Outdoor Insights: National parks are big business, so why are we gutting them?

Two weeks ago, the Trump administration announced it would lay off 1,000 National Park Service employees. A week later, after some backlash, we were hearing that some of those positions would be re-hired, and that additional seasonal staff would come on board in 2025. Anyone trying to track the federal government layoffs knows it’s been chaotic, and it’ll be months before the dust settles.

At Outdoor News, we’re monitoring cuts to the U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, but the NPS defines “out-of-doors” to a huge percentage of Americans. From backpacking across the Grand Canyon with my oldest son to dodging charismatic megafauna in Denali, some of my best outdoors memories have occurred in America’s national parks.

As a kid and as a parent, I’ve visited the tourist spots like Old Faithful in Yellowstone and Cadillac Mountain in Maine’s Acadia. You can’t hunt in national parks, but I’ve caught lots of trout in them as well as my first Lower-48 grayling in a cold lake 12 miles from the trailhead.

Aside, at the backcountry campground where we’d pitched our tent, my brother and I encountered a group of German campers. When they weren’t sunbathing in the buff by the lake, they visited our campsite to lecture us – in that stereotypical German monotone – about how smart they were for appreciating our national parks more than most Americans.

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My wife and I took our kids to Glacier National Park a half-dozen years ago, and after a long day of hiking, dinner, and cleanup, my wife wanted to walk to the evening campfire ranger program. Now, I usually avoid ranger talks because – between decades of writing and editing natural history pieces, and my own personal research into a destination before I visit – ranger chats rarely surprise me with new information.

Nonetheless, this cynical paterfamilias tagged along. What I witnessed was a quintessential American moment: Parents and screen-free kids of all races, creeds, and colors seated around a campfire entranced with the light bouncing off surrounding cliffs while a real forest ranger – in his uniform and distinctive, wide-brimmed hat – shared legends about the local Blackfeet band hunting in the park.

The next night another bright young ranger spoke about wolverines, and know-it-all Drieslein did indeed learn some facts about North America’s biggest weasels.

We’ve seen stories in recent days about park rangers and trail crews losing their jobs, and I’d argue our country is a less interesting (and less safe) place if we lose Americana scenes like the one above. Too crunchy for you? How about this: It’s good business.

Crossing a parking lot in Yellowstone, dodging buses full of international tourists, I once mused to my wife: I wonder what percentage of American gross domestic product we can chalk up to national parks? Anyone who’s actually visited one has seen busload after busload after busload of European and East Asian tourists.

Why? Because we have an inventory of accessible public lands unique in the world. President Trump and Elon Musk should visit a national park and see for themselves the international popularity of these national gems.

Watch the cash registers ring as Chinese tourists (who rarely leave the geyser boardwalks) stock up on $75 canisters of bear spray and $35 ball caps. Musk and Trump will see our parks generate far more tax revenue for this country than they consume. But they need staff to maintain order and safety.

It’s embarrassing that NPS staffing was down 20% (since 2010) before these recent cuts, while park attendance is at an all-time high. I’ve been to understaffed NPS properties where garbage pickup isn’t happening, and it ain’t pretty.

Our government owes it to our history and its taxpaying citizens to take responsibility for maintaining, improving, preserving, and safely staffing these living, breathing pieces of the American soul.