Commercial Gush for Old Faithful?
An offer to put corporate banners on a popular National Park Service Web site is on hold until officials can review it.
In exchange for a tax-deductible $5,000 donation, officials at Yellowstone National Park proposed putting a company’s name in an inch-high banner above the live photograph of Old Faithful on the site https://www.parkcams.com/oldfaithfulcam.htm, which draws thousands of viewers each day.
A banner soliciting those donations has been removed, and a meeting is scheduled for later this summer to discuss how new technology relates to park policies, said Marsha Karle, chief of public affairs for Yellowstone. She said Yellowstone was the first to propose such an idea.
But park watchdogs were unhappy about the notion of advertising.
“We wouldn’t, I hope, put a billboard up next to . . . Old Faithful itself,” said Jon Catton of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. “This is the electronic equivalent of that.”
Also on hold: two new Web cams that would have joined the Old Faithful and Mammoth Hot Springs sites (https://www.parkcams.org/mammothcam.htm).
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