With Busy Season Near, Yosemite Shows Signs That Trump Cutbacks Taking a Toll

A school group crosses a meadow in front of Yosemite Falls in Yosemite National Park on April 28, 2023. Mario Tama/Getty Images

A delay in campground reservations is a sign that Yosemite National Park might be feeling the squeeze of Trump administration cutbacks, with the busy season just weeks away.

The Northern California park has delayed the sale of reservations for five campgrounds, affecting spots from June 15 to July 14, the park announced on social media Feb. 14.

The campgrounds include Upper Pines, Lower Pines, North Pines, Wawona, and Hodgdon Meadow.

“We understand the impact this has on our visitors who are planning camping trips to the park and we are grateful for their patience,” the park reported. “Our goal is to release campground nights as soon as possible.”

The park stated in an email to The Epoch Times that it would provide at least seven days’ notice on its website and social media when campground nights would be available.

Park staff and the National Parks Service did not return a request seeking information about why the reservations were delayed starting last week.

The announcement follows claims by the National Parks Conservation Association that recent federal jobs reductions by the Trump administration have resulted in staffing shortages at some national parks.

Thousands of workers across several government agencies were fired last week after the deadline for employees to accept a buyout had passed.

It’s common sense to connect the job reductions with the unprecedented reservations delay at Yosemite National Park, according to Neal Desai, the National Parks Conservation Association’s regional director in California.

“It’s difficult to see how they’re not related,” Desai told The Epoch Times.

The directive for parks not to hire or retain employees just before the busy season is “a major problem,” Desai added.

“These parks are owned by all Americans,” he said. “It’s an attack on this concept of America First.”

At least one park lost 20 percent of its permanent staff, and another park lost three-fourths of its interpretive staff, according to the association, a nonpartisan organization and advocate for national parks protection. The association wouldn’t name the parks.

“At one park, we know they lost … multiple fee staff as they are getting ready for the busy season,” John Garder, senior director of budget and appropriations at the association, told The Epoch Times in an email Monday.

One park’s administrative staffers were decimated, making it difficult if not impossible to hire, process, and train seasonal employees as the busy season approaches, according to the association.

Positions were lost in maintenance, administration, cultural resources, and fee collection.

The association claims more than 2,000 park workers have had their job offers rescinded in the federal reduction.

Bison gather in front of a lodging at Yellowstone National Park. Many national parks staffers lost their jobs last week, just before the busy season. Courtesy of the National Park Service

The park staff perform search and rescue operations, clear trails, clean bathrooms, and ensure the parks are ready for visitors, according to the association.

The association claims many park staff members are feeling insecure about their jobs after President Donald Trump took office.

The uncertainty and confusion resulting from staff reductions is already taking a hefty toll on the National Park Service, the association wrote Feb. 4.

National parks rely heavily on seasonal staff, according to the organization. Each year, the service hires more than 6,000 seasonal employees to operate visitor centers and entrance booths, maintain facilities and grounds, repair buildings, protect historic and national resources, and conduct research.

A widespread federal government hiring freeze enacted by the administration has upended this process, the association reported.

The hiring freeze affected more than 2,000 seasonal and permanent positions across the country as parks prepared for spring break and summer visitations, according to the group.

The park service also has well over 1,000 employees considered to be in a probationary period, the association reported. The Trump administration urged the park service to review these employees and consider reassigning them to temporary duties or to put them on paid leave, or determine whether the employees should be retained.

“Visitors from around the world come to our national parks expecting a once-in-a-lifetime experience, but instead could be met with overflowing trash, uncleaned bathrooms, and fewer rangers to provide guidance,” said Kristen Brengel, the association’s senior vice president of government affairs, in a statement online. “These are not the memories we want people to take away from their experience at our parks.”

Since reductions started, several former parks employees have posted their termination letters on social media, including Andria Townsend.

Townsend posted Sunday on Facebook that she had lost her job as a carnivore specialist for Yosemite National Park on Friday. She researched projects on federally endangered carnivore species, she noted.

“I am devastated for myself, but also for the team of amazing biologists I supervised, the incredible programs we worked so hard on, and the resources that will suffer across the country because of this,” she wrote as part of the post.

Her position was funded by grants from local nonprofits, she said, adding: “Not a single dime of taxpayer money is being saved by firing me.”

Beth Pratt, a regional executive director for the National Wildlife Federation who lives near Yosemite, commented on Townsend’s post.

“These stories are heartbreaking. And also makes me furious. Putting people and our wild heritage at risk,” Pratt posted on X Sunday.