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Why has the Department of Government Efficiency aimed its termination cannons at the National Park Service?/American Battlefield Trust, Lori Coleman

With the National Park Service ranks withered by terminations, seasonal hiring hiccups, resignations, retirements, and reductions-in-force, will you notice the impact on your national park excursion? 

How much "withering" has occurred is a matter of perspective. But when it takes several hours to pass through the entrance gates at Grand Canyon or Shenandoah national parks, you'll notice. When your youngster has no Junior Ranger program to attend to garner another badge, they'll notice. When you discover, too late, there's not enough toilet paper, you'll definitely notice.

But will you notice the missing backcountry ranger who used to search if you got lost, or the now-unemployed wildlife biologist who used to track grizzly bears or feral hogs, or the absent interpreter whose incredible program once inspired youngsters not only to spend more time outdoors and away from that video game but also towards a career in science? Will it matter that there are no botanists to monitor the encroachment of invasive species, no archaeologist to broaden our knowledge of the past, no special agent to investigate the theft of paleontological treasures, no air quality analyst to monitor not just the views you enjoy but also the ozone levels that can choke you?

If the national parks truly are America's best idea, why are they being torn down? Is there a dose of hyperbole in that sentence? Consider the following numbers.

• During fiscal year 2023, which ran from October 1, 2022, through September 2023, the Park Service on paper had 18,864 full-time staff [FTEs] positions across the 429 units of the park system. Those 429 units attracted 325.5 million visitors.
• For FY23, the Park Service budget was $3.47 billion, and the agency's maintenance backlog was placed at $23.3 billion.
• Through 2024, the park system added four more units and attracted 6.4 million more visitors than the year before, for a rough total of 331.9 million.
• For FY24, the Park Service budget dipped to $3.3 billion, and the maintenance backlog basically stayed the same, $23.3 billion.
• So far this year the Trump administration has fired roughly 1,000 positions* and encouraged another 700-1,000 employees to resign or retire. That drops the FTEs down to about 16,800, with more losses possible through the reduction-in-force plan Interior Secretary Doug Burgum was to present to the Office of Personnel Management on Thursday. And who knows how many vacancies are out there across the National Park Service, vacancies that the ongoing hiring freeze makes it difficult to fill?
• A credit limit of $1 has been placed on purchases made on government credit cards. "These limitations on purchases are not only causing problems that visitors will notice, but are also impacting local businesses near parks,” said Bill Wade, executive director of the Association of National Park Rangers. "Some parks are unable to pay local utility bills, get gasoline for ranger patrol vehicles and pay contract payments for other essential services to the parks."

And while the 331.9 million visitors who explored the park system last year set a record, the Trump administration didn't want the Park Service to promote because it was tallied ... during the Biden administration.

Those hundreds of millions of visitors were drawn by the golden glow of Horstail Fall in Yosemite National Park, the morning sunrise from atop Cadillac Mountain at Acadia National Park, the bucolic and meandering curves of the Blue Ridge Parkway, and the ancient dwellings at Mesa Verde National Park, just to name four iconic experiences in the parks. They also traveled to Homestead National Historical Park in Nebraska to research family history, Cape Lookout National Seashore in North Carolina to cast for stripers, and Joshua Tree National Park in California to practice their climbing moves.

What will happen this year? Will the visitation continue to grow, or will it shrink?

The 24-hour news cycle is so filled with the constantly changing storylines out of Washington — tariffs, trade wars, tax cuts, DEI, sexual orientation, official language, Gulf of America, Russia, government shutdown, education, inflation, the price of eggs — that it's very possible that national park travelers aren't fully aware of what on-the-ground conditions they might find when they travel to their favorite park. They might not know that National Park Week is scheduled for, uh, scheduled for ... well, we're actually not sure, since there's been no Park Service announcement about that annual week honoring the parks, though it's probably the week of April 20.

"I'm not sure how much regular park visitors know about these cuts. It's top of mind for folks like us working on these topics, but cuts to park staff might not be top headlines amidst a dynamic news cycle," Megan Lawswon, an economist at Headwaters Economics in Bozeman, Montana, told me. "The impacts to visitation I suspect will be felt more once high season starts when visitors see longer lines, unmaintained bathrooms, and fewer rangers available for talks and information. Until then, concerns might be easier to dismiss because they're hypothetical."

What about gateway communities, which depend very dearly on park travelers?

Back in 2023, the most recent year for which data is available, those 325.5 million park visitors spent an estimated $26.4 billion in local gateway regions, according to the Park Service. That spending supported 415,000 jobs, $19.4 billion in labor income, $32 billion in value added income, and $55.6 billion in economic output in the national economy, the agency said.

Big numbers from a park system for which the National Park Service receives 1/15th of 1 percent of the $6.75 trillion federal budget, a miniscule amount that nevertheless has attracted the termination cannons from the Department of Government Efficiency. Is the administration so contemptuous of the Park Service that it wants to further whittle away at that 1/15 of 1 percent budget in the belief that that will help reduce the $1.83 trillion federal deficit, or free more money for tax breaks? Or is the strategy to so cripple the Park Service that it can't fulfill its mission and so private operators will have to be brought in to run some parks?

“We are worried that all this is a planned 'starvation' of the national parks so it can be said that the National Park Service is unable to carry out its mission of providing for visitor enjoyment and protection of its resources,” said Wade on Thursday. “This could be used to justify privatization or development in parks that is inconsistent with their purposes.”

Will the Trump-weakened National Park Service be noticed at the park gateway level?

"It may take longer for the impacts to be felt in gateway communities if visitors are still coming, for now," Lawson said. "But those communities and businesses will bear the brunt of impacts if fewer people come due to poor visitor or resource management."

An even greater bearer of the impacts will be the National Park Service and the National Park System.

* A federal judge on Thursday ordered the Interior Department and other departments to rehire probationary employees who were improperly fired on Valentine's Day, including roughly 1,000 NPS employees.