Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:02:19] Sarah Mohamad is a producer and reporter covering science for KQED.
Sarah Mohamad [00:02:24] I am on a mission to visit all 63 in the US. I think I’ve only done like 10 or 11. So yeah, definitely a big fan.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:02:34] Do you have a favorite in California?
Sarah Mohamad [00:02:36] Oh man, I know this is gonna sound like everybody else’s favorite, but I do love Yosemite. I go every year. It’s the closest to where I live. And I’m on a mission to try to like do the Half Dome, which I know sounds kind of ambitious, but hopefully one day.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:02:53] Yeah, it’s, I mean, it’s everyone’s favorite for a reason, right?
Sarah Mohamad [00:02:58] Exactly.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:03:03] Well, I mean, Sarah, there’s been obviously headline after headline after headline over the last couple of weeks about the firings of federal workers all over the country. But how did you start to first hear a word of firings at the National Park Service specifically?
Sarah Mohamad [00:03:23] So I was scrolling Instagram, right, on President’s Day holiday and I saw a post by this person named “Ranger Wild” who’s also known as Alex Wild. He’s a former park ranger at one of the parks in California.
Sarah Mohamad [00:03:41] His post read something like, today I lost my dream job as a permanent park ranger in the NPS. He continues to sort of talk about his role as a park ranger and the only EMT at a national monument in California, and how he was really heartbroken about losing his job. And then I saw that he wasn’t the only one fired from the National Park Service. There were like a dozen others sharing quite similar stories that day.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:04:07] Yeah, what were you hearing exactly about, I guess the extent of these firings?
Sarah Mohamad [00:04:14] So as of mid-February, Trump’s administration had fired over 1,000 National Park Service employees.
Sarah Mohamad [00:04:26] It’s part of a broader effort to reduce the federal workforce. I heard about park rangers who had decades of experience working at NPS being fired, and search and rescue officers who had critical roles at the park being fired. We also lost the only locksmith in Yosemite from the layoffs. Then there are people like scientists, custodial workers, firefighters, a wide range of other roles impacted as well. And on top of that, there were about 700 park service workers who were participating in the administration’s buyout program. So that program allows them to resign now, but then they still get benefits through September. All those people impacted make up about 10% of the park staff.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:05:14] I mean, everyone loves national parks, especially here in California. Has there been any word from the Trump administration about why workers at the National Park Service have been laid off?
Sarah Mohamad [00:05:26] So there hasn’t really been any clear reasoning by the administration about why they’re firing staff from the National Park Service. Within the national park system, we have over 400 national park sites across the country. So that includes not just parks that we are very familiar with, but also preserves and like other sites. So in the Bay Area, for example, we have the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which is not a national park per se. but it’s managed by the National Park Service, and so it’s included in that list of 400 sites. These federal cuts in the National Park Service, there’s no evidence that it’s really gonna save money for the government.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:06:09] I know you talked with some folks who were starting to get these layoff notices. Who did you talk to?
Kenan Chan [00:06:17] Yeah, my name is Kenan Chan. It’s spelled…
Sarah Mohamad [00:06:21] I spoke with a guy named Kenan Chan, who grew up in the Bay Area.
Kenan Chan [00:06:27] Biological science technician, fisheries diver, lead diver. It’s quite a mouthful, I know.
Sarah Mohamad [00:06:32] Kenan was a marine scientist at Channel Islands National Park, and that’s located in Southern California. So his work focused on intertidal monitoring for a program that tracked population trends in kelp forests, algae, and fish.
Kenan Chan [00:06:49] Intertidal monitoring for those who might not know are basically surveying the tide pools.
Sarah Mohamad [00:06:54] So that program which he worked on has been around for over 40 years.
Kenan Chan [00:06:59] So this is an extremely long-term and important data set.
Sarah Mohamad [00:07:02] Basically, the aim of that program is to identify population trends, right, in these species and also to identify potential threats to the ecosystem’s overall health.
Kenan Chan [00:07:15] That basically allows us as scientists to understand the health and understand changes to the ecosystem, both good and bad, to help better make informed decisions on kind of management decisions both for the National Park Service, but also for state and other federal agencies.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:07:35] How did he hear word that his job may be in jeopardy?
Sarah Mohamad [00:07:42] He had heard about potential cuts a few months back, but he didn’t expect that he would be one of the people that would be impacted.
Kenan Chan [00:07:54] So I was in Yosemite and in the morning I got a text from my boss, you know, obviously saying, you know, sorry to bother you while you’re on vacation, but you know, it’s things are looking not amazing right now. Eventually, after a few minutes, he did get an email, basically, as you’ve probably seen the termination letter. I think I have it right here. We failed to demonstrate fitness or qualifications for continued employment because of our subject matter knowledge skills and abilities do not meet the department’s needs.
Sarah Mohamad [00:08:34] The email that he got was similar to the email that other people had shared as well of how, you know, they were laid off because of incompetencies and things like that. But as he shared, he never really had issues with performance reviews, never had any red flags, basically, during his career. So definitely came as a surprise for him when he found out that he had to leave the park.
Kenan Chan [00:09:00] I would say it happened very fast and unexpectedly, but also I think it was in all of the back of our minds.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:09:14] I mean, you mentioned Kenan being part of studies that have been going on for 40 years now. I mean, what is his layoff going to mean for the work that he was doing for the National Park Service?
Sarah Mohamad [00:09:29] So with Kenan fired there is one less person in that small team of three, only three, doing the monitoring right now, which could impact the data collection and research moving forward.
Kenan Chan [00:09:43] The public very well might not notice my absence, but there’s a lot of different programs that happen outside of the public view that are critical elements to maintaining that for generations to come.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:10:02] How the Park Service was doing before these cuts, and how visitors can expect to feel the impact. Stay with us.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:10:50] How was the National Park Service doing before these layoffs?
Sarah Mohamad [00:10:56] So in terms of visitation numbers, the parks have been doing really well. The National Park Service had a record-breaking visitation last year, over 330 million visitors that came to national parks across the nation. And so the numbers say that that’s about 6 million more than in 2023, but the National Park Service has always had staffing and budget challenges even before the layoffs. So over the past decade, reports showed that staffing at NPS has dropped by roughly 20 percent, while visitation has increased by about 16 percent. So these numbers mean that even though millions of Americans were flocking to the parks, the parks was already grappling with underfunding and understaffing issues that set the stage for further disruptions when even more cuts came into play.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:11:56] Yeah, so say you’re planning a trip to one of these national parks in California. Actually, our producer, Jessica Kariisa, has a trip planned to Yosemite next month. I mean, what should someone like her expect to see or feel in terms of the impacts of these layoffs?
Sarah Mohamad [00:12:17] These layoffs have definitely impacted those public facing roles. Things like, you know, campsite maintenance, custodial teams, and even search and rescue personnel. So without these people, there can be extreme consequences for visitors safety and health.
Neal Desai [00:12:33] Visitors should expect noticeable impacts and unfortunately they’re all the bad types of impacts.
Sarah Mohamad [00:12:38] I spoke to Neal Desai, who is the Pacific Regional Director at the National Parks Conservation Association. So that’s an independent, non-partisan organization advocating for the NPS.
Neal Desai [00:12:51] At like popular parks expect long lines and traffic like for example at Yosemite expect to be stuck in traffic for four hours or more.
Sarah Mohamad [00:13:01] He says that people should expect unmaintained trails, toilets, trash overflowing, long lines and being stuck in traffic for longer than usual.
Neal Desai [00:13:12] Camping reservations at some parks like Yosemite have been pulled back because parks don’t know how to staff them.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:13:18] Yeah, it seems like these are the things that we sort of take for granted when visiting these parks. Just like having a clean bathroom and having easy access to even just getting inside.
Sarah Mohamad [00:13:30] Yeah, exactly. And a lot of the people I spoke to were worried about safety and health mainly, but also are telling visitors to set their expectations before visiting a national park this year because it’s a little unpredictable.
Neal Desai [00:13:43] And that’s what the public might be able to easily see. And then there’s all sorts of other impacts, like research programs to help protect water and wildlife in our parks are going to be disrupted because scientists have been laid off.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:13:57] I mean, so it sounds like Neal is doing advocacy. What has his general reaction been to these layoffs?
Sarah Mohamad [00:14:05] Yeah, he thinks that these layouts have been unstrategic and bad politics, as he said.
Neal Desai [00:14:14] This is going to impact people like this will impact people who love parks. It doesn’t matter who you voted for, right? Like you’re not immune.
Sarah Mohamad [00:14:21] There was a poll conducted before Trump’s inauguration that shows that the majority of Americans across political parties approve of the National Park Service and USFS performance. So he’s definitely against it and he’s working hard with his organization to help staff impacted by the layoffs.
Neal Desai [00:14:44] If this is supposed to be about America first, this is a complete failure, right? Our national parks are loved by all Americans across the political spectrum. They’re one of the few nonpartisan issues that we see in our nation. And they happen to be equally owned by every single person. And so attacking this institution is bad politics.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:15:17] Well, Sarah, it sounds like there’s going to be these very obvious ways that visitors of the parks will feel the impact of these layoffs, but also these sort of less obvious ways like in the case of Kenan’s job. Can we expect more layoffs in the near future?
Sarah Mohamad [00:15:35] I haven’t heard any recent news after the thousand people layoff and the 700 people accepting the buyouts, but more recently, we’ve heard about how the Trump administration is planning to terminate national park service leases and close 34 offices across the country. These are places that function as visitor centers, law enforcement offices, museums and hubs. We don’t know yet the fate of the people who are working at these offices and how that would impact the numbers of workers fired.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:16:11] I know you were talking, Sarah, about people who were really opposed to these layoffs. And I know there were even protests earlier this month at the Presidio in San Francisco. But also, I have to imagine that even those who have been fired from their jobs at the National Park Service are not advising people to just stop visiting these parks outright. But what are your tips for visiting these parks amid these layoffs and also probably amid these protests.
Sarah Mohamad [00:16:44] Yeah, that’s true. I think despite these layoffs, people will continue to visit our parks. I am also hoping to visit in a few months, and it’s definitely a time to be extra cautious when going to national parks right now. In terms of planning, I would advise people to check weather alerts in case of extreme conditions like heat. You wouldn’t want to be in Death Valley, for example, when the temperature is like in the hundreds, knowing that there may be a lack of park staff. Other things that experts have told me, bring first aid supplies, medicine, just in case there’s an emergency and there aren’t enough EMTs available. And it’s always a good idea to plan to arrive early during less crowded times. And if you’re planning to do some hiking at those parks, make sure to check those trail updates. So with that said, without these amazing folks, it’s more crucial now than ever that we kind of help keep our parks clean and safe when we visit. So, you know, it can be these small things like helping pick up trash at campsites and trails when we see it and helping others in need the best way we can. And so if you do go visit, don’t forget to appreciate the people at the park, working at the park. Don’t forget to thank the rangers and staff if you see them and just show them that, you know, that they’re valued.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:18:05] Great tips for sure. Well, Sarah, thank you so much.
Sarah Mohamad [00:18:08] Thank you.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:18:16] That was Sarah Mohammed, a producer and reporter covering science for KQED. Thanks to KQED reporter Brian Kranz for some of the tape that you heard at the top of this episode. We heard from Coral, Belisi and Sue Gardner. This 20 minute conversation with Sarah was cut down and edited by producer Jessica Kariisa. I produced this episode, scored it and added all the tape. Alan Montecillo is our senior editor. music courtesy of Audio Network and Blue Dot Sessions. Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by the Screen Actors Guild American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, San Francisco, Northern California Local. Support for The Bay is provided in part by the Osher Production Fund. I’m Erika Cruz Guevarra. Thanks for listening. Talk to you next time.
