Great Smoky Mountains, Natchez Trace lose staff amid mass firings
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Trail workers and other employees at the Great Smoky Mountains National Park have been fired amid the Trump administration's purge of federal employees, per an unofficial tally shared with Axios by a park ranger.
Why it matters: Firings have hit national parks across the country, leaving fewer workers to do critical jobs ahead of the busy summer travel season, including lifesaving search-and-rescue missions.
By the numbers: At least 12 workers got fired at the Great Smoky Mountains park, which stretches across Tennessee and North Carolina.
- The trails crew was the "hardest hit division" in the park, according to a document shared with Axios by a U.S. park ranger who requested anonymity to protect their job and employment prospects.
- About 200 permanent staffers worked at the Great Smoky Mountains last August, according to a park statistics page. The park also reports about 140 seasonal employees.
Eight employees got the boot at the Natchez Trace Parkway, which winds through Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi.
- Natchez Trace Parkway had 99 full-time employees as of 2023.
Zoom out: The spreadsheet shared with Axios showed 756 total firings nationwide as of March 4. The information is based on reports from hundreds of rangers and other park workers in multiple online groups.
Caveat: Because it's a crowdsourced effort, the document is likely incomplete and undercounts the full breadth of the firings.
The big picture: 325.5 million people visited U.S. national parks in 2023, up nearly 20% from a decade earlier.
- Many national parks have struggled to deal with the crowds, as well as the traffic and trash they bring.
What they're saying: After the firings, "I don't think the parks are equipped to be able to handle the visitation that they get," says the ranger who shared the document with Axios. The stakes go far beyond long lines, crowded campsites and dirty bathrooms.
- "The odds of search-and-rescue missions turning into recoveries [of dead bodies] will be a lot higher this year than most," the ranger says.
- About 250 people die annually on NPS-managed lands, per Backpacker.
The other side: NPS "is hiring seasonal workers to continue enhancing the visitor experience as we embrace new opportunities for optimization and innovation in workforce management," a spokesperson said in a statement.
The ranger countered that new seasonal workers can't replace the institutional knowledge lost by firing park veterans.
What's next: At least a few fired park workers have since gotten their jobs back, per the document.