The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem - FAQ

If you have questions about Greater Yellowstone resources and issues please send us an email. Here are answers to some common questions.

1. How did Yellowstone get its name?
Reference: Resources and Issues Handbook 2000, Yellowstone National Park

Who would doubt that the name "Yellowstone" derived from the brightly colored volcanic rock in the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River. It would be an appropriate origin, afterall, since thermal features like geysers and hot springs were the primary reason Yellowstone Park was established and thermal features refashioned the canyon's rhyolite to its present brilliance. But then that would be re-writing history.

The name actually derives from the Yellowstone River which flows some 670 miles from the heart of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem in Wyoming to the Montana/North Dakota border.

French-Canadian trappers, in the 1700s, first learned of the "Rock Yellow River" or "Mi tse a-da-zi" from the Minnetaree tribe in what is today eastern Montana. The Indian name likely referred to the sandstone bluffs that overlook the lower Yellowstone near its confluence with the Missouri River. The trappers applied the French translation "Roche Jaune" to the river.

David Thomson, an explorer-geographer, made the first translation of the river's name into English, "Yellow Stone," in 1797. In the journals of the Corps of Discovery, Lewis and Clark refer to the Yellowtone River in both French and English forms.

In the decades after the Lewis and Clark trek across the continent, the wild and wondrous landscapes through which this river flows came to be known as the "Yellowstone Country," the core of which would one day give birth to the world's first national park.


2. What is the difference between a national park and a national forest?
No sooner had Yellowstone National Park been established in 1872 in the territories of Wyoming and Montana than its boundary become a source of conflict. The rigid delineations along lines of latitude and longitude enclosed key geologic features but showed little understanding of the ecosystem they overlaid.

Over ensuing decades the park's edges were redrawn to reflect the area's watersheds, topography, and wildlife migrations. But in the end the condition of many park attractions hinged on forest reserves (predecessors of national forests) established by executive order from the wilderness adjacent to the park.

Though visitors often perceive them as quite similar, there are notable differences between national parks and national forests. National parks are administered by the Deparment of the Interior and national forests by the Deparment of Agriculture. The National Park Service is mandated to preserve resources unimpaired, while the U.S. Forest Service is mandated to wisely manage the resources under their administration for a variety of sustainable uses.

Based on the principle of multiple use and sustained yield espoused by professional foresters like Gifford Pinchot, national forests instituted a broad program that included timber and mineral extraction, hunting, fishing, and livestock grazing, as well as recreation and wildlife conservation.

This new philosophy of managed use in many respects contradicted the preservation ethic developing in parks, so a split between the two land conservation wings was inevitable. The preservationists, led by John Muir and others, collaborated with the travel industry to promote the establishment of more national parks while commodity developers joined the national forest movement. A mutual boundary was tantamount to a sword drawn across the landscape. Limited communication, coordination, and desire to find common goals prevailed for decades.

Today we realize that park designation does not safeguard nomadic bison or warranty geyser plumbing. Yellowstone's renowned features are vitally connected to those in surrounding wildlands. Despite their differing missions, present-day administrators of national parks and forests acknowledge the need for cooperation because they share many management goals.


3. Why is Yellowstone called a Biosphere Reserve and World Heritage Site?
Because of the worldwide significance of its natural and cultural resources, the United Nations has designated Yellowstone National Park as both a Biophere Reserve and World Heritage Site.

The United Nations Education, Science, and Culture Organization (UNESCO) designated Yellowstone a Biophsere Reserve in 1976 stating: "Yellowstone national park is recognized as part of the international network of biosphere reserves. This network of protected samples of the world's major ecosystem types is devoted to conservation of nature and scientific research in the service of man. It provides a standard against which the effect of man's impact on the environment can be measured."

UNESCO designated Yellowstone a World Heritage site in 1978, stating: "Through the collective recognition of the community of nations ... Yellowstone ... joins a select list of protected areas around the world whose outstanding natural and cultural resources form the common inheritance of all mankind."


4. Why did the Yellowstone fires of 1988 happen?
As fire swept across Yellowstone through the summer of 1988, its stimulated an outpouring of emotions. Although fire had long shaped the Yellowstone forests and grasslands cherished by generations of visitors, few could accept the dramatic changes they experienced during that summer.

The first explorers to Yellowstone found landscapes largely fashioned by fire. These same visitors, however, brought a European bias against the ecological advantages of fire in natural systems. during the next century, a policy of fire suppression prevailed on federally managed lands.

By the 1940s plant ecologists began to understand that fire is the primary agent of change in the arid, high-altitude west. fire recycles entire plant communties, quickly returning nutrients to the soil and opening forest canopies to sun-loving plants. Among its other functions are the control of disease and the creation of habitat "mosaics" that support greater biological diversity. In Yellowstone, grass, shrub, and tree species have evolved ways to survive fire, and many, like lodgepole pine and aspen, are most reilient in a burned environment.

In 1988, drought, hurricane-force winds, lightning, and a fuel load centuries in the making combined to create a fire season that was unprecedented that year, fire would have its way. But now, below the charred snags, you see an explosion of life. A new and revitalized Yellowstone is slowly taking shape.