My Favorite Place Being Loved to Death - Turkey Run State Park - Indiana

My personal favorite park is one from my childhood, Turkey Run State Park in west central Indiana. Over one million people visit the park annually, with the peak visitation time being when the fall foliage fans flock to the park from all around the region to see the leaves change colors.

I have witnessed firsthand as this park has been "loved to death," although the things I saw are not what you would expect from folks who truly love it. Among the things I saw numerous times: beer and soda cans, dirty diapers, used condoms and human waste. Nevertheless, I still love this park and wish others would respect it more like I do.

Turkey Run Facts:
1150 acres, approximately one hour driving time southwest of Indianapolis, IN
Nearly 300 acres of virgin forest, bisected by Sugar Creek River
Many hiking trails, glacial gorges and covered bridges

For more information, visit their web site or the Turkey Run Inn web site.

National Parks in "Peril"

From TwinCities.com (Pioneer Press newspaper) on July 6, 2011 (full article here):

Sitting miles offshore in Lake Superior, Isle Royale National Park is about as good as you can get for a wilderness sanctuary in the interior of a continent.

But while the park's isolation has provided a perfect, controlled laboratory for its famous predator-prey studies of wolves and moose, the island is not immune to "unnatural" threats, both from the air and the ground.

Mercury from air pollution is measurable in the fat of its inland-lake fish, and stowaways from hikers' boots - non-native, invasive plant species such as garlic mustard - now sprout from its interior trails.

The problems facing Isle Royale are among dozens of threats documented in a decade-long study released Tuesday of 80 of America's national parklands.

The "sobering" findings by the National Parks Conservation Association: "National park cultural resources are often ignored and consistently underfunded, many natural resources are being degraded, and throughout the (National) Park System, conservation efforts are failing to keep pace with the forces that threaten resources."

...Closer to home, the sand-based ecosystems of a number of Great Lakes parks, including the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore in Wisconsin and Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, are vulnerable to being loved to death, as hikers and snowmobilers have too frequently trod on the delicate flora. Humans have been living on Isle Royale for 4,500 years, yet there's little to show for it in terms of historical and archaeological information for visitors - one of the premises behind national parks - according to the report. The visitors center at the Apostle Islands lacks a fire-suppression system, leaving many of its maritime artifacts vulnerable.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park - Tennesse & North Carolina

Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Our national parks have been the subject of much debate, as many of these parks have been underfunded at a time when their popularity has been unprecedented. Great Smoky Mountains National Park (website here) is the most visited of all national parks; like many of the other national parks, these visitors present serious challenges.

From Nicole Orchard, University of Miami, May 7, 2011 (full article and slide show here):

Great Smoky Mountains National Park brought in nearly 10 million visitors in 2010 making it the most visited national park in the United States. With this many people coming in and out of one park, finding a balance between preservation and visitation can be challenging...

Although visitation is an important part of maintaining the stature of the national parks system, overcrowding and overuse can damage the cultural and natural aspects of the parks.

According to the Greater Yellowstone Science Learning Center, constant visitor activities and the transportation and infrastructure accompanying it have an effect on many resources including air and water quality, the natural soundscape, wildlife habitat, the spread of non-native plants, diseases, and organisms, and the preservation of archeological sites and other cultural artifacts.

“Wildlife harassment, resource damage—people walking, driving, and parking in non-designated areas, litter (yes, hard to believe in this day and age) are just a few concerns we have,” Yellowstone National Park Supervisory Park Ranger, Tami Corchero said in regard to preservation issues caused by visitation.

Some parks, including Great Smoky Mountains and Grand Canyon have taken action to sustain preservation while still maintaining the increasing customer base.
   
Miller said that Great Smoky Mountains paved all of the roads when it was built in the 1930s, in realization that there would be heavy traffic in and out of the park.
   
“Heavy use in the backcountry can have an impact on the trails. When the park was first created they realized that traffic was going to be heavy,” Miller said...

[At Yellowstone] “The Law Enforcement Division does just that—enforces the law and issues citations for those visitors who break the rules. Unfortunately the number of visitors is much higher than the number of park staff, so many violations occur without any punishment to those responsible,” Corchero said.

One solution to this problem could be to enforce a quota system and monitor the number of people entering and exiting the park. That way, only a certain amount of visitors would be allowed in the park at one time and preservation would be less at risk.

According to Cochero, Miller, and Tami Blackford, a writer-editor at Yellowstone National Park, neither Great Smoky Mountains nor Yellowstone has a quota system in place.

“We don’t even have entrance stations here. We have 14 entrances: Three main entrances and 11 smaller entrances. About the only thing in the park that does have limits on it are the backcountry shelters, especially on the Appalachian Trail. They’re really popular and they’re not that big. Otherwise, people can come and go as they please,” Miller said.  

Shell Island - No Dogs & Booze Allowed - Pinellas County, Florida

From the St. Petersburg Times on August 30, 2007 (full article here):

For years Shell Key Preserve, commonly referred to as Shell Island, has been a popular weekend and holiday destination for many local boaters. Now environmentalist groups and the county department of environmental management say the partying has begun to interfere with nesting shore birds.

Largo resident Pat Edmund, 60, came out to support the changes.

She said her work as a volunteer for the county and the Audubon of Clearwater have shown her the damage by partiers and dogs on the preserve. "Even dog's on a leash are seen as predators, and the eggs will be abandoned to either bake in the sun or be eaten," She said.

 From the St. Petersburg Times on December 19, 2007 (full article here):

The new plan includes stricter regulation of camping on the island, which will now require a permit, and a complete ban on dogs and alcohol from the entire preserve.

Alcohol has long been restricted on the island itself, but it was previously allowed in the surrounding waterways, a policy that recently came under criticism when the county staff and sheriff's deputies who patrol the preserve claimed that partying there had gotten out of hand.

Despite harsh criticism from boaters who frequent the area, the decision was made to ban pets and parties in an attempt to protect nesting birds that also use the preserve.

"It was a disappointing experience because we were not heard," said Dick Granger, a local boater who started an advocacy group out of frustration over the decision.

Granger and many other boaters thought the decision was an attempt by environmentalists to scare away recreational boaters with increased restrictions.

"So the next step is we see this incrementalism, and before long Shell Key is no longer a preserve and it becomes a sanctuary," Granger said.

Still, county staffers say the decision was made to protect an increasingly rare ecosystem and the wildlife that relies on it.

"We have to decide as a Gulf Coast community how to decrease our ecological footprint, and a good place to start are these barrier islands that are already designated preserves," said Bruce Rinker, county director of the Department of Environmental Management.

The county hopes to have the signs in place and begin enforcing the new rules before the next shore bird nesting season in March.

Shell Island, Island Full of Poop? - Pinellas County, Florida

From the St. Petersburg Times on April 8, 2007 (full article here):

Visitors to Shell Key, a pristine bird sanctuary with expansive white shores, might want to watch their step.

The island is being used as a public bathroom, according to conservationists who want county officials to ban overnight camping, alcohol and pets from the preserve.

"You have too many people for everyone to do whatever they want anymore," said Dave Kandz, chair of the conservation committee for the St. Petersburg Audubon Society. "If you have that many people, pretty soon you are going to have an island full of poop."

The debate is part of an ongoing effort to balance the needs of the birds who nest on Shell Key against the desires of daytrippers who enjoy visiting the island...

"We hope people don't see this as a boaters vs. birders issue, because it is not," he said. The birds, "just will not be able to survive much longer unless we do something positive and responsible."

...There are no trash cans or bathrooms at Shell Key, in part to keep the island undeveloped.
Campers often relieve themselves along the shore, leaving strips of soiled toilet paper.
Other than the obvious ick-factor, environmentalists also have expressed concern that this is a potential health hazard for island visitors.

Dogs also present a danger to the birds who use the island as a nesting area, they said.
In the past two years, campers have been fined for public drinking and unruly behavior.