This is a national park located in the U.S. state of Wyoming, although it also extends into Montana and Idaho. Yellowstone was the first national park in the world, and is very well famous 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. It is believed 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.
The Park spans an area of 3,468.4 square miles (8,983 km2), with features like 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 super volcano 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. Yellowstone Park is the largest and most famous mega fauna location in the Continental United States.
The human history of the park begins at least 11,000 years ago when aboriginal Americans first began to hunt and fish in the region. The Paleo-Indians, of the Clovis culture, used the significant amounts of obsidian found in the park to make such cutting tools and weapons. Arrowheads made of Yellowstone obsidian have been found as far away as the Mississippi Valley, indicating that a regular obsidian trade existed between local tribes and tribes farther east. By the time white explorers first entered the region during the Lewis and Clark Expedition in 1805, they encountered the Nez Perce, Crow and Shoshone tribes.
The Cook–Folsom–Peterson Expedition of 1869 is the first detailed expedition to the Yellowstone area. The Folsom party followed the Yellowstone River to Yellowstone Lake. The expedition spent about a month exploring the region, collecting specimens, and naming sites of interest. A writer and lawyer named Cornelius Hedges, who had been a member of the Washburn expedition, proposed that the region should be set aside and protected as a National Park. Hedges essentially restated comments made in October 1865 by acting Montana Territorial Governor Thomas Francis Meagher, who had previously commented that the region should be protected. Others made similar suggestions. In an 1871 letter from Jay Cooke to Ferdinand Hayden, Cooke wrote that his friend, Congressman William D. Kelley had also suggested "Congress pass a bill reserving the Great Geyser Basin as a public park forever".
In 1871, eleven years after his failed first effort, F.V. Hayden was finally able to make another attempt to explore the region. With government sponsorship, Hayden returned to Yellowstone region with a second, larger expedition, the Hayden Geological Survey of 1871. He compiled a comprehensive report on Yellowstone, which included large-format photographs by William Henry Jackson, as well as paintings by Thomas Moran. His report helped to convince the U.S. Congress to withdraw this region from public auction. On March 1, 1872, President Ulysses S. Grant signed The Act of Dedication law that created Yellowstone National Park.
After the park's official formation, Nathaniel Langford was appointed as the park's first superintendent in 1872. In 1875, Colonel William Ludlow, who had previously explored areas of Montana under the command of George Armstrong Custer, was assigned to organize and lead an expedition to Montana and the newly established Yellowstone Park. The report included letters and attachments by other expedition members, including naturalist and mineralogist George Bird Grinnell. Grinnell documented the poaching of buffalo, deer, elk and antelope for hides. As a result, Langford was forced to step down in 1877. Having traveled through Yellowstone and witnessed land management problems first hand, Philetus Norris volunteered for the position following Langford's exit. In 1880, Harry Yount was appointed as a gamekeeper to control poaching and vandalism in the park. Today, he is considered the first national park ranger, and Younts Peak, located at the head of the Yellowstone River, was named in his honor.
In the early 1880s, the Northern Pacific Railroad built a train station in Livingston, Montana, connecting to the northern entrance, which helped to increase visitation. By 1908 visitation increased enough to also attract a Union Pacific Railroad connection to West Yellowstone, though rail visitation fell off considerably by World War II and ceased around the 1960s. Much of the railroad line was converted to nature trails, among them the Yellowstone Branch Line Trail.
The 1959 Yellowstone earthquake just west of Yellowstone at Hebgen Lake was supposed to be the most powerful earthquake to hit the region in recorded history. In the northwest section of the park, new geysers were found, and many existing hot springs became turbid. Yellowstone National Park has one of the world's largest petrified forests, trees which were long ago buried by ash and soil and transformed from wood to mineral materials. This ash and other volcanic debris are believed to have come from the park area itself. There are 290 waterfalls of at least 15 feet (4.6 m) in the park, the highest being the Lower Falls of the Yellowstone River at 308 feet (94 m). Three deep canyons are located in the park, cut through the volcanic tuff of the Yellowstone Plateau by rivers over the last 640,000 years. The Lewis River flows through Lewis Canyon in the south, and the Yellowstone River has carved two colorful canyons, the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone and the Black Canyon of the Yellowstone in its journey north.
Yellowstone experiences thousands of small earthquakes every year, virtually all of which are undetectable to people. There have been six earthquakes with at least magnitude 6 or greater in historical times, including a 7.5 magnitude quake that struck just outside the northwest boundary of the park in 1959. Wildfire is a natural part of most ecosystems, and plants found in Yellowstone have adapted in a variety of ways. The National Park Service estimates that in natural conditions, grasslands in Yellowstone burned an average of every 20 to 25 years, while forests in the park would experience fire about every 300 years.
About thirty-five natural forest fires are ignited each year by lightning, while another six to ten are started by people in most cases by accident. Yellowstone National Park has three fire lookout towers, each staffed by trained fire fighters. The park also monitors fire from the air and relies on visitor reports of smoke and or flames. In an effort to minimize the chances of out of control fires and threats to people and structures, park employees do more than just monitor the potential for fire. Controlled burns are prescribed fires which are deliberately started to remove dead timber under conditions which allow fire fighters an opportunity to carefully control where and how much wood is consumed. Natural fires are sometimes considered prescribed fires if they are left to burn. Consequently, until the 1970s, when a better understanding of wildfire was developed, all fires were suppressed. This led to an increase in dead and dying forests, which would later provide the fuel load for fires that would be much harder, and in some cases, impossible to control.
Precipitation in Yellowstone is highly variable and it is greatly influenced by the moisture channel formed by the Snake River Plain to the west that was, in turn, formed by Yellowstone itself. Snow is possible in any month of the year, with averages of 150 inches (3,800 mm) annually around Yellowstone Lake, to twice that amount at higher elevations.
Approximately around 1,700 species of trees and other vascular plants are native and another 170 species are considered to be exotic species and are non-native. Of the eight conifer tree species documented, Lodgepole Pine forests cover 80% of the total forested areas. Other conifers, such as Subalpine Fir, Engelmann Spruce, Rocky Mountain Douglas-fir and Whitebark Pine, are found in scattered groves throughout the park. The Yellowstone Sand Verbena is a rare flowering plant found only in Yellowstone. In Yellowstone's hot waters, bacteria form mats of bizarre shapes consisting of trillions of individuals. These bacteria are some of the most primitive life forms on earth. Flies and other arthropods live on the mats, even in the middle of the bitterly cold winters. Thermus aquaticus is a bacterium found in the Yellowstone hot springs that produces an important enzyme that is easily replicated in the lab and is useful in replicating DNA as part of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) process. The retrieval of these bacteria can be achieved with no impact to the ecosystem.
There are almost 60 species of mammals in the park, including the gray wolf, the threatened lynx, and grizzly bears. Other large mammals include the bison, black bear, elk, moose, mule deer, white-tailed deer, mountain goat, pronghorn, bighorn sheep and mountain lion. The Yellowstone Park Bison Herd reached a peak in 2005 with 4,900 animals. The Yellowstone Park Bison Herd is believed to be one of only four free roaming and genetically pure herds on public lands in North America. An estimated 600 grizzly bears live in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, with more than half of the population living within Yellowstone. Population figures for elk are in excess of 30,000, the largest population of any large mammal species in Yellowstone. The less commonly seen mammals include the mountain lion and wolverine. The mountain lion has an estimated population of only 25 individuals parkwide.
Eighteen species of fish live in Yellowstone, including the core range of the Yellowstone cutthroat trout; a fish highly sought by anglers. Yellowstone is also home to six species of reptiles, such as the painted turtle and Prairie rattlesnake, and four species of amphibians, including the Boreal Chorus Frog. 311 species of birds have been reported, almost half of which nest in Yellowstone. As of 1999, twenty-six pairs of nesting bald eagles have been documented. Extremely rare sightings of whooping cranes have been recorded, however only three examples of this species are known to live in the Rocky Mountains, out of 385 known worldwide.
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