As you walk through the white gypsum sands of White Sands National Park in southern New Mexico, your footprints will likely be quickly erased by shifting winds. So it’s somewhat of a phenomenon of nature that the oldest footprints ever discovered in North America are not only found here — in perfect form, having withstood time and weather — but show that ancient humans lived here much earlier than previously believed.  A research team from the U-S Geological Survey earlier this month strengthened their findings released in 2021 that dated these footprints to as much as 23,000 years old. That finding erased previous theories that humans first arrived in North America some 11,000 years ago, after the end of the last Ice Age.  This week the Traveler’s Lynn Riddick talks with key researchers from the U.S. Geological Survey team about their initial analysis of the footprints as well as their follow-up study that confirmed the age dating…and what it all means to our long-sought understanding of human colonization on this continent.

National Parks Traveler Podcast | Footprints in Time

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Wolverines, the largest land-dwelling members of the weasel family, once roamed across the northern tier of the United States, and as far south as New Mexico in the Rockies and southern California in the Sierra Nevada range. But after more than a century of trapping and habitat loss, wolverines in the lower 48 today exist only as small, fragmented populations in Idaho, Montana, Washington, Wyoming, and northeast Oregon.  However, there’s soon to be an effort in Colorado to help the carnivores recover in that state. The Colorado legislature has been considering legislation calling for the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Agency to move ahead with a recovery plan for wolverines. The bill is expected to face its final legislative hurdle in the coming weeks.  To discuss this initiative, we’re joined today by Megan Mueller, a conservation biologist with Rocky Mountain Wild, a non-profit advocacy organization working to bring them back, and Elaine Leslie, who was Chief of Biological Resources for the National Park Service before retiring.

National Parks Traveler Podcast | Wolverine Recovery in Colorado

Spur a discussion about traveling to a national park for a vacation and odds are that it will revolve around getting out into nature, looking for wildlife, perhaps honing your photography skills, or marveling at incredible vistas. Will the discussion include destinations that portray aspects of the country’s history, or cultural melting pot?  Equating national parks with nature is obvious, but making a similar connection with history and culture might not be so obvious. And maybe that lack of appreciation for America’s culture and history explains why the National Park Service has been struggling with protecting and interpreting those aspects of the parks. The National Parks Conservation Association has just released a report calling for a Cultural Resource Challenge, one that asks for a hefty investment by Congress in the Park Service’s cultural affairs wing. We explore that report in today’s episode with Alan Spears, NPCA’s senior director for cultural affairs.

National Parks Traveler Podcast | Cultural Resource Challenge

Tens of millions of people in the United States will be able to witness a Total Solar Eclipse on Monday as the rare astronomical event cuts a path from Texas to Maine, up to 122 miles wide in some spots.  This is a great opportunity to see the exact moment when the moon fully blocks the sun, creating a blazing corona visible to those observing from the center line of totality.  There are a number of national park units within the eclipse path that runs from Texas to Maine that offer good vantage points to view the eclipse. And the parks offer a great Plan B of exploration and education if the day turns out to be cloudy or worse.  This week, the Traveler’s Lynn Riddick, who is planning to be in the center line of totality as the eclipse passes through Texas, speaks with renowned astronomer Tyler Nordgren – who is also planning to be in the center line as it passes through New York.  Lynn and Tyler will discuss the eclipse as well as some national park eclipse viewing opportunities after this break.

National Parks Traveler Podcast | Total Solar Eclipse of the Parks

With March madness down to the Sweet 16, and Opening Day of Major League Baseball having arrived, we’re going to take a break this week and dive into our podcast archives for this week’s show.   This is Kurt Repanshek, your host at the National Parks Traveler. My NCAA bracket was busted the very first day, and while the Yankees won their opening day game against the Houston Astros, I don’t think they’ll go undefeated this year.   While I ponder the sports world, we’re going to let Lynn Riddick reprise her interviews with National Park Radio and the National Parks, two bands with great names that we think you’ll like.

National Parks Traveler Podcast | Music Inspired by the Parks

One of the most popular public events in the National Park System was the release of sea turtle hatchlings, shuffling off into the Gulf of Mexico at Padre Island National Seashore. I say was, because the number of those public events has been drastically scaled back in recent years.  The programs featuring the release of Kemp’s ridley sea turtle hatchlings at Padre Island offered young and old a crash course in conservation of a species that has narrowly avoided extinction, and remains highly endangered. In 2019, before the COVID 19 pandemic shuttered the public hatchling releases at Padre Island, an estimated 16,000 people viewed the releases. In 2020, online video presentations of the events attracted about 1 million viewers.  Yet despite the strong conservation value of these events, not just in public education but in the tens of thousands of hatched turtles released to the ocean, advocates of the program say the national seashore’s Sea Turtle Science and Recovery program itself is endangered. For after the Park Service recruited Dr. Donna Shaver to build that sea turtle science program, a role that saw her lifted to international prominence, the agency now seems to be squandering her success and hoping she will retire.  What’s been going on at Padre Island since 2021 has drawn the concern of the Sierra Club’s Lone Star chapter, based in Austin, Texas. It recently led a petition drive to raise concerns over the direction of the sea turtle program. Dr. Craig Nazor, the chapter’s conservation chair, recently met with Kate Hammond, the Director of the Park Services Intermountain Region, to question the direction of the program. 

National Parks Traveler Podcast | Footprints in Time

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