The oddest discovery of 2023 in the National Park Service's Pacific West Region had sat in a collection for eleven years. A fossil found at John Day Fossil Beds National Monument in 2012, long taken for ant eggs, turned out under micro-CT scanning in 2023 to be a 29-million-year-old grasshopper nest — the first fossil grasshopper eggs ever found on Earth. It is one of 28 highlights, in nine categories, that the region's scientists reported for the year.
Fossil grasshopper eggs. NPS photo.
Discoveries
- The grasshopper nest. The scans revealed the eggs' internal structure, orientation and microstructure, which matched modern grasshoppers rather than ants. The eggs are named for Benjamin Ladd, the monument's first NPS superintendent.
- Cave turnips. Lehman Caves at Great Basin National Park, one of Nevada's longest cave systems, is unusually rich in "cave turnips," a globally rare formation. Staff and volunteers documented, measured, mapped and photographed 1,017 of them; the ones dated are 60,000 to 250,000 years old, probably begun when the climate was wet and cool.
- Inscriptions. The same cave carries more than 2,000 inscriptions left by early visitors. In 2023, two groups came to see marks their ancestors made in 1885 and 1934.
- Reefs that were battlefields. During World War II, U.S. Navy forces set off five tons of explosives on Guam's reefs to clear a path for landing craft. NPS researchers mapped submerged artifacts by remote sensing and diving, and interviewed residents, to help War in the Pacific National Historical Park understand the lasting effects on the reef and its role in protecting the coast.
- A genetic census in water. Across four Pacific Northwest parks, biologists filtered water at hundreds of streams, rivers and lakes for environmental DNA — fragments that reveal nonnative fish, aquatic pathogens and threatened amphibians — to set a baseline for detecting change.
- Birds in a burn. At Point Reyes National Seashore, the area burned by the 2020 Woodward Fire holds a very diverse bird community, including residents and neotropical migrants raising chicks among the snags.
A diver beside a large coral reef off Guam. NPS photo.
Species holding on, and coming back
| Park | What happened |
|---|---|
| Yosemite | California red-legged frogs vanished from the park 50 years ago, driven out by invasive bullfrogs. After years of bullfrog removal they were reintroduced to Yosemite Valley in 2019; wildfire, drought and floods complicated monitoring, but new breeding sites were finally found in 2022 and 2023 |
| North Cascades | The region has warmed by about 5 °F in a century. Modeling by wildlife biologist Dr. Jason Ransom's team projects that high-quality grizzly habitat will increase through 2100, and with it the number of bears the ecosystem can support |
| Point Reyes and Golden Gate | Managers are adding large wood and replanting creek banks to give coho salmon cool, sheltered water through a three-year life cycle strained by warming oceans and erratic rain |
| Muir Woods | In 2019 and 2023 the park removed historic riprap from Redwood Creek and added large wood, turning a channelized stream back into coho habitat — while visitors watched |
| Olympic | With USGS, tiny radio transmitters on the global Motus network are tracking where bats go in winter, when they are most vulnerable to white-nose syndrome — spreading in Washington but not yet detected in the park |
| Tule Springs Fossil Beds | Surveys of the elusive LeConte's Thrasher, inside the monument and on adjacent unprotected land, are measuring how development outside the park affects it |
| Channel Islands | Marine ecologist Steve Whitaker traced steep declines of rockweed to Santa Ana wind events; the park is rearing it in the lab and transplanting it back |
| Cabrillo | Community scientists spotted Anthophora urbana clementina, a bee otherwise known only from San Clemente Island 70 miles offshore; no population took hold |
Grizzly bear footprints in snow. Roger Christophersen, NPS photo.
A California red-legged frog. Rob Grasso, NPS photo.
Threats being managed
- Sudden oak death, caused by the non-native water mold Phytophthora ramorum, has killed tanoaks by the millions, leaving acorn-poor forests in lands where tanoak acorns have long been a staple food for Indigenous peoples. Point Reyes and Golden Gate are tracking its spread and working to limit it.
- Giant sequoias face drought and beetles as well as hotter, more frequent fires. In 2023 Yosemite convened experts who ranked 13 hypotheses for management; four ranked highly, and the team is developing projects on planting sequoia seedlings after wildfires.
- Hydropower in a national park. North Cascades holds a hydroelectric project entirely on NPS-managed land. As its three dams seek relicensing, a 2023 condition assessment drew on 25 years of records for 20 bird, 13 mammal and two pollinator species, plus bats as a group.
- Radon in fossils. Fossils at Hagerman Fossil Beds, a monument since 1988, give off naturally occurring radioactive radon; research identified the best mitigation, making storage safer and cutting energy costs.
- The Merced River. Lower Pines Campground in Yosemite, built in the floodplain, washed out in the 100-year flood of 1997. In fall 2023, 17 acres of it were restored to floodplain.
Prescribed fire in Mariposa Grove. NPS photo.
Heritage and people
- Heirloom apples. Homesteaders planted orchards in Yosemite Valley in the 1850s, and many trees survive — one of the oldest and most extensive orchard collections in the park system, possibly holding the world's only remaining specimens of 13 heirloom cultivars, now being propagated.
- Pearl Harbor's mooring quays. On December 7, 1941, sailors escaping their stricken battleships took refuge on the concrete quays of Battleship Row. In 2023 the NPS Historic Preservation Training Center began restoring them to their 1941 appearance and coating them against saltwater.
- Nez Perce canoes. The hand-hewn canoes at Nez Perce National Historical Park are among the only surviving examples of the craft; over twenty years, and now with tribal partners, the park has worked to stabilize them.
- A 1400s farm system. Near Mauna Loa, NPS archeologists used GIS models and satellite imagery to locate one of the Pacific's most extensive dryland agricultural systems, now excavated with the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa and local students.
- Culturally significant plants. The Samish Indian Nation's natural resources department is surveying San Juan Island National Historical Park with the NPS, guided by Samish Knowledge Keepers.
- Glaciers remembered. For Terminus, 40 volunteer artists memorialized Olympic's disappearing glaciers; the exhibition drew more than 1,600 visitors.
- Clean-up with care. At the Yosemite Facelift, a volunteer clean-up begun in 2003, archeologists now sort the "trash" so historic artifacts are not thrown away.
- A new landmark. On May 18, 2023 — the program's 61st anniversary — the Lanphere and Ma-le'l Dunes, west of Arcata, became California's 37th National Natural Landmark, joining 601 others.
Harvesting historic apples in Yosemite Valley. Scott Shinton, NPS photo.
The year in pictures
DOI partner agencies unveiling the NNL bronze plaque. NPS Photo.
LeConte's Thrasher nest in a bush. John Mark Simmons | NPS Photo.
Juvenile Coho salmon in stream. Michael Reichmuth | NPS Photo.
eDNA sampling sheet. Katie Kierczynski | NPS Photo.
Close up shot of Anthophora urbana clementina. A bee species endemic to San Clemente Island. NPS Photo.
Historic glass artifact laid out on tray. NPS Photo.
Overview shot of Point Reyes forest. Pacific Southwest Forest Service | USDA.
Kahuku Unit of Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park. NPS Photo.
Nez Perce Youth cleans canoe. Kristine Leier | NPS Photo.
Mooring quay in the harbor. Sara Stratte | NPS Photo.
Merced River shown with Yosemite Valley in background. NPS Photo.
Horse Fossil. Karina Rapp | NPS Photo.
An excavator in creek bed moving small logs. Carolyn Shoulders | NPS Photo.
Sources
Based on "2023 Science and Stewardship Highlights," National Park Service, Pacific West Region, introduced by Katariina Tuovinen, Associate Regional Director, and Taro Katayama, Science Highlights Team Lead; a work of the United States government in the public domain. The source dates the Pearl Harbor attack 1943; it was 1941. Pictures an earlier version of this page left out were restored on 2026-09-26.
Licence: CC0 1.0 (public domain) · Adapted from www.nps.gov
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