Yellowstone River in Hayden Valley. WY, MT & ID  © Christian Heeb • The Report • Wild Lands List • Watch List • News Room

Oil Rigs and Snowmobiles Threaten American Icon

Though most Americans probably assume that the Yellowstone area is fully protected, the reality is that this natural treasure faces grave threats from dirt bikes, snowmobiles, and other off-road vehicles (ORVs), oil and gas drilling, sprawl, and logging and the road building that accompanies it. Although most of this activity occurs outside the national park, it affects the health of the park and the larger ecosystem.

WHAT'S AT STAKE
Rare Wildlife, Thermal Wonders, and Solitude

The world's first national park anchors an 18-million-acre ecosystem. Yellowstone National Park comprises 2.2 million acres; Grand Teton National Park, three national wildlife refuges, and seven national forests total another 12.5 million acres. These 12 areas add up to 82 percent of the ecosystem. It is home to the largest mostly intact geyser system left in the world, extensive lakes and streams, alpine meadows, and evergreen forests.

Greater Yellowstone provides habitat for many species found in few other places, including grizzly bears, gray wolves, bison, and trumpeter swans. One of the reasons this wildlife can survive there is Yellowstone's naturalness: more than half of the ecosystem remains road-free. Take action from this website.

THREATS   

ORVs
"Unfortunately, Mother Nature is on the defensive in Yellowstone," said Bob Ekey, Northern Rockies regional director for The Wilderness Society. "The fastest growing threat right now is ORV traffic, especially snowmobiles roaring through Yellowstone National Park and wilderness areas in the Targhee and Gallatin national forests. There are also more and more dirt bikes. All these machines are getting more powerful, so they penetrate into more remote areas and do greater damage to the land."

Snowmobile with bison in Greater Yellowstone. WY, MT & ID  © Irene Owsley Spector

With 80,000 snowmobile trips now being made through the park in winter, the National Park Service has proposed eliminating the machines, but a protracted fight by snowmobile manufacturers and users is under way. These vehicles drown out natural sounds, pollute the air, interfere with wildlife activities during an already-stressful season, and tear up vegetation. Although most of the attention has focused on the park, the problem is increasingly serious in the nearby national forests, and the Forest Service has yet to address it.

Oil and Gas Development
An astonishing 7 million acres in the area's national forests are now available for oil and gas drilling. Much of this land is vital to grizzlies, elk, and other wildlife. The Forest Service is considering leasing even more of the lands it manages, including an undisturbed 370,000-acre tract in the Bridger-Teton National Forest, 35 miles south of Jackson Hole. "This should be a nonstarter," said Michael Scott, program director for the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. "This is an extraordinary place and should not be industrialized under any circumstances."

Logging and Road Building
The logging industry, too, would like to exploit the national forests. Over the years, to facilitate the logging, 7,500 miles of roads have been built, promoting erosion that pollutes streams and breaking up wildlife travel corridors. These roads are expensive, and that's one reason that the Forest Service's commercial logging program has failed to cover its costs. In 1997, the program ate up a taxpayer subsidy of $2.7 million in the seven forests. The Clinton Administration is considering a policy that would bar road building in unprotected roadless areas in all national forests.

Development
The natural features that lure tourists also draw new residents, and the 20 counties in the Greater Yellowstone area have grown at an average rate of 14 percent over the last decade. The counties are failing to deal effectively with subdividers and other developers, thereby increasing the likelihood of losing wildlife migration corridors. One proposal would put a ski resort and more than 1,000 luxury homes in Targhee National Forest, just west of Grand Teton National Park. The developer would build on acreage to be acquired through a trade with the Forest Service. "We're losing open space too quickly as it is," said Ekey, "and 70 percent of the people who submitted comments on this potential land swap told the Forest Service it was a bad idea."

VOICE OF THE LAND

"Yellowstone is an invaluable natural laboratory. Its geothermal features are so rich in biological diversity that you can find the equivalent diversity of a tropical rain forest-in the space of a beer bottle. One enzyme found here led to a major breakthrough in DNA testing of fingerprints." --John Spear, research associate, University of Colorado

FACTS Since the gray wolf was reintroduced in Yellowstone National Park in 1995, the population has grown to about 115. Greater Yellowstone is the southern anchor of the Yellowstone-to-Yukon corridor that conservationists are now campaigning to protect. Old Faithful erupts 18 to 22 times a day, and the eruptions go as high as 180 feet.

RECOMMENDATION

The Forest Service should stop leasing land to oil and gas companies in the national forests surrounding Yellowstone National Park and must carefully regulate any drilling that does occur.

The Forest Service should bar any road building in the roadless portions of these seven forests, as proposed in October 1999 by President Clinton.

The land exchange that would lead to development of the Grand Targhee ski resort should be abandoned.

Off-road vehicles should be limited to specifically designated routes, to minimize damage to the national forests surrounding the park.

Congress needs to appropriate money from the Land and Water Conservation Fund to acquire acreage along important wildlife migration corridors to prevent development.

Bison must be allowed to migrate north across park borders in search of winter forage.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service should adopt a conservation plan that gives the grizzly bear the strongest protection possible, as declines in habitat and food sources increase the threat to this vanishing species.

PUBLIC ACTION

Citizens should contact:

Robert Stanton
National Park Service Director
1849 C St., NW
Washington, DC 20240
to urge a phase-out of snowmobiles at Yellowstone National Park.

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

Bob Ekey, Regional Director
Betsy Buffington, Outreach Coordinator TWS Northern Rockies Regionr
105 W. Main St., Ste. E
Bozeman, MT 59715-4689
Phone: (406) 586-1600