While the House Natural Resources Committee has approved a wide range of measures that would not only extend park boundaries and protect the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness from mining but also remove Confederate monuments from public lands, with the legislative calendar running out it's questionable whether any of these measures will gain full Congressional passage this year.

Margaret Everson, who has been serving as acting director of the National Park Service since August 7, was illegally appointed and should be removed, according to a court filing by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.

Can a gun protect you from bears in a national park's backcountry? What music will you hear at the Blue Ridge Music Center on the Blue Ridge Parkway? What does the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory staff do? Grizzly bears and wolves in Yellowstone. Exploring the missions at San Antonio Missions National Historical Park. Those are just a handful of topics we've explored on National Parks Traveler's podcast series.

A strain of algae that can kill dogs has been detected in a section of Blue Mesa Reservoir at Curecanti National Recreation Area in Colorado. For now the Iola Basin area of the reservoir has been closed to swimming.