National Preserve is a designation applied by the United States Congress to protected areas that have characteristics normally associated with U.S. National Parks but where certain activities not allowed in National Parks are permitted. These activities include public hunting, trapping, and oil and gas exploration/extraction. Most preserves are administered by the National Park Service.
The first national preserve in the U.S. was Big Thicket National Preserve in Texas, followed soon after by Big Cypress National Preserve in Florida, both established in 1974.
Many National Preserves would qualify as National Parks but allow hunting.
Famous quotes containing the words national and/or preserve:
“The national distrust of the contemplative temperament arises less from an innate Philistinism than from a suspicion of anything that cannot be counted, stuffed, framed or mounted over the fireplace in the den.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)
“In almost all climes the tortoise and the frog are among the precursors and heralds of this season, and birds fly with song and glancing plumage, and plants spring and bloom, and winds blow, to correct this slight oscillation of the poles and preserve the equilibrium of nature.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)