The News from Theodore Roosevelt Park

Air Quality Rule Called ‘Bad Science’

Environmental regulators and advocates are criticizing a Bush administration move to relax air quality standards that apply to areas including North Dakota’s Theodore Roosevelt National Park.

TR Documents Being Digitized by National Park Service and DSU-TRNP

The National Park Service has been working on the Theodore Roosevelt Initiative, a project designed to allow people Internet access to digital material about TR.

The work is being done in the Badlands of Dakota Territory [later to be named North Dakota] where TR went to after his mother and wife died on Valentine's Day, Feb. 14, 1884.

Park Bison Have A New Home

Last week we brought you the story of the three-day bison round-up at Theodore Roosevelt National Park.

While some of the buffalo were released back into the parkothers found new homes.

Public Access Limited during Park Roundups

The superintendent of Theodore Roosevelt National Park says public access will be restricted during large animal roundups at the park.

Superintendent Valerie Naylor says the restrictions are for safety reasons, after a helicopter crash last year. She says the public will be kept away from the immediate area where helicopters are used to herd the animals into a fenced enclosure.

Park Graffiti to Be Removed

Medora, N.D. (AP) Volunteers with the Badlands Conservation Alliance planned to spend Saturday removing graffiti carved on rocks at Theodore Roosevelt National Park in western North Dakota.

The effort is part of the 15th annual National Public Lands Day.

National Park ‘Shrinking’ as Oil Wells Ring Scenic Vistas

Wade Schafer has long prized the views surrounding the sculpted sandstone bluff of Wind Canyon along the scenic loop drive in Theodore Roosevelt National Park.

But when he visited the treasured spot in the park’s south unit a year ago, he saw the view to the east was marred by a new oil well outside the park.

Summer Visitation Winding Down at T.R. National Park

MEDORA Visitation to North Dakota's National Parks has been both up and down this summer.

Park officials are not sure why, but if North Dakota is following a trend that has been developing in the rest of the country this summer, the increasing cost of travel might be to blame.

The decline in visitation has been most noticeable at the North Unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Visits were down a whopping 30 percent in June as compared to a year earlier.

Interior Secretary pays visit to area

Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne said Tuesday that he supports using “the talent and skills of local citizenry” to help thin the elk population at North Dakota’s Theodore Roosevelt National Park.

Kempthorne made the comments to reporters Tuesday at the Dickinson Airport after a tour of the North Dakota Badlands and the ranch where Theodore Roosevelt once ran cattle. The interior secretary said it was his first visit to the park.

New Group to Help Raise Awareness about Park

A new volunteer organization aimed at raising awareness and funds for the Theodore Roosevelt National Park is soon to be a permanent staple for the park.

The “Friends of Theodore Roosevelt National Park” are holding their kickoff event on Sunday, June 29, at Shelter 10 in Sertoma Park along Riverside Park Drive in Bismarck at 6 p.m. CDT. The idea to create a “friends” group that came from other national parks with similar groups.

National park gets grants for Roosevelt work

Theodore Roosevelt National Park is getting two federal grants worth a total of $75,000 to help preserve the former president's legacy.

One grant will be used to digitize rare documents by and about Roosevelt, and make them available on the Internet.

The other grant will be used for improvements at the park's Elkhorn Ranch, which preserves the site of Roosevelt's 1880s-era cabin on the Little Missouri River.