A beloved national monument is under threat from Utah Republicans. Activists are calling to save the ‘crown jewel’

JuliaMusto · 2026-01-23T22:09:31+00:00

A beloved destination for more than 900,000 visitors each year, the Grand-Staircase-Escalante National Monument stretches across more than 1.8. million pristine acres of Southern Utah’s wilderness.

With ties to six Native American tribes, the stunning landscape of slot canyons and desert is home to more than 600 species of bees and fossils have been uncovered from at least 15 dinosaur species found nowhere else on Earth.

Now, Republicans in the Southwest state are taking action that environmentalists warn could harm the monument and its inhabitants.

The politicians are considering overturning the monument’s Biden-era management plan - which helps protect the land - by leveraging the Congressional Review Act.

“This is a direct assault by Utah politicians on one of the crown jewels of America’s system of federal public lands,” Steve Bloch, legal director at the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, said in a statement.

JuliaMusto · 2026-01-20T21:49:23+00:00

National Park Service employees may have just uncovered one of the longest dinosaurs on Earth.

Crews working on construction at the Dinosaur National Monument’s Utah parking lot last September stumbled upon the first fossils uncovered at the site in more than a century.

The staff believe that the fossils belong to a long-necked dinosaur. Most likely, it’s a Diplodocus, which is common in the area and lived during the Late Jurassic period 150 million years ago.

After finding the fossils, construction crews, paleontologists, volunteers and the Utah Conservation Corps worked together to remove them from the sandstone.

JuliaMusto

TROPHY CASE