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Visitors to national parks and public lands are beginning to feel the funding cuts and layoffs imposed earlier this year by the Trump administration.
“I’ve been visiting national parks for 30 years and never has the presence of rangers been so absent,” a visitor to Zion National Park wrote in public feedback obtained by CNN. The visitor said they saw just one trail crew at the Utah park, and there were no educational programs offered at any of the five parks they visited on their trip. At Yosemite, another visitor said there were no rangers at the Hetch Hetchy reservoir station, preventing visitors from picking up wilderness permits.
Despite promises from Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to hire more rangers, as of June, the park service had 12,600 full-time employees—24 percent less staff than it had at the beginning of the year. That’s the lowest staffing level in over 20 years, according to the National Parks Conservation Association.
Meanwhile, several pit toilets in Utah's national forests are closed because they’ve reached capacity and the U.S. Forest Service is unable to pump them. The issue stems from a failure to approve contracts at the federal level, according to the Salt Lake Tribune.
And these problems are likely about to get worse, not better. President Donald Trump's proposed 2026 budget includes nearly $4 billion in funding cuts to national parks, national forests, wildlife refuges, wilderness and recreation areas, and more.
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I just think the public land system in America is what makes us a strong nation. It’s so American, as far as an ideal, and no one else is really doing it this way. To have hundreds of millions of acres in public trust for everyone? That’s a pretty cool job... So it’s certainly bittersweet leaving.”
