Yellowstone National Park

NPCA Project Lead: Patricia Dowd,
Yellowstone Program Manager

The nation’s first national park, Yellowstone, is home to grizzly bears, wolves and elk, and is also home to the northern Yellowstone pronghorn herd. Pronghorn are the second fastest land animal in North America, and are not very good jumpers. Fences north of Yellowstone have essentially cut off migration routes, trapping pronghorn in small, poor wintering grounds. Nature Valley is funding NPCA efforts to alter and remove fences to open and restore migration routes north of Yellowstone National Park for pronghorn.

What We Are Doing

Over the course of the summer of 2011, volunteers will:

1. Meet with landowners and community members to conduct fence removal or alteration projects
2. Remove and realign fences that cross pronghorn migration routes
3. Where possible, replace fences with pronghorn-friendly alternatives

Grand Teton National Park

NPCA Project Lead: Sharon Mader,
Grand Teton Senior Program Manager

Fences that obstruct wildlife movement can seriously injure moose, deer, elk, pronghorn antelope and low-flying waterfowl such as trumpeter swans that routinely use public and private lands adjacent to the National Park. Although Jackson Hole has an abundance of public lands, Grand Teton National Park’s wildlife still rely heavily on private lands, which are generally located at lower elevations supporting a greater abundance of food during the winter months. Survival is dependent on their ability to move safely through both their seasonal migrations and daily travels beyond park boundaries. Fences can pose serious hazards to moving wildlife, for the simple fact that they are not clearly visible, particularly during the stormy winter months.

What We Are Doing

Over the course of the summer of 2011, volunteers will:

1. Work with partners to identify "problem" fences adjacent to Grand Teton National Park
2. Purchase and place visibility flappers called "fence flags" to help migrating ungulates (hoofed animals such as elk, deer and pronghorn) see the fences
3. Reach out to landowners/managers to educate them about the hazards that fences pose to wildlife and the importance of alerting wildlife to the presence of fences as they move across the landscape

Joshua Tree National Park

NPCA Project Lead: David Lamfrom,
California Desert Program Manager

Joshua Tree National Park is one of America’s most treasured and visited locations. The protection of this iconic American landscape was a visionary action, but the park’s ecosystem does not stop at its boundary. This project aims to protect the park and its critical neighboring habitat through community action and engagement to restore critical habitat.

What We Are Doing

Over the course of the summer of 2011, volunteers will:

1. Work with volunteers returning to Quail Mountain to pull invasive weeds, pick up trash and to complete work started on April 16
2. Lead volunteers to support a National Public Lands Day project that will support healthy ecosystems on both sides of the park boundary and will benefit local wildlife. Activities will include removing illegal off-road routes, trash removal, invasive weed removal and fence-building where required

Biscayne National Park

NPCA Project Lead: Kahlil Kettering,
Biscayne Program Analyst

Biscayne National Park is 95% under water, just south of Miami, FL. In the past century, much of the coastal habitat bordering Biscayne National Park/Biscayne Bay has been lost to urban development in Miami-Dade County. Coastal tropical hardwood hammocks are important to the health of Biscayne Bay and provide habitat, food, cover, roosting and nesting sites for a wide variety of wildlife and endemic plant species, a number of which are endangered. Tropical hardwood hammocks are fragile ecosystems that are rare to find and are constantly under threat from expanding urban development.

What We Are Doing

The project consists of supporting the restoration of 6 acres of tropical hardwood hammock and will include the following:

1. Clearing of all exotic vegetation
2. Spreading of all mulch material
3. Implementing physical restoration activities
4. Planting of tropical hardwood hammock species
5. Monitoring of the completed restoration to ensure success
6. Providing additional stewardship and environmental educational opportunities in the community

Acadia National Park

NPCA Project Lead: Oliver Spellman,
Program Manager

Through funding provided by Nature Valley, NPCA will work with the Friends of Acadia to help support construction of a ¾-mile trail (called the Duck Brook Village Connector Trail) for pedestrians and Park visitors walking bicycles from Route 3 in Bar Harbor to the Duck Brook Road, near a popular entrance to the Acadia National Park carriage road system.

The trail will replace an unimproved social trail that is not open to the public and will provide new access for hotel guests, College of the Atlantic students and area residents to the carriage roads. As a village connector trail, the Duck Brook Connector will help reduce automobile congestion and air pollution in the region.

Work being done on this project includes:

1. Constructing portions of the trail on private property
2. Building at least one bridge and adding several stretches of bog walk
3. Enhancing soil stabilization and drainage features for the trail
4. Adding native plantings to screen the trail from neighboring hotels

Great Smoky Mountains
National Park

NPCA Project Lead: Don Barger, Senior
Director, Southeast Regional Office

This project will focus around Abrams Creek with work being done in a peninsula adjacent to Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Abrams Creek is the only stream in Great Smoky Mountains National Park that does not originate in the park. Along Abrams Creek there is a chronic issue with sediment. This project is designed to reduce the sediment entering the creek resulting in cleaner and healthier water running through the park. It will also protect the aquatic plant life, threatened and endangered fish and other rare species that reside in and around the park.

What We Are Doing

1. Removing exotic plants and re-vegetation with native species like willow and river cane to improve habitat on land, in and adjacent to the park, particularly near important water sources
2. Installing fencing to protect Bell Branch and Mill Creek riparian areas, tributaries to lower Abrams Creek, from harmful cattle grazing. This will decrease sediment and improve the quality of the water flowing through the park