5 Things I’d Like To Tell President Obama Before He Visits Yellowstone National Park This Weekend

The Roosevelt Arch, inscribed with the words "For the Benefit and Enjoyment of the People," is located at the north entrance of Yellowstone National Park in Gardiner, Montana. The arch's cornerstone was laid by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1903.

President Obama and his family are visiting Yellowstone National Park tomorrow.  Their visit has generated quite a buzz in Montana, as the last sitting president to visit Yellowstone was President Clinton in 1996 (when he announced a deal to stop a proposed gold mine just outside the Park and famously declared that Yellowstone is "more precious than gold").  Should President Obama decide to stop by our office in Livingston on his way to Yellowstone, here are five things I'd love to tell him before he enters America's -- and the world's -- oldest national park:

1. You will see bison, an incredible animal and icon of the West, inside the Park.  What you won't see, however, are bison freely roaming outside the Park.  Why not?  Because America's only continuously wild, free-roaming bison population is generally (and unnaturally) confined to the Park under the Interagency Bison Management Plan (IBMP), an ill-conceived, poorly implemented, inherently conflicted management program instituted in 2000.  As a Government Accountability Office report described last March, the IBMP has been a failure -- it's the opposite of the efficient, accountable governance you seek to employ.  Over 3,000 bison have been slaughtered since 2000, millions of taxpayer dollars have been wasted, and Montana still lost its brucellosis-free status last year -- from transmission of the disease to cattle by elk, not bison.  The time for a major overhaul of the Yellowstone bison management scheme is well overdue.  Bison should be allowed to roam the abundant suitable habitat outside the Park, and you have the power to make it happen.  Please do so.
2. Bring a fly rod and a good pair of boots.  Head into the northeast corner of the Park, hike into the backcountry, and dance with a few native Yellowstone cutthroat trout.  You've been working tirelessly, and nothing recharges your battery like a day in Yellowstone's backcountry with a fly rod in hand.  Go.  Enjoy it. 
3. You are going to see a lot of red (dying) and gray (dead) pine trees in and around the Park.  The dead and dying pines at higher elevations with broader canopies (shaped almost like ice cream cones) are whitebark pine trees.  This noble tree is the cornerstone of the high country of the Northern Rockies.  Its shade shelters snowpack late into the year, which provides desperately needed water to streams and rivers during dry western summers, its roots stabilize the soil, and its rich, nutritious seeds feed numerous mountain critters.  In particular, whitebark pine seeds are a critical food source for Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE) grizzly bears.  Good whitebark seed crop years lead to better cub production for females and keep the bears in the high country in late summer and fall -- away from people where trouble and conflict loom.  With low seed years, cub production decreases and human-grizzly encounters increase.
   
   Tragically, due to warming temperatures, the native mountain pine beetle is surviving winters at higher altitudes and decimating whitebark pine trees in the Northern Rockies.  This will have catastrophic effects for the GYE and its grizzlies in the years to come.  What's there to do about it?  Curb our greenhouse gas emissions and decrease global warming pollution.  The mountain pine beetle's slaughter of whitebark pines in the Northern Rockies is a clear expression of global warming and the havoc it is wreaking.  Climate legislation cannot wait; the Senate must pass the American Clean Energy and Security Act.  Your leadership on climate change and clean energy is an issue that will define your presidency.  We're running out of time.
4. The White Sox.  How did this happen?  How is the leader of the free world a Sox fan?  What's it going to take to make you a Cubs fan?  Their colors are red, white and blue, they're cursed by a goat, and they haven't won squat in 101 years.  What's not to love?  C'mon, Mr. President, ditch the Sox and join the Cubbie Nation.  We need you.
5. I hope you get the chance to visit the Lamar Valley at dawn or dusk.  If you do, you'll likely see and hear gray wolves, which were reintroduced to Yellowstone in 1995 and 1996 and have been an ecological boon to the GYE.  Your administration, however, prematurely removed Endangered Species Act (ESA) protections from wolves in Montana and Idaho earlier this year (but kept Wyoming's wolves on the endangered species list, illegally fragmenting management of Northern Rockies wolves in the process).  There are myriad reasons why wolves should not be removed from the endangered species list at this juncture and the delisting rule is illegal.  Hopefully, after a few wolves stir your soul in the Lamar, you will direct the Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar, to reinstate ESA protections for Northern Rockies wolves.

Your campaign last year was centered around change -- change we can believe in.  Since you were inaugurated in January, you (and your family) have inspired the world, resurrected America's image abroad, boosted morale domestically, and made some much-needed policy changes.  The heart and soul of Yellowstone, its precious wildlife, need your help, too.  Please bring change to Yellowstone, Mr. President, and restore hope for our region's grizzlies, wolves, and buffalo.   

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