By Steve Large
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YOSEMITE, California (KOVR) — There could be a clash between federal workforce cuts and your family trip to Yosemite National Park.
Across the country, 1,000 National Park Service employees are being fired in an effort to shrink the workforce.
For families, it is leaving uncertainty over what to expect heading to Yosemite. The reservation system isn’t in place for the summer and now, fired Yosemite employees are sharing their heartbreak over losing their dream jobs.
Andria Townsend is one of the fired Yosemite National Park employees whose jobs were suddenly slashed under the Trump administration’s federal workforce reduction plan.
“It happened really fast, so I’m still figuring out what this means,” Townsend said. “It’s devastating to lose this opportunity that I worked so hard for and I know the same is true for so many other people.”
The park’s massive waterfalls and majestic peaks are a worldwide destination that attracts four million visitors a year. The federal cutbacks have left people who love the wonder of the park to wonder what comes next.
Beth Pratt is the California regional director for the National Wildlife Federation and lives near Yosemite.
“How dare we treat the people that work at Yosemite like this?” Pratt said.
Besides the cutbacks to staffing, an initial hiring freeze on National Park Service seasonal workers that is now lifted has pushed back staffing for the summer.
“They already had to put pause on campground reservations because they don’t have the people to take them and they don’t know if they’re going to have the staff to run the campgrounds,” Pratt said.
During the pandemic with limited staffing, Yosemite became overrun with visitors. Trash piled up, and there was gridlock and parking problems.
The Yosemite website shows the park anticipates sharing details about this year’s reservation system in early 2025. For now, there is no summer reservation necessary, leading to concerns of more chaos amid cutbacks.
“I just hope that this inspires people to speak out and do what they can to fight back,” Townsend said.
Townsend said she will be suing the federal government over her firing in what she describes as a class action lawsuit that is forming.
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