Besides longer lines and dirtier facilities, Galipeau said reduced staffing could also endanger park visitors. Fewer staffers will mean longer emergency service response times and less preventive maintenance for roads and trails.
“You have a bad experience or you get lost or you get hurt or maybe there’s a crime that occurs in the park, and there’s no one for you to turn to,” Galipeau said. “All this equates to a bad visitor experience, and a bad visitor experience means you won’t go back.”
The lack of maintenance also spells trouble for the beginning of the peak wildfire season in California, and Neubacher said the parks are less prepared now than ever.
Not only will there be fewer people to maintain vegetation and remove invasive species, but park rangers are also trained medics and firefighters. Galipeau said rangers are often sent to other regions or states to offer disaster aid; as a ranger at Everglades National Park in Florida, he was once sent to help fight fires in Oregon.
“If we don’t have those people around, how are we going to help when there’s a catastrophe? We won’t be able to,” Galipeau said.
Despite the issues they anticipate, the former park service leaders said that people should still visit the parks this summer — if anything, to see for themselves how bad it is and offer their sympathies to staff.
“Go there, enjoy your heritage. That’s why we set these places aside as a country,” Galipeau said. “But then if you see things that are broken, you need to go back home, you need to dial up your member of Congress or your senator and say, ‘You need to stop this.’”
