Yellowstone Numbers Down from Last Year
Written by Andrew-Rossi on August 10, 2017
More than half way through the calendar year, Yellowstone National Park has seen about 5 percent fewer visitors so far this year.
The National Park Service yesterday said just over 962,400 people visited the park in July – that’s down 3.4 percent from last July’s 995,910 visits. However, year-to-date visitation in 2017 is still 20 percent higher than five years ago in 2012.
And Yellowstone officials are expecting a busy August because of the solar eclipse. Chris Mickey, public relations adviser to Gov. Matt Mead, said that while he couldn’t attach an estimated range for how many people from outside Wyoming will come on the day of and days surrounding the eclipse, it’s likely to be in the thousands. He said that he has heard numbers upwards of 250,000, and some people are saying the state will double in size.
According to the US Census Bureau, Wyoming’s estimated population as of July 1st of 2016 was 585,501.
