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A photo of a sea turtle swimming towards a coral reef at Virgin Islands National Park. NPS photo, Susanna Pershern

Did you know that there are some five and a half million acres of our National Parks that are underwater? There are sunken ships and aircraft. There are remnants of industry and mining. There are coral reefs and underwater caverns.

The Submerged Resources Center of the National Park Service is where these water resources are explored and documented. Underwater photography is crucial in the understanding of what lies beneath the surface, and images taken by the SRC Staff are essential not only for mapping and documenting, but to help the parks address issues and solve problems.

This week, the Traveler’s Lynn Riddick sits down with Brett Seymour, the Submerged Resources Center Deputy Chief and Audio-Visual Production Specialist who has spent some thirty years with the Park Service, photographing the mysteries below the surface.

For more on the Submerged Resources Center, check out Episode 116 - Diving Into the National Park System.

0:02 National Parks Traveler introduction
0:12 Episode Intro with Kurt Repanshek
0:50 Beyond the Reef - Tim Heintz & Grant Geissman - Seascapes: A Musical Journey
1:14 Smokies Life
1:37 Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation
2:00 NPT Promo
2:45 Episode 276 - Underwater Photography with the Submerged Resources Center
1:07:30 Whispering Winds - Grant Geissman - Sounds of the Caribbean
1:08:44 Episode Closing
1:09:30 Orange Tree Productions
1:10:03 Splitbeard Productions
1:10:14 National Parks Traveler footer

National Parks Traveler Podcast Episode 327 | Plight of the Parks

So much is happening so quickly to the National Park Service. There have been staff reductions, hiring freezes, spending freezes, orders from the Interior Secretary to make sure that visitors find national parks welcoming, no matter what it takes.

June 1st, 2025 Read More

National Parks Traveler Podcast Episode 326 | Environmental Partisanship

Is green a red and blue construct? Put another way, is there a political partisan divide over the environment?

That’s a particularly interesting question, no doubt more so in recent years as the country seems to have drifted farther and farther apart because of our political beliefs. To that point, a reader reached out the other day to say our stories shouldn’t be negative on the Trump Administration because the national parks are going to need the help of all of us - Democrats, Republicans, Independents, and everything in-between - to survive.

May 25th, 2025 Read More

National Parks Traveler Podcast Episode 325 | Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility

News around public lands these days seems to revolve entirely around the Trump administration. In the case of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, many of the steps the administration is taking with the operational efficiencies of the National Park Service and other land management agencies certainly are keeping PEER busy.
 

May 18th, 2025 Read More

National Parks Traveler Podcast Episode 324 | North American Bird Declines

True birders are some of the most determined and persistent hobbyists out there. If you want to call bird watching a hobby. For many, it’s more like a passion. Many look forward to “Big Day” competitions, where individuals and teams strive to see how many different bird species they can spot in a 24-hour period.

May 11th, 2025 Read More

National Parks Traveler Podcast Episode 323 | Walt Dabney and Public Lands

It’s fair to say that the nation’s public lands, those managed by the National Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Forest Service and other federal land-management agencies are at risk under the Trump administration.

There’s no hyperbole in that statement if you pay attention to what the administration already has done in terms of downsizing those agencies’ workforces, and when you listen to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum say he wants to open more public lands to energy development and mining.

May 4th, 2025 Read More

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