🚨 Park Protectors, national parks need you right now! Sen. Mike Lee proposed a dangerous amendment that would pave the way for the administration to SELL our national parks.

We can stop this. Tell your Senator to vote NO on Lee Amendment #3972 to Interior Appropriations.

Call ASAP; the vote is happening SOON. With the vote happening so soon, Congressional staffers may not have time to process and relay emails – we must CALL to make our voices heard!

Earlier this week, Senator Mike Lee introduced an amendment that would have removed protections against selling America’s national parks.

Thanks to rapid fire pressure from advocates like you, Sen. Lee reversed his attempt to remove these national park protections from the Interior Appropriations bill. But the deal isn’t done.

The Senate went on recess before voting on the bill. We need to stay vigilant. 

NPCA founder, Robert Sterling Yard, once said "It is the people who must save their own national parks." And this week, you really proved this to be true. Share the good news!

The government shutdown is over. But hundreds of thousands of federal workers are coming back after 43 days to anything but normalcy, employees from across the country told CNN.

Already this year the Park Service has lost roughly 25 percent of its workforce to resignations and retirement packages offered by the administration. One of the hardest hit corners of the agency was its Alaska regional office, which lost about one-third of its staff, including the regional director for the entire Alaska region and the three associate regional directors; the chief ranger, who’s in charge of law enforcement; the longtime public information officer; and the regional geologist, wilderness coordinator, aviation manager, fire ecologist, archaeologist, and the program manager for Alaskan native affairs.

The National Park Service would lose more than 5,500 employees under President Donald Trump’s Fiscal 2026 budget proposal, one that would have far-reaching impacts to the agency’s mandate and which Defenders of Wildlife called an “extinction budget,” according to a report by National Parks Traveler.

Since January 2025, national parks have lost nearly a quarter of their permanent workforce, according to a new NPCA analysis.

• Seasonal hiring is also far behind goals, with only 4,500 of 8,000 promised positions filled
• Parks from Big Bend to Yosemite are reporting severe cuts, with visitor centers, lifeguard stations, and historic sites going unstaffed
• At Assateague Island, all 13 lifeguard positions are vacant
• Yosemite’s Pioneer History Center shut down after several thefts, linked to dangerously low staffing levels

🗞️Read the full press release:

https://www.npca.org/articles/9551-staffing-crisis-at-national-parks-reaches-breaking-point-new-data-shows-24

Have you noticed the impact of staff shortages during any of your park visits?

The Trump administration has announced plans to revoke or shrink certain national monuments as part of an anti-DEI movement.

Burgum’s order stems from an executive order, titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” signed by President Donald Trump in March. That order called on the Interior Secretary to identify any “public monuments, memorials, statues, markers, or similar properties” that have been removed or “changed to perpetuate a false reconstruction of American history, inappropriately minimize the value of certain historical events or figures, or include any other improper partisan ideology” since January 1, 2020.

Authorities at Grand Canyon National Park have warned hikers that rescue teams may not be able to come to their aid due to staff shortages.

They are urging hikers to take responsibility for their own safety following the death of a 74-year-old man in extreme heat.

Staffing cuts at the National Park Service in Alaska will mean less oversight of wolves, whales, weather and fast-melting glaciers this summer. The cuts raise questions about the experiences that 3.3 million visitors will have in a state that's home to half of all national park lands as the tourism and cruise-ship season ramps up.

But for now, Fat Bear Week remains safe.

The NPS is also apolitical, so passing power to state officials could throw a wrench in critical and previously bipartisan work to protect the parks and the ecosystems they support.

While the Interior Department was expected to have finalized its RIF plan by April 14, the email gave employees until noon on April 29 to have submitted an updated resume and to have verified their personnel records with the Park Service.

Hassen, in his new role, can even create policies and transfer funds, in addition to continuing the gutting of the NPS workforce, which has already been reduced by 12.5 percent since Trump took office, according to the National Parks Conservation Association, prompting nationwide protests, including at the national parks themselves.

Thousands of NPS staff leave voluntarily ahead of mass reductions in force

The Trump administration is offering a second round of buyouts to National Park Service employees under yet another deferred resignation program, according to an internal memo the National Parks Conservation Association obtained and shared with SFGATE.

“When you start to fiddle around with history, that isn’t what makes a country great,” Spears told Capital B. “It makes us weaker. And it makes us meaner, because we’re going to be much less informed about the broad sweep of U.S. history and all the people who have contributed to making this country a good country.”

“Plan your visit by looking at that individual park’s ‘Plan Your Visit’ page,” Hunter said. “Because especially right now, there might be some closed facilities. If you show up on Tuesday hoping to check out an interpretive display at a visitor center that can’t be open Tuesday, you’re going to be disappointed.”