Currently, cleaning cuts at national parks across the country include about 20 staff members in South Florida’s beloved swamp wilderness.
Rangers tracking the National Park Service layoffs ordered by the Trump administration say the cuts include staff from the Everglades and Drite Lutgas National Park, Biscayne National Park, Big Cypress National Reserve and the South Florida Center for Natural Resources. The cut includes scientists who are doing important Everglades research and rangers who are working on educational programs at local schools.
“This wasn’t surgical,” said former ranger Gary Bremen. “This was like a scattering.”
A local park spokesperson introduced questions about Park Service’s reductions to Washington headquarters. The office did not respond to two requests for comment.
Other cuts are being made in Parks, located near Tampa Bay, which includes Crystal River National Wildlife Refuge.
The layoffs could already be tied down small teams during the busy winter season, attracting tourists from around the world, and facing South Florida Parks increasing the impact of climate change. Rick Mossman, president of the National Park Rangers Association, said nationwide that cuts could lead to shortening times and closing times.
“These actions hurt visitors and the parks they travelled to and allow them to see the whole of the United States,” he said in a statement. “If visitors suffer a medical emergency while hiking in Arizona’s Grand Canyon National Park, the ranger’s response could be delayed.”
The cuts also come as services continue to struggle with a massive maintenance backlog that has swelled to $23 billion.
After weeks of speculation, the sudden notice of termination shocked and saddened staff.
Half of the team working on the Everglades restoration efforts have left at the Research Center at the Everglades National Park, one of such centers across the country, two sources said. Three staff members were cut, and three retired early, they said.
“We’re worried that they’ll come in and remove everything,” said the scientist who is worried that valuable information will be lost.
Cuts are at a critical time for the centre, and repair work for the Everglades is speeding up under record spending. Some of the centre’s mission is to ensure that changes outside the park do not harm wildlife, sawgrass marshes, sea grass pastures and other habitats within the park.
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Over the past few years, the Resource Center team has been particularly busy after Congress granted $1.8 billion in 2021 for repairs under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act. I shifted or created 13 positions just to catch up with heavy workloads. Scientists at the center are also tackling two other increasingly troublesome issues in South Florida parks. The impacts of invasive species and climate change.
Valentine’s Day Dismissal
In one of the national parks, staff members who said they were confident that her position was safe discovered a layoff letter sent after they opened on Valentine’s Day, where notifications were issued across the country before President’s Day holidays. The notification was buried in a general email as one of four attachments, she said.
Staff had travelled around the country for work in South Florida a year ago. To get into the job, she said she sacrificed her savings as wages barely cover her rent.
Like others, she is worried about the layoff letter to prevent workers from hindering the risk of unemployment benefits and retirement funds.
The four-page termination letter said she didn’t demonstrate the fitness needed to meet her department’s needs, but she said she received a passionate mark in her final performance rating.
Bremen said some of the layoffs included younger staff.
“These are often very new people in their careers,” he said. “They are new, enthusiastic and important. These are often educational jobs. They have maintenance positions.”
The layoffs have shaken up other staff, he said.
“People are scared,” Bremen said. “You’re not going to make a million dollars to the National Park Service, right? The old saying is that we’re paid for the sunset.”
For many, he said working for the Parks Bureau is not a job, but a phone call.
“I can rattle the names of fields associated with the park or children that I didn’t meet when I was 4 or 5. I’m still in touch with them. I’m going to the wedding. I was invited to a school play, I went to the funeral,” he said. “And it’s not just me. It’s a part of people’s lives, a ranger across the country that makes a difference, and that’s one of a lot of things that’s been lost.”
The story was first published by WLRN and was created in collaboration with the Multi-Newsroom Initiative, founded by the Florida Climate Reporting Network, the Miami Herald, the South Florida Sun Sentinel, the Palm Beach Post, the Orlando Sentinel, WLRN Public Media, and the Tampa Bay Times.
