A U.S. National Park Service lock keeps John Brown's Fort shut and secured in the Harpers Ferry National Historical Park Lower Town on Oct. 2, 2025 in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, during the government shutdown. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Bare-bones staffing during the government shutdown across the Interior Department and the U.S. Forest Service is leaving America’s treasured natural assets vulnerable to lasting damage, according to advocates for public lands, including current and former agency employees.

National parks and most public lands remain accessible to visitors, including those run by the National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management and Fish and Wildlife Service. 

But the lack of staff already has led to reports of bad behavior, like illegal camping and BASE jumping at California’s Yosemite National Park, and parks advocates and workers told States Newsroom they fear more to come as the shutdown that began Oct. 1 continues with no end in sight.

Adjustments to park staff meant to “front-load visitor services” hide some of the long-term harms, said John Garder, the senior director of budget and appropriations at the advocacy group National Parks Conservation Association. 

The NPS furloughed more than 9,000 of its roughly 14,500 workers, according to a planning document published just before the shutdown began on Oct. 1. 

That has left the people responsible for protecting “irreplaceable resources” and trail management workers needing to instead clean visitor centers and oversee parking, Garder said.

“What that’s done is created this facade for the visitors, so that in many cases they don’t see the damage that’s happening behind the scenes,” he said in a phone interview Wednesday.

Should parks be closed?

The NPCA, a nonprofit that advocates for national parks, has called for parks to close during the shutdown to avoid lasting damage. Others in the conservation community have joined in.

Aaron Weiss, the deputy director of the conservation advocacy group Center for Western Priorities, likened the situation to allowing visitors to ramble through an unstaffed Smithsonian museum.

“The national parks are effectively museums,” he said. “This would be like the Smithsonian saying, ‘Well, you know, we don’t have the staff to keep the Smithsonian museum staffed, but we’ll go ahead and leave the gates, the doors open, and come in and take a look, do what you want.’ 

“That would be horrifically irresponsible of the Smithsonian, but that is exactly what the National Park Service is saying.”

The nature of many park sites makes closing difficult. 

The largest parks, comprising sprawling lands, often lack comprehensive fencing or other ways to keep people out. Public lands outside the Park Service, including those managed by BLM and the Forest Service, are even less likely to have barriers to entry.

Still, the Interior Department under President Donald Trump has prioritized keeping parks open to an extent other administrations have not planned for during shutdowns, by transferring funds meant for park maintenance to be used for operations.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has downplayed reports of improper behavior in the parks while blaming the closures on congressional Democrats who have mostly opposed a stopgap spending bill that would reopen the government. Democrats want Republicans to negotiate on expiring health care tax credits.

“Of course, all of our many sites…. would be better operated and better staffed if the Senate would just get us back in the government,” Burgum said in a Fox News interview Tuesday. “Way to go, Senate Democrats.”

Spokespeople for the NPS did not return messages seeking comment this week. Many communications staff across the federal government have been furloughed during the shutdown and are not legally allowed to respond to messages.

BLM spokeswoman Alyse Sharpe said in an email that the agency would “keep public lands as accessible as possible” during the shutdown. 

“Critical functions that protect life, property, and public health will remain in place, including visitor access in many locations, law enforcement, and emergency response,” she wrote.

Sharpe did not respond to questions about the concerns over lands’ long-term health.

‘Demoralizing’ atmosphere

Meanwhile, the shutdown has accelerated a drop in morale for the federal workforce responsible for public lands, at least some of whom are exasperated by what they see as the Trump administration’s failure to value their work. 

More than half of Interior’s nearly 60,000 employees have been furloughed during the shutdown. That reality, on top of staff reductions earlier this year and threatened additional layoffs by Trump and White House budget director Russ Vought, have added to a sense for many resource managers that the administration doesn’t place a priority on their jobs.

Chris Tollefson, a former communications official at the BLM and the Fish and Wildlife Service who took a buyout this year after a nearly 27-year run at the Interior agencies, said the administration’s posture was “demoralizing” for the agencies’ career employees who consider their work on behalf of public lands a calling.

“The people I know get into this because they care passionately about the land and about the resources they protect,” he said. “Most of them have deep roots in the communities they come from, and it’s really demoralizing to feel like your life’s work has been devalued and that what you’re doing doesn’t matter, that the people in charge feel like it doesn’t matter. So it’s been really hard.”

One furloughed Interior Department worker, who requested her identity be withheld because she is not authorized to speak to reporters, said the department may have trouble attracting qualified employees in the future.

“I came to the government to get a little bit more stability, thinking that it was going to be a safer bet,” the furloughed worker said. “And that has definitely not been the case. It’s not felt as stable as other positions. … I think a lot of folks that are with the federal government are there because of the perception of stability. When you take away that perception of stability, those positions aren’t going to be quite as attractive to talent that you would have attracted.”

Oil and gas permitting continues

Further irritating advocates of conservation, the shutdown has not slowed oil and gas development despite furloughs of staff responsible for science and recreation.

As of Oct. 15, the BLM had issued an average of 19.8 oil and gas permits per day since the shutdown began at the start of the month. That’s roughly on par with a typical month during Trump’s second administration, and represents the highest per-day average since May, according to an analysis of publicly available data by Weiss.

“It’s a statement of values,” Weiss said. “The Interior Department is telling the agency and telling America, ‘The folks who manage drilling on public lands are more important than the folks who actually do the day-to-day caring for our public lands.’ You don’t have the biologists, you don’t have the land managers, you don’t have the folks doing the trail maintenance. Those folks have all been furloughed, but the folks doing the oil and gas permitting are somehow essential.”

Agencies and departments can list some workers as exempt from furloughs. Those employees are kept on the job, though they generally do not receive paychecks until the government is reopened. 

In a post to Instagram on the first day of the shutdown, the Interior Department said it would continue issuing permits “and other efforts related to American Energy Dominance” despite a lapse in appropriations.