Full-time staff numbers are down, too; as of June, the parks service had 12,600 full-time employees, which is 24% fewer staff than they had at the beginning of the year.
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That’s the lowest staffing level in over 20 years, according to Kristen Brengel, senior vice president of government affairs at the National Parks Conservation Association.
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Some parks, including Yellowstone, have increased their staff this year. But with low staffing levels at other parks unlikely to meaningfully improve this year, Kym Hall, a former NPS regional director and park superintendent, told CNN she worries park rangers and other staff could hit a breaking point later this summer.
“By mid-August, you’re going to have staff that is so burned out,” Hall said. “Somebody is going to make a mistake, somebody is going to get hurt. Or you’re going to see visitors engaging with wildlife in a way that they shouldn’t, because there aren’t enough people out in the parks to say, ‘do not get that close to a grizzly bear that’s on the side of the road; that’s a terrible idea.’”

The National Park Service did not respond to CNN’s request for comment on its staffing levels.

Meanwhile, visitors are arriving in droves. Last year set a new record for recreation visits at nearly 332 million, smashing the previous record set in 2016.

Hall said the process of hiring thousands of seasonal workers for the summer takes months, typically starting in the previous fall or winter to fully staff up.

“Even if the parks had permission, and even if they had some funding, it takes months and months to get a crew of seasonal (workers) recruited, vetted, hired, boarded into their duty stations, trained and ready to serve the public by Memorial Day,” Hall said.

Compounding the staffing issue is the fact that many park superintendents, some of whom oversee the most iconic parks like Yosemite, have retired or taken the Trump administration’s deferred resignation offers. That leaves over 100 parks without their chief supervisor, Brengel said.

And amid the staff losses, staffers normally assigned to park programming, construction, and trail maintenance, as well as a cadre of park scientists, have been reassigned to visitor services to keep up with the summer season.