How the government shutdown could kill bears

Brown Bear.

The government shutdown is having some very smelly consequences.

National parks have seen their toilets and trash cans overflow since the Interior Department's funds ran out late last year. And in less than a month, that shutdown has undone years of work that kept bears and other wildlife healthy, National Geographic reports.

Despite most national parks technically being closed during the shutdown, there are no paid employees on the grounds to stop visitors from coming. Bypassing entrance fees, parkgoers have gone off authorized trails and camped in unsafe areas. They've also overflowed trash cans and pit toilets, creating a danger to human and animal health.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Beyond the obvious dangers of raw sewage, animals have also been tempted by the human food that's no longer being cleaned up. "For the past couple of decades, the park service has worked hard to wean the black bear population from human food," says former National Park Service Director Jon Jarvis. But now, it's likely bears and coyotes will again start associating humans with food, increasing "the risk that an animal could attack or have to be euthanized," he tells National Geographic.

Unauthorized campers at Yosemite National Park reported bears pushing against their cars and trailers last week, and one made it into some trash, per the Los Angeles Times. It's all shaping up to create problems that could "last generations" or perhaps never be fixed, a director at the National Parks Conservation Association tells National Geographic.

To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us
Kathryn Krawczyk

Kathryn is a graduate of Syracuse University, with degrees in magazine journalism and information technology, along with hours to earn another degree after working at SU's independent paper The Daily Orange. She's currently recovering from a horse addiction while living in New York City, and likes to share her extremely dry sense of humor on Twitter.