Yellowstone Sees Slight Decline in Visitation

Yellowstone National Park last month posted a two-percent decline in recreational visitations while seeing a nominal increase in traffic through the park overall.  According to the National Park Service Public Use Statistics Office, 888,334 visitors were in the park in July for recreation compared with nearly 907-thousand one year ago.  Nominal as the change is, Spokesman Al Nash says you have to keep the decline in perspective.  Nash says the figures are still significantly larger than what was seen for monthly totals prior to 2008.  He also points out that year-to-date figures are about 4% higher than they were for the same period last year. Of July’s traffic into the park, 195,464 visitors entered through the South Entrance. Nash points out that typically, each year Yellowstone is in top ten national parks for popularity. Statistics for Grand Teton National Park were not immediately available.