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March 21, 2025
Park workers protesting for their rights in the Santa Monica Mountains (Photo Credit: Alex Wiggleworth from Los Angeles Times)
On Feb. 14, President Trump put in effect an executive order to lay off national park workers from over 400 US parks due to many budget cuts. These cuts were speculated by users across social media to be used to pay for ongoing ICE raids. Overall, over 1,000 workers were laid off, confirmed by Senator Angus King's office to CNN.
Videos, such as one posted on March 13, showed clips of 433 protests, all in national parks and in the past week, reposted and uploaded by tophaughttopics on Tik Tok. One of the few comments, written by user sunshinesheshere, reads, “Please include the date, this is getting suppressed,” posted on March 13. Many others agree with the idea that there is news suppression, with something as small as being unable to look up certain things on Meta owned apps.
Another video, posted by user abc7newsbayarea, showed hundreds of people marching through Yosemite National Park, the person leading them holding an American flag. Signs said things such as “It's not left vs. right, it's up vs. down,” and “defund ICE, refund parks.” The post has gained 1.2 million views and 213.2 thousand likes since March 1, with comments such as “save the national parks, get rid of el cheeto” posted by user 1.kristina.2 on March 1, and “DO YOU GET IT YET? Trump is the WORST president EVER! Period.”, posted by user fcbsantander15 on March 2.
“We could be putting several park units in very bad, sticky situations where they can't manage visitation,” said Kristen Brengel, senior vice president of Government Affairs for the National Parks Conservation Association, replying to USA TODAY. Over 325 million people in America visited national parks in 2023, and the number is expected to grow for 2025. Since the pandemic, more people have been going outside, which urges the need for park employees. “The quality of their visit will likely be far less than in previous years,” said Bengal, warning readers.
Without these park workers, numerous day to day things might be impacted. For starters, hundreds of workers have no jobs. While this may be good for some businesses trying to fill their employee count, others who can't find anything will be jobless. The concern for our national parks have brought many together, all wanting to protect natural resources for future generations and the present ones.
Protesters in Yellowstone National Park behind a “YELLOWSTONE IS NOT FOR SALE” banner. (Credits: Natalie Behring/ Getting Images)
Sources: “Mass firing hits national parks ahead of busy summer season” by CNN , “National Parks Layoffs - The Effects” by The Trek, How National Park Service layoffs could stretch some parks to their limits” by USA Today, @tophaughttopics on Tiktok, @abc7bayareanews on Tiktok.
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