National Parks Summer 2025: Update
Chainsaw federal worker firings
This is the Emerald Pool at Yellowstone National Park.
A national park ranger is sinking underwater, while chainsaws rain down from above.
Usually at this season, Travel for Kids writes about visiting different national parks, national monuments, and national forests all over the United States.
Not this year.
Since January 20, thousands of national park seasonal summer hires, employees with less than a year of employment, forest service workers with years of experience have been fired without cause.
Chainsaw federal worker firings, implemented by Elon Musk, are attacks on our beloved parks and federal lands.
Not all fired workers were young people, some were supervisors, others people who worked at the parks for decades with special expertise. Firing also meant some lost their place to live overnight.
In past 10 years, visitors to national parks have significantly increased, while the national park work force has decreased. Last year 12 million people visited Great Smoky Mountains National Park, just one of 433 parks managed by the national park service.
Visitors to America's parks support 400,000 jobs and generate 55 billion in economic activity around the parks.
National parks are not just the great outdoors, parks are in cities too - Statue of Liberty (New York City), Independence Hall (Philadelphia), Alcatraz Island (San Francisco)
National parks are also part of our cultural heritage, such as Mesa Verde in Colorado, Chaco Culture in New Mexico, Pu'ukoholā Heiau in Hawaii.
What are the effects of chainsaw federal worker firings on the parks?
In Grand Teton, a team of 17 supervisors who hire and train all seasonal employees, 16 were fired. One person is left to do the all the work.
Fighting wildfires is a team effort in national forests, and everyone works together when wildfires start. Workers also remove dead trees and brush that are fire danger. However, some forest service workers were fired because their primary job wasn't listed as “fire fighter.” These firings increases probability of uncontrolled wildfires.
In Island Park Idaho, a fired forest technician's job included cleaning bathrooms, maintaining trails, also providing first aid services. As a result, the bathrooms won't be opening, and no public safety.
A woman who worked as a river ranger on the Buffalo National River in Arkansas, assisted in twenty search and rescues. Who will help when the next person falls into the river this summer?
At Mount Rainier Washington, the only plumber was fired.
In Yosemite, a critical position is the one locksmith, whose job is to install and fix locks, and keep track of hundreds of keys and locks to bathrooms, gates and buildings. Now he's gone, who's going to take over his job?
What will it be like this summer?
- Cranky kids waiting for hours to drive into national parks at the entrance kiosks.
- Parking lots full, as no way to manage crowds with day-use reservations.
- Bathrooms closed or non-functional.
- Campgrounds closed because no personnel to manage trash collection, etc.
- Trails impassable due to lack of maintenance, no posted information about trails.
- Visitor centers closed.
- Diapers piling up beside trails and roadsides.
- No personnel to respond to health emergencies.
- In remote forest service lands, people illegally camping, raising risk of fire danger.
- No more fun stuff, such as dog sled tours at Denali (guy who takes care of the sled dogs was fired).
Rich people like Elon Musk have no idea who does the work in parks and lands the public enjoys – workers are invisible peasants.
Federal employees who work in national parks and national forests, covering millions of acres, are our heroes!
CONTACT YOUR CONGRESSIONAL REPRESENTATIVE!
Ask to restore all National Park Service and Forest Service jobs cut since January 20.
Notes
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/18/donald-trump-federal-purge-national-parks-00204670
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/13/forest-services-fires-3400-employees-00204213
https://abcnews.go.com/US/fired-us-forest-service-national-park-service-workers/story?id=119004068
https://www.sfgate.com/california-parks/article/yosemite-national-park-in-chaos-20163260.php
https://www.wunc.org/2025-02-21/federal-worker-firings-hit-western-n-c-s-public-lands
https://www.sierraclub.org/Sierra/national-parks-storm-named-trump-hits-nps-ahead-busy-season