Since the beginning of the current administration, reports the National Parks Conservation Association, the Park Service has lost 24 percent of its permanent workforce — and that’s on top of a 20-percent reduction in staffing since 2010. The parks have been forced to reduce visitor center hours, cancel educational programs, delay maintenance and conservation work, and leave law enforcement positions unfilled.
The cuts have affected parks both large and small. Boston’s three National Park sites have lost their superintendent, deputy superintendent, director of science and stewardship partnerships, supervisory interpretive park ranger, museum curator, and their only administrative assistant.
At the Cape Cod National Seashore, nearly 30 percent of the permanent staff positions were vacant at the start of the current high season for visitors, according to former Supt. Maria Burks. We have been unable to determine exactly which positions are currently vacant at the Seashore because the remaining staff are afraid they will lose their jobs if they talk to reporters.
Burks writes that she is “horrified and sickened” by what is happening. “The National Park Service is reeling,” writes Theresa Pierno, president of the Parks Conservation Association on its website. And more drastic cuts are in the offing.
We do know that one of the losses at the Seashore is the fire management officer, as Jack Styler reported last week in his story about a brush fire in Provincetown’s Beech Forest. That job had been held by David Crary of Eastham, who retired in 2022. He used to oversee regular controlled burns that fire experts say are essential for reducing the risk of a devastating wildfire like the one that destroyed Lahaina on the island of Maui in 2023.
Chet Schifone of Orleans, who spent 10 years with the California Dept. of Forestry and Fire Protection, went to look at the scene of the brush fire in the Beech Forest. He told Styler that the area from Provincetown to Wellfleet is “extremely vulnerable” to wildfires because of its remoteness, the abundance of underbrush, and the disrepair of fire roads in the Seashore.
“Provincetown is Lahaina, Cape Cod,” said Schifone.
Barnstable County does have a wildfire preparedness plan, but it hasn’t been updated since 2012.
After Crary retired, the Seashore posted the fire management officer’s job but couldn’t fill it because of the high cost of living here. The position has now been cut from the Seashore and based at Acadia National Park in Maine. It’s still not filled.
Writer Wallace Stegner famously said that America’s national parks were “the best idea we ever had.” Decimating the ranks of the people who manage and maintain those parks and making their work nearly impossible is one of the worst ideas Donald Trump ever had.
“This is an appalling way to treat employees who have dedicated their passions and careers to taking care of the visiting public and protecting the places that American citizens have determined to be special,” wrote Bill Wade of the Association of National Park Rangers. “We have never seen the morale of employees so low.”
