Yellowstone National Park

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Yellowstone National Park, established by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant on March 1, 1872, is a national park located primarily in the U.S. state of Wyoming, although it also extends into Montana and Idaho. Yellowstone, widely held to be the first national park in the world, is known for its wildlife and its many geothermal features, especially Old Faithful Geyser, one of the most popular features in the park. It has many types of ecosystems, but the subalpine forest is dominant. Native Americans have lived in the Yellowstone region for at least 11,000 years. The region was bypassed during the Lewis and Clark Expedition in the early 19th century. Aside from visits by mountain men during the early-to-mid-19th century, organized exploration did not begin until the late 1860s. The U.S. Army was commissioned to oversee the park just after its establishment. In 1917, administration of the park was transferred to the National Park Service, which had been created the previous year. Hundreds of structures have been built and are protected for their architectural and historical significance, and researchers have examined more than 1,000 archaeological sites.

Yellowstone National Park spans an area of 3,468.4 square miles (8,983 km2),comprising lakes, canyons, rivers and mountain ranges.Yellowstone Lake is one of the largest high-altitude lakes in North America and is centered over the Yellowstone Caldera, the largest supervolcano on the continent. The caldera is considered an active volcano. It has erupted with tremendous force several times in the last two million years. Half of the world's geothermal features are in Yellowstone, fueled by this ongoing volcanism. Lava flows and rocks from volcanic eruptions cover most of the land area of Yellowstone. The park is the centerpiece of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, the largest remaining, nearly intact ecosystem in the Earth's northern temperate zone. Hundreds of species of mammals, birds, fish and reptiles have been documented, including several that are either endangered or threatened. The vast forests and grasslands also include unique species of plants. Yellowstone Park is the largest and most famous megafauna location in the Continental United States. Grizzly Bears, wolves, and free-ranging herds of bison and elk live in the park. The Yellowstone Park Bison Herd is the oldest and largest public bison herd in the United States. Forest fires occur in the park each year; in the large forest fires of 1988, nearly one third of the park was burnt. Yellowstone has numerous recreational opportunities, including hiking, camping, boating, fishing and sightseeing. Paved roads provide close access to the major geothermal areas as well as some of the lakes and waterfalls. During the winter, visitors often access the park by way of guided tours that use either snow coaches or snowmobile. Approximately 96 percent of the land area of Yellowstone National Park is located within the state of Wyoming. Another 3 percent is within Montana, with the remaining 1 percent in Idaho. The park is 63 miles (101 km) north to south, and 54 miles (87 km) west to east by air. Yellowstone is 2,219,789 acres (898,317 ha; 3,468.420 sq mi)[1] in area, larger than the states of Rhode Island or Delaware. Rivers and lakes cover 5 percent of

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the land area, with the largest water body being Yellowstone Lake at 87,040 acres (35,220 ha; 136.00 sq mi). Yellowstone Lake is up to 400 feet (120 m) deep and has 110 miles (180 km) of shoreline. At an elevation of 7,733 feet (2,357 m) above sea level, Yellowstone Lake is the largest high altitude lake in North America. Forests comprise 80 percent of the land area of the park; most of the rest is grassland. The Yellowstone Caldera is the largest volcanic system in North America. It has been termed a "supervolcano" because the caldera was formed by exceptionally large explosive eruptions. The current caldera was created by a cataclysmic eruption that occurred 640,000 years ago, which released 240 cubic miles (1,000 km³) of ash, rock and pyroclastic materials.

Environmental Protection in the USA

There are many threats to wildlife. Let’s analyse some of them.

Animals all over the world have been killed because their flesh, skins or body parts can be sold for money. Wolves, bears, rhinos, elephants and all types of wild cats have had prices on their heads for centuries. Unregulated trapping and hunting have brought many animals to the brink of extinction, and have pushed a few right out of existence.

Sometimes wild animals are caught for use in medical research. Every year, many wild animals are caught and sold as pets. These animals are much happier and healthier living in the wild than they would be in your house. So take home a cat, a dog, or a hamster instead of an animal that has been removed from its natural environment.

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Today one of the greatest threats to wild animals is the destruction of their habitats. Like people, animals need food to eat, water to drink and places to live and raise their young. When we remove the plant life or pollute the water of any area, we are destroying the homes of wild animals.

You already know about the air pollution caused by cars. Of course, that has a big effect on air quality for every creature on earth, including wild animals. But cars cause other problems for animals too: wildlife habitats are destroyed in order to build roads, and many wild creatures are killed by cars every year.

When people misuse the land, they drive out of wildlife. In many parts of the world, large areas that were bushlands or forests have been cleared for crops or for pasture. As a result of man’s thoughtless activity, some areas have even become deserts. People have polluted other regions with petroleum products or toxic

chemicals like some pesticides. We need to find ways to use the land to benefit both humans and wild animals.

Sometimes people damage wild places just by visiting them too much. Too many feet trample plant life, too many hands touch delicate organisms, and too often we leave waste and pollution behind. Sometimes we’ve got to set limits on how many people can visit a park in order to save its beauty and preserve it as wildlife habitat.

People don’t even need guns to kill animals. They often kill wild animals through carelessness or by accident. For example, fire on land or oil in the water can destroy wildlife for miles around. Animals die after eating plastic trash or becoming entangled in discarded plastic containers, nets, or fishing lines. A cigarette thrown out of a car window, a plastic container, or a ship leaking oil can be a lethal weapon. We’ve got to be more careful.

For many wild animals time is running out – if we don’t save them now, they will disappear forever. Some animals are already gone. It’s too late for us to protect the Tosmanian wolf, an unusual animal from Australia – it became extinct in the 1930s.

People have destroyed as many habitats and caused the extinction of as many animals as any natural disaster ever has. We humans have cut down forests, ploughed away grasslands, filled in wetlands, and destroyed a great part of the soil. Now we are realizing just how destructive we have been. Today it’s up to us to save what’s left of the wildlife on our planet.

How can we protect wild animals? It all begins with getting to know them and understanding what they need in order to live in a natural environment. Some animals need a lot of territory, others eat only one type of food, and still others change their habits with the seasons.

Many animals are protected by special laws and regulations. For example, in the US bald eagles were very endangered just a few decades ago. Now it’s illegal to hunt bald eagles and it’s even against the law to own their feathers. The US also banned the use of DDT, a pesticide that prevented eagle eggs from hatching. These laws are working – the number of bald eagles grows each year.

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In the past, zoos have sometimes been prisons where wild animals were kept behind bars. But today, modern zoos are working hard to provide more natural environments for their animals. Some also breed endangered animals with the hope of returning some of these rare animals to their natural environment one day.

We humans are the most powerful creatures on our planet. The future of all plants and animals is in our hands!

Environment pollution problem is paid much attention to in the USA. Different environmentalists and environmental societies, like Wilderness Society, try to improve the situation. The level of damage to the forests in the USA is really high. The construction of new roads and the need of wood influenced the cuttings of large areas of forest. As a result some rare species of animals, and some plants can disappear. For example, the pacific yew, containing a cancer-fighting compound.

American environmentalists are also disturbed about the problem of global warming. They pay much attention to the research in this sphere. Global warming is the result of air pollution by different gases. Together with the gases, destroying the ozone layer, it influences the patterns of weather. Many USA universities investigate these problems. The pollution of Lake Erie, one of the Great Lakes, and the problem of acid rains that threatened many forests, made the media start a campaign against industrial pollution. All of the states have adopted their own laws; some banned throw-away bottles, or use of phosphates in soaps, or industrial dumping of wastes. By 1986 smoking in public had been restricted. There also exist public societies, whose aim is to attract public’s attention to the most important environmental problems. Some of them, for example, «Pals of the Planet», publish the materials of how to save the seas from pollution. The «Greenpeace» organization, which appeared in 1971, is one of the leading environmental organizations in the USA and in the world. Its numerous actions of protest against water and air pollution, its program «Water for Life», started in the USA, help our planet to survive. Public attention to the problems of pollution has now become a part of American life.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA or sometimes USEPA) is an agency of the federal government of the United States charged with protecting human health and the environment, by writing and enforcing regulations based on laws passed by Congress.[2] The EPA was proposed by President Richard Nixon and began operation on December 2, 1970, after Nixon submitted a reorganization plan to Congress and it was ratified by committee hearings in the House and Senate.[3] The agency is led by its Administrator, who is appointed by the president and approved by Congress. The current administrator is Lisa P. Jackson. The EPA is not a Cabinet department, but the administrator is normally given cabinet rank. The agency has approximately 17,000 full-time employees. On July 9, 1970, citing rising concerns over environmental protection and conservation, President Richard Nixon transmitted Reorganization Plan No. 3 to the United States Congress by executive order, creating the EPA as a single, independent

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agency from a number of smaller arms of different federal agencies. Prior to the establishment of the EPA, the federal government was not structured to comprehensively regulate environmental pollutants. The EPA began regulating greenhouse gases (GHGs) from mobile and stationary sources of air pollution under the Clean Air Act (CAA) for the first time on January 2, 2011. Standards for mobile sources have been established pursuant to Section 202 of the CAA, and GHGs from stationary sources are controlled under the authority of Part C of Title I of the Act.