Last updated: April 17, 2026
Article
2025 Science & Stewardship Highlights
The Pacific West Region is rich in natural, cultural and historical significance, from the newly discovered fossil footprints at John Day Fossil Beds National Monument to bringing back the Cascades frog in Lassen Volcanic National Park. The 2025 Science and Stewardship Highlights celebrate these remarkable achievements, driven by research, collaboration, and community involvement. These stories not only showcase groundbreaking efforts but also reveal how science uncovers hidden narratives within our parks and shedding light on the deep connections between people, nature, and the places we protect.
Science helps us understand the landscape all around us, from the way ecosystems function to the human stories woven into these places over time. Research gives us the tools to face environmental challenges with more clarity and purpose. When scientists, park staff, and local communities come together and collaborate, we can build on more meaningful action and commitment to protect parks.
By continuing to research, monitor, and adapt, we can help protect our parks for generations to come.
Building the Bridge: Steps Toward Integrative Resource Management
NPS Photo / Oliver Anderson
Post Fire Restoration for Multiple Fires!
Joshua Tree National Park’s restoration program has been working on rebuilding landscapes damaged by wildfire while strengthening the park’s capacity to recover from future fires. By restoring burned areas and cultivating plant materials in advance, the team is preparing for faster and effective responses as wildfires across the Mojave Desert become more severe and frequent. This work is important to the recovery of Joshua tree woodlands and other native plant communities.
In the last two months of 2025, restoration crews planted around 500 Joshua trees on the 2025 Eureka Fire burn scar and over 300 plants, including Joshua trees, on the 2022 Elk Trail Fire burn scar. Planting on the area burned by these fires, along with the 2023 Geology Fire, will continue through the winter of 2026. In addition to plants raised in nurseries, the team is experimenting with direct seeding using seed pits, small depressions in the soil where seeds are placed and left to germinate naturally. They are also caging sprouts emerging from the bases of burned Joshua trees to protect them from herbivory. Together, these strategies help to build more resilient desert ecosystems across Joshua Tree National Park.
NPS Photo / Dmitry Azovtev
Better Understanding of Otter Occupancy Paves Way for Frog Restoration
The Sierra Nevada yellow-legged frog was once the most abundant amphibian in the Sierra Nevada high country, playing a vital role in both aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. As both predator and prey, it helped regulate food webs and drive nutrient and energy cycling. In recent decades, populations have plummeted due to habitat loss, invasive diseases, and predators. Reintroduction efforts offer hope for restoring the frog populations but they face a growing threat from predators such as river otters in Yosemite National Park and surrounding areas. To identify safer release sites, this research project facilitated by the Californian Cooperative Ecosystems Unit combines camera traps, otter scat surveys, environmental DNA, and modeling to determine where otters are present. Pinpointing areas with lower predation risk will help managers make more informed decisions and give reintroduced Sierra Nevada yellow-legged frogs a stronger chance of survival.
NPS Photo / Gavin Emmons
Biologists Conclude 40th Season of Falcon Monitoring at Pinnacles National Park
The falcon monitoring team wrapped up its 40th year of breeding season observations around Pinnacles National Park’s iconic rock formations in early July. When all the young prairie and peregrine falcons fledged from their cliffside nests, the park lifted its raptor advisories and reopened climbing areas for the rest of the year. All told, it was a season marked by mixed nest success and a bit of inter-species drama. Four prairie falcon pairs raised 14 fledglings and three peregrine pairs raised seven for a total of 21 fledglings, which is on the low end of the usual count. Experts believe parental inexperience and a mid-season territory takeover may have played roles in the prairie falcons’ struggles this year. As the monitoring efforts continue, this year adds another chapter to a long history of understanding and protecting these remarkable birds.Creating Cultural Connections
NPS Photo / Irene Vasquez
Restoring Relationships between People and Fire in Yosemite
For thousands of years, Indigenous people used fire to care for Yosemite’s forests and meadows. Through regular, low intensity burns, they cultivated foods and strengthened ecosystems. When these practices were stopped, forests became denser, less diverse, and more vulnerable to severe wildfires. Restoring these landscapes requires more than fuel reductions—it also depends on renewing the relationship between fire and people. The Little Fires project is a Tribally driven initiative that is reintroducing cultural burning practices to Yosemite. Tribal crews are leading efforts to reduce hazardous fuels, protect sensitive cultural sites, and restore cultural fire practices. By integrating Indigenous knowledge with Western science, the project reflects long-standing ways of caring for the land while building more resilient ecosystems for generations to come.Stories of Discovery and Innovation
NPS Photo / Adrienne Reschman
Bats in the Badlands
Bat surveys at Tule Springs Fossil Beds National Monument are revealing a side of the park that comes alive after sunset. Using acoustic monitoring and thermal imaging emergence surveys, bat activity was tracked across the monument’s eroded badlands, landscapes more commonly associated with Ice Age fossils than living wildlife. Thermal cameras made it possible to monitor bats in the darkness and trace their disappearance into narrow crevices carved into ancient Pleistocene lakebed sediments. The hidden cracks turned out to be more than geological features: they were homes. The survey led to the park’s first documented discovery of canyon bats roosting within the badlands, revealing it as a vital habitat in an increasingly urban region. Beyond the excitement of the discovery, the findings open a door for future bat monitoring and long-term stewardship to help ensure that both the landscape and bats are protected.
NPS Photo
New Fossil Footprints Discovered at John Day Fossil Beds
At John Day Fossil Beds National Monument, fossilized footprints of prehistoric birds, invertebrates, lizards, and mammals discovered in a study offers a rare glimpse into animal behavior after the age of dinosaurs. Led by former Scientist in the Parks participant, Conner Bennett, they used 3D imaging techniques to analyze four fossil tracks from two rock layers in eastern and central Oregon. The tracks provide valuable insight into how these animals moved and behaved millions of years ago. The bird tracks include small footprints alongside beak marks and invertebrate trails, suggesting a shorebird foraging for worms in shallow water. The lizard tracks, one of the few known reptile tracks from this period in North America, was an exciting and significant discovery for paleontologists. In addition, footprints preserved in a 29-million-year-old volcanic ash layer reveal the presence of a cat-like predator, while another set of three-toed hoof prints hints of an ancient tapir or rhinoceros. These discoveries bring to life the animals that used to roam the landscape.
Figure from Mohr et al. 2025
Scientists Turn Back the Volcanic Clocks of John Day Fossil Beds
A new study shows that some fossils at John Day Fossil Beds National Monument are millions of years older than previously thought. Researchers from Boise State University, the National Park Service, and East Tennessee State University worked together to collect and analyze 23 volcanic ash layers from about 39 to 17 million years ago. Their goal was to refine the age of the rocks within the John Day Formation to better understand when the fossils were preserved. Using modern uranium-lead (U-Pb) zircon dating techniques along with statistical age modeling, the team created a more accurate timeline for the preserved fossils found among these rock layers in and around the park. This study improves earlier geochronological estimates and introduces a modern statistical model that identifies the length of three major gaps in deposition. As a result, the findings provide scientists with a stronger framework for estimating fossil ages across the 20-million-year long formation.
NPS Photo / Arturo Aguilar
Finding Rare Treasures at Our Feet in Point Reyes' Coastal Dunes
Each summer, the San Francisco Bay Area Inventory & Monitoring Network’s Plant Community Monitoring team catalogs vegetation diversity and structure in San Francisco Bay Area national park plant communities. This summer, they spent a month of field work surveying the coastal dune scrub community at Point Reyes National Seashore. During these monitoring surveys, the crew records all plants present in their plots and measures the coverage of various species. But sometimes, they stumble upon rare plants. This year, they found short-leaved evax (Hesperevax sparsiflora var. brevifolia), a miniature member of the sunflower-family, in one of their plots for the first time. They also spotted another rare plant, the woolly-headed spineflower (Chorizanthe cuspidata var. villosa), carpeting large swathes of dunes.
The Friends We Made Along the Way: Science Through Collaboration
NPS Photo / Melissa Steller
Bringing Water Back to Ackerson Meadow
Ackerson Meadow is one of the largest mid-elevation meadows in Yosemite National Park. Historically, it functioned as a broad, continuous wetland supporting rare wildlife such as great grey owls, willow flycatchers, northwestern pond turtles, and California-threatened wildflowers. Evidence shows this meadow remained wet and stable for thousands of years, but more than a century of use and disturbance has changed it. A massive 3.5-mile erosion gully has carved through the meadow, eroding meadow soils, draining groundwater, drying out over 100 acres of wetlands, and unraveling the natural processes that sustain meadow ecosystems. After years of planning and collaboration, Yosemite National Park partnered with American Rivers, Stanislaus National Forest, and Yosemite Conservancy to complete the largest wetland restoration project by fill volume ever undertaken in the Sierra Nevada. Restoration included filling over three miles of deep erosion gullies with over 160,000 cubic yards of local material, planting more than 440,000 native wetland plants, and reconnecting the meadow to its historic water table. This landscape-scale effort has already raised groundwater levels by up to 10 feet, rewetted 94 acres of former wetlands, protected 100 acres of at-risk wetlands, expanded habitat for rare species, and set the meadow on a path toward long-term stability. Today, visitors can walk the edge of a recovering meadow, hear water moving gently across the landscape, and see how data-informed actions and a lot of teamwork help protect Yosemite’s living systems for generations to come.
NPS Photo / Matt Reala
Building Post-Fire Seed Supply for PWR
Faced with the increasing number and severity of fires across the region, post-fire restoration efforts have been ramping up to provide NPS managers with the right seed in the right place at the right time. Funded by the Infrastructure and Investment Jobs Act, there is an ongoing region-wide effort supported by the California, Pacific Islands, & North Coast Cascades Invasive Plant Management Teams, the Upper Columbia Basin Inventory and Monitoring Network, and fire management to expand native seed supply in anticipation of fire. In this way, source-identified and genetically appropriate seed can be made available to parks to immediately respond in the aftermath of fires. The increase of native plant materials supply is critical to respond to immediate disasters, prevent erosion, stop the spread of invasive plants, and increase the resilience of parks to future disturbance. The effort has resulted in over 300 pounds of seed from over 200 species already collected, along with many hundred pounds of seed being produced on regional farms and through other collaborators. The long-term restoration needs of parks are starting to be met through this effort, which will continue to expand seed supply across the region going forward.
NPS Photo / Hazel Galloway
A Big Year for Whitebark Pine Restoration in Western Washington Parks
Whitebark pine is an ecologically and culturally important high-elevation tree species that has been listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. Combined threats of an invasive fungal disease, native bark beetles, fire, and climate stress have caused large scale die-offs across its range. In the parks of western Washington, identifying and protecting surviving disease-resistant trees and restoring damaged whitebark pine communities will help keep the species in the landscape for centuries to come. In 2025, NPS and cooperators made great strides in these efforts, finding and protecting seed source trees across North Cascades, Olympic, and Mount Rainier National Parks. Park and inventory and monitoring staff, partners from American Forests, and climbing contractors worked together to protect over 280 high-priority trees from beetle attack with verbenone application, plant over 1,100 seeds at two restoration sites, and collect over 111,000 new seeds from healthy trees across the three parks. These seeds will be evaluated for disease resistance before being stored for future restoration work in decades to come.
Courtesy Haylie Wilcox (UC Davis)
Buzz and Flutter: A Conservation Discovery for Bumblebees and Monarchs
In 2025, surveys at Whiskeytown National Recreation Area and Lassen Volcanic National Park revealed encouraging signs for pollinator conservation. Through a partnership between the National Park Service and the University of California Davis (Williams and Crone Lab), breeding monarch butterflies were documented in both parks, highlighting their potential as critical inland habitats during migration from coastal overwintering sites for the first time. The surveys also recorded high bumble bee diversity, including documenting Bombus crotchii in Whiskeytown—another species of conservation concern that was once thought to be extirpated from Northern California. This collaborative effort provides essential baseline data to guide habitat restoration, integrate pollinator-friendly practices into park management, and inform long-term conservation planning.
NPS Photo / Chad Anderosn
Good Partnerships Make Landscape Restoration Possible
Historic logging in portions of Redwood National and State Parks has left forests and waterways deeply compromised, no longer supporting wildlife such as coho salmon and coastal marten as they once did. Rather than let that decline continue, the park partnered with Save the Redwood League, California State Parks, the Yurok Tribe, California State Polytechnic University Humboldt, and many others to enact a bold, landscape-scale restoration effort. The work focuses on removing old and degraded logging roads that cause mass erosion events, thinning overstocked forests which prevent the understory from thriving, and restoring streams which prevent fish passage through the watershed. Now in its fifth year, the partnership has treated 3,244 acres through variable density thinning, decommissioned 39 miles of road, removed 124 stream crossings, replaced 40 culverts, and restored 5.8 miles of stream across the partnership. This year alone, 785 acres were treated, 3.1 miles of road were removed, and 0.7 miles of stream were restored among other accomplishments. Monitoring shows the restoration efforts are having a meaningful effect as evidenced by the return of fish, invertebrates, and understory plants. What's more, an economic study published last year showed that the project has created $31 million in economic output in 2024 alone, with 200 jobs created. Redwood National and State Parks isn’t just healing but also setting a model for how restoration at scale can deliver lasting benefits for ecosystems, economies, and communities.
Courtesy of Kyle Kosma (High Desert Museum)
A Lifeline for Mazama Newts
On the shorelines of Crater Lake, the Mazama newt (Taricha granulosa mazamae) is fighting a losing battle. Nonnative, invasive crayfish eat the newt’s food, invade its habitat, and even prey on the newt. But a partnership between the park, the Oregon Zoo, and the High Desert Museum has thrown this rapidly vanishing newt a lifeline. The zoo, with long expertise in captive breeding, is enlisting its aquariums and veterinary staff to attempt something never done before: the care and breeding of Mazama newts in captivity. Initial success is offering hope, with a handful of newts eating and growing in zoo's newly dedicated Mazama newt lab. The long-term goal is to release captive-bred newts back into Crater Lake once a solution to the crayfish problem is found.Learn how the park, zoo, and other partners are collaborating to protect Crater Lake’s endemic Mazama newt.
Forging the Future with Youth and Volunteers
NPS Photo / Amelia Ryan
Caring Together
Amongst the cacophony of laughter, crinkling garbage bags, metal striking gravely soil, and conversation came a cry of recognition, “Oh! Madia!” Students and instructors of the Native Stewardship Corps and Archeological Field School had spent the last week in Pinnacles National Park doing research, learning about cutting-edge field tools like ground-penetrating radar, and exploring the history of the park. Now it was time to attend to the present, spending time caring for landscape. Every year, the park’s habitat restoration team removes invasive species like summer mustard and yellow star thistle from sensitive habitats throughout Pinnacles. While the focus is usually on the ecological impact of invasive species on native flora and fauna, their presence also affects a deeply rooted cultural ecology. Madia gracilis, the grassy tarweed, provides food for birds and small mammals, but it has also provided food for traditionally associated peoples of the park. In addition to removing weeds to give native plants more space, the group tended a deergrass stand by clearing dead thatch and collecting culms (grass stems) for a demonstration basket. On a beautiful morning in July, young tribal members, undergraduate anthropology students, youth fellows, and park staff were all gathered together from their differing backgrounds in a common purpose: to care for these complex webs of interrelationships between plant, animal, and human communities.
NPS Photo / Todd Stefanic
Wilderness Volunteers Find Nearly a Hundred New Caves in a Week
Ninety-eight caves. Four days. Incredible discoveries. For the first time, the Wilderness Volunteers worked with Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve to begin a systematic approach to finding caves, the first such effort in the park’s 101-year history. The team surveyed stretches of previously unexplored lava, along with areas believed to be thoroughly documented. In one “well-known” grid cell, volunteers uncovered 19 new caves. The Cave Research Foundation was working in the park the same week and several of the most exciting cave leads were quickly passed along to them. In one remarkable case, a cave discovered by volunteers was fully surveyed and professionally mapped by the Cave Research Foundation within 24 hours, an inspiring example of collaboration in action. By the second day of their trip, the energy was inspiring as Wilderness Volunteers began to call it the "first annual" Craters trip. A lasting framework is now in place to help discover new caves and map them professionally so the park can prioritize research and protection.
NPS Photo / Aiko Goldston
The Bounce-Back: 2025 Snowy Plover Breeding Season Had a Tough Start But a Happy Ending
Every year, federally threatened western snowy plovers—cute, well-camouflaged little shorebirds—breed on beaches and dunes in Point Reyes National Seashore. And each year, biologists and volunteers search for the birds’ nests, track chick survival, and help where they can. Like many plover breeding seasons in Point Reyes, this one got off to a rough start. A day of high winds wiped out most of the early nests. But the plovers started over and bounced back. They recreated new nests, persisted, and gradually grew the number of chicks on the park beaches. By the end of the season, the monitoring team had recorded the second-highest number of plover fledglings (chicks old enough to fly) in more than 30 years of monitoring these remarkable birds.Nimble Action to Address Emerging Issues
Courtesy of Ryan Wagner
A Leap Toward Recovery: Cascades Frogs Return to Lassen Volcanic National Park
Every spring, a female Cascades frog in Lassen Volcanic National Park would come to breeding pools and wait for a male frog to call. But she would never hear one and by 2007 she was gone, making her the last Cascades frog found in the park. Her species is facing major declines driven by drought, habitat degradation, invasive trout, and the deadly chytrid fungus that has devastated amphibians worldwide. For a decade, park managers have worked on recovery planning. Recently, researchers from Washington State University began leading a coalition of scientists and private, state, and federal land managers to reintroduce the species to the park. After being treated with a highly diluted antifungal bath, 117 frogs were released at two sites in 2025. Scientists are eager to revisit these sites this spring to learn how the frogs survived winter and gain insight into rebuilding a population that will help secure the future of the species.
Park Science and Stewardship is for Everyone
Courtesy of Desert Research Institute
Hidden Life: Biological Soil Crusts at Tule Springs Fossil Beds National Monument
At first glance, the desert floor at Tule Springs Fossil Beds National Monument might look like bare dirt. But look closer and you’ll find a community of living organisms. These biological soil crusts or “biocrusts,” are communities of cyanobacteria, lichens, fungi, algae, and mosses living on the soil surface in dryland environments. These crusts play a critical role in stabilizing soil, reducing wind and water erosion, retaining moisture, and supporting overall desert ecosystem health. Despite their importance, biocrusts are extremely fragile, often taking decades or centuries to recover from a single footprint or tire track. In 2025, the Desert Research Institute Conservation Ecology Lab partnered with the park to create an educational pamphlet focused on the ecological significance of biocrusts and how visitors can help protect them. The pamphlet features original photographs of biocrusts across different soil types and offers practical ways to distinguish soil lichens from rock lichens, which play a different function in the ecosystem and are not considered biocrust. The pamphlet was developed in close collaboration with National Park Service staff and subject matter experts to ensure scientific accuracy. As part of Tule Springs Fossil Beds National Monument’s commitment to stewardship, this resource will help engage visitors in understanding and protecting the fragile desert landscapes beneath their feet.
NPS Photo / Michael Reichmuth
2025 Summer Snorkel Surveys Yield Near-Record Counts of Young Salmon in Bay Area National Park Creeks
At the end of September, the San Francisco Bay Area Network salmonid monitoring crew wrapped up their 2025 summer field season. During the summer, the crew surveyed young salmon and their habitat in Pine Gulch, Redwood, and Olema Creeks, to learn about the health of each population. Their work included habitat assessments, snorkel surveys, and seining and tagging efforts. It was an exciting season as the crew found some of the highest numbers of endangered juvenile coho that they have ever recorded. Based on summer snorkel counts, the crew estimated roughly 2,000 coho juveniles in Pine Gulch Creek, nearly 6,000 coho in Redwood Creek, and a whopping 30,000 in Olema Creek!
NPS Photo / Mardee Littrell
Science, Technology, and Law Enforcement: Protecting Fossils of the Late Miocene
In 1941, Death Valley naturalist and geologist H. Donald Curry documented an abundance of diverse and well-preserved fossil tracks from the late Tertiary in Copper Canyon. These fossilized footprints, from birds, camels, horses, cats, proboscideans, and other vertebrates, are preserved in Miocene Lake deposits and offer a snapshot of life millions of years ago. However, due to tectonic faulting and erosion, many fossils in this area are continually exposed and vulnerable to damage. To protect the fossils, the area has only been accessible via a few ranger-led tours for several decades. Despite this, dozens of curious visitors still attempt to enter the site every year, putting the fossils at risk. Thanks to new technology, law enforcement rangers are able to assure compliance with closure orders and enforce protections enacted in the Paleontological Resource Protection Act. This system has been highly effective, with rangers successfully intercepting violators more than 90% of the time. By working together, paleontologists, law enforcement, and park managers are ensuring that these fossils of the Miocene epoch remain protected for future generations.Science Saves the Day
NPS Photo / Jane Gamble
Pyrodiversity and Birds in Sierra Nevada Parks
In the Sierra Nevada, national park lands served as a natural laboratory to answer a poorly understood question: how do bird communities react to fire over the long term? The answer matters to land managers choosing among different types of prescribed burning and fuel reduction to avoid the increasing threat from large, high severity “megafires.” Researchers studied how bird populations over the past two decades responded to fire over the past 35 years in Yosemite, Sequoia, and Kings Canyon National Parks. They learned that a majority of the 42 bird species they studied benefited from fire following the event-some for up to 35 years! Increased bird abundance long after moderate severity fires, even more than low severity fires, suggests the value of pyrodiversity—a mix of fire return intervals and burn severities—in managing forests. Read the published research or listen to an interview with the lead author to learn more.
NPS Photo / Sofia Elizarraras