Visitation to National Park Service sites has seen a boom in recent years. For five years in a row, the park service has tallied over 300 million visitors per year. It’s an unprecedented spike, and the reason why this is happening now goes deeper than social media alone. While the threat of COVID-19 will likely change those numbers this year, the park service is still figuring out how to regain the balance between preservation and visitation. Cheddar explains the history of crowding in America’s national parks, and the impacts we are seeing from that today.
When police responded to an alarm call at a TJ Maxx in Rockland, Maine on Thanksgiving Day last week, they weren't sure what exactly they would find. The alarm hadn't been tripped by a burglar but instead, it was a different kind of break-in -- a white-tailed deer.