Wendy Corr:
Well, hey there, folks, welcome to the Roundup. We are a Cowboy State Daily podcast, and we focus on interesting people in the Cowboy state. And there is not a more interesting subject in all of the cowboy state than Yellowstone National Park - and we have, the guy we are talking to, Cam Sholly, superintendent of Yellowstone National Park, who's in his seventh year of being that guy at the head of all of the great things that are happening in America's first national park.
Before we start our conversation with Cam, though, I want to make sure that you know about another fantastic podcast that's called the "Business From the Basement" podcast. It's put on by the Wyoming Business Alliance. So check out the Wyoming "Business From the Basement" podcast, if you're a business person in Wyoming and you have questions, you want to connect, you want to network, you want to find out who's the movers and shakers, the "Business From the Basement" podcast will tell you that.
But don't go there yet, because first we're going to have a chat with Cam Sholly. I have not had a chance to talk to Cam Sholly - I used to do interviews with him every once while when I was doing the reporting, but I tell you what, this whole, you know, doing the news, Daily News takes me away from talking with people like you until today.
Cam, Hello. How have you been?
Cam Sholly: 01:25
I'm good. Wendy, it's good to see you. We miss you, and your podcast is coming to an end, I understand. So wish you the best as you move on to bigger and better things.
Wendy Corr: 01:36
It's going to be a transition. It is, but it's going to be great, and I'm still going to get a chance to talk to you every once in a while, and that's going to be a really good thing.
But Cam, let's talk about your favorite subject, I'm sure, which is this amazing place that's been preserved and set aside for the enjoyment of the people, Yellowstone National Park. And you have had the privilege of being the head guy, if you want to call it that, you are the point person for everything Yellowstone. And what a privilege that has to be for you, especially for the last seven years now.
Cam Sholly:
Yeah, it's, it's incredible. It's been seven years. It seems like yesterday on the one hand, and it seems like it's I've been here for 30 years on the other. You know, we had a terrific year this year, I'll knock on wood. We didn't have any calamities, so no floods or hydrothermal explosions or shootings or anything like that.
But it was really busy. It's going to be a near record year. I know we'll talk about visitation, but the team did a terrific job. We've had a lot of support and been out in the communities quite a bit talking with folks. I think the businesses in the surrounding communities had a really good year overall.
And you know, like I said, hard to believe it's mid September already. The Summer flew by, but everybody can be really proud of the team and everything that we did to facilitate what'll be close to 5 million visitors this year. I don't think we're going to quite get to that, but it'll probably be right in that area, that 4.8 million range.
Wendy Corr:
Cam, do you think, getting straight into some of the heavy stuff, do you think that the national policies, with tariffs and kind of, there's some bad blood internationally, obviously, now. Do you think, did that make a difference with international visitors this year? Do you guys keep those metrics?
Cam Sholly:
We don't have, I don't have those immediately available. You know, our international numbers have fluctuated somewhere between 18 to 25%, I think it's going to be in that range again this year. I'll be able to confirm that later.
I can tell you from being out quite a bit and talking to the team across the park, there are significant numbers of international visitors, not only here in Yellowstone, but other parks. So I don't, I don't think that that's had a major impact at all. I wouldn't be surprised if those numbers actually went up. But you know, once we get through the rest of the year, we'll be able to confirm that.
Wendy Corr:
That is great. But like you say, visitor numbers, not quite over that 5 million mark - is that good? Is that okay? Because we seem to have been going on this freight train that's just bound and determined to break all records for years, just up and up and up, that obviously, there's a tipping point at some point where it's too much versus just enough. Where are we at with that?
Cam Sholly:
Well, I think, everybody's got an opinion on this, and of course, everybody's opinion is right. You know, I want to remind people, the park’s 2.2 million acres, less than 2000 acres are pavement, and somewhere around 97% of people never get more than a half mile away from their car.
So we have no question in certain parts of the park, certain times of the year, you know significant amounts of traffic congestion and a lot of people enjoying this park. What I will say is, number one, we do a massive amount of resource monitoring to determine, where around the park are we seeing impacts from visitors and visitor use on on the resources?
Which, protecting this place is paramount, but also providing for the enjoyment of those resources. And that can be a very difficult balance, as you and I have talked about many times. You know, I think the reality is that we're not there yet. And, you know, we see, absent a couple places that we're focused on, especially the Midway geyser basin.
And visitors are behaving very well, enjoying this place, taking care of the resources. We do see, you know, a small percentage that we have to deal with, but overall, the condition of, and I've said this many times, condition of the ecosystem in Yellowstone, is better now than it was in 1872 when Yellowstone became a park.
And that's because of a lot of hard work by decades and decades of team members doing a really good job in managing that interface. This is the biggest visitor wildlife interface in the world. So you can go to Africa or maybe Alaska and see more wildlife, but not maybe tons of people. You can obviously go a lot of places, and see a lot of people, but no wildlife. And here you have both.
And you know, it's called the North American Serengeti for a reason.
Wendy Corr:
That's news to me. I've never heard that.
Cam Sholly:
Yeah, especially Lamar Valley. And if you look at the health, you know, species by species, and I'm not saying that we don't have things we need to focus on, we don't have challenges. Clearly, we do, but people should not conflate traffic jams at a grizzly bear sighting with some massive resource impact, necessarily.
And so I think - I don't know what the number is, but I always get asked the question, you know, when are you going to do something like Zion? Or, I think Yosemite, put something into place here recently, every park’s in a different place at a different point in time. So Zion is 150,000 acres, roughly, gets about the same visitation that we do, and it has, I think it has 42 miles of road, and so we're 2.2 million acres with the same visitation with 400 miles of road.
And I'm not in any way downplaying the fact that, you know, there are people out there that feel like there's too many visitors in the park. The survey we did last year, though, showed a 98% good to excellent visitor experience rating. And so I think that's testament to the team. I think that's a testament to the team.
You know, I think people are coming here, it's a bucket list trip. They're getting to see what they want to see. The majority of negative comments I hear on visitation come from locals, maybe sometimes the employees who want to get from one part of the park to another and don't like the fact that someone's stopping in the middle of the road to take a picture of an elk or something like that.
But the reality is that I think we're balancing that very well. It's a work in progress. I think people know we've piloted a lot of things over the last several years that I've been here. You know, in regard to more active management of parking lots and traffic, we have a whole traffic management unit now dedicated on the west entrance road, which has done a terrific job of facilitating both inbound traffic in the morning, outbound traffic in the afternoon.
The other thing, I think that people don't realize is, if you look at the visitation, say, you know, 1992 was the first year we had 3 million people in the park in a single year. 2015 was the first year we had 4 million in a single year. We got to 4.8 in 2021 so the number, you know, of years between each additional million is clearly shrinking.
Wendy Corr:
The bell curve is getting steeper.
Cam Sholly:
Kind of, but one of the things, if you look back at, say, the 1992 statistics, is we have much more visitation now in April and May and September and October than we did back then. So we had a lot of visitors in the summer months back in the, you know, 1992, that was, I think, a 3.1 million year. And now, as time has gone on, we're not seeing as much of a shoulder season.
So a lot of that visitation now is spread out over maybe a six month period, instead of condensed into a three month period. I think that's really good for businesses. I think it does diffuse the visitation to some degree.
Wendy Corr:
I want to say real quickly, that is an observation I have never heard, and it makes so much sense, and it's a really different way to look at this. And it's just not a way I've ever heard it presented.
Cam Sholly:
Well, I pulled the stats the other day for something else, and I so in 1992 there was 462,000 people here in the month of September, and in 2024 last year, there was 852,000. So even October in 1992 there was about 159,000, in 2024, 346,000. A lot of that's very weather dependent. If we have a nice October, weather wise, it's busier, but there's definitely a much larger number of people coming on what traditionally would have been the shoulder seasons outside of Memorial Day and Labor Day.
And so what that means for the team is there's more people here for a longer period of time. But if you look at the July and August statistics from those years, I mean, there are more, but like, August of last year, at 868,000 - in 1992 it was 742,000.
So there's an increase, but it's not the increase that you see in those kind of outlying months around the summer. But we're, you know, I think there's definitely some areas we've got to focus on. Midway Geyser Basin and Norris, you know, some of the north, of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, some of those areas.
But as I said, this is a process that I think will take some time, and I've always committed, since I got here in 2018, that those are decisions that we will make with communities, with our stakeholders, you know, looking from multiple perspectives, what the impacts on the resources are, how much is too much?
And I would say the majority of people are having a fantastic experience. The number of people saying, hey, institute a reservation system or timed entry right this second is pretty minuscule, especially when you're in the gateway communities, surrounding counties and that kind of thing.
Wendy Corr:
Absolutely, absolutely. You know, I want to go back to something that we talked about just real briefly, here, is the fact that this is seven years for you that you've been there. What are some of the major changes that you have seen, the things that you've implemented, the improvements that you've overseen?
When you look back at this seven years, what are the big things that stick out to you? You mentioned the traffic management on the west entrance road. What are some other things that you've seen that you're very proud of. Like, yes, I've made a difference here for the better.
Cam Sholly:
Well, my success is predicated 100% on the team and the great, great work that they've done, and they've carried on for many, many years and decades before I arrived here. I do think that there's, let's just talk about the wildlife and the ecosystem in general.
You know, we've continued to really attack and address the lake trout issue and the non native fish species. I think we had zero tributaries to Yellowstone Lake that had cutthroat spawning 10 years ago, and last year, we had 48 tributaries. We've seen, for the first time in I think a decade, osprey nests returning to Yellowstone Lake.
Wendy Corr:
No kidding. Oh, wow.
Cam Sholly:
We just did another very successful release of trumpeter swans last week. We have a wolf population that sits at about 110 animals and eight or nine packs around the park, very healthy. Doing very well. Bison population is sitting right now around 5200, a bear population that's thriving. I think we're re-seeding 2800 white bark pine trees this week.
And you know, we have been very successful at keeping aquatic invasives like zebra and quagga mussels out of Yellowstone waters. I think our fisheries are stronger than they've ever been. And you know.
So from, like I said earlier, from an ecosystem health perspective, my biggest concern right now in the ecosystem, honestly, is the terrestrial invasives. It's something that we're developing a strategy on right now - cheatgrass, Canadian thistle, a lot of things like that that are proliferating around the park that really do have major impacts on native species.
But overall, if you look at, you know, species by species, moose are rebounding. You know, we have a thriving elk population that's right size now, because of the predator-prey balance, things are, I think, really, really good.
We're working closely with our partners in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, be it the Forest Service, the states, the Fish and Wildlife Service. Grand Tetons on looking at, you know, how do we maintain proper wildlife corridors for mule deer, for elk, you name it. And so a lot of great conversations going on around what we can do together, collectively to keep this ecosystem intact.
And that's well beyond Yellowstone. GYE is over 20 million acres. Yellowstone is 2.2 million acres of that. So, it's bigger than Yellowstone, but so we put $20 million into the native fish restoration effort here during my tenure, I'm proud of that. The science panel has said that right now, you know, our cutthroat trout populations are rebounding, and significantly rebounding, potentially to levels that were at the same levels prior to the late trout infestation.
So, really good progress on those fronts. You know, we're continuing to make major strides in infrastructure. Most of the infrastructure in this park was built, you know, some late 1800s to middle of last century.
Wendy Corr:
Oh, my, that's got to be a project, yeah.
Cam Sholly:
So we treated 300 million gallons of drinking water last year for visitors. You can't screw that up, right? I mean, you gotta, we need to pay attention to that. Most of the water wastewater systems across the park were built in the 60s, 70s and 80s, when visitation was a couple million.
Thanks to the Great American Outdoors Act and other fund sources support out of Washington, we'll be investing a quarter billion dollars into upgrading those systems, so that, you know, we're not obviously putting people's lives in danger, with bad drinking water and things like that.
We've got the systems in place that are going to sustain this park for many, many years to come. We're finishing $500 million of infrastructure improvements, mostly roads and bridges. Yellowstone River Bridge is in year three to four. We're going to put traffic on that here next month. Lewis River Bridge, just finished in July, got about $100 million in new employee housing in the last six years, and we have somewhere around a billion dollars of projects, including long term flood recovery projects that we're moving forward.
So you know, you can take your pick, but I think for me, it's a broad spectrum. We can talk about visitor experience and partnerships more, but of different things that either we've continued, or the priorities that we set back in 2018, we're executing on at very high levels.
Wendy Corr:
My goodness, and I just can't even imagine how you wrap your brain around all of that every day, because you have to have your fingers on the pulse of all of that every day. Let's talk quickly about that flood from a couple years ago. Is it 2022 that the flood occurred? So, 2022, the big flood happened, and it changed parts of Yellowstone forever.
I had one of my colleagues, David Madison, ask about - he had a question. He said, Hey, could you ask Cam about whether or not the Boiling River/Gardiner River, at the confluence there, will we ever be able to soak there again? And you said, Nope, it's gone.
Cam Sholly:
Yeah. I mean, it's probably the question that I've had the most since the flood, is, when is Boiling river going to reopen? So, you know, it's open to the public. People can go down there and look for themselves. But because of the flood, the river actually shifted over to the other side from where it used to be.
So it was kind of, if you're floating down the river, you used to kind of come into the left there. It had a nice pool, and the hot water would come into the pool. People could sit there. There's a little rock wall that had been built over the years. The river now is all the way over to the right.
And so the hot water still comes down, but it diffuses across, you know, an area that is not necessarily conducive for soaking. And so, you know, I've been asked, Can we try to rebuild something and all that? Frankly, it's probably pretty low on the priority list, considering everything we have going.
ut we are excited about, we'll be launching an environmental assessment in November for the permanent road options from here in Mammoth down to Gardiner. You know, obviously, most people know that the road through the canyon was washed out in multiple locations. We rebuilt the old Gardiner Road in just under four months, with the help of federal highways and some great contractors.
Wendy Corr:
What an amazing, amazing accomplishment. Holy cow.
Cam Sholly:
Yeah. Great team effort, restored access to the north entrance, which is now the second busiest entrance in the park, next to West, and that road has been fantastic the last three years. People need to keep in mind that it was not built to modern day safety standards. I mean, it's safe, but it's not going to last.
So we need to figure out what the permanent, long term option is going to be, so we'll be releasing three alternatives for the public to look at and we'll take comments on those. One would be rebuilding through the canyon. One will be upgrading the old Gardner road to modern day standards.
Problem with that one is it's probably three to five years of night closures. And 30 minute traffic delays on it. That ground is shifting significantly. There's a big glacial shift that is coming in from the west. And so we've got, whatever we do, engineer around that shift.
And then the third alternative is actually kind of a hybrid, stays out of the canyon. It's down below the old Gardiner road, and we look forward to sharing what we found. Over the last couple of years, we've done a lot of geotechnical surveys, lot of different preliminary designs for people to look at. And you know, we look to kick that off, make a decision this year, maybe early next year, and kick that off in 27.
Wendy Corr:
Can I just make an observation here? As the superintendent of Yellowstone National Park, you have to be an expert in a lot of things. I'm hearing you toss around terms like ‘geotechnical’ and ‘terrestrial invasives.’ And I'm like, my goodness, you have to have such a grasp on all of these various aspects of, of course, the National Park, from the biology to the geology to all of this. Do you find yourself just every day learning something new?
Cam Sholly:
Well, you know, first of all, just once again, the reason I know as much as I know is because of the team, and there's a lot of people that know a lot more about all of these different topics individually, and that's their areas of expertise.
And, you know, depending on what the focus is at a particular moment, I need to, you know, do a mind meld with them and deep dive their brain a little bit to get my own knowledge up to speed. And there's a lot of decisions that need to be made in this park that have to be made carefully, but, you know, not overly expeditiously, but we also want to make progress.
And so, you know, taking the best information that we have from our experts, taking different lenses that other people are looking through versus, you know, it could be the business community. It could be, you know, you name it, and coming up with the right decision that's in the best interest of the park and our partners for the long term is really kind of what all these things are about.
So that road’s a good example. You know, it's obviously a lifeline into Gardiner. We saw what happened in ‘22 with Cooke City and Silver Gate and Gardiner cut off completely for the summer. You know, I think last year's numbers were a billion, billion and a half spent by visitors to Grand Teton and Yellowstone and communities within 50 miles of the parks.
So from an economic vibrancy standpoint, obviously what we're doing here, now and into the future is really, really important. Once again, not just from a business or economics perspective, but from the standpoint, if you don't have good infrastructure - remember the numbers I gave you earlier on, how many visitors are in such a small percentage of the park. We spend probably 90% of our budget in that small percentage, by the way, whether it's in public safety or structure, fire maintenance, cleaning bathrooms, whatever the case might be.
It's important that the infrastructure is in as good a condition as possible, and that the decisions that we're making are going to withstand the test of time and allow for continued visitation well into the future. And some of the things we've been working on, federal highways in both of the North corridors, has really been looking at resiliency.
And you know, if we had another flood, what were the most vulnerable sections of the roads? So if we have another flood event, I know it's a one in 500 year flood event, but it could happen again next year. Which areas of roads would we lose, and how can we take the actions necessary to prevent that from happening? And do that proactively?
So I got a lot of questions after the floods, why didn't we do this and that and the different road corridors preventatively? I think it's a fair question. There's a lot going on. We hadn't seen a flood of that magnitude in history, but from a lesson learned perspective, we are taking that very seriously, and we've done, I think, a really good job of identifying those areas that we really need to focus on and make sure something like that doesn't happen again.
Wendy Corr:
My goodness, absolutely. Let's go back to all of the -ologies that you have mentioned. When it comes to the things that you oversee in the park and the wonderful things that have been happening, and you mentioned the bear numbers.
Bear numbers are very, very healthy. There's obviously a lot of talk, once again, that seems like it comes around every few years, to delist the grizzly bears. What are your thoughts on that from the perspective of the National Park, from the perspective, you live with the bears. I mean, you're in the heart of grizzly bear country there. What are you seeing, and what is your take on that?
Cam Sholly:
So let me just kind of back up to the Endangered Species Act. You know, I think that the ESA is arguably one of the most important pieces of conservation legislation this country has ever seen, has been hugely successful at recovering species for everyone that says that the species should not be delisted.
All right, if you like the ESA and you want the ESA to stick around, then when recovery thresholds are set and met within the ESA, then the delisting needs to occur. And if you go and ask how many species were put on the list versus how many are taken off, even when recovery thresholds have been met, there's a pretty big disparity there.
And so I think the work that's gone into ensuring that Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, you know, with Fish and Wildlife Service, with other partners, have worked on from a conservation strategy standpoint, and then looking at the numbers and the recovery thresholds, and looking at other various factors, genetics, connectivity, some things like that, they need to be delisted.
They need to be taken off the list, and it needs to be celebrated as a conservation success story. And for those out there that are going to be yelling at their computer when they watch this, or banging their steering wheel when they're driving and listening to this, think about what the ESA stands for. Think about the reason.
Back in 1976 the Grizzlies were put on the ESA. Think about what the recovery thresholds were for delisting. Ask yourself, have we met those recovery thresholds? The answer is yes, and therefore it should trigger the delisting. And if you don't ever take species off that you put on, no one's going to want to use the ESA in the future.
And so that's my viewpoint on that. I know that's not shared by some people who are pretty vocal about this topic, but it is. A lot of work has gone into recovering the grizzly, and we need to move on.
Wendy Corr:
You know, everyone was so focused on 399, when, and of course, that was primarily Grand Teton. But that really does bring those grizzly bears and those animals to the forefront. And people are passionate about that. They've been passionate about wolves, but the wolves, you mentioned earlier, because the predator prey balance - you were talking about elk numbers at that time, because the predator prey balance is working. Everybody is at a healthy population.
And I think from your standpoint, to the standpoint of everybody there, that's the whole goal, right?
Cam Sholly:
I think speaking for Yellowstone National Park, the wolf population is healthy. I mean, obviously people know, in 2021, you know, there was back and forth on the quotas right outside the park. We negotiated that work with the state of Montana. Those quotas are in place.
They do provide additional protection for the small number of wolves that leave the park for short amounts of time. But generally speaking, wolves are another, I think, amazing success story that that reintroduction happened, you know, 30 years ago. And if you look at the changes to the ecosystem, the positive changes because of wolves.
And obviously, wolves need to be managed, and they are being managed. We don't want wolves out killing livestock. Wolves that kill livestock should be killed themselves. I've said that many times in many forums, but they do play, you know, a very essential role in the predator prey ecosystem balance.
And you know, I would - this isn't the greatest analogy, but from the standpoint of visitation and economics, if you're going to go to see a safari in Africa and you weren't going to see any lions, or you weren't going to see any predators over there, and all you were going to see is gazelles and water buffalo running around, how would that shift your experience?
Wendy Corr:
Why even go? Why even go? Right?
Cam Sholly:
I think there's, there's some pretty incredible, you know, parts about coming to Yellowstone National Park or and being able to see everything that you see here on the entire spectrum, including wolves, including Grizzlies, you know, black bears, you name it, mountain lions. And I think that's one of the things that makes this place very special.
At the same time, you know, I say this to people also that don't necessarily agree with me, people that want wildlife levels to go back to where they were in the 1700s or 1800s, you know, we have a completely different societal structure now that would probably inhibit that from happening.
Is it fun to think about? Yeah. But you know, as these species and these interfaces occur in the Greater Yellowstone, just been beyond in other places, you know, there's got to be a balance in management. And there's different, you know, viewpoints on that, and different competing interests, and those things need to be taken into consideration, and we need to find the balance. And I think that's the critical part.
Wendy Corr:
Speaking of those interactions, there haven't been a lot of bad behavior by the human beings that have been in the park. We've not been hearing a whole lot this year about people making really stupid decisions. There's been a few.
Cam Sholly:
I think there's been a couple bison gorings. Yeah, I think we had somebody feeding a bear, but, yeah, it's been, we haven't had any really, like dumb things, like people putting bison calves in the back of their truck, or things like that.
So I, you know, I always go back to, some of these incidents get publicized, especially with social media. I think if you look at, there's a couple of social media sites, that Tourons of Yellowstone, and they always have…
Wendy Corr:
Yeah, invasion of the idiots.
Cam Sholly:
Yeah, that people aren't doing the smartest thing. But when you look at overall the number of those versus, you know, almost 5 million visitors per year, it's a very, very small percentage overall considering how much wildlife there is and how many visitors there are.
I think our team’s doing a really good job of, we were just talking about this the other day, of working together to manage wildlife jams. Effectively, we've got a whole team out here in Mammoth managing this elk rut. It's gotten bigger and bigger every fall, and, you know, still people out there probably not making the best decisions.
But like I said, we haven't had as many, you know, really strange ones this year, as we have in some of the past years.
Wendy Corr:
That is a big plus. I hope we haven't jinxed anything here by talking about it. But yeah, having a flood tomorrow. Yeah, let's not, let's not do that. So we'll toss that out into the universe there.
I have to say, you've talked about how the majority of the infrastructure, obviously, that the majority of the money is spent on this, what, 2.2% of the entire park, which is just, you know, off the highways. Really, one of the reasons I don't go off the highways is simply because I'm scared of bears. I don't want to run into one in the back country.
But I'm willing to bet that you and your employees and the other people that they're that that back country has to be a special place for all of you. Do you get out into the back country often?
Cam Sholly:
I get out as much as I can. I mean, I started here, I got out of the military, in 1990-91 in a place called Thorofare, which is in the southeast corner of the park, and that is the most remote area in the lower 48 - the furthest from a road, anyway. And I've been back five times as superintendent.
You know, I try to get out as much as possible. It's very interesting seeing visitors in the backcountry. The further back you go, the less you see. Having lived down there in the summers of 1991, I can tell you, there are no more people down there now than there were back then. I think that's kind of cool.
If you look at our backcountry numbers, you know, the numbers are actually down over the last several decades as far as backcountry use goes. So, you know, I think what you said is part of it. I mean, you kind of need to know what you're doing. You need to be prepared.
Yeah, I went from here in ‘91 to a backcountry ranger in Yosemite, there in the Sierras, and there are no Grizzlies, and it's completely different walking around the back country there versus here. I mean, I always say you can't beat the grandeur of Yosemite, and you can't beat the wildness of Yellowstone.
And, you know, I think that, you know, some people can relate to this. There's just no substitute for getting out with your own thoughts, no connectivity, and being in the back country, deep where it's wild. You got to pay attention. You got to know what you're doing, and you get to see things that most people don't get to see. And it's, it's pretty special part of America's, especially Western, national parks.
Wendy Corr:
So then, what's the best part of your job overall? When you get up in the morning, you say, ‘Hey, I get to do this today.’ What's the best part?
Cam Sholly:
Well, you said this is the biggest privilege, and I agree with that. It's also, on some days, the biggest pain, you know, depending on what issues are on the desk here.
I think one of my favorite parts, like last Monday, I just, I cleared my schedule and went out and met with, you know, 50 or 60 employees at almost every location in the park. You know, I went to Norris, went to Canyon, went to Lake, went to Grant, went to south entrance, went to Old Faithful, went to Madison.
And interfacing with the team out there, and seeing visitors enjoy this place, and seeing the team do such a good job of ensuring that happens, is a pretty nice part of the job. I think the, like I said, everybody's got an opinion and everybody's opinion is right. I mean, people care passionately about what they believe in, and even whether I agree with it or not, and there are, you know, a lot of people out there that have ideas around how we should be managing or what we should be doing.
And, you know, we try to listen to that as much as possible and make the right decisions that strike that balance that I talked about earlier. But my biggest enjoyment here is this team. This team rips it. And, you know, I've moved a lot, I've been in a lot of assignments in this agency here for seven years now. And I just, the team, just the complexities of this park and what they deal with and what they manage.
I mean, the American taxpayers should be very proud of what they're getting out of the Yellowstone team and teams in other national parks. They're doing a fantastic job.
Wendy Corr:
You know, before we kind of wrap this up, I want to talk about something real quickly that you and I talked about before we started the recording here, which is that there's been a lot of concern, and you got a lot of vocal, I mean, questions at the beginning of this year about how the new administration was going to - and all of the uncertainty at the beginning of the year about how that was going to affect your staffing. But your staffing is in great shape. Let's celebrate that. Tell us about that.
Cam Sholly:
Well, I think, you know, any organization - and just take out administration changes and things like that for a second - and obviously, as people retire, and ebbs and flows of staffing and things like that. What I was telling you about was, you know, I had done some interviews in the spring about, you know, I'm just looking at, purely at our payroll numbers, and our numbers are at or higher going into this year, staffing wise, than they have been in the last five.
And, you know, I think the proof is in how the team performed and the successes that we've had, and that predicted we were to have a great summer, and we have. You know, it doesn't mean there's not gaps. Everybody knows there's things at any point in time that you know, like, the head of our wastewater system manager left, and he's taking a job outside of government. We're going to be able to fill that job. In fact, we're working on it right away.
There are law enforcement, firefighters, a whole plethora of I mean, the government's under a hiring freeze right now, to a degree. The administration has made a decision to reduce government spending, and our job is to execute that and still continue to conduct our mission. And that's exactly what's happening here.
I've had very good conversations, many, many conversations with Washington around different types of needs that we have, things that we need to focus on, and those needs have been addressed and are being listened to.
And so, you know, I get asked the question, how many people took the early retirement deferred resignation program? I think we had about 20. I think nine of them were going to retire anyway this year. Three or four of them, I wasn't that sad to see go anyway. And we've been plugging different gaps as we go along.
And you know, I think there's some things that we're doing differently here, that are not bad, they're good. And I'm not speaking for anybody but Yellowstone right now, we're in good shape. We've got a billion, billion point one in projects queued right now that are funded, that we're moving forward on.
You know, our seasonal levels, the secretary authorized full seasonal hiring. I get it.
Some parks were apparently not able to hire everyone for various reasons, but we have been, and it wasn't because they weren't allowed to. Sometimes, and we've had, you know, periods of time over the years where we try to recruit for a certain position, and you just don't get enough applicants, or you don't get good applicants, or whatever the case is. So there's an ebb and flow there.
But I mean, I've got a spreadsheet with the people that are on the payroll right now. As of pay period 16 in July, and those numbers are right at or above where they've been at different points in time in that same July pay period over the last 10 years.
And so when I did some of those interviews in the spring, people were like, Oh, that can't be true. You know, whatever the case is, I'm like, I'll provide you the payroll numbers. And so, you know, anybody that wants to FOIA them, go ahead and do it, because they are who are paying, who are on the books at that particular snapshot in time. And we had a great summer because of a great staff and the right staffing levels.
Wendy Corr:
That is absolutely fantastic. Cam, I just want to wrap up our really awesome conversation. I've learned so much, and I hope that our listeners have as well. But tell me what you are looking forward to, going forward in this next year, into your eighth year of being the superintendent of America's first national park. What are some of the things that are exciting you about this next year?
Cam Sholly:
Well, we're gonna maintain the path that we are on the different wildlife species and ecosystem management. We're going to get aggressive, like I said earlier on, on a more targeted strategy on invasive species, from the standpoint of, especially up here in the Northern Range, that's something we need to invest more money into and really get more on top of. And so I'm interested in that.
We had a $40 million anonymous donation last year for new housing, and our first new housing units from that donation went into Grant Village last week, so we'll be putting in new housing throughout the park because of that very generous donation over the next three to four years. And excited about that.
I'm excited about, you know, the infrastructure things, and some of it's not super glamorous, like the water and wastewater treatment facilities, but those are things that had been neglected for a long time that are being addressed now, super important.
We've got two of the largest historic preservation projects going in the country right now, down at Old Faithful and here in Fort Yellowstone, as far as redoing structures from the late 1800s early 1900s, and I think that's positive.
We've got, you know, the whole flood, long term flood recovery. I touched on the north entrance road. We've got a lot of work planned for the Northeast entrance road as we move forward. And then we've got, you know, I think four or five other, like, for instance, bridge replacements.
We’ve got 62 bridges in the park. I think 11 of them are in like, a couple years from condemned. And so, no better example of that than the Seven Mile Bridge on the west entrance road. The west entrance road from West Yellowstone takes about 48% of the visitation and that bridge, that bridge developed a hole in it last year where you could actually look through it and see down to the river. And that's not a good thing for bridges that carry that much traffic.
And so some of these feel like, Wow, you sure are focused on bridges and things like that. I'm like, yeah, if that bridge fails, what do you think happens to West Yellowstone if one of the corridors fails? And so we've got a lot of work to do on some of that type of infrastructure.
I feel really good with the planning that we have, the support and funding that we have. Yeah, I think - there was a field hearing last week, or the week before, down in Grand Teton on kind of the Great American Outdoors Act 2.0, and so I think here we've done the full spectrum from housing to transportation to utility upgrades, invested a significant amount of money that's going to pay dividends into the future.
Wendy Corr:
Cam, this has been a fantastic conversation. Thank you so much for taking time out of your huge responsibilities and sharing your thoughts with Cowboy State Daily's listeners and viewers here, congratulations on a very successful year.
Thank you for all of the heart and all of the care that you put into your job, and we're just grateful to have you in that place, in this very special part of Wyoming. Thanks so much.
Cam Sholly:
Thanks, Wendy, and thanks for all you've done over the years. I know you're going to still be involved in different things with Cowboy State Daily, but you've been terrific to work with, and we all appreciate you and your reporting. And good luck to you.
Wendy Corr:
Thank you very, very much. And folks, thank you so much for being a part of this conversation today with Cam Sholly, superintendent of Yellowstone National Park. We have so many other people that we have had, that I've had the privilege of having conversations with over the last couple of years. Please go back into our archives and revisit some of those conversations.
But also thank you for being a part of what we do here at Cowboy State Daily. It's your heart that makes these conversations possible, because we're all Wyoming - and we're amazing people here in this state. Thanks for tuning in. Thank you, Cam. Have a great week.
