Wildlife & Plants

Wild coastal brown bear cub in Katmai National Park (Alaska)

National parks protect much more than spectacular scenery. Behind every mountain, desert, forest, wetland, coastline, and canyon is a living community of plants and animals adapted to the conditions around them.

From bison roaming open prairie and bears moving through mountain forests to giant sequoias, desert wildflowers, tropical rainforest plants, coral reefs, migratory birds, and tiny organisms hidden beneath the soil, biodiversity is one of the defining features of the world’s protected landscapes.

The Wildlife & Plants hub is your starting point for exploring the animals, plants, forests, grasslands, wetlands, deserts, and other ecosystems found throughout national parks. Use the guides below to learn what lives in individual parks, where different species are found, how they have adapted to their environments, and how visitors can observe nature responsibly.

🦬 National Park Mammals

Large mammals are among the most memorable animals visitors encounter in national parks, but they represent only one part of much larger ecosystems.

In the Great Plains and Rocky Mountain West, national parks protect animals such as American bison, elk, pronghorn, bighorn sheep, black bears, grizzly bears, coyotes, wolves, mountain lions, prairie dogs, and many smaller mammals. In Alaska, the possibilities expand to include brown bears, caribou, moose, Dall sheep, marine mammals, and other species adapted to northern environments.

Wind Cave National Park is a particularly good place to understand the wildlife of the western prairie. Its grasslands and ponderosa pine landscapes support bison, elk, pronghorn, prairie dogs, coyotes, deer, and numerous smaller species.

North Dakota’s Theodore Roosevelt National Park wildlife offers another look at Great Plains ecology. Bison and prairie dogs share the Badlands with deer, pronghorn, coyotes, and numerous birds and smaller animals.

The park is also known for its wild horses, although their history and management differ from those of the park’s native wildlife.

Farther north, Voyageurs National Park wildlife reflects the forests, lakes, wetlands, and waterways of northern Minnesota.

🐻 Bears, Wolves & Other Predators

Predators play important ecological roles even though visitors may rarely see them.

National parks in Alaska and the Rocky Mountains provide habitat for some of North America’s largest predators. Yellowstone is especially famous for its populations of grizzly bears, black bears, wolves, coyotes, mountain lions, foxes, and other carnivores.

Predators are not limited to remote western wilderness. Black bears inhabit numerous parks throughout the country, including the Great Smoky Mountains, Shenandoah, Yosemite, Sequoia, and parts of the Pacific Northwest.

Seeing a bear, wolf, mountain lion, or other large predator can be unforgettable, but wildlife viewing should never involve approaching, feeding, following, calling to, or surrounding an animal. Park-specific distance requirements and food-storage regulations should always take priority over getting a photograph.

🦌 Wildlife of Grasslands & Badlands

Grasslands can initially look simpler than forests, but they support intricate food webs.

Bison, pronghorn, elk, prairie dogs, badgers, coyotes, snakes, raptors, grassland birds, insects, and countless other species depend on prairie environments. Burrowing mammals alter soils, grazing animals shape plant communities, predators influence prey populations, and insects pollinate flowering plants.

Badlands National Park, Theodore Roosevelt National Park, and the aboveground landscape of Wind Cave National Park are excellent places to experience these ecosystems.

Even the smallest species matter. A prairie dog colony, for example, is not simply a collection of burrows. It changes vegetation and soil structure while creating habitat used by other animals.

🦅 Birds of the National Parks

Birdwatching can transform a national park visit because birds occupy nearly every environment, from desert scrub and alpine tundra to forests, wetlands, ocean cliffs, grasslands, and tropical islands.

Raptors such as bald eagles, golden eagles, hawks, falcons, and owls attract immediate attention, but national parks also provide important habitat for songbirds, shorebirds, waterfowl, woodpeckers, hummingbirds, seabirds, and migratory species.

Coastal parks can be particularly important for nesting and migrating birds. Dry Tortugas National Park, for example, sits along important migration routes and includes remote islands used by seabirds and other species.

Mountain parks offer entirely different bird communities. As elevation changes, forests give way to subalpine and alpine environments, creating habitats for species adapted to very different conditions.

One of the easiest ways to notice more birds is simply to slow down. Listen before looking. Calls, songs, drumming, alarm notes, and movement through vegetation often reveal birds long before they become visible.

🐊 Reptiles & Amphibians

Reptiles and amphibians are sometimes overlooked beside larger mammals, yet national parks protect an extraordinary variety of snakes, lizards, turtles, crocodilians, frogs, toads, and salamanders.

Everglades National Park is particularly famous for reptiles, including both American alligators and American crocodiles. Desert parks such as Saguaro, Joshua Tree, Big Bend, and Death Valley support reptiles adapted to heat, aridity, and dramatic temperature changes.

Amphibians are closely tied to moisture and can be especially abundant in forests, wetlands, streams, ponds, and other damp habitats. Salamanders are an important part of Appalachian ecosystems, while frogs and toads occur across a remarkable range of national park environments.

Because reptiles and amphibians can be sensitive to habitat disturbance, visitors should observe rather than handle them. Turning rocks, disturbing stream banks, or moving animals for photographs can damage habitat and place unnecessary stress on wildlife.

🐟 Fish, Marine Mammals & Ocean Wildlife

Some national parks extend far beyond dry land.

Biscayne, Channel Islands, Dry Tortugas, Glacier Bay, Kenai Fjords, Virgin Islands, and other coastal or marine parks protect ecosystems containing fish, marine mammals, sea turtles, seabirds, coral communities, kelp forests, tidal environments, and countless invertebrates.

Visitors may encounter whales, dolphins, seals, sea lions, sea otters, reef fish, sharks, rays, turtles, or other marine animals depending on the park.

In Alaska, protected coastal waters combine with glaciers and mountain environments to create some of the country’s most dramatic marine ecosystems. In subtropical and tropical parks, coral reefs, mangroves, and seagrass habitats support an entirely different community of life.

Marine wildlife may seem distant from terrestrial conservation, but coastlines connect the two. Birds carry nutrients between ocean and land, rivers transport material toward the sea, and many animals depend on several habitats during different stages of their lives.

🦋 Insects, Pollinators & Smaller Wildlife

Wildlife does not begin with mammals.

Butterflies, moths, bees, beetles, ants, spiders, dragonflies, grasshoppers, worms, mollusks, and countless other small organisms are essential components of national park ecosystems.

Pollinating insects help flowering plants reproduce. Decomposers recycle nutrients. Spiders and predatory insects help regulate other populations. Aquatic invertebrates form important parts of freshwater food webs.

A meadow filled with wildflowers is therefore also a wildlife habitat. So is a decaying log, a patch of desert soil, a shallow pond, or the leaf litter beneath a forest canopy.

Paying attention to smaller organisms reveals an entirely different side of a national park—one that is easy to walk past without noticing.

🌲 Forests of the National Parks

Forests range from towering Pacific Coast conifers to eastern hardwoods, high-elevation spruce and fir, tropical rainforest, and groves of enormous sequoias.

The Giant Forest in Sequoia National Park is one of the country’s most extraordinary forest landscapes. Giant sequoias can reach immense sizes, but the grove is an ecosystem rather than simply a collection of giant trees. Smaller plants, fungi, insects, birds, mammals, soil organisms, fire, water, and climate all influence the forest.

Farther north, Redwood National and State Parks protect forests dominated by coast redwoods along with rivers, prairies, coastal environments, and wildlife habitat.

Olympic National Park contains one of the most distinctive forest environments in the country. The Hoh Rainforest is characterized by abundant moisture, enormous trees, mosses, ferns, epiphytes, streams, and thick vegetation.

Eastern forests provide another experience entirely. Great Smoky Mountains, Shenandoah, Congaree, New River Gorge, and Cuyahoga Valley protect combinations of hardwood forest, streams, wetlands, ridges, floodplains, and rich seasonal plant communities.

🌳 Giant Sequoias & Redwoods

Few plants demonstrate the scale and longevity of a forest as dramatically as giant sequoias and coast redwoods.

Giant sequoias grow naturally in a limited part of California’s Sierra Nevada, while coast redwoods occupy suitable environments nearer the Pacific coast. Although both are enormous conifers, they are different species adapted to different habitats.

Visitors often focus understandably on famous individual trees, but healthy groves depend on entire ecological systems. Fire, soil moisture, competition, insects, fungi, climate, and surrounding vegetation all influence the future of these forests.

The best way to experience giant trees is often to spend time walking beneath them rather than simply moving from one named tree to another. Their scale becomes clearer when viewed as part of a living forest.

🌼 Wildflowers & Alpine Plants

Some of the most spectacular national park plant displays last only a short time.

Snowmelt can trigger explosions of wildflowers in mountain meadows, while desert rainfall can occasionally transform apparently barren ground into brilliant seasonal blooms. Timing varies substantially from year to year according to elevation, temperature, precipitation, snowpack, and local conditions.

Mount Rainier National Park is famous for its subalpine meadows, while Rocky Mountain, Glacier, Grand Teton, North Cascades, and other mountain parks support wildflowers adapted to short growing seasons.

Alpine plants face particularly difficult conditions. Strong winds, low temperatures, intense sunlight, thin soils, snow cover, and short summers favor plants that remain low to the ground or complete their reproductive cycles quickly.

Because alpine vegetation can take years to recover from trampling, visitors should stay on designated trails where required, especially in heavily visited meadow areas.

🌵 Desert Plants

Deserts may appear empty from a distance, but they contain highly specialized plant communities.

Saguaro National Park protects one of the most recognizable desert plants in North America: the giant saguaro cactus. Around these towering cacti grow palo verde, ocotillo, cholla, prickly pear, creosote bush, agaves, grasses, wildflowers, and many other plants adapted to Sonoran Desert conditions.

Joshua Tree National Park sits where the Mojave and Colorado desert ecosystems meet. Its famous Joshua trees share the landscape with yuccas, cacti, shrubs, grasses, and seasonal wildflowers.

Even one of America’s harshest environments supports life. White Sands National Park wildlife illustrates how animals survive among the unusual gypsum dunes, while specialized vegetation occupies more stable parts of the landscape.

Desert survival strategies include deep or widespread root systems, water storage, reduced leaves, protective spines, waxy surfaces, seasonal dormancy, and life cycles timed to rare rainfall.

🌾 Prairies, Meadows & Grasslands

Grasslands are among the country’s most important—and historically altered—ecosystems.

They provide habitat for grazing mammals, burrowing animals, insects, ground-nesting birds, predators, and an extraordinary diversity of grasses and flowering plants.

Seasonal meadows in mountain parks function somewhat differently from Great Plains prairie, but both illustrate how open landscapes can support diverse biological communities.

Fire and grazing have played major roles in shaping many grassland ecosystems. Removing those natural processes can change vegetation dramatically, which is one reason park managers sometimes use prescribed fire or other ecological management techniques.

💧 Wetlands, Rivers & Freshwater Ecosystems

Wetlands may include marshes, swamps, bogs, floodplains, ponds, shallow lakes, and seasonally flooded areas. They are among the most productive habitats in many parks.

Everglades National Park is the most obvious example, but wetlands occur throughout the National Park System. Congaree’s floodplain forests, Voyageurs’ lakes and wetlands, Acadia’s ponds and marshes, and the waterways of many mountain parks all provide habitat for plants, fish, amphibians, birds, mammals, and invertebrates.

Rivers also connect ecosystems. They transport nutrients and sediment, create riparian habitats, support spawning fish, provide drinking water, and shape landscapes over long periods.

Watching a park’s water often reveals its wildlife. Dawn and evening along rivers, ponds, and wetlands can be particularly active times for birds and mammals.

🌺 Tropical & Island Ecosystems

Hawaiʻi, American Samoa, the Caribbean, and international island parks contain biological communities unlike those found on the continental mainland.

Isolation allows species to evolve independently, sometimes producing plants and animals found nowhere else. At the same time, this isolation can make island ecosystems particularly vulnerable to invasive species, disease, habitat loss, and other disturbances.

Haleakalā and Hawaiʻi Volcanoes national parks protect remarkable Hawaiian landscapes ranging from coastal environments to volcanic terrain and high-elevation ecosystems.

The National Park of American Samoa preserves tropical rainforest, volcanic landscapes, coastline, coral reefs, and wildlife in the South Pacific.

Internationally, Galápagos National Park is one of the most famous examples of island biodiversity. Its giant tortoises, marine iguanas, birds, sea lions, and other species illustrate the evolutionary significance of geographic isolation.

🌍 Wildlife Beyond the United States

The site’s International National Parks collection expands wildlife exploration far beyond North America.

African parks offer opportunities to learn about elephants, lions, giraffes, antelope, rhinoceroses, primates, and enormous seasonal wildlife movements. Amboseli National Park is especially known for elephants against the backdrop of Mount Kilimanjaro.

Ethiopia’s Simien Mountains National Park protects high-elevation habitats inhabited by distinctive wildlife and plants adapted to the Ethiopian Highlands.

In South America, Torres del Paine National Park combines Patagonian grasslands, mountains, forests, lakes, and glaciers with wildlife including guanacos and numerous bird species.

National parks around the world differ in their laws and management, but biodiversity conservation is one of the most important reasons many of these landscapes are protected.

👀 How to Watch Wildlife Responsibly

A successful wildlife encounter is one in which the animal can continue its normal behavior.

Give animals plenty of room and use binoculars or a telephoto lens instead of moving closer. If an animal changes direction, stops feeding, becomes alert to your presence, approaches you, or otherwise alters its behavior because of you, increase your distance.

Never feed wildlife. Human food can alter animal behavior, damage health, increase conflicts, and teach animals to associate people or roads with food.

Stay inside your vehicle when park regulations or conditions require it, and never use your car to block or surround wildlife.

Parents should keep children close in areas with large animals, while pets must follow the park’s specific rules. Even animals that appear calm are wild and unpredictable.

🐻 Food Storage & Wildlife Safety

Food storage is part of wildlife conservation as well as visitor safety.

Bears, rodents, ravens, raccoons, and many other animals quickly learn to investigate campgrounds and picnic areas when human food is available. Once animals become accustomed to obtaining food from people, the consequences can be serious for both visitors and wildlife.

Regulations vary by park. Some areas require bear-resistant food containers, food lockers, hard-sided vehicles, or specific camping procedures. Others have additional restrictions because of particular wildlife concerns.

Check the current rules for the park before traveling, especially when camping or entering the backcountry.

🌱 Protecting National Park Plants

Plants can be damaged much more easily than they appear.

Walking through a meadow, breaking branches, picking flowers, carving bark, collecting cactus, or moving plants for a photograph may seem insignificant when done once, but millions of visitors can create substantial cumulative impacts.

Stay on trails and boardwalks where required. Do not pick wildflowers or collect living plants. Avoid walking through sensitive desert crusts, wetlands, alpine tundra, or fragile vegetation unless off-trail travel is specifically permitted.

Many national parks also work to control invasive plants that can compete with native species and alter entire habitats. Visitors can help by cleaning mud, seeds, and plant material from footwear and equipment when moving between natural areas.

🔥 Fire, Floods & Changing Ecosystems

National park ecosystems are not static.

Wildfire, floods, storms, drought, volcanic activity, insects, disease, erosion, and changing climate conditions can dramatically alter landscapes. These events may appear destructive on a human timescale while also functioning as natural ecological processes.

Fire is a particularly good example. Some ecosystems have evolved with periodic fire, which can recycle nutrients, reduce accumulated vegetation, alter competition, and create conditions needed by certain species.

The challenge for park managers is distinguishing natural ecological change from threats created or intensified by human activity.

Understanding that landscapes change makes national parks more interesting. The forest, meadow, or wetland you see today represents one moment in a much longer ecological story.

🗺️ Featured Wildlife & Plant Guides

Start exploring with some of our wildlife, forest, and ecosystem guides:

🌎 Discover the Living Side of the National Parks

Mountains, canyons, glaciers, and rock formations may shape a national park’s scenery, but plants and animals bring those landscapes to life.

A bison grazing on a prairie, a salamander beneath a damp log, wildflowers emerging after snowmelt, a cactus blooming after desert rain, or a moss-covered tree in a temperate rainforest all tell part of the same story: organisms adapting to the places where they live.

Learning to recognize those relationships can completely change the way you experience a national park. Instead of seeing only a beautiful landscape, you begin seeing habitat, food webs, migration routes, seasonal cycles, competition, adaptation, and conservation unfolding around you.

Use the guides on National Park Field Guide to explore the wildlife and plants of individual parks, then take that knowledge with you the next time you head outside.