So what you have,” Kenner said, “is a history of ignorant, incompetent and disastrously intrusive intervention, followed by attempts to repair the intervention, followed by attempts to repair the damage caused by the repairs, as dramatic as any oil spill or toxic dump. Except in this case there is no evil corporation or fossil fuel economy to blame. This disaster was caused by the environmentalists charged with protecting the wilderness, who made one dreadful mistake after another – and, along the way, proved how little they understood the environment they intended to protect.”

Philosopher Alston Chase wrote Playing God in Yellowstone: The Destruction of America's First National Park, a book whose central thesis is that the National Park Service, aided and abetted by the budding environmental movement, is to blame for destroying Yellowstone National Park. This thesis is probably shocking to many since the Park Service has been held up as one of the most revered American institutions, and Yellowstone has often been cited as one of the great success stories under its management.