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Washington, D.C. — After complete radio silence in the days before, the Department of the Interior finally released its plans for a shutdown only hours before the Senate would stalemate on a budget. The plans outline how large areas of national park land — including memorials, park roads, and trails — would remain open to the public.
Secretary of Interior Doug Burgum made this decision knowing full well what happened to many national parks when they were made open during the long shutdown during President Donald Trump’s first term: iconic cultural and natural resources were cut down and vandalized, trash piled up, habitats were destroyed, and wildlife was illegally poached. All of this was outlined in a letter sent to him by nearly 40 former superintendents with the National Park Service, who implored the Secretary to protect the parks and visitors by closing them.
The Secretary’s plan, however, calls for the parks to remain open and staffed by skeleton crews after 9,200 employees are furloughed, a staff reduction of about 64 percent. As illustrated by the map above, built by Save Our Parks, the Park Service, which has seen over 25 percent of its permanent staff pushed out since the start of the year, is already under immense strain. Keeping the parks open during the government shutdown will only make things worse.
“In view of the decision to keep parks open, we are seriously concerned about impacts in three categories,” said Bill Wade, executive director of the Association of National Park Rangers. “We’re worried about damage to important and sometimes irreplaceable park features and facilities; we’re disappointed that visitors will be at risk and won’t be able to get the experience they planned on; and we’re very troubled about the way our colleagues, the employees of the National Park Service, are being treated.”
This newsletter is brought to you by the Association of National Park Rangers (ANPR), a coalition of former and current national parks staff — ranging from maintenance workers to biologists — that aims to support and protect the National Park Service by highlighting its employees’ diverse stories. As millions of Americans take advantage of all that our country’s public lands have to offer, this newsletter will elevate key stories and reports of the ongoing crisis for our national parks.
The impact of government shutdown on our national parks:
New York Times: Close National Parks if Government Shuts Down, Former Superintendents Plead
By Eileen Sullivan | September 26, 2025
During the government shutdown of 2019, the Trump administration kept national parks open to the public, even though a majority of the staff was furloughed. Without enough rangers to welcome visitors and enforce rules, the parks suffered.
[...] On Friday, more than 35 former park superintendents wrote a letter to the Trump administration, imploring officials not to let it happen again and to close the national parks if the government shuts down next week.
“Past shutdowns in which gates remained open with limited staff have hurt our parks,” they wrote in a letter to the secretary of interior, Doug Burgum. “If you don’t act now, history is not just doomed to repeat itself, the damage could in fact be much worse.”
Forbes: $1 Billion A Week: How A Government Shutdown Would Hit U.S. Travel And National Parks
By Emese Maczko | September 26, 2025
Bill Wade, executive director at Association of National Park Rangers (ANPR) explained in an email interview that if Congress does not pass a budget by October 1, two scenarios are possible: either national parks would be closed or they would remain open without proper funding.
“ANPR and other like-minded organizations have sent a letter to Department of the Interior Secretary Doug Burgum urging him to close the parks,” said Wade. “This is the most effective way to protect visitors and the park resources since under this scenario, visitors would not be allowed to legally enter national parks during the shutdown,” he added.
If the parks [were] to remain open Wade explained that “only “essential” employees would continue to work. All other (nonessential) employees would be furloughed and receive no pay.”
Wes Siler’s Newsletter: How Bad Will A Shutdown Be For National Parks?
September 29, 2025
A lot of data around the impacts that shutdown had on parks was never gathered, or released. But, the National Parks Conservation Associated estimates that visitations fell by about 425,000 people a day. The NPS visitor spending effects report for 2024 estimates there were 128 million party day/nights that year, resulting in that total economic impact figure. So, if we divide $56.3 billion by 128 million, we get $439.84 per party day/night. If visitation again falls by 425,000 daily, that could result in a loss to the economy of $187 million/day that the government is shutdown, and parks remain open.
But as that number indicates, every day in national parks is not equal ($187 million x 365 = more money than the total annual impact from NPS). Visitation peaks during July and August and is at its lowest in December and January. That tells me that the ultimate impact per-day could be greater in October than it was during the last shutdown. But there will be more variables that ultimately determine that number.
Bloomberg: National Parks Told to Remain Open During Shutdown Despite Risks
October 1, 2025
The memo comes after days of uncertainty about how the shutdown could affect park operations, which were already facing operational challenges in the wake of the Trump administration’s massive job cuts. The NPS has lost 24 percent of its staff since January, according to an estimate by the National Parks Conservation Association. Employees at Yosemite and Sequoia & Kings Canyon national parks voted to unionize in August, largely in response to Trump's efforts to reduce the number of federal workers.
Now, remaining staff have mere hours before the potential lapse in congressional funding to figure out how to keep parks running, including sites as large and popular as Yosemite and Grand Canyon. The memo instructs parks to “develop daily cost estimates for all employees and services” for review and approval by the park service director, a task that involves extensive analysis and coordination, says Jesse Chakrin, the executive director of the Fund for People in Parks, an advocacy group. “This amount of prep and planning generally takes weeks, not hours.”
National Parks Traveler: Joint Memo Warns Government Shutdown Will Deepen National Parks, Public Lands Crisis
September 30, 2025
A joint memo issued by the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks (Coalition) and Association of National Park Rangers (ANPR) warns a government shutdown will make an already bad situation at national parks and public lands far worse.
The memo proceeds to warn that operating the parks without staff during a shutdown will yield similar dangerous results as in past shutdowns:
“… when national parks experienced destruction of iconic resources, widespread accumulation of trash and related habituation of wildlife, human waste on trails due to closed restrooms, vandalism of property, and destruction of habitat from off-road vehicle use…”
The Guardian: US national parks to remain partly open during government shutdown
By Gabrielle Canon | October 1, 2025
Irreversible damage was done at popular parks, including Joshua Tree in California, following a month-long shutdown in Donald Trump’s first term, when his administration demanded parks be kept open while funding was paused and workers were furloughed.
Without supervision, visitors left behind trails of destruction. Prehistoric petroglyphs were vandalized at Big Bend national park. Joshua trees, some more than a century old, were chopped down at Joshua Tree national park, as trash and toilets overflowed. Tire tracks crushed sensitive plants and desert habitats from illegal off-roading vehicles in Death Valley. There were widespread reports of wildlife poaching, search-and-rescue crews were quickly overwhelmed with calls, and visitor centers were broken into.
The Hill: Plan to keep national parks open amid government shutdown faces challenges
By Rachel Frazin | October 1, 2025
“There’s always the threat of damage to park resources. I mean, it happens when we’re fully staffed, too,” said Francis, who is now chair of the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks. “But it’s like opening your house and inviting people in and then everybody’s gone. Would you do that? I don’t think so.”
In a recent letter to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, about 40 former superintendents called for the closure of the national parks in the event of a shutdown.
“Past shutdowns in which gates remained open with limited staff have hurt our parks: Iconic symbols cut down and vandalized, trash piled up, habitats destroyed, and visitor safety jeopardized,” they wrote. “If you don’t act now, history is not just doomed to repeat itself, the damage could in fact be much worse.”
KOAA News 5 Southern Colorado: National parks in Colorado, nationwide, to remain open with skeleton crews during shutdown
By Brett Forrest | October 1, 2025
National parks in Colorado and throughout the US are expected to remain open with skeleton crews as the federal government shuts down Tuesday night.
[...] This comes as the parks service is already facing decreased staffing due to efforts earlier this year to slash the federal workforce by President Trump and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Colorado Newsline: National parks in Colorado will remain open during shutdown despite concerns about damage
By Lindsay Toomer | October 1, 2025
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis wants to keep national parks in the state open amid a federal government shutdown despite concerns from conservation groups about risks of damage.
[...] Tracy Coppola, Colorado senior program manager for the National Parks Conservation Association, said attractions like Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado that see “record-breaking visitation nearly every year” were left “extremely vulnerable” during prior government shutdowns. The damage the park saw following the 2018-2019 shutdown took months to recover from, and some of it was irreparable. She said the ecosystem in the park is already fragile and needs “constant protection” from park staff.
Federal funding and staffing cuts to the NPS:
National Parks Traveler: Training Of ICE Officers Might Impact National Park Service Law Enforcement Ranks
September 23, 2025
President Donald Trump's desire to flood the country with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents will result in a shortage of law enforcement rangers in the National Park System, according to the Association of National Park Rangers (ANPR).
Park visitors who experience problems, such as having their cars broken into in campgrounds or at trailheads, or have accidents or sustain injuries, can expect a slower response by park rangers,” says Bill Wade, executive director of the association. "Moreover, law enforcement park rangers usually are the first responders to emergencies, such as lost persons, rescues, medical emergencies and fires. With fewer of these park rangers, responses to these emergencies could be delayed, making the potential consequences much more serious.”
WUNC North Carolina Public Radio: Local impacts of the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle DEI, from NC universities to national parks
By Leoneda Inge, Jeff Tiberii, & Rachel McCarthy | September 24, 2025
The effort to end DEI programs across the federal government is having a range of impacts, including the future of science. Due South’s Jeff Tiberii talks with Lynn Bonner and Brandon Kingdollar of NC Newsline about their recent article titled “NC’s next generation of scientists fear careers are going ‘up in smoke’ as NIH grants end.”
NOTUS: Trump’s Federal Workforce Cuts Are Stymying Firefighter Safety Fixes: GAO
By Anna Kramer | September 25, 2025
The Trump administration’s cuts to the federal workforce are impeding much-needed fixes to the system used to track firefighters working in remote, active blazes, the investigative arm of Congress has found.
The staffing cuts have forced the U.S. Forest Service “to postpone, pause, or reduce the scope of some efforts planned or underway” to fix what the agency has long considered to be a critical safety issue, according to a Government Accountability Office report released Thursday.
The Atlantic: Trump Is Setting the National Parks Up to Fail
By Kylie Mohr | September 26, 2025
But rangers say the real crisis is happening beyond the trails and campgrounds, where visitors can’t see it. Park employees’ experiences, which several people described to me and dozens more have shared publicly, suggest that the Department of the Interior sacrificed long-term stewardship of American lands to maintain a veneer of normalcy for this summer’s crowds. “We are really pulling out all the stops to make sure that the impacts are being hidden,” an emergency-services ranger in the western United States told me. (She and other park employees I spoke with for this story requested anonymity, out of fear of losing their job.)
Censorship in our national parks:
Washington Post: National parks remove signs about climate, slavery and Japanese detention
By Jake Spring | September 20, 2025
The National Park Service has removed signs at Acadia National Park in Maine that make reference to climate change amid the Trump administration’s wider effort to remove information that it says undermines “the remarkable achievements of the United States.” A sign has also been removed from at least one additional park that referred to slavery, the detention of Japanese Americans during World War II and conflicts with Native Americans.
Outside Magazine: Signs Referencing Climate Change, Slavery, and Other ‘Improper’ Topics Removed from National Park Sites
September 23, 2025
In recent weeks, the National Park Service (NPS) has removed interpretive signage referencing climate change, slavery, the internment of Japanese Americans, and the massacre of Native Americans from multiple parks and historic sites around the country.
[...] To combat the removals, a collective of librarians, historians, and data experts has organized a project called Save Our Signs (SOS). The group is attempting to “build a community archive of the signs, exhibits, and texts that could soon disappear from our national parks.” It encourages park visitors to anonymously submit photos of interpretive signs from any area administered by the NPS. The SOS team is also maintaining a public map of the signage uploaded thus far, which includes over 10,000 photos as of September 20.
SFGATE: Historians hurriedly photograph national park signs at risk of removal
By Sam Mauhay-Moore | September 25, 2025
An online group has started a grassroots effort with the goal of archiving signs at national parks that may be at risk of removal under the Trump administration’s directive to report displays that are critical of unsavory aspects of American history.
The Save Our Signs project was launched earlier this year by a group of historians, librarians and data analysts. It asks people across the country to photograph interpretive signs at national parks that might be at risk of being removed or altered by the Trump administration’s “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History” executive order signed in March. The order calls for the removal of public displays on federally managed land that “inappropriately disparage Americans past or living” — displays that, so far, largely reference violent injustices carried out by the American government over the course of its history, including slavery, massacres of Native Americans and the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II.
E&E: Signs about climate change axed at national parks
By Heather Richards | September 25, 2025
The signs referencing climate change were placed on tripods made of cedar, atop Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park, a popular destination for park visitors with sweeping views of the Atlantic Ocean.
They explained how climate change was affecting Acadia and noted rising sea levels and temperatures.
But some of those signs have been removed in recent days, according to the National Parks Conservation Association, an advocacy group, and Maine Rep. Chellie Pingree, a Democrat.
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