If I had to give one good reason to relist wolves on the endangered species list, it would be because they are a keystone species. Full stop. Their reintroduction will save the forest. The Native Americans knew it, and we forgot it and nearly lost all the wooded land. Now it's time to bring them back by protecting them as a vital part of nature. Join me in the campaign to save all animals but particularly the species central to the health of our woodlands.
An ecosystem is a biological community of interacting organisms and their physical environment. It includes all of the living things interacting with each other and non-living environments (weather, earth, sun, soil, climate, atmosphere) in a given area.
In an ecosystem, all species rely on each other, and each organism has its’ own niche or role to play. A keystone species is a plant or animal that plays a disproportionately large role in the ecosystem – impacting both the prevalence and population levels of other species within their community. More
It's another mandatory beach day in Southern California to fight the heat with cold LA seawater
Workout time, Jen Love Hewitt
Los Angeles will see highs in the 90s for much of next week and inland areas such as Palm Springs will see temperatures topping 110 degrees, according to the National Weather Service.
While Northern California won’t see as extreme temperatures as the southern portion of the state, they will still be above average temperatures for most of the week.
This will all go on while fire crews are battling wildfires all over the state with the largest being near the Tahoe National Forest, north of the capital Sacramento near the Nevada border.
A brush fire sparked in Fairfield on Sunday, leading to evacuation warnings before it could be fully contained, according to CalFire Lake Napa Unit (Fire Rescue)
Dubbed the Bear Fire, the Sierra County blaze sparked Monday (Labor Day) afternoon and prompted mandatory evacuations in the surrounding area according to state and federal fire officials. More
The Mirror US via MSN, 9/3/24; Ashley Wells, Pfc. Sandoval (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly
A “magic mushroom” is taking a wide-range of diners — from Manhattan’s famed Le Bernardin to astronauts in outer space — on a wild trip.
Known as Fy, rhymes with sci-fi, the funky fungi are a protein formed from a microbe found by a NASA-funded geo-microbiologist in the acid hot springs of Yellowstone National Park.
Astronauts are now studying these fungi in space as a food source during long missions. Back on Earth, Chef Eric Ripert has been using Fy in several dishes at Le Bernardin, the Michelin-starred seafood sanctuary named the top restaurant in the world by La Liste last month.
“We call it here, as a joke, the ‘magic mushroom.’ It’s basically magic,” Ripert told Side Dish. “It tastes like nothing, [if nothing tasted] like milk with a slight umami taste.”
For the past six months, Ripert has served Fy in his desserts, including a chamomile ice cream, and in a squash blossom delicacy.
He’s also recently included it in a savory Yukon Gold Potato dish with olive and a sauce vierge, in his $220 vegetarian tasting menu and in a cold hazelnut dessert.
Geysers yes, Ellis Island no: Some US parks open, some not
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyoming - Visitors could still ride snowmobiles and ski into Yellowstone National Park Saturday to marvel at the geysers and buffalo herds, despite the federal government shutdown.
But across the country in New York, the nation's most famous monuments to immigration -- the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island -- were closed. The Interior Department had vowed to keep open as many parks, monuments, and public lands as possible during the shutdown, which began at midnight Friday on the East Coast.
By mid-day Saturday, the pattern was spotty, and some visitors were frustrated. "My initial reaction is, they really kind of screwed up our day. We had a great day planned," said Dan O'Meara, a California firefighter who wanted to visit the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.
Visit them before it's too late!
"But the next thing is, you know -- it's troubling that the people we voted in are not doing the job that they're supposed to be doing. So it's very frustrating," he said. In Yellowstone, cross-country skier Carol Weaver was unhappy with lawmakers, even though the trails were open for her and a group of friends making a two-day visit.
Weaver, from Bozeman, Montana, worried about what would happen if the impasse is lengthy. "This is our public land, and we should be able to use it any time we want," she said. "Congress better get its act together. They've been so irresponsible the last year, as well as the White House." More
The USA has 59 national parks with Yellowstone being the second best, behind Yosemite.
Yellowstone National Park is a national park on land taken from Native Americans in Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho established by Congress and Pres. Ulysses S. Grant in 1872.
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Tribes want change to Yellowstone names
The beauty of Yellowstone National Park in the winter, with wildlife, trees, and rivers
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We attest: Sioux and Blackfoot were here first.
CHEYENNE, Wyoming - Two tribes demonstrated in favor of renaming a valley and a mountain in Yellowstone National Park.
These places are associated with two white men who advocated [genocide, ethnic cleansing, exploitation, and the wholesale] slaughter of Native Americans and another who carried it out.
Leaders of the Blackfoot Confederacy and Great Sioux Nation gathered Saturday at Yellowstone’s North Entrance near Gardiner, Montana, tribal officials said.
The tribes seek to change the name of Hayden Valley, a sub-alpine valley just north of Yellowstone Lake, to Buffalo Nations Valley.
They want to change the name of Mount Doane, a 10,550-foot (3,216-meter) peak five miles east of the lake, to First People’s Mountain.
Old Faithful geyser, pride of the park
Efforts to change place names and remove monuments to controversial figures in U.S. history have gained momentum since white supremacists oppose taking down a statute of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee and clashed in August with counter-protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia.
But several Native American renaming efforts -- some simply to erase racist terminology from maps -- have been going on for years.
Elsewhere in Wyoming, tribes seek to change Devils Tower, the name of an 870-foot (265-meter) volcanic mesa in the first U.S. national monument, to Bear Lodge.
[White] Devils Tower
Officers at Fort Ellis, 1871. Genocidal G.C. Doane 4th from left (W.H. Jackson/USGS)
I repeatedly said, "Kill them."
Devils Tower is the name white settlers gave the feature. Bear Lodge is what the Lakota, Crow, Cheyenne, and other tribes call the formation important and sacred to their cultures.
In Yellowstone, Hayden Valley is named for Ferdinand V. Hayden, a geologist whose explorations inspired the park’s establishment in 1872 but who called for exterminating American Indians who wouldn’t acquiesce to [white rule and] becoming [indentured servants, slaves] farmers and ranchers.
I killed them, for the US Army.
Mount Doane is named after U.S. Army Lt. Gustavus Cheyney Doane, who took part in killing 173 [helpless] noncombatant Indians -- women, children, and elderly men -- in Montana in 1870.
“America’s first national park should no longer have features named after the proponents and exponents of genocide,” the Rocky Mountain Tribal Leaders Council, which represents every tribe in Montana and Wyoming, stated in a 2014 resolution.
The tribes asked Yellowstone last year to rename Hayden Valley and Mount Doane. Park officials responded by explaining the renaming process overseen by the U.S. Geological Survey’s Board on Geographic Names, park Superintendent Dan Wenk said.
“The National Park Service understands that this is an important and sensitive issue,” Wenk said in a statement Tuesday. “We look forward to continuing this conversation.”
The Park Service has a responsibility to take up the matter with the board on the tribes’ behalf, said Crow Creek Sioux Tribe Chairman Brandon Sazue.
“We are not individuals, we are sovereign nations, many with treaty rights to this region, and those treaties are enshrined in Article VI of the U.S. Constitution,” Sazue said by email.
The Board on Geographic Names has received several emails on the issue but no official proposal to change the names of Hayden Valley or Doane Mountain, Geological Survey officials said. Source
Sunrise over Crater Lake, Oregon, Crater Lake National Park, which sits in a caldera of an ancient volcano called Mount Mazama that collapsed 7,700 years ago, according the NPS. It is the deepest lake in the US and is famous for its vivid blue color and clarity (Marc Adamus/The Register-Guard via AP).
Park Service marks centennial with new citizens, monument
The National Park Service is celebrating its 100th birthday on Thursday with events across the U.S. including the creation of a giant, living version of its emblem in Washington, D.C., a naturalization ceremony on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon and an outdoor concert at Yellowstone National Park.
( The centennial comes as the agency that manages national parks as well as historic places welcomes a new national monument and nature forces some changes in the party in the West.
Interior Secretary Sally Jewell says all Americans deserve the chance to experience the national parks.
Speaking below the Roosevelt Arch in Gardiner, Montana on Thursday night, Jewell said Americans from all walks of life should see themselves in the country's public lands. It was a full night of speeches and singing as about 6,000 people gathered to celebrate the 100th birthday of the National Park Service.
The Billings Gazette reports two-time Grammy winner John Prine sang "Paradise" in honor of his father, who used to take him to state and national parks. Next, Emmylou Harris and a stage filled with musicians sang Woody Guthrie's [originally very radical] "This Land is Your Land" as the crowd sang along. More
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