Dire Message from U.S. National Park Rangers
A lot of National Park staff lost their jobs last week as the president of the Association of National Parks Rangers speaks out
On Feb. 14, the Trump administration laid off roughly 1,000 workers in the National Park Service, or about 5 per cent of its workforce, as part of a broader gutting of the federal workforce. Scroll down to read a press release from Rick Mossman, the president of the Association of National Park Rangers, about the changes.
Phil Francis, chair of the Executive Council of the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks, a group representing current and former employees and volunteers of the National Park Service, said in a statement Friday: “In an agency that has already experienced a significant staffing decline over the past decade, these layoffs will severely affect park operations and the visitor experience.”
The Washington Post has reported that the National Park Service will reinstate 5,000 seasonal job offers that were previously rescinded under a government-wide hiring freeze. That may help fill some immediate needs, as seasonal employees perform a range of tasks.
“National Park Service employees dedicate their careers to preserving our nation’s most treasured landscapes and historic sites,” said Francis. “We should be supporting them — not jeopardizing their livelihoods.” Some of the world’s most famous climbing areas are in U.S. National Parks.
PRESS RELEASE: Where Are The Rangers? – The Sad Tale of Your National Parks This Summer:No picture of America’s national parks is complete unless it includes rangers.
More than a century ago, Stephen T. Mather, the first director of the National Park Service said: “If a trail is to be blazed, it is ‘send a ranger.’ If an animal is floundering in the snow, a ranger is sent to pull him out; if a bear is in the hotel, if a fire threatens a forest, if someone is to be saved, it is ‘send a ranger.'”
Sadly, there will be thousands fewer rangers to help and support the record-setting number of people expected at most of America’s 433 national park areas during this year’s busy-use season from May through September. The current administration’s efforts to “make government more efficient” will result in a significant additional reduction in an already understaffed National Park Service. Year after year after year, park staff are serving ever-growing numbers of not only visitors, but of parks themselves. Yes, if staffing permits, there will be more parks to visit this year than last year. If staffing fails, even the most famous parks will offer less than either the people or the parks deserve.
On Valentine’s day, at the end of the day and with no additional notice, about 1,000 rangers still in their probationary appointment were told by their supervisors that a memorandum had been received from the Deputy Director of the NPS saying, this is, “…written notice of my decision to terminate, during the probationary period, your competitive service appointment to the position of … with the National Park Service. My decision becomes effective immediately, on the date of this Memorandum…” These employees were only given a few minutes to turn in their government property, recover their personal property and vacate their place of work.
Moreover, an earlier decision abolished the hiring of most temporary, seasonal workers. Seasonal personnel are often more than half of park workers during the busy season. There has evidently been some relaxation of this decision. That will allow some seasonals to be hired, but the delays in restarting hiring means most of those chosen are likely to begin work well after the summer visitor surge has begun. Many will have missed the pre-season training needed for them to offer the service quality the visiting public should expect.
What does this mean for park visitors and for the parks themselves?
Rick Mossman, President of the Association of National Park Rangers (ANPR) said, “These actions will hurt visitors and the parks they travelled to see across the United States. If a visitor is involved in an automobile accident in Badlands National Park in South Dakota, or has their car broken into at a trailhead in Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado, there will be a delay in the response by a ranger to investigate – or perhaps no response at all. If a visitor suffers a medical emergency while hiking in Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona, ranger response could be delayed.”
Mossman went on to say that visitors are likely to experience reduced hours or days – and even closures – of visitor centers and other public-use facilities. Ranger-led educational programs will be reduced or eliminated. Trash and litter may accumulate, and restrooms will be dirtier because of reduced maintenance and fewer custodial workers. There could even be complete closures of some parts of parks to protect visitors and those park resources.
ANPR Executive Director Bill Wade worries about the impacts on the park resources themselves. He said, “Knowing about the understaffing of parks could lead unscrupulous people to take advantage. Poaching of bears or caribou in Denali National Park in Alaska, or ginseng in Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee and North Carolina, or cacti in Saguaro National Park in Arizona may increase. Relic-hunters in Gettysburg National Military Park in Pennsylvania or in Chaco Culture National Historical Park in New Mexico will be emboldened to steal irreplaceable artifacts.”
A member of the ANPR Board of Directors worries about the “wellness” of the remaining park rangers and other employees. She said, “Those who were fired or seasonals not hired aren’t the only ones affected by these dreadful decisions. Their friends and co-workers who are still working in parks are devastated and hurting by what’s happened. Morale is perhaps at the lowest it’s ever been. Rangers are stressed about their own limited abilities to protect park visitors and park resources and to provide the valuable experiences that visitors deserve and have come to expect.”
Mossman, Wade and others worry about the long-term consequences of what is happening. “Based on what we’re seeing about the motives of some current elected and appointed officials, they are starving the parks of their budgets and staffing, and we worry that they then will conclude that the National Park Service cannot ’adequately manage’ these singular assets and decide that they need to be ‘privatized’ for better management or developed for profit.”
“Be worried, be very worried!” said Mossman. “As a concerned American you must act now to stop the potential loss of many of your most precious and irreplaceable parks – places that citizens for the past 153 years, starting with Yellowstone National Park, have asserted, though their elected representatives are representative of our nation’s most important natural and historical resources. Once they are gone, they are gone!”
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