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Terry Zink is a third-generation Montanan who hunts big game and also owns an archery target business. He’s vocal about protecting public lands and also the staff at those agencies. “We have to listen to our wildlife biologists. We have to be strong advocates for those people,” Zink said in an interview with Politico.
Zink’s story is just one example of how the DOGE cuts to public lands agencies are hitting rural Montana and the people whose way of life and livelihood depend on access to public lands. Those agencies are often the primary employers in rural communities adjacent to public lands. “You cannot fire our firefighters. You cannot fire our trail crews. You have to have selective logging, and water restoration, and healthy forests,” Zink said.
Since February, an estimated 5,200 people have been terminated from the agencies that manage the 640 million acres of national public lands in the U.S. That number doesn’t include the many who took the administration’s buyout or early retirement offers. President Donald Trump’s 2026 budget proposes a reduction of nearly 18,500 more public lands employees in addition to crippling budget cuts.
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Our goal is really simple, that we won’t let any tribal project die on our watch because funding was frozen.”
