The National Park Service (NPS) is developing air tour management plans for national parks, including some with outstanding Wildernes and potential Wilderness, such as Mount Rainier, Olympic, Everglades, Death Valley, and Glacier.
Natural sounds are being increasingly drowned out by our machines, making it difficult for humans and wildlife to find quiet, even in some of the most remote places. Many national parks and even Wildernesses are plagued by the intrusion of commercial, low-level “flightseeing” air tours. These flights can be incredibly noisy and shatter the quiet and solitude that many visitors seek and that wildlife needs to survive and thrive.
The plans permits some number of air tours to fly over Wilderness, while failing to disclose the impacts of the proposed flights and offer alternatives. The Park Service needs to uphold its obligation to protect Wilderness and the parks by instead providing the public with a “no flight” alternative to comment on in each national park, rather than only soliciting public comments on allowing some level of air tours.
Commercial helicopter and fixed-wing air tours are always at odds with experiencing the quiet and solitude of wild places and should be prohibited over national parks and Wilderness. No amount of air tours is acceptable!
Photo: National Park Service
Thanks to comments from our members and supporters, the Forest Service (FS) has issued a draft Environmental Assessment that excludes Wilderness, Wilderness Study Areas, recommended Wilderness, and roadless areas from its Region 5 Post Disturbance Hazardous Tree Management Project. This project could have included more than a dozen Wildernesses within the sprawling project area across 10 National Forests in California.
As a tragedy continues at Point Reyes National Seashore in Northern California, Wilderness Watch is urging the National Park Service (NPS) to end the tragic, ongoing deaths of rare Tule elk at Point Tomales in the Phillip Burton Wilderness, by taking down the fence so elk can access food and water.
On November 13, 2020, a federal court ruled in favor of protecting brown bears in the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) and Wilderness in Alaska. The Kenai National Wildlife Refuge includes approximately 2 million acres of important wildlife habitat and more than 1.3 million acres of Wilderness.
Wilderness Watch is urging the National Park Service to adopt a wilderness-compatible alternative for addressing the boardwalk on the Cape Alava and Sand Point trails in Olympic National Park in Washington. Ninety-five percent of the Park is designated Wilderness, including this northwestern corner on the Pacific Coast.
Wilderness Watch is urging the National Park Service (NPS) to drop a proposal to use helicopters and plant tens of thousands of giant sequoia seedlings in the remote Board Camp Grove in the John Krebs Wilderness in California.
Wilderness Watch
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Missoula, MT 59807
P: 406-542-2048
E: wild@wildernesswatch.org
Minneapolis, MN Office
2833 43rd Avenue South
Minneapolis, MN 55406
P: 612-201-9266
Moscow, ID Office
P.O. Box 9765
Moscow, ID 83843