Yellowstone opens for winter travel, ends wildlife program

BILLINGS (AP) — Yellowstone National Park opened its roads to oversnow vehicles for the winter season on Wednesday after suspending a wildlife monitoring program that found snowmobiles and other such machines were having minimal effects on wildlife.

The monitoring program for snowmobiles and larger, multi-passenger snow coaches began when Yellowstone adopted a 2012 plan that put caps on the number of winter vehicles allowed in the park.

The restrictions followed years of legal disputes fueled by concerns that too many snowmobiles were harming air quality and disrupting the park's bison and other wildlife.

Observations by wildlife workers of more than 1,100 groups of animals over seven years with the restrictions in place found that 95 % of bison and 80 % of trumpeter swans had either no response to oversnow vehicles or a "look and resume" response, meaning the animals would look up and then resume what they had been doing.

Guided snowcoach and snowmobile tours and up to four non-guided snowmobile groups daily are allowed in the park, beginning typically in mid-December and continuing through mid-March. However, travel this year is limited for now to snowcoaches only because of snow conditions, park officials said.