National Parks Traveler Podcast | National Park Science At Risk
National Parks Traveler Podcast
Release Date: 04/20/2025
National Parks Traveler Podcast | Appalachian Trail Crowds
National Parks Traveler Podcast
Running nearly 2,200 miles along the spine of the Appalachian Range from Georgia to Maine, the Appalachian National Scenic Trail arguably is the world's most famous long-distance trail. Some think it's also one that can be very crowded in spots. Morgan Sommerville, the director of visitor use management for the Appalachian Trail Conservancy, joins us today to discuss the trail in general and whether it's too crowded.
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National Parks Traveler Podcast | Intrepid Travel
National Parks Traveler Podcast
Heading into the National Park System this summer? Going it alone, or have you booked a tour company? What do you think about how the Trump Administration and Congress are treating the National Parks and the National Park Service? Have you reported any park signs to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum that disparage Americans, dead or alive? As you can tell there’s a lot going on in the parks. Some good, some not so good, and some downright bad. It’s a lot to digest, and a lot to discuss. To help us gauge a sense of what’s going on out there, our guest is Leigh Barnes, President...
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National Parks Traveler Podcast | ATC at 100
National Parks Traveler Podcast
Anniversaries and birthdays give us time to reflect on individuals, accomplishments, and moments in history. They often refresh our memories and can serve as motivators to do something. This year marks the 100th anniversary of the Appalachian Trail Conservancy, which was established in 1925, just two years after the first sections of the Appalachian Trail opened. To discuss the trail, some of its history, and the challenges it faces today, our guests are Sandi Marra, CEO of the Conservancy, and Brendan Mysliwiec, the Conservancy’s Director of Federal Policy.
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National Parks Traveler Podcast | Federal Lands Fire Sale
National Parks Traveler Podcast
There are some in Congress who think we should have a fire sale on public lands. Places across national forests and the Bureau of Land Management that politicians think should be offered for sale, either to try to adopt President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill that would continue to offer the biggest tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans and corporations or simply because they don’t believe there should be public lands. This legislation, sponsored by U.S. Senator Mike Lee of Utah, could be the most devastating public lands measure to come before Congress. If passed, it could dramatically...
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National Parks Traveler Podcast | How Wild
National Parks Traveler Podcast
Today our guest is Marissa Ortega-Welch, a San Francisco-based freelance journalist who focuses on environmental issues. Last year she generated a series of podcasts surrounding the topic of official wilderness – the history of official wilderness and the idea of wilderness. It’s an interesting series that you can find by searching for How Wild wherever you download your podcasts.
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National Parks Traveler Podcast | Plight of the Parks
National Parks Traveler Podcast
So much is happening so quickly to the National Park Service. There have been staff reductions, hiring freezes, spending freezes, orders from the Interior Secretary to make sure that visitors find national parks welcoming, no matter what it takes. Every week seems to bring something new, and quite frankly dire to the National Park Service. Most recently we’ve heard about the loss of about 60 employees from the agency’s Alaska regional office, and there are concerns the Trump administration is going to push through even greater reductions in force for the Park Service. How are those...
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National Parks Traveler Podcast | Environmental Partisanship
National Parks Traveler Podcast
Is green a red and blue construct? Put another way, is there a political partisan divide over the environment? That’s a particularly interesting question, no doubt more so in recent years as the country seems to have drifted farther and farther apart because of our political beliefs. To that point, a reader reached out the other day to say our stories shouldn’t be negative on the Trump Administration because the national parks are going to need the help of all of us - Democrats, Republicans, Independents, and everything in-between - to survive. But are environmental issues highly partisan?...
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National Parks Traveler Podcast | Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility
National Parks Traveler Podcast
News around public lands these days seems to revolve entirely around the Trump administration. In the case of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, many of the steps the administration is taking with the operational efficiencies of the National Park Service and other land management agencies certainly are keeping PEER busy. But what exactly is PEER, and what is their mission? For as long as the National Parks Traveler has been in existence, going back 20 years, stories recounting PEER and its lawsuits against land-management agencies have appeared frequently in our...
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National Parks Traveler Podcast | North American Bird Declines
National Parks Traveler Podcast
True birders are some of the most determined and persistent hobbyists out there. If you want to call bird watching a hobby. For many, it’s more like a passion. Many look forward to “Big Day” competitions, where individuals and teams strive to see how many different bird species they can spot in a 24-hour period. Many birders log their sightings and identifications in eBird, a smartphone application created by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the National Audubon Society. The good news is that millions of birders use this app. The concerning news is that their bird sightings over a...
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National Parks Traveler Podcast | Walt Dabney and Public Lands
National Parks Traveler Podcast
It’s fair to say that the nation’s public lands, those managed by the National Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Forest Service and other federal land-management agencies are at risk under the Trump administration. There’s no hyperbole in that statement if you pay attention to what the administration already has done in terms of downsizing those agencies’ workforces, and when you listen to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum say he wants to open more public lands to energy development and mining. Federal lands in the United States are owned by all Americans, but at...
info_outlineThere has been much upheaval in the National Park Service this year, with firings, then rehires, and staff deciding to retire now rather than risk sticking around and being fired. There have been fears that more Park Service personnel are about to be let go through a reduction in force.
While Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has ordered the Park Service to ensure that parks are properly to support the operating hours and needs of each park unit,” that message said nothing about protecting park resources.
Among all this upheaval the question that goes begging is whether the Interior Department is as concerned about protecting natural resources, including wildlife, as it is about seeing that visitors have a good national park experience?
Our guest today is Dr. Michael Soukup, who during his National Park Service career served as the agency’s chief scientist. When he joined the Park Service in 1975 Dr. Soukup, a distinguished coastal ecologist, biologist and researcher, brought a clear vision for natural resource stewardship that would be embraced throughout the NPS and supported by visitors and local citizens.
He was directly responsible for launching the Natural Resource Challenge, a $100 million funding initiative that brought the protection of natural resources of the parks to the forefront.