It's safe to say that National Park visitors and workers alike aren't happy by the changes and budget cuts so far this year. Visitors express a lack of support in the national park system, and current workers feel stretched thin.
"I've been visiting national parks for 30 years and never has the presence of rangers been so absent," one visitor to Zion National Park wrote in National Parks Service public feedback via CNN. "Hire back park staff. We need them,"
Another visitor agreed, writing, "More staff would be a BIG and IMPORTANT improvement." They had visited Yosemite National Park and noticed the lack of rangers.
The park system experienced layoffs and cuts amid the busy summer season. More than 1,000 NPS workers were fired earlier this year. Although the park system planned to hire thousands of seasonal workers to pick up the slack, it's struggled to reach its goal prior to the summer season. The NPS also has the lowest staffing level of full time workers in over 20 years.
National Park Cuts
Kym Hall, a former NPS regional director and park superintendent, expressed worries about current National Park workers.
"By mid-August, you're going to have staff that is so burned out," Hall said. "Somebody is going to make a mistake, somebody is going to get hurt. Or you're going to see visitors engaging with wildlife in a way that they shouldn't, because there aren't enough people out in the parks to say, 'do not get that close to a grizzly bear that's on the side of the road; that's a terrible idea.'"
Hall doesn't foresee seasonal workers being onboarded to keep up with demand.
"Even if the parks had permission, and even if they had some funding, it takes months and months to get a crew of seasonal (workers) recruited, vetted, hired, boarded into their duty stations, trained and ready to serve the public by Memorial Day," Hall said.
Despite concerns about the National Park System, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum dismissed the concerns.
"I want more people in the parks," Burgum said. "I want less overhead. There's an opportunity to have more people working in our parks ... and have less people working for the National Park Service."
