At national parks, rangers ready for reopening as bears are wandering empty roads and tortoises are sunning themselves on tarmac.
Steve McCool, a former professor of forestry at the University of Montana, has studied national parks and advised managers both in the U.S. and abroad for 50 years. He says national park visits have made a significant jump in the last decade. In 1904, 120,000 visited the country's national parks. In 1989, the number surpassed 100 million. In 2019, parks saw 327 million visitors.
This spring, the animals have the place mostly to themselves. “This time of year is prime time for wildlife to congregate,” Gantt said. Moments like these remind Vamstad that, while a portion of Joshua Tree sees millions of people a year, most of the park he loves receives almost no traffic. Now seeing the animals that usually inhabit the more wild parts of Joshua Tree wander into previously human-centered spaces is a reminder that the ecology is ready to take back the wheel — if humans give it the chance, he said.
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