Death Valley National Park - Support Your Park (U.S. National Park Service)

NPS photo by Neal Herbert

VIPs and SCAs are vital to park operations

Public support is a critical component in the management of National Park Service lands. No other federal agency relies as heavily on the generosity and kindness of its visitors. We thank you for your support and look forward to future partnerships.

From volunteering as a campground host to shopping in our bookstores, there are many ways that the public can support Death Valley National Park and the goals of preservation and stewardship of the national park system:

Researcher calibrates an underwater stereo-video system.

Devils Hole Pupfish Research Receives Significant Boost Thanks to the Generosity of the Offield Family Foundation & Death Valley Fund
Generous donations from the Offield Family Foundation and assistance from the Death Valley Fund are helping Death Valley National Park and our primary collaborators for Devils Hole pupfish research at Iowa State University take the first big steps in moving past inherent challenges to studying the Devils Hole pupfish.
Donation of a state-of-the-art underwater stereo-video system will now enable us to sample fish lengths from the population without the adverse consequences of handling. With the new system, fish are filmed rather than handled and lengths are later determined by photogrammetry. Additionally, with accuracies of ± 1 mm SD, this new system will allow us to incorporate highly accurate measurements of pupfish length into our long-term monitoring strategy. Protocols will be developed to monitor the health of individual pupfish life stages (e.g., larvae, juvenile, and adult) in order to give us a signal of response from ongoing management efforts and to serve as an early warning from pending recruitment limitations. Perhaps most importantly, we intend to use these highly-accurate fish lengths to develop a stage-specific population model for the Devils Hole pupfish to assess existing hypotheses for the recent decline and to assess future threats to the population.
Death Valley National Park is extremely grateful for the humbling charity that has allowed us to initiate one of our highest-priority research efforts. With continued support from our partners and collaborators we hope to honor our stewardship responsibilities by advancing our knowledge of the Devils Hole pupfish.