http://egan.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/09/the-ghosts-of-casa-grande/index.html

Casa Grande was the nation’s first archaeological preserve, an earth-colored fortress of wonder set aside in 1892. For years, visitors flocked to this desert monument, as much a part of the culture of our land as anything built by bewigged colonists in Massachusetts. But like most other units of the national park system, Casa Grande Ruins National Monument has been a lonely place of late. Last year, only 76,854 people came here — the lowest number of visitors in 47 years. Over the last decade, the number of people who come to Casa Grande has declined by 50 percent.

We'll be flying over this Monument start the weekend after next.

http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/105/7/2295

 After 50 years of steady increase, per capita visits to U.S. National Parks have declined since 1987. To evaluate whether we are seeing a fundamental shift away from people's interest in nature, we tested for similar longitudinal declines in 16 time series representing four classes of nature participation variables: (i) visitation to various types of public lands in the U.S. and National Parks in Japan and Spain, (ii) number of various types of U.S. game licenses issued, (iii) indicators of time spent camping, and (iv) indicators of time spent backpacking or hiking.

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,695257954,00.html

In the last two decades, park visits, permits for camping or fishing and other data show a fundamental, pervasive shift away from outdoor activities, the Bryn Mawr ecologist concludes in a study published recently in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

National parks are still popular, to be sure. Last year, 275 million people visited them. But adjusting for population increases, Zaradic says attendance is 70 million short of a 1987 peak.

Overall, participation in outdoor activities has declined 18 percent to 25 percent, according to the study by Zaradic and co-author Oliver R.W. Pergams, a University of Illinois conservation geneticist.

They link the decline to a term they coined, videophilia, that is, doing stuff indoors in front of a screen — watching TV, sitting at computers, playing Xbox — instead of taking a hike.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-trice_11feb11,1,5963743.column

If you love outdoor activities, apparently you're in a minority. That's according to Oliver Pergams, a conservation biologist and visiting professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Participation in nature activities is down a whopping 18 percent to 25 percent since peak levels. Doesn't that bum you out? It bums me out.

This is Pergams' third paper on this subject. The first, published in 2004, looked at the rate at which Americans were visiting U.S. national parks. Back then, Pergams and fellow researchers found that the per capita visits to national parks have declined since 1987. But between 1939 (the earliest year data were available) and 1987 there was a steady increase in visits.