S. national parks should always be free, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. But slightly more adults (47%) think the cost of admission should cover the costs of maintaining those parks. Of those who have visited a national park at least once over the past five years, 50% say admission costs should cover maintenance while 43% say admission should be free. Those adults who have not visited national parks during that time favor free admission slightly more, 48% to 44%. The Obama administration this summer launched an initiative...

America's only Black Ranger at Yosemite National Park says Blacks don't visit our national parks because the soil/land reminds them of racism. Absurd.

<p>An 11-year-old Las Vegas boy died after his mother's car got stuck in sand for five days on their way to Death Valley for a camping trip, officials said Friday.</p> <p>Carlos Sanchez and his 28-year-old mother set out for an overnight trip to the area Aug. 1, but were stranded when their car got stuck about 20 miles east of Trona. The mother's name has not been released.</p>

Heat kills boy, 11, lost with his mother in Death Valley The two were stranded for days in a remote area. The child's mother is being treated for severe dehydration. Associated Press August 7, 2009 An 11-year-old boy died in the intense heat of Death Valley National Park after he and his mother became stranded and survived for several days on bottled water, Pop-Tarts and cheese sandwiches, authorities said Friday. Alicia Sanchez, 28, of Las Vegas was found severely dehydrated and remained hospitalized in that city a day after being found with her dead son, her dog and a Jeep...

President Barack Obama on Friday tapped Jon Jarvis to head the National Park Service, turning to a 30-year-veteran who oversees the national parks across the Western states, and who also has angered a powerful U.S. senator and backers of a Northern California oyster farm. Jarvis is a biologist who told The Associated Press recently that his priorities as a parks official include climate change, the role of the parks with education and youth, and reaching out to populations who haven't used the parks. He recently locked horns with a powerful Senate Democrat in a controversy over environmental effects of a...

MIAMI, Florida (NBC) -- Florida is set to declare open season on pythons. Biologists have officially declared the south Florida python population of more than 150,000 snakes "out of control" and spreading. The snakes are squeezing out native predators, and that has many worried. Florida had considered everything from using volunteers to trap them to training beagles to sniff them out. Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission Chairman Rodney Barreto wants action. "We're developing a plan immediately, that we will roll out, that we will allow people who are trained, supervised by us, to go out and hunt pythons and...

The National Park Service says gays and lesbians have been neglected by a lack of historic landmarks and trails to honor their struggle for equal rights, according to advance testimony to Congress. The statement, obtained by the Washington Times, has been submitted to Capitol Hill for a hearing about Missouri Democratic Rep. William Clay’s bill to create a civil rights themed park trail. Mr. Clay, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, said in his bill the trail should mark "historically significant events related to struggles for civil rights based on racial equality, including signage or printed materials (or both)...

Start from the outside, then work your way in. That's the artistic lesson Kathryn Stats learned the first time she attempted to paint Zion National Park more than 30 years ago. "Painting from within the park is just mind-boggling," Stats said. "Everything's so big, and you're so little." She moved her easel to just outside Rockville, Utah, where she could look into Zion from a distance. Even then she found the light moving so quickly -- sparking fiery reds, stark yellows and vivid oranges as it traveled across formations -- that her subject changed almost completely with every half-hour. And...

Me and my wife will be going to Estes Park,CO and the RMNP in July, and neither of us have ever been. I was wondering if anyone had some suggestions on what to see/do while we are there. We plan to do a lot of hiking and picture taking, but aren't really interested in the "extreme" stuff like overly challenging rock climbing. We just want to kind of take it easy and enjoy the sights and cooler temps.

Should people be allowed to carry concealed, loaded guns in the national parks?

Unique among the public lands of this country, national parks traditionally have banned the carrying of loaded firearms. National forests, wildlife refuges, preserves and other conservation areas have no such blanket rule. Neither should national parks, as Congress reluctantly recognized this month. For decades, Americans accepted the simplistic reasoning behind the firearm prohibition: Parks don’t allow hunting. Therefore, no one needs to carry a firearm within one. Advocates viewed the ban as a simple way of helping prevent poaching in parks, and it was. It dispensed with the complexities of actually showing some wrongdoing by a park visitor who carried...

Great Falls National ParkOver the last few years states have been moving aggressively to make parks safe for gun carry. The states have been going about this in two ways: First, by repealing state statutes and regulations which make gun carry in parks unlawful. And second, by preempting localities from regulating gun carry in any way. For example, in 2002 the Virginia Attorney General issued an opinion stating that the Virginia Department of Conservation's regulation forbidding the concealed carry of handguns in state parks, National Forests, and certain other lands was in conflict with state law. Virginia Governor (and now...

Washington—In what could only be defined as the first real legislation designed to keep liberals out of National Parks, Republicans have brought a victory for the National Rifle Association and its proponents. The amendment, added to the Credit Card Holders Bill of Rights, was signed by President Obama, and deviously added by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-OK. The move to add the amendment was described by Coburn “as a typical Democrat tactic used against them.” Coburn also said that the amendment was provided “to protect conservatives’ hygiene from funky liberals.”

CHEYENNE, Wyo. — Two seasonal Yellowstone National Park concession workers have been fired after a live webcam caught them urinating into the Old Faithful geyser. Park spokesman Al Nash says a 23-year-old man was fined $750 and placed on three years of unsupervised probation for urinating, being off-trail in a restricted area and taking items from the area. The man also was banned from Yellowstone for two years. The second employee’s case is pending. The park’s dispatch centre was called after someone watching a webcam on the geyser saw six employees leaving the trail and walking on Old Faithful on...

Two seasonal Yellowstone National Park concession workers have been fired after a live webcam caught them urinating into the Old Faithful geyser. > The geyser was not erupting at the time. >

The gun lobby and its all-too-willing political accomplices have struck again. The Senate’s version of urgently needed legislation to protect credit card users has been saddled with a dangerous and utterly nongermane amendment allowing visitors to openly carry loaded firearms into national parks and wildlife refuges. A disappointing 27 Senate Democrats, whose party once led the fight for gun control, eagerly signed on with 39 Republicans — fawning together before the lobby’s lethal diktat. None of that 66 dared to ask: What on earth does laissez-faire gun toting have to do with credit card fairness? And why should the national...

Text I copied from Thomas.loc.gov on the Coburn Amendment listed as S5383-5384. They only give you a temporary URL at Thomas for the text. TEXT OF AMENDMENT AS SUBMITTED: CR S5383-5384 Here's S5383. I guess CR means Congressional Record. SA 1068. Mr. COBURN proposed an amendment to the bill H.R. 627, to amend the Truth in Lending Act to establish fair and transparent practices relating to the extension of credit under an open end consumer credit plan, and for other purposes; as follows: At the appropriate place in the bill, insert the following: SEC. __. PROTECTING AMERICANS FROM VIOLENT CRIME....

Support bill to stop gun carry inconsistencies in national parks Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senators Mike Enzi and John Barrasso, both R-Wyo., are pushing to protect second amendment rights in every corner of the nation, including a corner of Wyoming – Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. Both senators are co-sponsoring the Preservation of the Second Amendment in National Parks and National Wildlife Refuges Act, S. 816, which would allow gun owners to carry concealed weapons in national parks if the concealed weapons permit holder is authorized to do so on similar state lands in the state in which the...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration says it will not appeal a court ruling that prohibits carrying loaded guns in national parks and wildlife refuges. Last month, Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of Federal District Court here struck down the policy allowing guns in parks. She called the rule, issued in the last days of the Bush administration, severely flawed and said officials had failed to evaluate its possible environmental impact, as required. She set a deadline of Monday for the Interior Department to indicate its likely response...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration says it will not appeal a federal court ruling that prohibits carrying loaded guns in national parks and wildlife refuges. Instead, the Interior Department says it will conduct a full environmental review of an earlier policy that allowed concealed, loaded guns in parks and refuges.

WASHINGTON — Congress on Wednesday set aside more than 2 million acres in nine states as protected wilderness - from California's Sierra Nevada mountains to the Jefferson National Forest in Virginia. The legislation is on its way to President Barack Obama for his likely signature. The House approved the bill, 285-140, the final step in a long legislative road that began last year. The vote came two weeks after the House rejected the bill amid a partisan dispute over gun rights. The measure was brought up again in the Senate and approved last week, setting up Wednesday's vote. The bill...

A federal judge ruled there must be a full review of the possible environmental impact of allowing citizens on national properties to carry concealed guns in holsters rather than locked cases. The decision comes from U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, who issued a preliminary injunction banning implementation of a rule that had been adopted just before President Bush left office. It would have allowed citizens who have concealed-carry permits to follow the appropriate state laws in carrying weapons on national park lands. The judge cited "the almost universal view among interested parties that persons who possess concealed, loaded, and operable...

National Park Service News Release For Immediate Release: March 10, 2009 Contact(s): David Barna, 202-208-6843 Bert Frost, 202-208-3884 National Park Service Gets the Lead Out! WASHINGTON – National Park Service visitors and wildlife have something to cheer about today with the agency’s stepped-up efforts to reduce lead in national park environments. “Our goal is to eliminate the use of lead ammunition and lead fishing tackle in parks by the end of 2010,” said Acting National Park Service Director Dan Wenk. “We want to take a leadership role in removing lead from the environment.” The new lead reduction efforts also include...

Gun prohibitionists are crowing that a federal judge on March 19 blocked a rule change allowing concealed carry in national parks. U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, a Bill Clinton appointee, issued a preliminary injunction that the National Rifle Association says it will quickly appeal. BULLETIN: The NRA on Friday filed an appeal in this case. An apparently giddy Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, was quoted by the Associated Press noting, “We’re happy that this headlong rush to push more guns into more places has been slowed.” Darned right he’s happy, but this has nothing...

·11250 Waples Mill Road ·   Fairfax, Virginia 22030    ·800-392-8683 Court Suspends Carry in National Parks Thursday, March 19, 2009 Today, a federal district court in Washington, D.C. granted anti-gun plaintiffs a preliminary injunction against implementation of the new rule allowing concealed carry in national parks and national wildlife refuges. Until further notice, individuals cannot legally carry loaded, concealed firearms for personal protection in national parks and wildlife refuges. The court did grant NRA's motion to intervene in the cases. Under federal law, NRA is entitled to an immediate appeal, and NRA will exercise that right. "Just as we did not give...

The American Sportfishing Association, an Alexandria-based trade group, isn't happy with an arbitrary decision by the National Park Service that would ban the use of lead components in fishing tackle in all national parks by 2010. The ban also would include lead component ammunition used by hunters. An official with the trade group said it was surprised and dismayed by the announcement. "Their intention to eliminate the use of lead in fishing tackle in national parks was made without prior consultation of the sportfishing industry or the millions of recreational anglers who fish within the national park system," ASA vice...

·11250 Waples Mill Road ·   Fairfax, Virginia 22030    ·800-392-8683 Lead Ammo Ban by National Park Service an Anti-Hunting Move Wednesday, March 11, 2009 Fairfax, Va. -- The National Park Service has announced its intention to ban traditional ammunition containing lead in all its parks. The move would needlessly push hunters to use more costly ammo like tungsten, copper, and steel. The restrictions, set to take affect by the end of 2010, were announced without regard to science or soliciting feedback from sportsmens’ groups. "The NPS announcement demonstrates either complete ignorance or complete arrogance as to the effect that this policy will...

CASPER, Wyo. A federal appeals court has upheld the conviction and four-year prison term for a southwest Montana man who pleaded guilty in an elk poaching case. Michael David Belderrain of Whitehall, Mont., pleaded guilty in February 2008 to being a felon in possession of a firearm, transporting illegally possessed wildlife and possessing illegally taken wildlife. Belderrain was charged for standing in Yellowstone National Park, shooting an elk just outside the park and dragging the head to his pickup truck in the park.

Rocky Mountain National Park officials expected some controversy when they culled the park's elk population last month. What they didn't expect was thousands of people signing up for free meat. After executing a long-planned shoot to control the exploding elk population, park officials held a lottery to distribute the meat. They thought a couple hundred people would respond. Instead, there were 5,247 applicants and the lottery was closed after just a few days. "I was flabbergasted," says Larry Rogstad of the Colorado Division of Wildlife. He was surprised because the lottery was barely advertised. But Rogstad says hunters do talk...

Thanks to you, a bill expanding gun control on federal land was narrowly defeated Wednesday morning, March 11. The Omnibus Public Lands Act of 2009, S. 22, would have drastically increased the amount of land controlled by the National Park Service, thus subjecting such land to the anti-gun regulations of the agency. The bill was brought to the floor of the U.S. House on what is known as the "suspension calendar." This calendar is normally reserved for non-controversial bills. As such, any bill being passed under the suspension calendar requires a two-thirds majority of those voting. In this case, the...

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans are questioning a section of the economic stimulus package that routes nearly $2 billion to national parks, saying the money could be a hidden pet project for the son of a powerful Democratic lawmaker. A spokeswoman for Democratic Rep. David Obey of Wisconsin, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, said Obey's son, Craig, does not lobby the committee, and the parks proposal came from the head of an environment subcommittee. Craig Obey, a senior vice president of the National Parks Conservation Association, is a top lobbyist for the nonprofit group, which made public appeals for...

·11250 Waples Mill Road ·   Fairfax, Virginia 22030    ·800-392-8683   Obama Administration Halts Pending Bush Regulations   Friday, January 23, 2009   NRA-ILA has received many recent inquiries regarding the new Obama administration's order to all federal agencies and departments to halt all pending regulations until incoming administration staff can review those regulations.  In particular, members are concerned about the order's impact on the new rule governing the concealed carrying of firearms in national parks.In a statement issued only hours after Obama took office, the White House said, "This afternoon, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel signed a memorandum sent...

The estimated 1.8 million people who attended Tuesday's inauguration reduced the Mall to a barren wasteland, and it will likely require some major work from the National Park Service. associated press This photograph by Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, Vermont Democrat, captures the scope of the historic inauguration, which attracted an estimated 1.8 million people. Much of the grassy part of the Mall is now off-limits to the public for several months, giving the grass a chance to regrow. The National Park Service, which is in charge of maintaining the area, already has a maintenance team and a natural-resources staff inspecting...

New Rules On Right-To-Carry In Our National Parks Take Effect Today Friday, January 09, 2009 In early December, the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI), through the National Park Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, announced the final amended version of a change to rules on carrying firearms in national parks and wildlife refuges. The change will restore the right of law-abiding gun owners to transport and carry concealed firearms for lawful purposes on most DOI lands, according to the laws of the states in which these public lands are located. The new rule, which takes effect today, allows...

Parks, D.C. Dragging Their Feet The Heller case struck down D.C.'s ban on handguns, and its ban on having a loaded firearm in your home. The D.C. government is still trying hard to discourage gun use without directly violating the Heller decision. For example, their latest gun control law would require gun owners to re-register their guns every three years, continues their longstanding ban on "assault weapons," require completion of a gun safety course, and have a background check done every six years.1 While gun registration is clearly constitutional, some of these provisions, simply because they impose a repeated cost...

Thomas Ondrey/The Plain Dealer A jogger runs along the Ohio & Erie Canal in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park near Rockside Road in Independence. WASHINGTON, D.C. — The National Parks Conservation Association and the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees filed suit this week in U.S. District Court to stop enforcement of a new regulation allowing loaded, concealed firearms in national parks, including the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. The rule is scheduled to take effect Friday. The Bush administration in December finalized a National Rifle Association-driven rule change to allow loaded, concealed firearms in all national parks except those...

Freshly unemployed, former business executive Bruce J. Colburn flew to the far northwest corner of Montana in search of a place to die. In early October, he paid a hotel clerk to drive him into Glacier National Park. He spent the night in a campground and then made his way on foot to a valley between two deep glacial lakes. On a forested slope not far from the trail, he shot himself in the chest with a handgun, according to park officials.

WASHINGTON - The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence sued the Bush administration yesterday in hopes of stopping a new policy that would allow people to carry concealed, loaded guns in most national parks and wildlife refuges. "The Bush administration's last-minute gift to the gun lobby, allowing concealed semiautomatic weapons in national parks, jeopardizes the safety of park visitors in violation of federal law," said Paul Helmke, the group's president. "We should not be making it easier for dangerous people to carry concealed firearms in our parks." An Interior Department spokeswoman refused to comment on the lawsuit, saying the department...

The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence has sued the Interior Department to stop it from eliminating a 25-year-old federal rule restricting loaded guns in national parks. AP WASHINGTON -- An anti-gun group is suing to stop a last-second Bush administration change that would allow Americans to carry concealed, loaded guns in most national parks and wildlife refuges. The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence sued the Interior Department in federal court on Tuesday. They want a federal judge to stop the elimination of a 25-year-old federal rule severely restricting loaded guns in national parks...

Series of Quakes under Yellowstone Lake, >30 in two days, five in last one hour and 15 minutes. Links coming.

Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) and gun control groups are concerned that some visitors attending President-elect Obama’s inauguration may try to pack heat because of a rule allowing concealed weapons in national parks. The Bush administration recently altered federal regulations to allow people with permits to carry concealed firearms while in national parks if the park falls within a state or district that allows concealed weapons. Washington D.C. does not allow concealed weapons, but Norton and other think confusion over the rule could lead visitors to bring guns to Obama’s Jan. 20 inauguration, which will be held on two miles...

In certain instances, firearms can be brought into U.S. national parks Not everyone was ecstatic about a decision earlier this month, but count the National Rifle Association membership among the elated civil libertarians. The cause for applause coming from the NRA and other gun-rights advocates was a decision by the U.S. Department of the Interior that loosens 25-year-old restrictions on firearms within national parks and federal wildlife refuges. The department ruled that federal law regarding the carrying and transportation of firearms should conform to state law. Thus, concealed carry will be allowed in national parks and wildlife refuges located in...

Editorials Executive order reverses 25-year-old ban to let park visitors carrying loaded guns National parks are supposed to be sanctuaries, not only for people, but for wildlife as well. But the possibility that the peace and tranquility of federal parklands will be violated has increased with the latest executive order by President Bush that will allow concealed loaded weapons in federal parks and wildlife refuges. The new rule reverses the ban on loaded weapons in federal parks that was signed by President Ronald Reagan more than 25 years ago. If this is the legacy that Bush wants to leave the...

Campers may now pack heat along with their sleeping bags when they travel to national parks. The Bush administration on Friday struck down federal regulations banning loaded guns in most national forests, a move that was widely seen as a parting shot on behalf of the National Rifle Association. The ruling overturned a 25-year-old federal regulation severely restricting concealed firearms in national parks and wildlife refuges. The new rule, which would take effect in January, would apparently allow anyone who already has a concealed weapons permit in his or her state to also tote a gun in federal parks within...