Dozens of former park superintendents wrote an open letter this week urging the Trump administration to close national parks to the public if the government is forced to shut down at the end of the month.
Legislators have yet to approve a budget to fund the government beyond Sept. 30, 2025, putting the country at risk of a shutdown starting on Oct. 1, which could cause the temporary closure of the more than 400 national parks spread out across the country. The 16-day shutdown in 2013 caused an estimated $414 million in lost revenue due to the parks closing for the duration.
“As former superintendents of national parks across the country, we write to you with an urgent appeal to protect our parks and public lands by closing them if a government shutdown occurs,” the group wrote in a letter to Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum.
“Past shutdowns in which gates remained open with limited staff have hurt our parks: Iconic symbols cut down and vandalized, trash piled up, habitats destroyed, and visitor safety jeopardized,” the letter continues. “If you don’t act now, history is not just doomed to repeat itself, the damage could in fact be much worse.”
The New York Times reports the first Trump administration kept national parks open during the 2019 government shutdown, when most of the staff were furloughed, which led to off-road vehicles being illegally driven through dry lake beds in Death Valley National Park and slow-growing Joshua trees in California were cut down. In addition, the Park Service missed out on an estimated $400,000 per day in lost revenue from entrance fees, which could not be collected without visitor services.
“If national parks are to be open to visitors when National Park employees are furloughed, these nascent issues from the summer season are sure to erupt,” the former supervisors added. “Leaving parks even partially open to the public during a shutdown with minimal — or no — park staffing is reckless and puts both visitors and park resources at risk.”
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