Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore is now Indiana Dunes National Park/NPS
The spending bill President Trump signed on Friday included a provision that changed the name of Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore to Indiana Dunes National Park. This change takes place immediately.
The bill also changes the name of the Miller Woods Trail to the Paul H. Douglas Trail in honor of the late Illinois senator who helped lead the fight along with Save the Dunes and other citizen groups to create the national lakeshore in 1966.
"One-hundred-and-three years in the making, what a terrific tribute to the neighbors, partners, visitors and National PARK staff," said Indiana Dunes Superintendent Paul Labovitz. "We are so appreciative to the entire Indiana delegation for their recognition and support of this national treasure."
The park staff looks forward to celebrating this name change in the near future and to working with local communities and partners on spreading the word about the nation’s 61st national park.
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Comments
@cjdillon I'm not doubting you, Costa, nor bashing Indiana Dunes, but what are the sources & data for your claims that Indiana Dunes NP is top 10 biodiversity in NPS, and greatest east of the Rockies? Folks at Great Smoky Mountains would certianly dispute the latter, and I'd bet on Big Bend for all taxa species richness, birds, vascular plants, and probably reptiles over Indiana Dunes NP.
OK, I got curious and hit my pilot data, and now I'm doubting you a little. [12 lines of code, off the clock, not using GFE.]
In terms of sprcies richness, for species documented or asserted to occur in each park (at least one of NPSpecies, gbif, iDigBio for museum specimens, and iNaturalist), Indiana Dunes comes in tied for #31 with Shenandoah at 3171 unique scientific names. That's before crosswalking to remove synonyms, so a rough estimate of current knowledge. Great Smoky Mountains NP is #1 at 9715, but they've had an ongoing all taxa biodiversity survey for decades. Golden Gate NRA (!) is #2 with 6163; they had a BioBlitz circa 2014 using iNaturalist, so much better insect data than most parks. Other units east of the Rockies with more species recorded than Indiana Dunes incude Everglades NP, Big Bend NP, Big Thicket NPreserve, George Washington Memorial Parkway, and Deleware Water Gap.
If you go by just NPS data (NPSpecies status "Present", not hitting ICMS for vouchers or veg inventory plot data), Indiana Dunes moves up to #17 at 1884 taxa, #8 east of the Rockies. Big Thicket goes to #1 with 3853 (there's a story there about data collected in the park for other purposes but assimilated by NPS). Great Smoky Mountains drops to 12 with 2231, but they are in the process of uploading thousands of species occurrences in the park, so they soon will be #1.
I'm curious what definition of biodiverse Indiana Dunes uses, as per area, diverse at genera or family or other levels, etc., can give different answers. It's good to have bragging rights; I'm now even more curious what Indiana Dunes' bragging rights are.
@Scott Jorgenson
You mean like Hot Springs National Park in Arkansas, one of the earliest National Parks? I agree with your point about local folks thinking changing the designation to National Park will bring in more visitors and more money to them, but as y_p_w pointed out, that belief is not particularly well-backed up by data.
About time that the Midwest and specifically the Great Lakes picked up another National Park designation! This makes 2 now on the lakes (Isle Royale the other). Compare that to Canada's six great lakes parks. That being said, this is a small park and neither are we protecting new land. We need more of that to.
Yes there is some political payoff here. Despite the comment to the contrary above, an NP designation assuredly boosts tourism, royalties revenues and the like. Then there are just outright bragging rights. In the end, I feel much better about this designation than the last one which was a scant few acres in downtown St. Louis.