National parks brace for ‘a hold-your-breath year’ as the season heats up

Peak season in many US national parks has begun. Families heading outdoors during spring break are arriving by the carload to enjoy hiking, admire wildlife, learn about history and nature and enjoy all that the National Park system offers. When they arrive with their tents, hiking poles and sunscreen, they might also need to pack their patience and come extra-prepared. The Trump administration’s January hiring freeze, February mass firings of 1,000 national park personnel and buy-out and early retirement package offers for National Park Service staffers have caused uncertainty for park workers and visitors alike. Though the hiring freeze was lifted, and a federal judge ruled the workers were unlawfully terminated and ordered they be offered their jobs back, the chaos has caused a ripple effect that means staffing issues continue and may affect park services across the country. Current and former park rangers are concerned that, in addition to congestion in the parks, uneven staffing could mean rushing through important visitor education related to safety, dangerous waits for emergency support when a visitor is injured and inadequate training in essential functions such as firefighting. “National parks in the Southwest are already busy,” says Cassidy Jones, senior visitation program manager for the National Parks Conservation Association, a century-old nonprofit formed to watch over the parks. “Seasonal hiring was extremely delayed and, therefore, many seasonal employees aren’t even on the job yet. That means you have reduced staff all over these parks that are already busy.” “A hold-your-breath year” After the government lifted the prohibition on hiring seasonal employees, US officials authorized hiring a higher number of seasonal employees than last year. “The thing that I don’t think anyone knows yet is how that will play out,” says Dan Wenk, who worked for the National Park Service for decades before retiring in 2018. “A lot of offers had already been extended and then had to be revoked. Many of those people were very high-quality employees who had been returning year after year and were very good at their jobs,” said Wenk. “The question is, are they going to be available now? Did they take other opportunities when they thought they weren’t going to have a job?” Rick Mossman, president of the board of the Association of National Park Rangers (ANPR), estimates that about a quarter of NPS personnel has been lost to recent buyout and early retirement offers. In a statement, the National Park Service said it is committed to providing “seamless” access to national park sites. “NPS is working closely with the Office of Personnel Management to ensure we are prioritizing fiscal responsibility for the American people. As always, NPS will continue to provide critical services and deliver excellent customer service,” the park service said. Wenk explains the risks that understaffing presents to both people and parks. “Every forest fire, every summer, takes people away from their duty station … but that’s going to affect the level of service and protection that you have.” Some rangers are trained in fire management, working in conjunction with the US Forest Service and local governments to manage and extinguish fires when necessary. “If you don’t have those long-term seasonals who are trained in firefighting, or those probationary employees who chose not to come back, or permanent employees who may have taken one of the buyouts, well, I think this is going to be kind of a hold-your-breath year,” Wenk said. Wenk began working with the National Park Service in 1973, serving in various roles, including as the deputy director for operations of the National Park Service and superintendent at both Mount Rushmore National Memorial and Yellowstone National Park. According to Wenk and NPS figures posted on the Yellowstone site, the park has slightly fewer rangers than in 2018 when Wenk retired, yet attendance has increased by over 600,000 people since then. Rangers protect both the resources and visitors. Even at full staffing, Wenk felt Yellowstone in 2018 was understaffed “to make sure people were staying on boardwalks in thermal areas and keeping the proper distance away from animals. Any reduction in [ranger staff] is going to mean that there are fewer rangers out there to make sure people are staying safe, whether in relation to resources or animals. Pick your peril.” Mossman has a more dire warning. “If they try to keep the parks fully opened with little staff this summer, visitors will die due to no or slow response to medical emergencies and incidents,” he said. Visitor services Basic visitor services are also likely to be impacted. This year, fewer gates might be open, which means longer lines to enter, so visitors should plan to arrive early and be prepared to wait. To speed up those lines, some parks only accept credit cards for entrance fees. Rangers staffing the gates don’t simply take the admission fees and send visitors on their way. They orient visitors to the park and share information about weather conditions, trail closures and park shuttles, among other things. “With current staffing, we will have days where we will process 300 vehicles in an hour, meaning our average time per group is less than a minute to greet, check or sell passes and orient,” according to one ranger in a high-traffic East Coast park, who requested anonymity out of concern for political targeting. Once inside the park, many visitors’ first stop is the visitor center. “There’s fewer folks to staff visitor centers so we see reduced hours at visitor centers and maybe full days that a visitor center is not open,” says Jones, of the National Parks Conservation Association. Yet on April 3, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum issued an order for parks to “remain open and accessible,” saying officials will ensure proper staffing to do so. How that staffing will be achieved is unclear. “The secretary did tell the NPS to make sure everything will be open,” said ANPR’s Mossman. “This is impossible.” He said that 2024 staffing is lower than it was in 1980, when there were at least 100 fewer NPS sites and about a third of the number of total visitors. To make sure visitors are well-prepared, Rachel Pawlitz, public affairs chief for the National Park Service, recommends that they “research the park they’re looking to visit, understand what passes or reservations are needed, create a backup plan in case things don’t go as planned.” Pawlitz recommends downloading the NPS App to easily access park information and maps while in the park, and checking park websites in advance for the latest information related to changes in services, hours of operation, inclement weather or safety notices. Long-term responsibility Long-time seasonal and non-seasonal employees train newer staff, several sources said. Assuming some found other roles after they were fired, and others accepted early retirement, there will not only be shorter training periods, but that training will most likely be provided by those with less experience. In addition to their duties in education and information, law enforcement and fire management, some rangers work as park scientists. “I know of archaeologists and wildlife biologists who were fired in the probationary cuts on Valentine’s Day,” Jones explains. “These are skilled, very qualified people who are behind the scenes all the time to make sure these park resources stay protected in perpetuity. So, there’s a lot of long-standing projects — research, monitoring endangered species and understanding if invasive grasses are making their way into the park — that are just completely on pause.” During the 2019 government shutdown, parks were ordered to remain open. Without the staff to patrol them, many had issues with overflowing sewage from pit toilets, full trash bins and vandalism. Food waste was found around parks, which encourages wildlife to look to human sources for food. If a bear enters a campground or approaches humans more than once looking for food, they’re known as a second offender, now trained that humans supply the food. In these cases, the bear faces euthanasia. Wenk recommends visitors bring a bag or two with them to carry out not only their own trash, but any trash they may see lying around. “One of the biggest things I worry about, because there’s damage every year to resources with the national parks,” explains Wenk, “is not having the resource protection capability. Parks are about perpetuity, and taking care of them into perpetuity. And we just have to make sure that we’re doing that to the highest level.” He explains that long entrance lines or some canceled ranger programs are short-term issues. “Making sure you protect the park is the long-term issue that every person who works for the Park Service is entrusted [with],” he said. The NPS manages 433 individual units, which include 63 National Parks and 87 National Monuments among other categories such as seashores, lakeshores, historic sites and more. This year, Wenk recommends, “Maybe look for those areas that are not the Yosemites, the Glaciers, the Yellowstones, the iconic national parks, but look for some of those lesser-appreciated and used ones. They’re great parks. They’re parks that tell America’s story, whether it’s our natural history or our cultural history. “If this is your one chance to go to that iconic park you’ve wanted to all your life, be sure you’re as well informed before you get to that gate as you can be.”