Free Republic

Wednesday, 21 October 2009 15:33 A law loosening gun restrictions in America's National Parks goes beyond what proponents initially argued and would allow anyone with a gun permit to openly carry a weapon in Yellowstone National Park, if legal experts are correct. A legislation, proposed and drafted by U.S. Senator Tom Coburn (R-Oklahoma) was billed as a way to uniformly enforce gun laws across different states and National Parks, which are under federal supervision. The law was said to extend the state's guidelines concerning concealed carry into the federal National Park. If you had a permit for a concealed...

Inter Lake editorial U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy has raised the bar to insufferable heights when it comes to recovering a species under the Endangered Species Act, so much so that, if his ruling were upheld, American jurists should be prepared to slave over ESA litigation for eternity. Molloy's recent ruling that restored ESA protections for Yellowstone grizzly bears must have U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials wondering just what it will take to succeed with recovery. Molloy ruled their conservation strategies and plans for grizzly bears, developed through years of expensive efforts, were inadequate. Guidelines and standards for monitoring...

But amid the breathtaking views, she noticed a glaring omission. Under the pristine blue skies, there were hardly any people of color. "At Yellowstone, it occurred to me -- how come there are no black people around?" Peterman said. Why? she wondered. Why weren't they enjoying the parks they helped create, the public lands that belonged to them as well? Peterman embarked on a crusade to address the problem.

A popular trail in Yellowstone National Park has been closed because of new geothermal hot spots that could endanger hikers. Park officials said Wednesday that geologists will use thermal imaging, temperature readings and a ground survey to examine hot spots on the Clear Lake Trail.

Fifteen wolf packs have denned and produced pups in Wyoming outside Yellowstone National Park this year, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has reported. The federal agency, which announced it is continuing to monitor reproduction, did not say in its assessment how many pups might have been born to each pack. Yellowstone packs are raising litters without any apparent deleterious effects... Trappers are also working the Union Pass area near Dubois, where a calf was killed ... Last week, a yearling steer was killed by wolves

For the second time this year a tourist at Yellowstone National Park has been attacked by a bison. a 55-year-old man from Norco, California, was taking pictures of a bull bison that was wandering in the Bridge Bay Campgrounds. The two were about 10 feet apart when the bison charged. a bull bison can stand six feet tall, weigh up to 2,000 pounds and run up to 30 miles an hour. During the next several weeks they are more dangerous than usual because it's their mating season.

The Wyoming Attorney General said Friday will file a lawsuit next Tuesday to challenge the recent U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's ruling that rejected the state's wolf management plan. "The Endangered Species Act requires listing and delisting decisions to be based on science," Bruce Salzburg told the Wyoming Farm Bureau Federation at a symposium about the law in Casper. But the Fish and Wildlife Service, a division of the U.S. Department of Interior, decided in early March to leave the gray wolf in Wyoming on the endangered species list for political and public relations reasons... The Fish and Wildlife Service,...

YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyo. (AP) - A geologist at Yellowstone National Park was in the middle of a lecturing a group of colleagues on the rarity of hydrothermal explosions earlier this month when, all of a sudden, one went off just behind him. Geologist Hank Heasler was giving a lecture in the Biscuit Basin on May 17 when a hot pool behind him exploded. It spewed mud, rocks and hot water about 50 feet in the air. Geologists only know of only a handful of such unpredictable explosions in YellowstoneÂ’s recorded history. Heasler and the others were just out of...

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. >

BILLINGS, Mont. – Wolves in parts of the northern Rockies and the Great Lakes region come off the endangered species list on Monday, opening them to public hunts in some states for the first time in decades. Federal officials say the population of gray wolves in those areas has recovered and is large enough to survive on its own. The animals were listed as endangered in 1974, after they had been wiped out across the lower 48 states by hunting and government-sponsored poisoning.

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.

A female wolf from the Yellowstone region has roamed about 1,000 miles and is thought to be wandering Colorado's central mountains. State wildlife officials say a GPS collar on the 18-month-old gray wolf indicated her last known position was in Eagle County, about 120 miles west of Denver. This is at least the second time a Yellowstone-area wolf has to make it to Colorado. A female wolf wearing a radio collar was hit and killed by a vehicle on Interstate 70 near Idaho Springs in June 2004.

The gradual uplift of Yellowstone National Park's caldera is pushing the earth's crust southwest along the Snake River Plain, affecting much of the Great Basin. "It adds energy to the whole system that we see," said Bob Smith, a University of Utah geophysicist who works with the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory. "It adds to the whole deformation and expands the Great Basin to the west."

A Colorado company suing the owner of the exclusive Yellowstone Club to recoup a $13 million debt has asked a federal judge to issue a warrant for her arrest after she failed to appear at a scheduled court hearing. The U.S. District Court in Colorado issued a separate arrest warrant on Feb. 13 for owner Edra Blixseth's son, Matthew Crocker, the principal developer of Bozeman's stalled Story Mill Development. As of late Wednesday night, the judge had not issued a warrant for Blixseth, who had been ordered to appear earlier in the day for a hearing to determine the location...

So Yellowstone, the super volcano, is again rumbling? Mercury has been detected throughout the national park (not a good sign) for quite sometime and along with it the ground under Yellowstone Lake is rising. More than 250 earthquakes reported during a 24-hour period ... Scientists monitoring Yellowstone have stated that it has entered into what they have described as a "red zone." Remember Mount St. Helens? The feds warned folks in the region around the mountain to vacate, and most did. Some (a few) didn't. It's been reported that the feds will issue a vacate order to the inhabitants of...

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) - Run for your lives ... Yellowstone's going to explode! Hundreds of small earthquakes at Yellowstone National Park in recent weeks have been an unsettling reminder for some people that underneath the park's famous geysers and majestic scenery lurks one of the world's biggest volcanoes. In the ancient past, the volcano has erupted 1,000 times more powerfully than the 1980 blast at Mount St. Helens, hurling ash as far away as Louisiana. No eruption that big has occurred while humans have walked the earth, however, and geologists say even a minor lava flow is extremely unlikely any...

Winter in Yellowstone is a time of year when the pace slows, when tourist travel diminishes to a mere trickle, and only the brave (or foolish) set out with camera and tripod in the hopes of capturing unique images. It is a time of struggle for wildlife, of countless epic battles for survival between predator and prey, the outcome determining who lives another day, and who starves to death in the frozen waste. It is a time of deep snow and mercilessly cold temperatures that wreak havoc on equipment, batteries, and appendages. And above all, it is a whale of...

With the increased seismic activity in the Yellowstone Caldera, it is likely that there is some increased interest in in the geology of the area. Here are some resources that should be of interest. First, we have a fairly recent peer reviewed publication on the "Super Volcano" known as Yellowstone, including some discussion of just what a "Super Volcano" is. The largest scale of volcanic eruptions, the so-called super-eruptions, can destroy all living beings and infrastructure over tens of thousands of square kilometres, can disrupt agriculture over millions of square kilometres and can alter global climate for years or decades....

A Yellowstone earthquake update: 1) The rumbling continues, including 3.5, 3.0 and 3.2 quakes just today 2) Here is some more Jake Lowenstern (the Yellowstone volcano scientist) analysis (via TIME): Jake Lowenstern, Ph.D.,YVO's chief scientist, who also is part of the USGS Volcano Hazards Team, told TIME that it doesn't appear a supervolcano event is imminent. "We don't think the amount of magma exists that would create one of these large eruptions of the past," he said. "It is still possible to have a volcanic eruption comparable to other volcanoes. But we would expect to see more and larger quakes,...

We who live along Montana's Yellowstone River are downstream from a simmering caldera, a geologic hot spot that has become especially active recently. Indeed, Yellowstone National Park contains the floor of a gigantic volcanic cauldron, one that rises and sinks with the forces that lie beneath — hence the picturesque geysers and steam holes. But a wave of recent earthquake activity is raising fears that have their origins 642,000 years ago, when a Yellowstone "supervolcano" exploded so violently that it created the caldera itself. Today, such an explosion — 1,000 times more powerful than the explosion of Mount St. Helens...

More earthquakes are rattling Yellowstone National Park. The small quakes include three more Friday that measured stronger than magnitude 3.0. The University of Utah Seismic Stations say the strongest was 3.5.

NEW YORK (CBS) ― [Click to zoom.] Click to enlarge Yellowstone remains very geologically active — and its famous geysers and hot springs are a reminder that a pool of magma still exists five to 10 miles underground. (File) CBS 1 of 1 Close numSlides of totalImages Related Stories * Yellowstone Earthquakes May Be 'Precursory' Events (12/30/2008) * Author: Yellowstone Park A Ticking Bomb (7/28/2008) * Wolves Of Yellowstone Spur Love And Hate (7/18/2007) * Yellowstone Bulge May Cause Thermal Unrest (3/2/2006) Related Links * Lowenstern Interview With Blogger * Yellowstone Earthquake Map The recent "swarm" of small earthquake tremors...

More on the Yellowstone earthquake swarm at the supervolcano caldera. First, this piece of database analysis from an IT guy at Splunk puts the swarm into scary perspective: I'm sending you this email with some information I've gleaned from the USGS archives. I'm analyzing the ANSS data (http://www.ncedc.org/cnss/) in an install of Splunk, which is a timeline based search and reporting engine. I have 30 years of data in the system, with about 2M quakes total. It makes doing graphs and adhoc investigations faster than dealing with the USGS limited search forms. Disclaimer: I work for Splunk as their evangelist,...

So what is the latest with the ongoing earthquake swarm at the Yellowstone supervolcano caldera? Here is my just-completed email chat with Dr. Jacob Lowenstern of the U.S. Geological Survey, top scientist at the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory: How would you characterize the recent level of seismic level? Terms like "swarm" are pretty alarming. How would place this level of activity in historical context to what the USGS/YVO have tracked before? Lowenstern: Swarm refers to seismicity when there isn't a typical mainshock/aftershock sequence. In other words, the events are more similar in size. Swarms are very common at Yellowstone. This one...

Okay, I'll start: 1) Blagojevich walks scott free 2) My salary continues to remain stagnate 3) The bailout results in a massive debt to taxpayers with zero benefit to them 4) Iran aquires nuclear weapons and we (including Bush) failed to do anything about it 5) Jamie Gertz continue's to become even more attractive as she ages

ST. ANTHONY -- Most of the people at a Fremont County meeting Tuesday concerning disaster declarations were thinking about blizzards, deep snow and other winter terrors. But a curious thing happening not far from Fremont County in Yellowstone National Park, Wyo., was on at least one person's mind. Chan Atchley of Ashton raised the question to the county emergency coordinator. He wanted to know if the county was aware of a swarm of earthquakes that have been occurring since right after Christmas in an area centered on the north end of Yellowstone Lake. As of Wednesday at noon, at least...

Nearly 400 earthquakes have rocked Yellowstone National Park since last Friday. The quakes are putting scientists on alert, but they say this type of activity isn't unusual. As long as the quakes continue, the park will keep a very close eye on the region. Hank Heasler, the Park's Geologist, said "Back in 1985, up to 3 months of earthquakes (occured). (They were) up to magnitudes 4.7. So the past four days have been relatively energetic for the last few years." Scientists say predicitng earthquakes is still in it's infancy and not reliable. Park officials are not worried that this swarm...

A swarm of small earthquakes in Yellowstone National Park is the most intense measured there in years, leaving scientists puzzled.

Any disaster fiend will tell you that Yellowstone National Park is long overdue for a monster eruption that could leave as much as half the U.S. under a blanket of ash. And there are rumblings the big one could be imminent in the wake of a series of 30-plus mini-earthquakes in the park over the past few days—too weak to be felt by humans for the most part but picked up by the seismometers at the University of Utah. After all, the geologic record shows that the giant caldera we affectionately call Yellowstone has blown every 600,000 years or so...

CHEYENNE, Wyo. — Yellowstone National Park was jostled by a host of small earthquakes for a third straight day Monday, and scientists watched closely to see whether the more than 250 tremors were a sign of something bigger to come. Swarms of small earthquakes happen frequently in Yellowstone, but it's very unusual for so many earthquakes to happen over several days, said Robert Smith, a professor of geophysics at the University of Utah. "They're certainly not normal," Smith said. "We haven't had earthquakes in this energy or extent in many years."

<p>CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — Yellowstone National Park was jostled by a host of small earthquakes for a third straight day Monday, and scientists watched closely to see whether the more than 250 tremors were a sign of something bigger to come. Swarms of small earthquakes happen frequently in Yellowstone, but it's very unusual for so many earthquakes to happen over several days, said Robert Smith, a professor of geophysics at the University of Utah.</p>

Excerpt: MAP 2.4 2008/12/30 00:36:39 44.510 -110.384 0.2 60 km ( 37 mi) ESE of West Yellowstone, MT MAP 2.4 2008/12/29 21:25:15 44.525 -110.360 2.0 61 km ( 38 mi) ESE of West Yellowstone, MT

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

<p>YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyo. (AP) - The University of Utah Seismograph Stations report a swarm of small earthquakes in Yellowstone National Park.</p> <p>The university says the quakes of magnitude 3.5 and lower have been occurring beneath Yellowstone Lake, five to nine miles south-southeast of Fishing Bridge, a park landmark. The earthquakes that began on Friday and continued on Saturday intensified during the weekend, and there were reports that people in the Yellowstone Lake area felt the quakes.</p>

<p>YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyo. (AP) - The University of Utah Seismograph Stations report a swarm of small earthquakes in Yellowstone National Park.</p> <p>The university says the quakes of magnitude 3.5 and lower have been occurring beneath Yellowstone Lake, five to nine miles south-southeast of Fishing Bridge, a park landmark.</p>

Under the snow, insulated from the wind and cold, is a network of tunnels inhabited by mice and voles. This red fox can’t see them, but he can hear them moving. Diving nose first through the snow’s surface, the fox searches out a meal.

The new wireless communications plan for Yellowstone National Park would bring additional cellular service to park users and would leave the door open for placing webcams in the back country. Critics say the plan will destroy solitude for the sake of technology. Bill Boteler is with Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. He says Yellowstone now aspires to be an amusement park.

The geysers of Yellowstone National Park owe their existence to the "Yellowstone hotspot"--a region of molten rock buried deep beneath Yellowstone, geologists have found... But how hot is this "hotspot," and what's causing it? In an effort to find out, Derek Schutt of Colorado State University and Ken Dueker of the University of Wyoming took the hotspot's temperature They found that the hotspot is "only" 50 to 200 degrees Celsius hotter than its surroundings. "Although Yellowstone sits above a plume of hot material coming up from deep with the Earth, it's a remarkably 'lukewarm' plume," said Schutt, comparing Yellowstone to...

Montana’s wolf population increased 34 percent over the past year, to an estimated 422 wolves in 73 packs... The wolves are nearly equally distributed between northern and southern Montana...although the bulk of the population growth was in northwestern and far western Montana... Wolves are still listed under the Endangered Species Act. Delisting was set for late March, but lawsuits are expected to delay that. As for conflicts with ranchers, the FWP reported an increase in the number of confirmed cattle deaths due to wolves, from 32 to 75, and an increase in the number of sheep deaths, from four to...

A jackrabbit found throughout much of the West has disappeared from the Yellowstone area, although the reason why remains a mystery, a new study concludes. Whatever the cause, the study suggests the white-tailed jackrabbit's disappearance has wrought major changes to Yellowstone's food chain. Coyotes and wolves, which could have depended on the rabbit as a significant food source, apparently turned their attention instead to larger prey including young elk, pronghorn antelope -- even domestic livestock. However, because the rabbit's decline went relatively unnoticed until now, quantifying that shift is virtually impossible, said the study's lead author, Joel Berger with the...

they swivelled the Old Faithful Webcam to show buffaloes foraging

YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyo. - Yellowstone National Park has launched a live, streaming webcam focused on the Old Faithful area. The real-time webcam provides full motion video of Old Faithful Geyser, as well as other geysers located on Geyser Hill. A five-minute audio message plays with the live video stream, providing information about various hydrothermal features in the park. Viewers may also observe wildlife and park visitors as they wander into the range of the webcam. Park officials caution that the streaming webcam is still experimental, especially in the harsh environment of a typical Yellowstone winter, and may not work...

YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyo. - Tsunami-like waves created by an earthquake may have triggered the world's largest known hydrothermal explosion some 13,000 years ago, a federal scientist says. The explosion created the Mary Bay crater that stretches more than one mile across along the north edge of Yellowstone Lake. Debris from the explosion has been found miles away. Lisa Morgan of the U.S. Geological Survey told a gathering of scientists over the weekend at Mammoth Hot Springs that an earthquake may have displaced more than 77 million cubic feet of water in Yellowstone Lake, creating huge waves that essentially unsealed...

Rocky Mountain National Park officials say a recent report of a possible wolf sighting is credible, but it's difficult to be sure without more evidence. Ranger Jack Dinsmoor said Friday that two experienced park volunteers reported seeing what looked like a wolf on Dec. 4. They didn't get a photo, but large canine paw prints were later found in the area. Dinsmoor said park officials don't know if the animal was a wolf, a wolf-dog hybrid or ... Baskfield said the division did confirm that a large black animal caught on video by wildlife officers last February in northern Colorado...

DES MOINES (DTN) -- When gray wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park during the mid-1990s, it started a heated debate between wildlife enthusiasts and ranchers that has never cooled down. The ongoing clash of opinions recently hit the airwaves. Residents in Bozeman, Mont., are the first in the nation to hear anti-wolf radio messages paid for by the Montana Stockgrowers Association. The messages, which will air for the next 60 days, were created to call urban attention to the economic impacts on ranchers caused by wolves, said Steve Pilcher, executive vice president of the Montana Stockgrowers Association. Bozeman was...

Motorized over-snow access to Yellowstone Park via Sylvan Pass will continue under terms of a Park Service decision signed Tuesday. The decision reversed an earlier Park Service preferred alternative that would have totally closed Yellowstone's East Entrance in wintertime after the 2007-08 season. A Record of Decision (ROD) concerning Yellowstone and Grand Teton parks and the Rockefeller Parkway was signed by Mike Snyder of Denver, director of the Intermountain Region of the Park Service. The ROD calls for changes in winter use in the two parks beginning with the 2008-09 winter season. “Unless they still commit to wanting to have...

PRAY - For rancher Randy Petrich, the removal of gray wolves from the endangered-species list - a move that would open up the animals to hunting in the Northern Rockies for the first time in decades - couldn't come soon enough. Petrich has seen fresh wolf tracks almost every morning this fall - close enough to threaten his cattle. "I believe that any wolf on any given night, if there happens to be a calf there, they will kill it," ... Just 12 years since the wolves were reintroduced into Yellowstone National Park ... federal officials say the sharp rise...

Magma surge causes record rise at Yellowstone 19:00 08 November 2007 NewScientist.com news service Catherine Brahic The remains of the Yellowstone supervolcano in the US is huffing and puffing and rising by up to 7 centimetres a year, say researchers. They speculate this rise is caused by a mass of molten rock the size of Los Angeles being forced from the Earth’s mantle into the magma chamber beneath the ancient volcano. But the researchers, led by Wu-Lung Chang of the University of Utah in the US, caution that the movement does not mean an explosion is imminent. Calderas – the...