The Slaughter of Elk at Yellowstone National Park | JSTOR Daily

After a year trapped in quarantine, summer travelers are getting outside to be in nature. National parks are experiencing, as expected, long lines of RVs and backpackers aiming their eyes and cameras at expansive desert vistas, tranquil alpine lakes, and abundant wildlife—apparently timeless scenes apart from human manipulation.

The naturalness of national parks, however, is more an artifact of National Park Service policy than many visitors realize, which means that management priorities are subject to periodic changes. That is to say, what we see in the national parks are products of history, of people and politics, and not just of geology and evolution. Like any political agency, the National Park Service responds to evolving public desires. And like any bureaucracy, it resists change… More about this article in the link below…

https://daily.jstor.org/the-slaughter-of-elk-at-yellowstone-national-park/