It’s Not Nice to Bother Mother Nature

Thinking about getting away to one of our great national parks for a little peace and quiet? Pack a pair of earplugs.

When we think of national parks, our first thoughts are usually of sights--Old Faithful, Yosemite’s Half Dome, giant sequoias, Denali’s grizzlies or the geological marvels at the Grand Canyon. But our parks also are special for their peacefulness. They are places set aside to be free of man-made noises, where you can enjoy the many and varied sounds of nature.

Unfortunately, those natural sounds are getting harder to hear. Increasingly, they are being drowned out by a cacophony of sightseeing helicopters, military jets, snowmobiles, Jet Skis, off-road vehicles and cars. In 1997, 275 million people--more than the total U.S. population--visited our national parks, nearly a tenfold increase over the past five decades.

The noise brought on by such crowds damages not only the visitor experience but also the park itself. Sonic booms from military aircraft, for example, may threaten spectacular geological features, damage sensitive cultural edifices and disturb wildlife. In the Owyhee Canyonlands (not a national park but just as stunning), the Idaho Fish & Game Department reports that military overflights drive bighorn sheep away from choice habitat that has become too noisy and onto less hospitable grounds unable to support the herd.

One of the most significant noise problems facing our parks is the proliferation of sightseeing overflights. In 1906, Zane Grey wrote of the Grand Canyon, “One feature of this ever-changing spectacle never changes, its eternal silence.” Today, an estimated 120,000 tourist overflights per year obliterate that silence, creating almost constant noise in some areas. Park Service studies indicate that without new regulations, only 10% of the Grand Canyon will be naturally quiet by 2010.

In addition, a number of parks are adjacent to or even overlap with military training areas. Though most such parks have some sort of agreement with the military, these agreements are violated frequently, and complaints by park personnel tend to fall on deaf ears. Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks, for example, are partially located beneath the largest military airspace in the country and right next to the Lemoore Naval Airstation, which is about to increase the number, size and noisiness of its aircraft without regard to resultant damage to the parks. And this fall, Congress is expected to expand the bombing range over the Owyhee Canyonlands despite the Defense Department’s earlier admission that existing nearby ranges can meet its training needs.

Parkgoers are also increasingly likely to hear high-powered motorboats and Jet Skis destroying the tranquillity of rivers and lakes. And more than 70,000 polluting snowmobiles a year roar through Yellowstone. Tom Murphy of Livingston, Mont., who leads winter photography tours in Yellowstone, recalls one skiing experience there. “We were 12 miles from the nearest road--as far away from the road as you can get in the middle of the park--and any time we stopped, at any time of the day, we could hear snowmobiles.”

We must move quickly to save our parks from the din of machinery. First, we must scale back air traffic. Second, we need to phase automobiles out of our most crowded parks, like Yosemite and Yellowstone and set up practical bus systems. Third, we must eliminate snowmobiles, Jet Skis and off-road vehicles from our parks. These motorized recreational uses simply are not compatible with the National Park Service’s mission.

Our world-renowned national parks are being so rapidly degraded that at the current rate, within a generation or so, they will be little more than Disneyland-like theme parks. When that time comes, we will recognize the tragedy, but it will be too late.