Chapter 5: Resource Restoration--National Park Service--WASO-INFO

Reintroduced to Point Reyes National Seashore in 1978, a herd of 10 tule elk increased to more than 500 in 20 years. The species has been restricted to a fenced reserve on Tomales Point, but in 1999, 45 elk will be released to roam 18,000 acres of park wilderness.

Download a PDF file of this section of this report (612 KB).

Home

If parks are to be complete, then damaged or extirpated natural resources must be restored. Without all the organisms and the chemical and geophysical components that define a place and their myriad interrelationships with each other, parks would not be truly representative of whole, naturally functioning ecosystems. The stories presented here tell of ecological restoration of wildlife species, wetlands, and watersheds through the use of state-of-the-art techniques and indicate many successes in this exciting area of resource stewardship. Much of the progress comes from the ability of park staff to integrate several technical disciplines and scientifically apply them to restoration activities. Also important are planning and flexible funding for projects whose duration and complexity may be uncertain. How much work is left to do? Because of fragmented natural systems and resource disturbances, ecological restoration will probably always be part of the natural resource management program in national parks. These activities are a positive force in the quest to sustain park ecosystems.
Articles

Endemic tule elk to range freely at Point Reyes National Seashore
by Thomas Kucera

Great expectations for the black-footed ferret at Badlands
by Glenn E. Plumb, Ph.D., and Bruce Bessken

Piping plover on the increase at Sleeping Bear Dunes
by Max W. Holden

Hatches Harbor: Progress on restoring a salt marsh
by Norm Farris

Partners restore wetland in the Santa Monica Mountains NRA
by John Tiszler, Jim Benedict, Lisa Edgington, and Alan Hsu

Relief funds expedite watershed restoration program
by Darci Short

/YearInReview/yir/yir98/chapter05/chapter05.html
Last Updated: 08/16/99
Direct comments on this website to jeff_selleck@nps.gov
This article is from Natural Resource Year in Review--1998, published by the National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, in June 1999 (publication D-1346)