When families flocked to Yosemite National Park during their recent spring breaks, some met two-hour waits at the entrance gates. At a lakeside spot in the North Cascades in Washington state, there has not been enough staff to open the visitors centre. And in Death Valley, water was shut off at two campgrounds.
National parks staff and advocates fear that such issues could only worsen this summer, as the park system faces the busy season with a dramatically reduced staff. At Yosemite, concerns are compounded by the National Park Service’s recent elimination of the park’s timed-entry reservation system, which led to the long spring-break lines.
"We’re definitely really nervous and anxious about the upcoming season, especially with the staff shortage we already have," a National Federation of Federal Employees union member at Yosemite who requested anonymity to speak candidly, said.
The National Park Service has lost nearly a quarter of its staff to buyouts, early retirements and other departures since the Trump administration took office last year, according to an estimate by the National Parks Conservation Association.Last month, the administration proposed cutting nearly 3000 more positions in its 2027 budget. It also offered a recent new round of buyouts.
The push to cut the park system even further has underscored ongoing questions about how smoothly parks can operate as warm weather and summer vacations draw tourists.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said the agency plans to hire 5500 seasonal workers.
Congress will have the final say on the proposed cuts, but in the meantime, the reductions that have already occurred presented challenges last season and appear likely to do so again, Cheryl Schreier, a retired superintendent of Mount Rushmore National Memorial and chairwoman of the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks, said.
Whether the parks will get enough qualified candidates to hire the number of seasonal workers needed is also "a really big concern".
The lower staffing has prompted worry about parks’ capacity for emergency response, protection of the natural landscape and custodial maintenance. Fewer rangers could mean, for instance, fewer people to reach dehydrated, stranded or lost hikers.
About 323 million people visit America’s national parks annually, according to the Interior Department. While the parks can expect heavy traffic, a drop in international tourism and the rise in fuel prices has injected additional uncertainty into the tourism industry this year.
The Interior Department also instituted a new $US100-per-person ($NZ171.45) fee for non-Americans entering 11 of the most popular parks, a move to raise money for the parks but an extra squeeze for Canadians coming across the border and other international visitors.
At the Senate and House hearings on the Interior budget, Burgum presented a vision of the national parks system as one where most employees should be working at a park and interacting with visitors, and said he was more focused on filling those roles than jobs in regional offices.
"Our goal is to have more people actually working in the parks," he told senators.
Critics say that strategy displays a misunderstanding of how the 109-year-old agency functions. Employees who work on contracts, human resources, IT, communications and other organisational and administrative jobs are essential to keeping the parks running, Wilcox said.
On a recent Saturday, Californian Jon Christenson drove to the park with his family. They were surprised to encounter a two-hour wait to get into the park, plus at least a half-hour hunt for parking after they made it through the gates, he said.
"It’s kind of troubling to see that they’ve opened up the floodgates and now it’s kind of ruining the experience for everybody."
