Study Shows Visitors To National Parks Up, Time Spent In The Parks Down

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I found your (Meghan Hobler) article very interesting and timely. At a time when the National Park Service is advertising free entry days, new projects to encourage visitation by all Americans. NPS and the Department of interior continue to restrict open access to America’s Parks and Seashores. A statistic that you mentioned is a 19% loss in the time people spend at Cape Hatteras National Seashore Recreational Area. Its no surprise to the families visiting America’s first Seashore Recreational Area because of the Seashore’s 74 miles of beach (June 15, 2012 Statistics):

· 17 ¾ miles are open to pedestrian and over sand vehicles.

· 44 miles are open to pedestrians only and in most cases require a walk over the dunes or ramp of ½ mile or greater to access the water. Do that with small children or elderly family members carrying all your beach gear!! (not!)

· The remaining miles are closed to everyone or are water.

When you close the most popular areas of any Park or Seashore visitation time will decline. At Cape Hatteras the five most popular areas and most heavily used areas are closed to all visitors: Oregon Inlet, Cape Point, Hatteras Inlet, Ocracoke North and South Inlets.

Parks are a less popular hangout because of NPS and DOI systematically removing visitors from the Parks, Seashores, Monuments across the country……….Yellowstone- winter snowmobiles, Kings Canyon-back country horses, Big Cypress – off road vehicles, Biscayne Bay- boaters and snorkelers……….. .to name only the most recent. The NPS and DOI are managing the resources by lock and key.

Investigate the systematic removal of visitors by NPS and DOI and you’ll see why the numbers are declining.

7-18-2012 @ 10:42PM

mtaror said...

It is much more important to protect these valuable resources than to have them open to activities that will destroy them. It is not always a bad thing to have fewer visitors. Protecting Yellowstone from snowmobiles, Big Cypress from off road vehicles, and Biscayne Bay from boaters is not a systematic removal of visitors. It is protecting the parks for future generations.

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