Winter Use Adaptive Management Plan published


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Posted by Ballpark Frank (69.178.8.75) on 12:41:38 12/21/16

For anyone interested in Winter Use Management issues in Yellowstone, the NPS has published the Winter Use Adaptive Management Plan. The .pdf is 68 pages long, but includes lots of quality winter recreation photos to break up the monotony of text.

From my perspective, there are no earthshaking surprises in the document. The greatest value lies in the thorough explanation of what adaptive management is, how it will inform future management decisions, and the research that backs many of the management decisions made in recent years regarding winter use. (One of the striking features is the graph depicting citations to snowmobilers for speeding or harassing wildlife. It very much supports the decision to require most snowmobilers to travel in guided groups. As someone who was a dirt bike rider at a younger age, and watched numerous tracts of public lands get closed off over time, and also snowmobiled Yellowstone's interior over 20 years ago, I am struck by the similarity in how careless use by a sport's participants eventually led to closures or heavy restrictions.)

Hard core recreational snowmobilers can still take their 2 stroke machines into the forests outside Yellowstone and ride aggressively, particularly in the Gallatin Mountains and the hills above Cooke City. They just can't do that inside Yellowstone.

Ballpark




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