<P>The natural soundscape is becoming increasingly recognized as a threatened park resource. A variety of policies, laws, and regulations have rapidly been established that affect the National Park Service mandate and require the agency and individual parks to protect, preserve, and restore natural sounds. National Parks are grappling with how to manage the newly legitimized natural soundscape resource and this research provides some of the first significant knowledge of visitor experiences of park soundscapes and preferences for management policies. The role of the natural soundscape in visitor experiences was explored through both interview and survey data with the primary goal of documenting dimensions of the experiences of natural sounds. Findings from this research highlight that not only do the majority of winter visitors to Yellowstone National Park believe that natural sounds are important to their experience of the park, but that deep meanings and complexity characterize visitor perceptions of the role of the natural soundscape to the overall value of the park and influence perceptions of the role of mechanized sounds in the park. While differences among the three primary user groups (cross-country skiers, snow coach riders, and snowmobilers) do exist, the data reflects a much greater degree of common ground and general agreement on most issues related to the park natural soundscape that were explored in this research.</P>
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:MONTANA/oai:etd.lib.umt.edu:etd-12112008-123204 |
| Date | 26 January 2009 |
| Creators | Saxen, Shelley Walker |
| Contributors | Wayne Freimund, Michael Patterson, Stephen McCool, Douglas Dalenberg, Dusten Hollist |
| Publisher | The University of Montana |
| Source Sets | University of Montana Missoula |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lib.umt.edu/theses/available/etd-12112008-123204/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Montana or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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