As a backcountry ranger at a national park, Sam built a career doing work that many visitors never see: patrolling trails, checking campsites and educating hikers on how to keep themselves and the park safe. Sam had never been asked to collect entry fees — until this year.
Now, Sam works overtime each week at the park’s entrance station, miles away from the backcountry. Colleagues who would otherwise be busy doing ecological work in the parks now scramble just to keep up with cleaning bathrooms and picking up trash, Sam said.
More than a year after the Trump administration laid off around 1,000 NPS employees, national parks are straining under a staff shortage amid sweeping changes from the White House. Tourists are flocking to parks this summer in near record numbers, due in part to the removal of the timed-entry reservation system at some parks. Fishing access has been expanded, hunting restrictions lifted\ and limits on off-road vehicles rolled back.
Making matters worse, a larger portion of the entry fees Sam and others collect is being diverted away from national parks, and back to Washington, DC.
Rangers, experts and local business owners who depend on the parks told CNN that while the White House has tried to prioritize the visitor experience by making parks more accessible, the changes – rolled out suddenly and without much notice – coupled with staff shortages have sent a delicate ecosystem into disarray.
