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Traveler's View: The National Park Service's Battle With Politics And Common Sense

Over the years I've developed great respect for those who work for the National Park Service, knowing that most employees are underpaid, that living conditions for many are borderline tolerable, and yet daily they must -- and usually do -- sport a smile and openness with visitors, some who don't deserve either. But the paralysis that has afflicted the upper echelons of the agency during the novel coronavirus pandemic is baffling in its apparent lack of common sense, something that hopefully can be traced to the political winds that swirl through the Interior Department and not the judgment of career employees.

Covering National Parks During The Coronavirus Outbreak

Providing coverage of the coronavirus pandemic and its impacts on the National Park System is difficult at best, in large part because there are more than 400 units of the park system and many park-specific actions need to be approved by National Park Service leadership in Washington, D.C. This is a rolling news story, one that can change by the hour.

Traveler Special Report: Oil And Water In Big Cypress National Preserve

A stark beauty is sweeping across Big Cypress National Preserve. It’s early March, and red spikes that signal the erupting bracts of the cardinal airplant are poking out from countless numbers of these epiphytes that have latched onto the trunks of dwarf cypress trees, a remnant of Florida’s vast old growth forest.
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