Near Bear Lake, there was a much larger lake here during the Eocene around 50 million years ago, and there are many fossils of fish, reptiles, mammals and plants here. The one in the photo is a freshwater stingray. To help visitors get a sense of the timeframe, there are proportionately spaced signs from the entrance to the visitor center showing what evolved when.

We’re just the most recent to evolve, but we’re already driving a massive extinction wave, potentially as devastating as natural extinctions hundreds of millions of years ago. We take for granted the vibrant diversity of species, but even subtle changes can upset the balance and wipe most life off the earth suddenly. We evolved to overcome our limits, and now we need to learn how to control ourselves before we ruin the environment that sustains us.