Yellowstone National Park

• Geothermal development and other subsurface drillings (issue resolved)
• Grizzli bears mortalities and habitat loss due to timber harvesting, oil and gas development, road and home building, mining... (issue resolved)
• Heavy metals and acid pollution from abandoned mining tailings (issue resolved)
• Water related concerns due to a proposed New World mine (issue resolved)
• Bison and elk threatened due to proposals to try and eridacate disease from them
• Lake trout invasion is a threat to indigenous cutthroat trout and other species 
• Increased visitor use
• Need to elaborate a monitoring plan with benchmarks and indicators 

WHC:

The State Party provided a state of conservation report dated 17 April 2003, in which it requests the Committee consider removing the site from the List of World Heritage in Danger. The report provided the following information:

1. Mining activities. The State Party reported that the mining proposal at the site adjacent to the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness area (Gallatin National Forest) and Yellowstone National Park was abandoned and that most of the property was transferred to public domain. Cleanup of toxic materials from past mining started in 2000 and is expected to take seven years. The McLaren tailings, which are outside of the Yellowstone, were left out of the cleanup agreement and, while the tailings have stabilized and water quality inside the Park has improved, the Park continues efforts to have them removed and the site restored.

2. Threats to bison. In 2000, Yellowstone National Park, State of Montana, US Forest Service, USDA Plant and Animal Health Inspection Service co-signed a joint Bison Management Plan that agreed to maintain wildlife populations and manage the risk of transmission of Brucella infection from bison to cattle. The Plan has been successfully implemented for two years. Discussions and research are underway to consider ways to eventually eliminate brucellosis from wildlife in the Greater Yellowstone Area while maintaining wild and free ranging wildlife herds.

3. Threats to cutthroat trout. In 1994, predatory non-native lake trout were discovered in Yellowstone Lake threatening the existence of the rare, endemic Yellowstone cutthroat trout, plus 42 other native birds and mammals that depend on them for their own survival. Experts on these fish species concluded that no technology is known to eradicate lake trout. The best that could be implemented for long-term suppression of lake trout was the annual deployment of “industrial strength gillnetting”. Since 1995, gillnetting fishing effort has resulted in the destruction of approximately 56,000 adult and juvenile lake trout. Catch-per-unit-effort declined in 2003 for the first year giving biologists hope that exploitation was beginning to affect the population, but this must be consistent for the next 3 –5 years before definitive conclusions can be made.

4. Water quality issues. All of the Park’s fuel storage tanks have been replaced with new double-walled liquid tanks or with more environmentally friendly propane gas tanks. While the facilities with the biggest problems have been (or are being) replaced, a backlog of smaller wastewater facilities remain in Yellowstone and will be replaced or updated in the future as funds are available.

5. Road impacts. Since 1995, much has been accomplished in upgrading the existing road system, but it is a slow process because of the short construction season and the fact that reconstruction must be reasonably compatible with summer visitors. An annual funded programme of complete bed and/or surface replacement is expected to continue through 2017.

6. Visitor use impacts. The completion of an environmental impact statement (EIS) on a new winter use management plan and a Record of Decision in 2000, called for phasing out snowmobile use over a three year period, and replacing them with non-polluting, mass transit snow coaches. This decision was challenged in federal court and a supplemental EIS (SEIS) had to be prepared. The final SEIS was released in February 2003, while the Record of Decision was signed on 25 March 2003. The National Parks Service decision allows for continued snowmobile use under strict limitations, establishing daily use limits, requiring the use of the new cleaner and quieter four cycle machines, and requiring snowmobile parties to be guided. The report states that the Park has focused on development of partnerships that have encouraged use of alternate fuels for transportation and facilities.

IUCN:

The new information provided above has been proposed on a consensual basis between IUCN and the Centre.