National parks: Feeling the pain of staff cuts

Chaos is spreading across our national parks, said Maxine Joselow and Andrea Sachs in The Washington Post. The Trump administration fired about 1,000 National Park Service employees in February, and the agency’s 433 national parks, historic sites, and attractions are already feeling the pain.

The sole locksmith at California’s Yosemite National Park lost his job, leaving the park—about the size of Rhode Island—without anyone to rescue visitors trapped in locked bathrooms. The park postponed summer campground bookings, and employees protested the cuts last week by unfurling an upside-down American flag on the famous El Capitan rock face as a symbol of their distress. Wait times for motorists entering at Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona doubled to nearly two hours after the firing of four employees at the south entrance—where 90 percent of the park’s almost 5 million annual visitors arrive. This purge is “upending the lives” of workers and disrupting visitors’ experiences—and problems will only mount as the busy summer season approaches.

This could turn an already existing staffing shortage into “a full-blown crisis,” said Benji Jones in Vox. Visitors to national parks soared past 325 million in 2023—16 percent higher than in 2010—while staffing decreased by about 13 percent. The fired workers were largely probationary staff, but that’s misleading, said Marek Warszawski in The Fresno Bee. Employees enter a 12 month probationary period when they change positions, so many were experienced workers. Ernest Wingate spent 15 seasons as an archaeologist at California’s Sequoia National Forest and was just fired with 12 days left in his probation. “I took a lot of pride in my job and felt invested in the land,” Wingate said. Getting fired, he said, “is like a slap in the face.”

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The national parks are often called “America’s Best Idea,” said Mark Woods in The Florida Times-Union, but slashing their workforce is a terrible idea. Operating hours, programs, and maintenance all could suffer. Amid these mindless cuts, there’s something President Trump wants “fast-tracked and fully funded”: a sculpture garden called the National Garden of American Heroes. We’re firing dedicated park workers, ruining vacations, and threatening public land, but we’ll “spend millions to do this?” That’s what comes of a president who values hotel towers, golf courses, and statues, but not Yosemite, the Grand Canyon, or Gettysburg.