As the Trump administration continues to slash the federal workforce, the National Park Service — which has lost nearly 10% of its staff to the sweeping cuts — just reported that 2024 set a record high for visits to its parks.
Nearly 332 million people showed up to hike, camp or simply get a breath of fresh air in America’s national parks last year. That’s 6 million more visits than the year before, and a million more visits than the previous record, set in 2016.
The news comes as park supervisors scramble to figure out how they’ll keep the parks clean and keep visitors safe this summer given the loss of hundreds of permanent workers. About 1,000 probationary National Park Service employees — generally people in their first two years of service — were fired Feb. 14, along with tens of thousands of other probationary federal employees, part of a multiagency purge orchestrated by Elon Musk’s White House advisory team, which he calls the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.
At the other end of the spectrum, more than 700 park service workers are taking part in the Trump administration’s buyout program, which allows federal employees to resign now but continue receiving their salaries and benefits through September. Such programs generally attract older employees nearing retirement.
“It’s a slap in the face to the hundreds of millions of people who explored our parks last year and want to keep going back,” said Kristen Brengel, senior vice president of government affairs for the nonprofit National Parks Conservation Assn. “Americans love their national parks; these cuts do not have public support.”
The National Park Service is, arguably, the most beloved branch of a large and sprawling federal bureaucracy. Even Americans who might get a little lost in the alphabet soup of other agencies — there are more than 400 of them — will probably never forget standing in Yosemite Valley and gawking in silent wonder at a towering waterfall.
The first cuts to the agency the Trump administration announced in January — eliminating the positions of thousands of seasonal workers who collect entrance fees, clean toilets and help with search and rescue operations — sparked a swift and furious backlash.
Following a coordinated social media campaign from parks employees and outdoors enthusiasts across the country, the Trump administration restored the seasonal positions and vowed to hire hundreds more temporary employees this year.
But that was a noteworthy exception to the administration’s overarching strategy of seemingly indiscriminate cuts.
In all, the National Park Service has lost some 1,700 permanent employees from a year-round staff of just under 20,000.
The losses come on the heels of nearly 15 years without significant funding increases in the park service operating budget, Brengel said. “That means many employees do more than one job already, and have been doing so for years,” she said.
California has nine national parks, more than any other state, including renowned sites such as Yosemite, Joshua Tree and Death Valley. Their soaring cliffs and star-studded night skies are the backdrop of millions of family vacations every year. There were more than 4 million visits to Yosemite last year, nearly 3 million to Joshua Tree, and about 1.4 million to Death Valley, according to the park service website.
News of last year’s record visits was posted on the agency’s website, but with none of the usual celebratory fanfare. Instead, it was more of a cautious whisper, indicative of the general mood in the federal workforce these days.
“You hear so many rumors, especially here in D.C., about people getting fired for doing any little thing that seems contrary to the Trump administration’s agenda,” Brengel said. “Everybody’s just scared.”
National Park Service officials did not respond to a request for comment.
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