As the Trump administration moves forward with slashing the federal workforce, confusion and uncertainty abound for National Park Service workers. With Utah’s mighty five parks and a dozen other sites, monuments and trails managed by the park service, former park rangers say the impacts of a shrinking workforce here could be wide-ranging.
“These people go through this roller coaster of not really knowing if they're going to have a job, or maybe they're going to have a job, and then next week, they pull it. It's been very, very, very difficult for people, and I think the morale,” said Sue Fritzke, of the Coalition to Protect America's National Parks and former superintendent of Capitol Reef National Park.
“It's park rangers, it's maintenance staff, it's the administrative staff that are trying to bring people on board that just don't feel that their role and the work that they do is being recognized and being understood for what it is.”
In January, President Donald Trump ordered a freeze on the hiring of federal civilian employees.
In mid-February, the administration reversed course somewhat, reinstating 5,000 seasonal park service roles around the country and, at the same time cutting 1,000 probationary employees.
And cuts continue as 100 more seasonal employees at Zion National Park saw their offers rescinded in the last few days.
With all the back and forth, Fritzke is worried that parks will remain understaffed for the spring and summer — the peak seasons for Utah’s national parks.
With the threat of partial closures and limited upkeep, the surrounding communities could face repercussions. In 2023, the National Park Service said that Utah’s service lands brought in $1.9 billion in visitor spending. They also created 26,500 jobs for Utahns and helped generate nearly $3 billion in economic output for local communities.
Having adequate staffing at national parks is critical to keeping them functional, and seasonal staff play a huge role during busy times. At Capitol Reef, Fritzke said seasonal employees help maintain the almost 150-year-old orchards.
“Capitol Reef National Park, not having seasonal employees means that the orchards, which are historic orchards, which everybody loves to come and visit and experience, are not going to be maintained at the level that they need to be maintained,” Fritzke said.
Without the proper staffing, it also becomes difficult for parks to manage resources and visitors, which Fritzke said could result in partial closures. Visitors are already reporting closures at Zion. Overall, she said the visitor experience becomes dampened.
“They might not be able to keep visitor centers open, and you know, all of those things ultimately have an effect on the visitor,” Fritzke said. “It's just sort of this incremental, additive issue of over the long term, you just start to see more and more of a degradation of the park's ability to provide services to the visitor.”
National parks faced similar staffing shortages during the pandemic. During that time, parks were forced to stay open with few employees to manage facilities, resulting in deterioration, said Phil Francis, chair of the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks.
“There was damage to park resources,” said Francis, a 41-year veteran of the park service. “You know, trash, bathrooms weren't clean. It really became sort of a public health hazard.”
A lack of staff also puts visitor safety at risk.
Utah will soon welcome more than 15 million tourists to its national parks. With fewer rangers, visitors who get hurt or injured while exploring won’t receive the care they need as quickly.
“[If] somebody falls while trying to climb, someone has a heart attack or a traffic accident, or if they're riding a horse and something goes wrong, the park rangers are there to respond,” Francis said. “And if there aren't enough people, that the response time grows exponentially.”
The danger doesn’t just increase for visitors, but for staff as well. As tourism and visitation of Utah’s parks continue to climb, the demand for search and rescue has climbed along with it, said Cory MacNulty, campaign director for the southwest region of the National Parks Conservation Association.
“With understaffing, we have heard from some of the parks that search and rescue crews are having to go on back-to-back rescues, which isn't safe for not only the visitors, but it's not safe for the rangers themselves.”
Park rangers aren’t the only employees who have faced cuts, either. According to MacNulty, infrastructure staff like engineers and landscape architects have also had job offers rescinded. With those people gone, she said that natural and cultural resources could face decline.
“You have a whole host of people who are working on making sure that water is safe for drinking, that the sewer system is working,” MacNulty said.
As the Trump administration continues to cut federal government costs, the Zion National Park Forever Project is trying to fill the gaps by working to fund new projects for the upcoming season. Zachary Almaguer, the project’s director of marketing and communication, said that many of the projects they are working on now revolve around search and rescue.
The project wants to update Zion’s ambulance technology, provide new body armor for staff and get new personal protective equipment for fire emergencies.
“When we're talking about staffing concerns, from our perspective, regardless of the size of staff, we want to make sure they have the equipment they need to do the job in the field,” Almaguer said.
Even before the cuts, law enforcement park ranger employment has decreased over the last decade, with about half as many in 2023 than in 2010, according to a report from Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility that analyzed National Park Service data.
Now, with even more employees on the chopping block, Fritzke is worried that there won’t be as many people interested in getting into the field.
Rangers choose this path because they believe in what they’re doing, said Fritzke.
“Rangers don't get good paychecks,” Fritzke said. “They get paid in sunsets, and you know, now they're trying to take their sunset away from everybody.”
