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On March 1, 1872, President Ulysses S. Grant signed legislation making Yellowstone the first national park in the United States. 150 years later, as visitors flock to Yellowstone for its iconic scenery and wildlife, park officials are using the major milestone to look to the future.
For more than 10,000 years, Native American Tribes have called Yellowstone home, harnessing the region's abundant natural resources. Upon the park's creation, many were forcibly removed, and their history and traditions were largely erased from the history taught to visitors. Now, Yellowstone Superintendent Cam Sholly is reaching out to local Tribes, aiming to partner with them to preserve and teach the park's Indigenous history. “I think we need to tell history accurately — that’s our job,” said Sholly. “And a lot of times, that’s painful. And there are lessons from the past that the public needs to know.”
In recent decades, Yellowstone has become famous for its iconic wolves—reintroduced in 1995 after being exterminated decades earlier. The reintroduction has been hailed as a major conservation success. Upon wolf reintroduction, positive impacts rippled through the Yellowstone ecosystem—vegetation regrew as elk populations dipped, riverbanks stabilized, and songbirds returned. Now, however, one-third of Yellowstone's wolves are dead after the deadliest hunting season in recent memory. Just weeks ago, a judge ordered protections reinstated for gray wolves across much of the country, and federal wildlife officials are considering returning the wolf to the Endangered Species List.
Going forward, officials at Yellowstone will have their plates full with increasing visitation, climate change, fully telling the park's history, and wolves. In the meantime, take a look at a journey through Yellowstone in pictures.
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