Backlash Prompts Trump To Waffle On CA's National Park Cuts

CALIFORNIA — The Trump administration’s firing of hundreds of newly hired National Park Service employees earlier this week threatened to limit operating hours and cut a range of services at attractions such as Yosemite National Park, which brings in billions in tourism dollars to California.

The approximately 1,000 employees who were fired provide services such as maintaining and cleaning parks, unlocking bathrooms, preventing wildfires, and staffing visitor education programs.

However, after relentless public outcry, the Trump administration appears to have reversed course on the decision to eliminate thousands of seasonal positions, according to multiple reports. The status of the 1,000 workers who received firing notices on Friday remains uncertain.

A memo from the Department of Interior to park service officials announced that the agency would be able to hire 7,700 seasonal employees this year. That's up from 6,300, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Kristen Brengel, senior vice president of government affairs at the National Parks Conservation Association, an advocacy group, told Times that the reversal is "definitely a win."

But the memo did not address the roughly 1,000 permanent workers who were fired on Friday.

“We need to keep pushing until we restore all of the positions for the park service, and get an exemption from the park service in general,” Brengel said.

The Golden State hosts nine national parks — more than any other state in the U.S. While it is unclear how many California park employees were initially let go, fears of chaotic experiences and long lines began to sprout on Thursday.

“It’s chaos everywhere,” Kristin Jenn, a former seasonal park ranger at Alaska’s Denali National Park and Preserve told The Washington Post, adding that she didn't know what the coming months would bring.

The firings weren’t publicly announced but were confirmed by Democratic senators and House members to The Associated Press.

In California, the Trump Administration reportedly fired the only locksmith on staff at Yosemite National Park on Friday. He was the only person on staff who had the institutional knowledge to rescue park guests from locked restrooms, The Washington Post reported.

Another fired worker at a national forest in Southern California told Fast Company that part of their job involved preventing wildfires.

“My crew is responsible for so much prevention and post-wildfire cleanup, and at this point it’s almost a guarantee that this forest will have some sort of major wildfire, as it has for the last few years,” the former employee, who wished to remain anonymous, told the publication.

The firings came amid what has been a chaotic rollout of an aggressive program to eliminate thousands of federal jobs led by billionaire Elon Musk and the new Department of Government Efficiency, a Trump administration effort to slash federal spending.

Park advocates feared that permanent staff cuts would leave hundreds of national parks — including heavily visited treasures such as Great Smoky Mountains National Park or Grand Canyon National Park — understaffed and facing tough decisions about operating hours, public safety and resource protection.

Brengel previously said the firings will put "the park service in an untenable position. You’re going to hurt tourism.”

The firings would force small parks to close visitor centers and other facilities, while larger parks would've had to function without cultural resources workers who help visitors interpret the park, fee collectors and even wastewater treatment operators, she said.

In 2023, National Park Service-managed facilities in California brought in about $3.2 billion in visitor spending and contributed $5.1 billion to the state economy, according to agency data. Before the job cuts, about 40,000 people were employed by the Park Service with an annual payroll of about $2 billion.

Brengel told The AP the cuts were “basically knee-capping” employees needed to train seasonal workers. For example, 16 of 17 supervisory positions at Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park were eliminated, she said, leaving just one person to hire, train and supervise dozens of seasonal employees expected this summer.

At Virginia’s Shenandoah National Park, fee collectors and trail maintenance employees were laid off, potentially making trails at the Washington, D.C.-area park unpassable after heavy rains.

A freeze on spending under a five-year-old law signed by Trump also jeopardizes national parks, Brengel and other advocates said. The Great American Outdoors Act, passed with bipartisan support in 2020 and signed by Trump, authorizes $6.5 billion over five years to maintain and improve national parks.

The program is crucial to whittling down a massive maintenance backlog at the parks and is frequently hailed as a success story by lawmakers from both parties.

The freeze would've slowed road and bridge improvements at Yellowstone National Park, which is in the midst of a $216 million project to improve safety, access and experience on park roads. The project is mostly funded by the Great American Outdoors Act.

The Associated Press contributed reporting.