national parks

Latest in national parks

a herd of bison running by a car

What to do if you encounter a bison

By Laura Baisas

This is a photo of the Yosemite Valley taken from Tunnel View.

The 10 most popular US National Parks in 2025

By Popular Science Team

a grizzly bear stands on a bison carcass

Yellowstone’s first grizzly bear of 2026 emerges from his den

By Laura Baisas

yellow flowers blooming near hills

Best superbloom since 2016 fills Death Valley with wildflowers

By Laura Baisas

a large pool of water with smoke rising from it

World’s largest acidic geyser erupts for first time since 2020

By Laura Baisas

the sun hits a waterfall so it looks like fire

Yosemite’s glowing, golden waterfall is flowing again

By Margherita Bassi

A white pickup truck is driving away from the viewer across a flat sandy plain with tall, smoothly sculpted dunes rising in the background. Small patches of dry grass are scattered in the foreground.

Death Valley National Park needs help ID’ing joyriding vandals

Big bison in the National Park on the shore of a lake or river

This national park uses helicopters for bison round-up duty

hundreds of hats that were recovered from yellowstone national park laid out in front of a white pick up truck

Yellowstone employees recover over 300 hats from hydrothermal areas

By Margherita Bassi

a mule with a brown coat runs in a pen with other mules

Meet the chonky, hard-working mules of Olympic National Park

By Margherita Bassi

Cedar Creek in Congaree National Park, South Carolina, showing old growth bottomland hardwood forest.

This National Park uses a ‘Skeeter Meter’ to inform visitors about mosquitoes

By Laura Baisas

Mule deer scratching itself

Good luck guessing Yosemite’s most dangerous animal

Yellowstone's Wolf 907F walking in the snow

Yellowstone’s ‘Queen of the Wolves’ dies after fight with rival pack

White Sands NPS staff excavating fossilized human footprints from lakebed

Do the ancient human footprints at White Sands date back to the last ice age?

By Jocelyn Solis-Moreira

An annular eclipse, with an orange solar ring around a black moon.

The best US parks for eclipse chasers to see October’s ‘Ring of Fire’

An elk grazing in Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming.

The role of people in preserving nature, according to America’s National Parks docuseries

By Laura Baisas

person hiking with backpack and hiking sticks

What to know before you go on your first multi-day hike

By Alisha McDarris

a grizzly bear crosses the road in yellowstone national park. cars are stopped in the background

Connecting national parks could help generations of wildlife thrive

Landscape photo of Yosemite National Park

A photographer’s guide to respectfully enjoying a national park

By Marissa Wu / Popular Photography

Yellowstone floods could be flushing sewage into the park’s iconic river

Yellowstone floods could be flushing sewage into the park’s iconic river

By Kris Millgate/Field & Stream