A Love Worth Fighting For: Speaking Up For Our Public Lands

On Valentine’s Day 2025 4,400 Public Land workers were abruptly and illegally terminated from their positions and since then, news of executive orders threatening to exploit our public lands for their natural resources have been flooding headlines. To better understand the gravity of this situation and to hear straight from those most directly effected we are joined by Yosemite and Devils Postpile Ranger Alex Wild, Liz Crandall a field ranger in Deschutes National Forest, and Morgan Smith a Biological Science Technician for the US Forest Service. All three were recently terminated from their jobs due to the recent federal budget cuts. They share their love of the outdoors, explain the importance of their jobs, and speak to the dangerous repercussions our public lands will experience as a result of these terminations and extreme staffing shortages. PROTECT OUR PARKS MERCH! - 100% of our proceeds will be donated to and evenly allocated between The National Park Foundation and The National Forest Foundation. Sign petitions and write to your reps! Tell Congress to Protect National Park Service Staff Tell Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to protect national monuments from oil, gas, and mining Tell Congress national parks are worth fighting for Tell Congress to fund historic and cultural sites nationwide Tell Congress to protect wildlife in national parks Whitehouse resources:Unleashing American EnergyUnleashing Alaska’s Resource PotentialImmediate Expansion of Logging Timber (including BLM land, National Forests, and National Parks)For the latest NPAD updates, group travel details, merch and more, follow us on npadpodcast.com and our socials:Instagram: @‌nationalparkafterdarkTikTok: @‌nationalparkafterdarkSupport the show by becoming an Outsider and receive ad free listening, bonus content and more on Patreon or Apple Podcasts. Want to see our faces? Catch full episodes on our YouTube Page! Thank you to this week’s partners! IQBAR: Text PARK to 64000 to get 20% off all IQBAR products and free shipping. AG1: AG1 is offering new subscribers a FREE $76 gift when you sign up. You’ll get a Welcome Kit, a bottle of D3K2 AND 5 free travel packs in your first box. So make sure to check out DrinkAG1.com/npad. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:15Speaker 02

  Hi, everyone. Welcome back to National Park After Dark. I'm Danielle. And I'm Cassie. And today we have a different episode, but one that I think that is really needed for today. And I know a lot of you have been reaching out to us and we've posted a lot on social media about what is going on right now with our public lands. And there's a lot of questions in the air. There's a lot of confusion. There's a lot of anger. There's a lot of sadness. A lot of people, thousands of public land workers were removed from their jobs on Valentine's Day and people are questioning why, how, what is happening. And a lot of people are really worried about our landscapes, our public lands, which we think is totally

• 1:59Speaker 02

  warranted and we hear you. And today, we really wanted to address that. One, by taking the time to really answer some questions that a lot of you have. And we've been doing a lot of research on this ourselves. But also, we've decided to have some people on that were terminated from their positions in the public land service who can tell their stories as well. Yeah, we figured that the time is now to get this episode. Out, but thank you for your patience. We've been hearing everyone say you should do an episode on this. We've been, you know, taking the time to go through hundreds of people who have responded to us that have been affected and wanted to share their stories. And so, thank you to everyone who sent something in. It's very appreciated. But like Cassie said,

• 2:41Speaker 02

  we do have three people that are going to be included in this episode that we'll talk to in just a bit, but let's kind of lay the framework here and the groundwork of what is going on. So we can kind of all go into these interviews with a collective understanding because like Cassie just mentioned, there's a lot of questions circulating and a lot of confusion about different things. So the question we've received countless times is, why are so many people who work for public lands being fired? Today, we want to help answer that question by explaining the new executive orders from the Trump administration and how many people that as of this recording have been fired from their jobs. To really understand the gravity of this situation, we have three people with us today

• 3:23Speaker 02

  to speak on their experiences. In this episode, we are interviewing Alex Wild, who worked as a park ranger in Yosemite and Devil's Post pile, Liz Crandall, a field ranger in Deschutes National Forest, and Morgan Smith, a biological science technician for the US Forest Service. All three of them were recently terminated from their jobs because of the recent federal budget cuts. We'd also like to point out that this is not intended to be a left wing or right wing conversation. This is an episode for everyone who loves and cares about the outdoors. No matter where you fall politically, we are all a part of these conversations today because we all share a common value and a common goal. We want our outdoor spaces to be protected. We

• 4:04Speaker 02

  believe that every single voice is important in the advocacy for our our wild landscapes. While we clearly have our own opinions on this, we are here to give a platform for real stories of those affected and provide you with the information with which you can form your own opinion as well. Before we jump into our conversation with our interviewees, we'd like to give some context to what is happening to employment in the public in public land service. The Trump administration announced a federal hiring freeze effective as of January 20. It was also announced that this hiring freeze would not apply to positions related to immigration, enforcement, national security, or public safety. According to the White House website, within 90 days of that notice,

• 4:47Speaker 02

  the administration would announce a plan to reduce the size of the federal government's workforce. Trump's administration did not offer an official announcement. However, on February 14th, thousands of public land employees received emails stating that they had been terminated from their jobs due to performance issues. This has marked the beginning of a larger plan to cut federal spending. This decision has been largely scrutinized and has left thousands of people without jobs. It also leaves a lot of concern for what this means for the upcoming season of park visitations and public lands as a whole. The recent firings included at least 3,400 people from the Forest Service and 2,000 people from the Department of the Interior, a governmental body responsible for the employment of those in the Bureau of Land Management,

• 5:31Speaker 02

  the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the National Park Service. Of the 2,000 recently fired, 1,000 were employees of the National Park Service. Both seasonal and permanent positions have been impacted, along with people in probationary periods of their employment. The federal hiring freeze has also affected wildland agencies of particular concern. It has prevented agencies from hiring firefighters for the upcoming fire season, which is mere months away. In the wake of the recent devastation of the L.A. fires and during a time where historic fire activity is projected, it's a really concerning move. National park visitation is on a record-breaking rise. The Park Service reported 13 million visitors in 2022, but that number increased to 325 and a half million visitors in 2023.

• 6:16Speaker 02

  At the same time, park staffing levels have dropped by 20% since 2010, while visitation has increased by over 16%. Gutting these agencies instead of supporting them will cause extensive issues for visitors this season, ranging from having a lack of trained personnel to respond to emergencies, handling lines at the entrances, the cleanliness of the bathrooms, trail maintenance, the protection of the environment and wildlife, and so much more. There's no question that these firings will severely impact visitation to the parks this year. But with so much information coming from so many places, it can be disorienting as to why these agencies are being cut from federal budgets. As the National Park Service budget accounts for less than one fifteenth of one percent of the federal budget,

• 7:00Speaker 02

  many believe that this is the beginning of a much larger plan to dismantle and remove protections from federally protected landscapes, such as national monuments, national parks, and national forests. On January 20th, 2025, Trump announced an executive order that he has titled "Unleashing American Energy." While it has a broad spectrum of orders, the overall consensus is that he wants to expand natural resource uses in the United States with a particular focus on oil, natural gas, hydropower, critical minerals, and nuclear energy resources. He announced that there would be an immediate review of all agency actions that potentially burden the development of these domestic energy resources, and that they would be identifying which agencies are stopping the government from utilizing them.

• 7:44Speaker 02

  In this executive order, he announced that within 30 days of January 20th, they would begin implementing actions to suspend, revise, and rescind all agencies who were identified as hindering the use of these natural resources. In addition, the executive order outlines that an abundant supply of reliable energy should be readily accessible in every single state and every single territory within the United States. This means that they are directly targeting indigenous lands as well. We are already seeing steps being taken to be able to use these resources, including the Secretary of Interior ordering a review on the potential use of national monuments. National monuments are designated under the Antiquities Act,

• 8:26Speaker 02

  which is a law presidents have utilized since 1906 to safeguard important landscapes. The current administration is taking steps to dismantle this act and remove prior protections. Bear's Ear's national monument is at risk of losing protections again. This landscape has deep sacred value to the Navajo Nation, Hopi Tribe, Ute Indian Tribe, and Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, and the Zuni Pueblo people. With the recent firings of thousands of people employed to protect these public lands, many are concerned That this is a direct result of this executive order to begin a larger plan to open up preserved landscapes for fossil fuel and mining development. Today, we are focusing on the hardworking people impacted by this, but we encourage you to do your own research on this executive order.

• 9:09Speaker 02

  We hope to do an episode covering this more in depth. But in the meantime, we're going to provide links in our episode description to make it easier for you to find this information because this is not something that we are making up. It's not our opinion. This is all fact that you can very easily find most of this information on the White House website itself. And with all of this in mind, we welcome our guests today to speak on their love and dedication to these wild places and other subsequent terminations.

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• 10:09Speaker 02

  Our first interview for this episode is with a park ranger from Yosemite, who I, who we mentioned before, Alex Wild. Alex Wild was among the 1,000 National Park staff members that were fired this past week after dedicating his career and much of his life to protecting wild spaces. Despite being assured by his supervisors that he was valued and an essential part of their team, he received a termination letter stating he was being let go due to his performance. This letter did not come from his supervisors, but instead was an email from the Office of Personnel Management, which is the human resource agency from the federal government. This agency was directed by the Department of Government Efficiency, overseen by Elon

• 10:50Speaker 02

  Musk, to issue his termination and had no oversight of Alex in his workplace at all. And with that, we wanted to welcome you, Alex, onto the podcast and for coming on to chat with us today.

• 11:02Speaker 04

  Cool. Thanks. Yeah, it's good to talk with you and thanks for having me on.

• 11:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, of course. I guess to get started with this, we'd love to know your journey of how you got involved with the park service and becoming a ranger.

• 11:14Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah. So I've been at it for about 15 years. I'm kind of a lifer for this park ranger stuff. I started out, you know, pretty entry level, doing a lot of bathroom cleaning and trail maintenance. And then kind of worked my way up into things that are a little more interesting for me. You know, it's like the initial appeal for the job is that you get to work outdoors. And I mean, there's some days where I literally get paid to hike. So it's like a great job for someone who likes hiking and likes being outdoors, you know, it's a fun job. I think, you know, the thing that kept me and like made me stick with this for about 15 years is that it's just that it's a really rewarding job.

• 11:56Speaker 04

  And that comes in the form of like, sometimes I'm actually saving someone's life. And those days can be really hard, you know, and they can be tragic, but it's like, those days are also like the most rewarding. You know, and the other thing is like, working with like the kids and doing education programs, like those days are also like, they're so good and they just kind of like, keep me going, you know, it's like, I'll get like a hundred 4th graders all at once in the park and I'm doing like field trips and teaching them about geology and teaching them about like the importance of parks and career stuff. And that, that's like, for me, like, that's why I do it, you know, it's like days like that and it's making a real impact in people's lives.

• 12:42Speaker 04

  That's why I love the job.

• 12:43Speaker 02

  You just listed so many reasons to love the job too, from hiking to education to, there's so many reasons to love it. And I really like how you outlined how all encompassing your job is. It's not just hiking, it's not just you're hiking, you're helping kids, you're saving lives. It's just, there's so many points. What was some of the training that you had to do? Do to become a park ranger?

• 13:06Speaker 04

  Um, so I'm a wilderness first responder and an EMT. So like for the, you know, medical and rescue stuff, it's pretty like basic medical training. Otherwise, you know, I have a bachelor's degree in philosophy, you know? I always say it helps me like in my park ranger job somehow. A lot of the job ends up just like talking to people anyways. So sure, I can, I can philosophize with people. Talk about trees and stuff, you know, I, I, I've become a really dedicated naturalist. And that, all of that is just on the job. And, and you know, it's kind of become my hobby too, just like studying plants and animals, learning all of the bird calls and all of the names of the animals and stuff.

• 13:48Speaker 04

  You know, my passion and my work, they, they kind of blend together. It's kind of like hard to, to separate them at this point. So, yeah.

• 13:57Speaker 02

  You're speaking my language. I'm a recent birder and I have the Merlin app. I'm always outside like, okay, what's out there right now?

• 14:04Speaker 04

  Nice.

• 14:05Speaker 02

  But going back into your park ranger jobs and you mentioned that part of your job has to do, you've been out there saving lives and it has to do with public safety. What are, can you outline some of your job duties that really coincides with public safety for visitors that are entering the park?

• 14:23Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, so let's see, you mentioned that I work in Yosemite and, and that's true for about three months out of the year. And then during the middle of the summer, I work at Devil's Post Pile. And I think in like my Instagram post, I mentioned, uh, being the only EMT on site. And, and that's the location where I'm the only EMT on site. There's several other EMTs in Yosemite, but I'm the only one at Devil's Post Pile.

• 14:49Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 14:50Speaker 04

  So, yeah, I mean, I respond to any sort of emergency. You know, we've got a hundred foot waterfall. We've got trails. We've got a lot of ways that you could get in trouble out there. So, you know, pretty much every weekend, like you can almost guarantee that like Saturday at 1:00 PM, there's going to be someone running to the ranger station out of breath, like trying to find me. And, you know, I go out and help them. And the thing is like, without someone in my role there, it's a long response time. We're talking like two hours at best and.

• 15:21Speaker 02

  What is the response time with you there?

• 15:24Speaker 04

  Depends where it is, you know, half an hour or less.

• 15:27Speaker 02

  That's a lot quicker.

• 15:27Speaker 04

  You know, like it could be like 10, 10 or 15 minutes. I'm usually like pretty ready to just like grab, grab my bag and go. But yeah, I, I just can't imagine not having an EMT there. I, I truly hope that like, even if, you know, my job is, is permanently terminated or whatever, like we, we have to have something. Um, and I just.

• 15:47Speaker 02

  Someone needs to be there.

• 15:49Speaker 04

  We just, um, currently I don't know what the, what the plan is for that. You know, we're pushing real hard to, to get things to change, to get jobs back or to find, uh, different funding sources and like kind of substitute ways to fill these jobs. But you know, yeah, if, if none of that happened, there would be no one there.

• 16:07Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, I think part of the efforts that we're seeing right now kind of come out of the woodwork is from social media posts like yours that went super viral. Um, and we were talking about before we come, came on to the recording as far as like, you know, how that's kind of overwhelming, but also really inspiring and really something to harness and use for the betterment of what is happening right now. And kind of speaking about that, um, the post, not only just yours, but others that have been going around that are really drawing a lot of attention to this issue and what's going on right now is

• 16:47Speaker 02

  there's a lot of misconceptions about not only the terminations, but also about your role as arranger and all of the different duties that you perform. Is there any misconception that you have seen kind of repeatedly that you would like to dispel or kind of shine some light on?

• 17:07Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, for sure. I can think of a few.

• 17:10Speaker 02

  I'm sure.

• 17:10Speaker 04

  Yeah, you know, and gosh, yeah, the internet's full of misinformation. But, but one that like people need to know about is that I was fired because I was on my probationary period. That means that I was hired within the last year to that role. Now I already mentioned I've worked for 15 years in parks and, um, the last six years have been with national parks. Five of those I was a seasonal ranger. And then within the last year I got promoted to a permanent job. And that's kind of the problem here is that that promotion was less than a year ago. And and people I think are kind of misconstruing the idea of like uh probation,

• 17:51Speaker 04

  meaning like we had done something wrong, or some people are even saying like criminal probation, which is just silly. That's not what it means.

• 17:59Speaker 02

  Different word.

• 18:00Speaker 04

  Yeah, right. It actually means that like we were selected because we were the best. You know, there was, within the past year, there was a panel of people that decided that we were good enough to get the job. So, yeah, those were the people that were like, oh, it's just like so frustrating that they've targeted people that are actually the like the best of the best. So, yeah, the the probation stuff, that's a misconception. People need to know that like, doesn't mean there was anything wrong with our um our performance or anything.

• 18:30Speaker 02

  It's just based on when you were, when you got that job.

• 18:33Speaker 04

  Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

• 18:35Speaker 02

  I think another one that I'm seeing a lot online is that people are like, oh, well, it's okay. We don't need these people. Like, there's other workers here. It's okay that it wasn't that many people who were fired, but you were just mentioning that you're the only person. So, one person out of one person being fired is a lot for an area.

• 18:57Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's totally, yeah, people, I think that people that kind of believe the story that we're like improving efficiency here, they imagine that there's a bunch of people doing redundant jobs. I think that's what they're told. And um that's just not the case, you know? I mean, myself is a perfect example. Like, I I'm the only one doing my role. You know, and I, the emergency response stuff gets a lot of um attention, but like, my job is also like educating people and, you know, doing field trips and junior rangers, which is also super important. And like, I'm the only one doing that stuff, too. And we just like lose all of these programs.

• 19:36Speaker 04

  Things that like really matter for people. So, yeah, the the idea that like there's extra fat to cut off is like not true at all. You know, we were already operating on like a pretty minimal staffing. And now it's, it's like almost, almost impossible. I don't know how the parks are going to work without all of these people they've just fired.

• 19:59Speaker 02

  I know that I've already seen that some of the campgrounds aren't opening specifically in Yosemite that was posted that they're delaying that. And you mentioned these programs like Junior Rangers and if you were the only person that was currently doing that. What do you, do you think that this summer we're going to see a big impact on these programs that we usually utilize and

• 20:19Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 20:20Speaker 02

  go to parks to be able to use?

• 20:22Speaker 04

  Probably. Um, yeah, I mean, you know, at best case scenario, we could hopefully get like friends groups from the national parks to step in and help with some of that stuff. Worst case scenario, these programs just don't happen. And, you know, the, the Junior Ranger people are passionate. They're, they're going to be pissed because like they love those Junior Ranger badges, you know, they collect them. Like we, we have kids and, and, you know, kids, I mean, like we'll get like 16 year olds, you know, they're there with a whole cape full of Junior Ranger badges, you know, hundreds. I didn't even know we had that many.

• 21:01Speaker 02

  I love that.

• 21:02Speaker 04

  Yeah. Um, yeah, they need to get their badges. Uh, so I, I don't know what we're going to do, but, um, it would be, it would be devastating. You know, it'd be heartbreaking if we lost the Junior Ranger program. People really care about that stuff.

• 21:15Speaker 02

  Yeah. And I did, I think Danielle and I talked about this in an episode before, but there's not even an age, age limit on being a Junior Ranger. So it's really.

• 21:25Speaker 04

  I've sworn in a lot of adults as Junior Rangers. Actually, like, um, that, that post that has gotten a lot of attention, there's like a video of me doing like a little goofy Junior Ranger swearing with adults. You know?

• 21:39Speaker 02

  Oh, I did see that video. I didn't realize they were adults.

• 21:44Speaker 04

  They were so psyched. You know, the adults are usually extra psyched because they know that it's a bit silly, but they're like into it anyways.

• 21:50Speaker 02

  Yeah. Can you talk a little bit about what is so important about these programs? Like the Junior Ranger program, what are you trying to teach the people who are participating in those?

• 21:59Speaker 04

  Yeah. I mean, so it kind of like operates as an outdoor classroom for some people. Um, we get like. Homeschoolers and those are the people that really engage with it because that's kind of their day of school. And I love it, you know, they'll come and hang out with me and I get to be their pseudo teacher. And you know, I'm teaching them about park history. Um, there's always an element about conservation in there as well. And then some hard science, we talk about like geology and the formation of some of the rocks out there. And there's a lot of, you know, art, they're doing a lot of drawing. They usually like draw a picture of me too.

• 22:34Danielle LaRock?

  That's fun.

• 22:35Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's cool. You know, and I think in these scenarios, I'm like their hero, you know, they really look up to me. It's like, as soon as that flat hat is on, it's like, I'm like, you know, larger than life. You know, for me, those are like really special days and it's really special for them. You know, it's like they, they get to spend a pretty decent amount of time with uh, someone who can be like a mentor and a bit of a role model for them. And I'm not just thinking about myself, like I, I look at some of these other rangers and you know, we get, uh, there's a lot of like uh, diversity among like park rangers. And so I love it when people can like go and like speak to a ranger who like looks or speaks like them. And they can connect with this person and maybe feel like I could do this job someday.

• 23:17Speaker 04

  You know, they see this person and they can maybe see themselves in that role. And so it like really inspires them to, you know, it could change their life and, and help them get on a path to becoming a park ranger or maybe a trails worker or doing something, working in the outdoors, which I think is a great career path.

• 23:35Danielle LaRock?

  Well, I love that you're speaking to this because I think a lot of what social media especially is focusing on right now is how is the terminations going to impact my visit at face value? Is there, there's going to be more trash, maybe a campground closure or the bathrooms are locked and not able to be accessed and all of those things are not good. But like this is so much deeper than, you know, a bathroom being locked um, and not able to be utilized. You know, these are really, these are really special programs and opportunities for people.

• 24:15Speaker 02

  Of all ages to connect with not only the outdoors, but with, like you were just saying, with other people and finding a role model in which maybe they would have never met or had the opportunity to engage with. And obviously you're well versed in things that, you know, an education that they may not receive somewhere else. And it's just the, the implications are so much more far reaching than just like having a, a tree fallen in the middle of your path that couldn't be cleared because the trail maintenance isn't being done as regularly. And so I think it's really special that you just hit on that because it's something that is going to be probably missed in a lot of parks.

• 24:56Speaker 02

  And maybe not everyone has kids and is aware of that, but it's so special to a lot of other people.

• 25:03Speaker 04

  Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And all of those things are true. Right? I mean, people latch on to the whole emergency response thing, and that's important. But like you mentioned, like it's, it's the park itself. And, and that's the part that like really breaks my heart. It's like, you know, I have dedicated my life to like protecting these parks and protecting the wildlife and the landscapes. And to think about having no staffing in some of these places, or really limited staffing, it's like, that means we're not getting the education out there to teach people like how to do the right thing. And most likely, we're not getting the enforcement when people are somehow damaging the, the park. And that could happen in a lot of ways, right?

• 25:48Speaker 04

  There's kind of like this ripple effect, you know, people love to talk about like, oh, the bathrooms, you know, like, oh, there's going to be poop everywhere because the bathrooms are going to be dirty. And, and maybe they will, right? But then also, we have overflowing trash cans that then attract wildlife, right? And, you know, in Yosemite particularly, that's a huge problem, you know, bears are attracted to overflowing trash cans. And those bears are then going to become habituated and become like a problem, not just like a human problem, but then like it, it becomes like, I don't know, what happens is they'll, they'll actually put the bears down when they become too habituated and they become threatening. To people and that stuff's just so sad. And so it's like, you know, when we lose the custodial staff,

• 26:30Speaker 04

  we're also damaging the wildlife. And then on top of that, we're losing wildlife staff to be able to manage that situation and those bear human encounters. So yeah, it's just like all connected. You know, it's like the, the park staff is like our own little ecosystem. And when you start taking little pieces out, then things are going to fall apart.

• 26:50Speaker 02

  Well, it really shows how every single position within the parks is so vital and how interconnected everything is. Like you're saying that if you lose the custodial staff, then the wildlife ends up being impacted, which is something that you wouldn't normally connect the dots to. But when you really look at it and you see that it's going to impact a lot of things in a lot of ways. And I think that people are really concerned right now about what this year is going to look like for people, what jobs are going to look like for people in these parks. And I would love to get your opinion on how people who are still planning to come to these parks, what they can do

• 27:35Speaker 02

  to be better stewards while they're visiting now that we know that there might be less rangers here and less staff.

• 27:41Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think, you know, being a little more self sufficient and doing some research ahead of time before you come. A lot of time people show up and they don't really know what to do. So they show up and they say, I am here. Tell me how to do Yosemite.

• 27:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, you walk up to a ranger and you say, hey, what trail should I do?

• 27:58Speaker 04

  You know, I love doing that as a ranger. I love telling people what trail to do. But you know, I might not be there and there might not be someone in that role. So do some research ahead of time. Don't take big risks this year. We have limited staffing and that includes like search and rescue and emergency staff. I know parks are trying their best to keep emergency staff on hand, which is really good, but don't take big risks. And if you're into like big objectives, like backpacking or climbing big walls, if you want to go climb El Cap, be prepared, you know, expect to self rescue if things go awry. Don't rely so much on someone being there to just pluck you out of your, your bad situation if you happen to be in one.

• 28:42Speaker 04

  And on top of that, just like leave no trace is more important than ever. So, you know, that means of course, like not leaving trash and stuff, but, but that also includes, you know, camping in the right spot and not making a campfire in a place where you're not allowed to. And a lot of that boils down to like planning ahead and preparing. So, you know, do your research ahead of time. You know, we've all got the internet in our phones now. You can get like the National Parks app. It's actually pretty good and it kind of doubles as like one of those brochures. It's just basically the same information in an app. So, you know, you can learn information about like fire restrictions or camping closures, you know, any sort of closures are going to be marked on there.

• 29:26Speaker 04

  And unfortunately, you know, without staffing, there, there most likely will be closures. So. Plan ahead. It's not that you can't visit, but you know, make sure that you're visiting responsibly. And also have a bit of patience for the park staff because there's going to be some people left. You know, there's still going to be some people there and, and it's going to be a hard season for them. And I think having some extra patience and kindness for those folks is really good.

• 29:51Speaker 02

  I think that that's all really good information for people to hear and thank you for outlining that because I think it's really helpful. And one of the things that you said that to me felt really upsetting about this is one, where you said like, I might not be here, we might not be here. That's devastating. And also talking about recreation in the parks, self, prepare to self-rescue. Potentially no one might be there. And a lot of times, you talked about climbing big walls and backpacking and stuff, but sometimes that means so much smaller things. I mean, people have a heart attack while they're out on the trail or they accidentally trip and break their ankle on an easy trail. You know, it's not even just, I just think of all of the potential impacts

• 30:35Speaker 02

  that are coming in so many different ways from you guys who are there working and are unfortunately the first people receiving this really awful. Awful news, but then all the people afterwards who are also gonna come and be affected by it as well.

• 30:50Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah. And then, you know, the on top of that, it's like the park itself, you know, the wildlife. It's like, you know, it's affecting all three, right? It's like the employees, the visitors and the wildlife, like the the actual park. Yeah, it's just, it's awful, you know. I really hope we can get things turned around. I'm a pretty hopeful guy anyways. But um, yeah, if if we don't, then it's gonna be really devastating for the parks.

• 31:17Speaker 02

  Speaking of turning things around, there are so many people who are ready to rally behind you guys. And whether or not they're involved with the park service directly, they wanna support you. Is there somewhere that you would direct people to put their efforts? Whether that's an organization to support or a particular petition to sign or any type of resource that you wanna guide people to?

• 31:42Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, for sure. I I don't work for any of these, but um, some things that come to mind would be the NPCA. Um, they're mostly an advocacy group. They're sharing a lot of good information about the current situation. So you can learn from them, but they also provide links to be able to to write to your representatives uh with some templates. So that stuff's good. You know, also, I think focusing local. Because like everyone lives near a national park or you live near your own local park. And so I think like, that's kind of the best way. If you wanna like really impact your park, find the Friends organization that's connected to it. Most of them have some sort of nonprofit that supports the park.

• 32:24Speaker 04

  In Yosemite, it's the Yosemite Conservancy. They're great. They accept donations if you wanted to help out the Yosemite Conservancy. There's a chance that Yosemite Conservancy could help uh pick up some slack or support programs that get dropped from these lack of staffing. So Yosemite Conservancy is awesome, but it's not the only one. Almost every national park has a Friends group associated with it. We're not losing staffing just for national parks, right? It's like the Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, all of our federal. Lands are losing staffing. So yeah, just support your local park, whatever one you love, you know, wherever you go climbing or fishing, like give back to that park. You can donate to the friends group. You can volunteer. You know, I think we're gonna rely

• 33:09Speaker 04

  extra on volunteers this year. Just, just give back to your local park and, and keep advocating. Contact your representatives. Make sure people know that you, you value these parks.

• 33:19Speaker 02

  Amazing. Thank you so much for all of that. And it's a sentiment that I think is helpful because it seems like, God, I'm just one person or, you know, I don't lit, I'm not connected to, to a national park and like, what am I gonna do, you know, and but starting small and local feels so much more attainable and like, you're making a bigger difference and you feel more connected. So even if it's just on that level, it's, it's just as needed.

• 33:48Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's both. You know, it's like global and local. You know, we need to advocate for the whole. We need to protect parks on like a higher level. It's awful seeing them being threatened on, on that high level. But you know, it's like, we can still go volunteer and, and pick up some trash or, or you know, if, if you're familiar with the park, volunteer to hand out maps and, and give some orientation. It's still like within our control to like help and support these parks.

• 34:12Speaker 02

  And that's great to know. And I think that just I Danielle and I were talking about this earlier, but I think that we have these higher ups that are coming in and threatening these parks. And I think they're really underestimating the love that we all have for it and the passion and that we are not going to give this up without a fight by any means. And we're all out here to rally and, and advocate for these places that we love.

• 34:39Speaker 04

  For sure. Yeah, you don't mess with the parks, you know, everyone loves parks. They really pick the wrong thing to mess with because it's like, you know, this isn't like a one sided thing, like parks are for everyone, you know, and, and people use them for all sorts of things, right? Like you could use your public lands for, for hiking or fishing or hunting or dirt bikes. Everyone uses public lands. So yeah, they, they really miss the mark. And I think they're really like underestimated. How much people are willing to like stand up and like speak up for national parks.

• 35:09Speaker 02

  I think that they're about to find out though. This is the beginning of a big fight for sure.

• 35:16Speaker 04

  And it's cool. You know, you mentioned that post because like that's kind of been my life the past couple of days. I've been like trying to check and respond to messages and I've gotten so many like heartfelt things from like all types of people. And they're reaching out, just letting me know like, hey, you know, this experience in a park changed my life. I'll have people that I apparently talked to years ago, you know, it's like I lose track of that sort of thing. But all of a sudden they're contacting me and they're saying like, hey, that day when you taught me about like geology and conservation. I still remember that, you know, or like, hey, my kid is still talking about that junior ranger badge.

• 35:54Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's just, it's, it's inspiring. It's amazing to just have this like outpouring of like support for parks. And, you know, and they send it to me and I just want to like push it right back. It's like, no, like push, you know, you support the parks. Like this is, the story is not about Alex, you know, the story is about all of the employees that are lost. And all of the parks that need to be supported because of that. And how we need to like get this staffing back, right? And people are really like coming out to support that.

• 36:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, which is fantastic. And even from our perspective on this end, we have had so many people within public land service positions and jobs that have reached out to us. I mean, for this episode, we have a few of you guys coming on to tell your stories. But our emails have been flooded with people with very similar stories. And then we've been flooded with emails of people reaching out to us being like, please talk about this. Please tell us like how we can advocate for this. So there are, there are so many people who are being affected and so many people who love and appreciate our public lands and are ready to do whatever we all can to make sure that they stay protected.

• 37:06Speaker 04

  For sure. Yeah, this week I've felt all of the emotions, heartbreak, devastation, but also like the most intense.

• 37:15Speaker 04

  Gratitude and inspiration ever like this is incredible and also devastating at the same time. I can't decide which one, you know, it's just.

• 37:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, it can be both. It can be both. It can be both. And it's just, it's nice to see millions of people show up.

• 37:30Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 37:31Speaker 02

  That you may not have ever heard from otherwise.

• 37:33Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 37:34Speaker 02

  So, and like you said, they, they picked the wrong fight, the wrong group of people, the wrong places, and they're gonna learn. And I think they have learned pretty quickly, like, oh, this is gonna be, we might be in over our head, which is great.

• 37:48Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 37:49Speaker 02

  Well, thank you so much for coming on and taking the time and sharing your passions for the park and your experience with everything that's unfolded over the last, you know, five or six days. It's probably been quite the whirlwind. But as you said, it's nice to see the passion throughout most of this country, just immediate.

• 38:11Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 38:11Speaker 02

  You know, like, right away. It's really cool to see how many people truly are with you and love the parks just as much.

• 38:19Speaker 04

  Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. So let's keep it going. You know, I, I'd love to see people stay motivated, you know, and continuing to protect the parks and, and speak out for them.

• 38:29Speaker 02

  Amazing. Us too. And I'm sure that this is just the beginning.

• 38:34Speaker 04

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 38:40Speaker 02

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• 40:03Danielle LaRock?

  In a quest to get varying views on what is happening to the hardworking people in public land service, we are also speaking to Morgan Smith, a biological science technician for the U.S. Forest Service and has worked in places including Wyoming's Grand Teton National Park and Minnesota's Voyagers National Park. Most recently, her job duties entailed monitoring species of interest, mainly by doing population counts for amphibians and bighorn sheep. She would also conduct nest checks for bald eagles, great gray owls, and peregrine falcons to see if any chicks were present, along with a plethora of other tasks. She was among those fired on baseless claims that her performance was inadequate despite a recent offer of a permanent position in the spring of 2024 due to her valued contributions.

• 40:47Danielle LaRock?

  Today, she is here to speak on her experience and why her job duties are critical to the protection of wildlife. Hello, Morgan. Thanks for being on with us today. It is so nice to see you.

• 40:58Speaker 02

  Hi, guys. Hello. I wish it was on better circumstances, but... Yeah, we do too. And as a preface for everyone listening, Morgan is not just someone we're interviewing. Morgan is a friend who has been on a couple of our group trips as well. So it's really nice to have you here. Not under these circumstances, but it's always nice to have you and see you. Oh, it's nice to see you guys, too. Well, let's hop into it and let's go a little bit more in depth on what your job duties were. So can you explain to us what your role as a biological science technician for the U.S. Forest Service entailed? Yeah, so it's a little bit of everything.

• 41:40Speaker 02

  Like I explained before, it kind of varies based on your duty location.

• 41:45Speaker 06

  Based on your location across the US, uh, there's different endangered species, there's different threatened species. So you're doing a lot of different monitoring. Sometimes you're collaring or tracking these animals too, depending on their importance to the area. Specifically in Wyoming where I was located, so Bridger Teton National Forest, I was looking at eagles. I was looking at peregrine falcons, great gray owls, and those are just, um, again, indicator species. So bald eagles, like a long time ago, you know, in the seventies, when their populations were just decimated due to DVT exposure. We kind of reevaluated things and they made a lot of laws, like the Clean Air, Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act.

• 42:27Speaker 06

  To try and, you know, protect some of these species that were being impacted by pollution. And still to this day, it's been a great species to continue looking at population trends and seeing if their population is growing, if it's stabilizing. I was able to work with amphibians a lot. So for them, it was a lot of presence, like are they even present in these locations? And then how many are there? Is it one or two toads or frogs you're seeing? Or is it like you're seeing hundreds of tadpoles in these areas? Um, amphibians are also like good bio indicators of water pollution. So they really are impacted by any pollution present. So the presence of them kind of is indicating, okay, like there's good water quality here. So that's another species I worked with.

• 43:12Speaker 06

  I had some cool projects that we worked on this year. So we had some beaver mitigation. So instead of, you know, trapping or calling off beavers that were flooding roads and damaging road beds. We created what we called beaver deceivers and that kind of diverts water. So it's not flooding the roads and so people can get back to their houses to different trails that they want to access, to different campgrounds. So it's kind of allowing for that coexistence without people getting really mad at the beavers for doing what beavers do. So that was really awesome to kind of work on that front. And then we also had some wildlife, like friendly fencing projects we did. So these.

• 43:55Speaker 06

  Projects were aimed at taking down barbed wire that had been in areas across the Bridger Keaton for literally decades for pronghorn, bighorn sheep, deer, mule deer, the elk herds. A lot of them, when they're migrating, will come across these huge fence lines. And when they try to cross them or get through them with barbed wire, they were often getting trapped and tangled. And so to eliminate those problems for them while they're migrating, we installed some wildlife-friendly fencing and removed like barbed wire that people had up. So that was also a pretty big project that I worked on this past season.

• 44:32Danielle LaRock?

  Well, it sounds like you're doing incredible work and important work. And I'm particularly really interested in your work with various indicator species because as you alluded to, they're indicative of how the environment is doing. If there's a larger issue or a larger problem that they are kind of signaling about. And I think a lot of people don't understand that, you know, when you say, well, I'm monitoring bird nests and looking at tadpoles and things like that. I think that there's a missed piece when it comes to the general population's understanding on how important monitoring different species like that truly is to

• 45:12Danielle LaRock?

  the larger, wider scope of the environment and the park or the forest that you're working within.

• 45:18Speaker 06

  Yeah, there's definitely a disconnect. People often kind of laugh at you or like, are very confused when they're like, oh yeah, like I count frogs. And they're like, what, what do you mean? Like, why do you do that? You know, it's hard to explain. Like, it's just like such a trickle down effect. So, I mean, out west in like the Western United States, a ton of different of those larger river tributaries and like a lot of those huge watersheds for those big rivers in the United States start on national forest land. So it's not only people that are being affected downstream, but it's also animals. So any pollution that starts up top towards the northwest can also trickle down all the way

• 46:02Speaker 06

  down to the southwest United States and. There's people that are using these rivers for water sources. There's people using it for recreation, so they're using it for fishing opportunities. So there's a lot of like, not only environmental impact, but it also does impact humans too. But again, when you just say, oh, I'm counting frogs or today I'm doing nest checks to see how many eagles there are on the forest. Like, people don't really understand the importance of those things. But again, there, there's some of these species that are so sensitive to any sort of pollution that it really is an indicator of, okay, do you have healthy water quality right now? Is there any pollutants in the water?

• 46:44Speaker 06

  If you see frogs with deformities, like extra legs or any sort of thing, or like large die-offs, like you might not see any tadpoles. Like, we had some, like, instances where ponds were drying up this summer just because it was so hot. So it's kind of one of those things of like, it's an indicator of how the overall environment is doing and the environmental health and quality. But it also, again, it, it like trickles down back to humans too. Because again, it's your recreation opportunities. It's, you might be drinking that water when you're on a backpacking trip. You might be trying to fish from this river, but if it's being polluted by things, you're gonna inevitably harm your own body. But again, people are struggling to see that because they seem like super small species sometimes, it may not seem significant.

• 47:28Speaker 06

  But it's like that whole like trickle down effect, like you were saying, it, it all like leads into each other again, so.

• 47:35Speaker 02

  I love these conversations because I think, like what you're saying is people from an outside perspective might be like, oh, they're frogs. Cool, there's a couple frogs there. Oh, well, they're not here this year. Like, who cares? And then you put this whole perspective on it and it's like, actually, this is really important. And it's really important to know and it affects people. You're doing this work in one location, but somewhere, somewhere hundreds of miles away, it could be affecting the people that are there. And I think that that's really important to let people know and realize. And I have to ask, so you had all of these jobs, you've had all the, you have this experience, you've been working for three years. You get this permanent position.

• 48:18Speaker 02

  And then you were recently one of the people who were dismissed from your job. Did you have any indication that this was going to happen?

• 48:27Speaker 06

  I mean, no. So I was hired as a permanent seasonal. So it's basically the same jobs that I've been doing, but it's that guarantee of you can come back here next year and this job is gonna be here for you. Here's some health benefits. Here's, you know, there's a lot of extra stability and knowing I can come back here like every single year and work this job. I don't have to search or apply to dozens of different jobs. So that was super beneficial to be hired on in that type of role. But I'm in my furlough season right now, so I'm not actively going into the office. I'm not actively working. So I had no idea what was going on.

• 49:07Speaker 02

  Mm hmm. How did you find out?

• 49:09Speaker 06

  So my supervisors have been kind of keeping me in the loop and being like, we're not really sure. There's a lot of chat going on. There was an email sent out about probationary employees. And if you're a recent hire, so within one or two years of being hired, depending on um, the type of role you have, you're considered a probationary employee. It's not due to discipline. It's not to due to your performance. Like you're just probationary because you're new. So there was an email that came out with the new administration that said, Trump said, like, I'm looking to do reduction in force to a lot of these federal agencies. I'm pushing for a return to office.

• 49:50Speaker 06

  I'm reallocating and like reassessing how many employees you have essentially. And so the Office of Personnel Management or the OPM was like, you need to report how many probationary employees you have underneath you. So because I'm a probationary employee, I was made aware, like, you were kind of listed as a probationary employee. And right away, we're kind of like, okay, does that mean? Like, what does that mean? Does that mean you're looking at cutting probationary employees first? And as a probationary employee, you still have rights. They still need to have a cause or a valid reason to let you go or terminate you. But they also don't owe you a severance package.

• 50:29Speaker 02

  Because you're probationary?

• 50:31Speaker 06

  Yeah, because you're not officially an employee yet. And so right away, I was kind of nervous about that. But then I hadn't really heard anything other than like you were listed as a probationary employee. There was no action I needed to take at this time. And that was an email I got February 3rd, I believe. And that was like to my personal email because I don't have access to my government email right now. I'm on furlough. But from HR, it was forwarded and said like, you were identified as a probationary employee. There's nothing you need to do at this point. 10 days later, on February 13th, I'm hanging out and then all of a sudden getting these texts from my family, from my friends being like, hey, are you okay? We just heard the news. And I'm like, what news? Like, super confused, kind of.

• 51:16Speaker 06

  And like, I had, we, you know, we, we've been looking at, there's like Reddit threads, there's this Facebook page called the Alternate National Park Service. So it's like the resistance page. So there'd been like whisperings of like, there's cuts happening. We don't know where, we don't know who. But then they kind of, there was these like rumors, like it's probationary employees, like it's starting. And my friends had seen posts that said all probationary Forest Service people were getting cut. And that was on Thursday the 13th. And so I just, in my gut, I just knew like, that like, I don't have a job anymore. I hadn't heard anything from my supervisors at that point about like not having a job. At that point, they didn't know. So it was like, a lot of people were still in the dark.

• 52:01Speaker 06

  Half the people in regions over on the East Coast are getting terminated. People on the West Coast haven't heard anything. So it was super scattered. And people were like, okay, is it actually affecting all of us? And then February 14th, so Friday, also Valentine's Day, which is super unfortunate. But Valentine's Day, I get a text from my supervisor that says like, hey, do you have a chance to call later today? And again, like, I just knew, like, I am getting fired. This is happening. And so it was just like that ball of anxiety, like all day. And I had friends from the same office that like called me and said like, yeah, I just got fired. I got off the phone with my supervisor.

• 52:40Speaker 06

  So like, that was like when it was like real. And I had the phone call on Friday night and they were like, this is. Not the news we want to be giving you. This is not coming from us. And they said that they received these letters at noon with the list of people that they're supposed to go to. And it said, if you don't deliver this news by the end of the day, like you could be terminated. Or you know, you might have action taken against you for not terminating your employees. So in my office, there was seven calls that had to be made terminating employees. This is probationary people who are river rangers. This is archaeological technicians. This is trail crew. This is me as a wildlife technician.

• 53:23Speaker 06

  And so there were seven just in my office. And then there was about thirty people in the whole forest that were terminated.

• 53:32Speaker 02

  How many people work with you total?

• 53:35Speaker 06

  So in the whole forest, there's about a little over two hundred. So it ended up being about like ten or fifteen percent of our workforce for the forest. But in, in directly in the wildlife, in just my office, there was four of us. And then, so we had one seasonal technician. We had myself, which is a permanent technician. And then we have two supervisors. So now there's no field techs located in my forest right now. There's no field techs left in the wildlife, um, division anyways, because we were terminated.

• 54:09Speaker 02

  What does that mean for this work that you've been doing? Is there's no one there to do it now?

• 54:14Speaker 06

  I mean, so essentially the higher of, um, wildlife biologist positions often focus on publishing the work. They focus on creating and forging different relationships within the community. So nonprofit organizations, they're writing requests for grant for the research that we are conducting. So they're typically not field based because they have a heavy workload with the paperwork that's involved with this work that we do. So basically they're going to have to reallocate their own priorities and see if they can go out in the field at all to do this. Any of this surveying or like there's just not going to be any surveys. But because we are focused on wildlife.

• 54:57Speaker 06

  We actually like go to a lot of different project sites before anything is approved. So if the fire management team is looking to do some prescribed burns to help with forest fire reduction and fuels reduction. We have to go through an area and say, okay, there's no endangered birds nesting here. There's no sensitive species nesting here. You're good to go. If they're building a new trail, we have to go through there and clear it and say, there's no sensitive nests here. There's no sensitive species right here. You're cleared to go. Or nope, there's two nests in this area. You're gonna have to redirect your trail planned about a quarter mile the other way. Or you know, we have certain buffer zones around these sensitive species.

• 55:39Speaker 06

  So we're, we're clearing a lot of those areas and timber sales, we're clearing those areas and kind of giving them like, okay, it's not affecting the wildlife in a negative way. You, you can go through with these projects. So again, like that kind of inhibits other work from being done on the forest. But these other departments are also still hurting because they also had people that were terminated. So it's like all the field work, no matter your division is being impacted. But as a wildlife person, we can't clear those projects to go through because we're not able to say, oh no, like there's no threat to species here. It's not gonna affect the wildlife in a negative way. You can go ahead.

• 56:19Speaker 06

  So again, like those are projects that still need to happen. So it's gonna be a lot of juggling and reprioritizing on um the people who are left's part. It's a skeleton crew and they're gonna have to decide like which species or which surveys have priority over the other and what they can fit in with the paperwork that also needs to be done. So it's an unfortunate thing because no one really wants to like prioritize different species over another because again, they're all vital. They're all interconnected. So and they all have different indications, whether they're present and healthy populations. So it's definitely gonna be different for the next couple of years for sure.

• 56:57Danielle LaRock?

  Well, speaking of interconnectedness, I mean, you just described how interconnected all of the roles within the US Forest Service and the National Park Service are. To one another, you are all interconnected and rely on each other. And if one piece is missing, it's this cascade effect that just topples over and over and over and creates problems and obstacles to surmount and issues that we're now having to deal with that weren't there before. It's not just a couple thousand people being terminated. Like, that's in and of itself an issue, but there's a larger issue at play that you just touched upon really well.

• 57:37Danielle LaRock?

  And I think that it's important to note that because a lot of times, you know, that's not thought about when you're, you're being presented with X number of people are being let go. The implications go far beyond that.

• 57:51Speaker 06

  Right, exactly. I think you put it in a wonderful way, like it is all interconnected. We all are affected by the number of cuts, even if it's not directly your forest or even if it's your forest, but a different district, it's going to affect you. Even if it's your same park, but a different division, your workload at the park is going to change. There's going to be different jobs that might not be done or, you know, it's going to affect everyone, not only who's working together, but it's also going to affect visitation or use of these recreational areas too.

• 58:24Danielle LaRock?

  Can you talk a little bit about that, especially going now to the visitation angle and what it means for people who have a big national park list that they'd like to check off this upcoming summer? What is that going to look like?

• 58:39Speaker 06

  Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there's already been a lot of different media going around. People are posting about it and trying to give some pointers. You guys touched on it beautifully about you guys have to leave no trace. There might not be trash services. There's not going to be backcountry rangers patrolling these areas and clearing trash that they find. There's not going to be search and rescue super readily available. You might be on the trail, an accident might happen, but there is a large chance that search and rescue is not coming from the park because they might not have a crew this year. So it's a lot about being prepared when you're going. Going out and that's, you know, being prepared, being aware.

• 59:21Speaker 06

  But I think that also takes a large demographic of people away from the national parks too. Because national parks, especially after or like during COVID, it was such a great way for people to get outside, to move, to experience fresh air instead of like being isolated and in quarantine. So it really grew in popularity then, but it also, there was a surge of people who didn't fully understand Leave No Trace. There was a bunch of people that didn't really understand the impact or people who were not as experienced hiking on trails that were further in the backcountry or more difficult for them. So it kind of takes away the people or like the visitors that might not have super strong experience.

• 1:00:03Speaker 06

  Or it's going to put them in a really risky situations without positions that may be able to help them. If there's no inter rangers to tell you like, oh, like these hikes would be great for your family. These are shorter ones. These are within your ability range. They might start planning their own hikes and it might, you know, get out of hand. They might find themselves in a situation where they're looking for search and rescue, but now no one can respond. And I'm not saying like that's the case for everyone, but there is a large possibility that these are going to be impacted. Um, again, like I said, trash services might be affected. If you're in the backcountry, there's no backcountry ranger clearing trash out of bear boxes at backcountry campsites. So, you know, really making sure that you pack it in, you pack it out.

• 1:00:48Speaker 06

  You're still following those leave no trace principles. You're leaving it better than you found it. So I think those are like definitely steps to kind of, if you are still trying to go out to the national parks, which we, we don't know if some are even, you know, some might be closed completely due to the staffing cuts. But if you are still able to recreate, just being really prepared and hyper aware of what you are doing and making sure that it's not going to leave the park worse than you found it.

• 1:01:17Speaker 02

  I think that that's a really good sentiment to bring out to people because I do see this argument that's been going around on social media where people are, obviously people are fired. Up about this. A lot of people have opinions and one argument that I'm seeing over and over again is, okay, there's not a ranger out there. Just pick up your trash. And that's all well and good. And of course, we want to tell everyone, leave no trace. Be cognizant of what you're doing. Leave it better than you found it. But there are millions of people who are visiting these parks now. Even every person is trying their best. There's millions of people to clean up after. That's human waste. That's accidental trash that falls out of your pocket.

• 1:01:58Speaker 02

  You know, at the end of the day, we need people who are going to be out there to help these situations.

• 1:02:04Speaker 06

  Right. If there's no ranger to monitor these thousands or millions of people, there might be like wildlife conflicts. There might be bison jams and people are getting too close to bison or elk or grizzly bears. If there's no one to do that traffic control and kind of do crowd control to, you know, remind people that you need to be respectful, distance away from the wildlife. Like we are their habitat. Those accidents could happen. There could be like serious kind of repercussions on the front with like wildlife incidents. And, you know, there's no ranger enforcing that or giving tickets to people who are disobeying those rules that are set in place. So that's like a whole nother layer. Like it goes past just the trash.

• 1:02:47Speaker 06

  And like, yeah, every person can pick up trash, but there's so much more that goes into running a park than just cleaning up trash. There's still going to be other issues that arise.

• 1:02:56Speaker 02

  Yeah. And I think that it's a really good point that you're making of these animal human conflicts that are going to happen. I mean, you look in Yellowstone and every year there's the whole Instagram page that's torrents of Yellowstone. And there are rangers understaffed, I will say, but there are rangers who are out there mitigating it. And it's not enough because people are still doing it. And we can be out here and advocate and hope that everyone will not put themselves in a situation like that. But the facts are that there are millions and millions of people who are visiting these parks. Many who are going because they, they want to check it off a list. They want to see something incredible.

• 1:03:38Speaker 02

  They're so interested in the wildlife, but don't necessarily have all the tools that they need beforehand. And the rangers are there to assist them and help them in this new environment.

• 1:03:49Danielle LaRock?

  Going off of that, what you both just mentioned is something that I am noticing over and over in discussions under certain viral posts and things like that regarding this exact subject is the sentiment of parks will be fine, wild places will be fine without people, and we don't understand the big deal. And I think that it is just so telling that there's a certain group of people that are blatantly ignoring what people who have real hands-on experience, work experience and life experience in these roles in the park that are telling you it's going to be a problem. You know, you're saying that for a reason because

• 1:04:30Danielle LaRock?

  you've seen it firsthand. And you know, the phrase people gonna people, like people will people, even if there's a hundred well-intentioned, leave no trace, abiding, respectful and responsible visitors, and then you have that handful that is not, that's still a problem. And that multiplied by thousands and millions is a huge issue. And, you know, to that sentiment of it's going to be fine, like wild places have been there before, they're here now, and they'll continue to be with or without us. It's just really unfortunate that the roles that various rangers and people in service to public lands, the work is just like, are you not seeing the ranger in front of you?

• 1:05:15Danielle LaRock?

  Or, and like you said, you do way more than pick up trash, but even that is so crucial. It's so crucial. It's really disheartening to see some of the comments that are made, but at the same time, there's such an opportunity for education. And I think a lot of people are genuinely curious when they're presenting certain questions. They're not trying to be argumentative, they're just not informed. It's, I mean, there are certain subjects in life that I have no idea about either. And I would be really afraid to ask if someone's going to jump down my throat. So that's why we wanted to create this episode to give the opportunity for people like yourself to come on and dispel.

• 1:05:59Speaker 02

  Some of the things that they're seeing perpetuated online about what you do. Going into that, is there anything that you have seen repeatedly that you're just kind of like pulling your hair out about and want to clear up?

• 1:06:13Speaker 06

  Oh, God, I could definitely expose some things. Sometimes like it just baffles me as a recreator myself, like I might not even be on the clock, but when I'm going to go hiking, whether it's in the Tetons, whether it was on Isle of Royal, I'm seeing people getting like way too close to moose, like way too comfortable to moose. And I mean, like, I'm comfortable with seeing them, but that doesn't mean I'm going to go stand 20 feet away from a moose that I see on the trail to try and get like a better angle or anything for a picture.

• 1:06:42Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:06:43Speaker 06

  It was kind of funny, like in the Tetons going for hikes this year, there's like huge crowds on the trail. And I would just instead of like standing there, even if they were like super far off, people are like, oh, there's a moose. And I kind of just like keep walking because I'm like, I've seen a moose. I'm not going to stand here with like 300 people or 200 people in this traffic jam. Or maybe watch some one person or two people go way too close and kind of just like test the limits. Everyone's like, oh, I've never seen it happen before. I've never seen a moose like attack someone. And I'm like, that could be like the one time that it does happen. Whether it's with a bear, whether it's with a moose, whether it's any other sensitive wildlife like bison, like you said in Yellowstone.

• 1:07:25Speaker 06

  Like people get way too close and really test the boundaries and like patience of these huge animals. So I think for me, like I've always just seen turons or tourists like interact with wildlife in a way that really gets me nervous. So I guess that's one of the things that like makes me pull my hair out a lot.

• 1:07:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, especially when you've had this firsthand experience seeing this and now knowing that there are going to be a lot of staff shortages, even more so than there were before. It's hard and it's difficult to imagine what the summer and the season is going to look like. And then I think even just because we haven't touched on this, there's also just mishaps that happen in the wilderness. You know, some of this isn't even that. People are recreating badly. It's just you're in the wilderness. You're in a territory, you're living amongst, or you're recreating amongst large animals that live there. And sometimes accidents just happen. And if there's no one to respond to those and there's no one to help you, that's a whole nother

• 1:08:27Speaker 02

  problem that people are going to be facing.

• 1:08:30Speaker 06

  Yeah, I mean, like you said, people are like, okay, like wild places are gonna be fine. But there's there's such a trickle effect. And I've been thinking about this often. And some people have brought it up, kind of like, it's not just wild spaces that are affected. And like, granted, I'm super passionate about those public lands and the wild spaces and these national parks. But it's a lot about the gateway communities, too.

• 1:08:53Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:08:54Speaker 06

  If there's no tourism to these places, hotels, restaurants, any sort of lodging that in local areas, tourist stores with just like trinkets, like all of those businesses are going to be impacted by if less people show up. Because these national parks are closed or their hours are like cut down. And granted, some parks may operate still against severely understaffed. But then it's like, you're still straining these local communities by less people going out and visiting these parks. Or the same amount of people going out to these parks with less resources. You know, local search and rescue, like sheriff's office, local to like the county, might be pulled out and like called to a a call out in the park.

• 1:09:38Speaker 06

  But also, there's like weird kind of balance of like, okay, this technically like the national park is federal land. So there's also those issues of like, can local community search and rescues operate within these national parks that are on federal land? Like, sometimes there's like, I don't know, just like that weird, there's a lot of dislike stipulations and like laws about providing care on federal land or anything that happens on federal land. If it was a crime, they can be charged in like federal court.

• 1:10:09Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:10:09Speaker 06

  But now, if you don't have law enforcement rangers, like you might be looked like, can someone from a sheriff's office charge you, which like a gun?

• 1:10:17Speaker 02

  Can someone be taking, yeah. It's it's a lot of gray areas and there's a lot of confusion, I think that's going on. And backtracking a little bit to something that you said that I thought was a really, really important point.

• 1:10:29Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:10:30Speaker 02

  Is that there are a lot of communities that are going to be really affected by this. Eco tourism is huge. I mean, it's a multimillion dollar industry. And these towns and communities that are surrounding these national forests and surrounding these national parks, they their livelihoods are based on this. There's, you know, restaurants, hotels, shops, stores, there's guiding companies. There's so many different people that have based their entire livelihood around the tourism that comes into these places. That is now equally going to be as affected. So I think that that's a really good point to bring up and something that I think not a lot of people are focusing on yet, but will as the season comes forward.

• 1:11:14Speaker 06

  Yeah, and like you just emphasized, like it's it's trickling out. It's not just these public lands, it's affecting local communities. And again, there's a lot of people in those communities who are employed and making livelihoods. And again, multimillion dollar industry, just like eco tourism is just, it's way more impactful than people think. I think a lot of people are just like, it's a national park, so what? But like, there's so much that goes into that. And I think also it depends, you know, on if there are parks that end up closing down or limiting hours because of these cuts and like what what really is going to happen to the general operation of parks? If they are going to be open business as usual type thing this year?

• 1:11:58Speaker 06

  Or if there is going to be completely closed parks or national monuments or, you know, again, limited hours? Because that's also going to be impactful too. So it's kind of like one of those like sit and wait to see what happens. But it's also really nerve wracking to kind of wait for it to play out.

• 1:12:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, and switching gears here to kind of what happens next. You, as we talked about before, you were relieved from your position. And now you're in this whole other realm. What are you doing next? How are you? Because you didn't get a severance package, right? Because you're probationary.

• 1:12:33Speaker 06

  No.

• 1:12:33Speaker 02

  So, so what are your next steps? Because you lived in, I mean, I saw you when you were living in the Tetons and you had a house. So what happens now for you?

• 1:12:42Speaker 06

  I mean, I was super fortunate in the aspect of like, I was on furlough. So I kind of had moved my stuff out of my seasonal housing. And that's just something that you have to do if you're kind of seasonal. You just like move all your stuff out. And then all of a sudden, like, I'm thinking of those people who are still actively living in Forest Service housing or in park housing. Because if you're not employed by them, you basically can't be living there. So like, I'm fortunate that I've been with my family for a couple of weeks now and just hanging out on my furlough. But I'm also now in the little struggle bus of, okay, well, I have to start applying for jobs now for this season.

• 1:13:22Speaker 06

  But usually for the spring and like summer season, you're applying for jobs in November or October, November, December for like, starting in April and May. So it's, I feel.

• 1:13:34Speaker 02

  So it's really late to start now.

• 1:13:37Speaker 06

  Yeah, I feel like it's, first of all, it's late to start now. But then there's also thousands of other people that are.

• 1:13:44Speaker 02

  Who now don't have jobs.

• 1:13:45Speaker 06

  Right. And again, like, there are different specialties. Like, I'm a wildlife person, someone might be looking for plant-related things, so botany. Someone might be looking for like visitor services. But it's just like, it doesn't matter. But again, thousands of people are also like back on the job hunt. So it's just like, am I gonna be able to get a job in my field? Or am I going to just be have, like, taking a job that might not be in my field, but I'm making money type sort of situation?

• 1:14:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, just so you can afford your cost of living.

• 1:14:16Speaker 06

  Right, yeah, because it's like, I still have bills to pay. Like, just because I don't have a job doesn't mean that my bills stop.

• 1:14:22Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:14:23Speaker 06

  So, I mean, I, I know firsthand, like, a couple dozen people that were terminated. So it's just, all of us have been like, oh, has anyone started looking for jobs yet? And it's just like, it's hard that we have to like, have that mentality of like, okay, like, I'm really upset. And I was just crying about losing my job, but now I have to think like logically like you need to start getting job applications out.

• 1:14:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, you need to survive. You need to get in there somehow and get back to hopefully doing a job that you love. I mean, you've dedicated your career to this. To so to lose your job so abruptly with no severance package, to lose all of your plans. For your upcoming season is really difficult. And to kind of wrap this conversation up, I'm just curious for people who are listening. Do you have any advice or outlets where we could use our own voices to advocate against everything that's happening right now?

• 1:15:19Speaker 06

  Yeah, I mean, for sure. I'm there's plenty of petitions that have been going around. So the NPCA has been putting out a couple of petitions for you. You know, I've signed dozens of petitions already. I've been crowdsourcing because social media, though it can be like toxic at times, like in a time like this, it's so empowering to be like, there's so many different rangers and people in public lands who are using their voice to be like, this was my experience. Here's this petition that I found. You can call your representatives. I've sent a couple of emails already to my representatives. And of course, the ones that come with the petitions are kind of like a great script to start with. But I also feel like for me, because I'm personally affected, like I have a story that I can use that, I don't know, maybe,

• 1:16:03Speaker 06

  you know, my local senator or representative or their intern who is sitting in their office will hear this story and be like, wait a second. This is happening like in our local communities. These are local people being affected. So I think it's it's hard, but I think it's also important to be empowered and use your stories if you do have them. If you are not in the public land sector, I think being able to sign petitions and still contacting representatives about how harmful this is and like where your stance is, is super powerful. Cause it's important that people know, like, we're not going to just sit here and watch this all happen. We are going to fight and we're going to try to save public lands and their employees.

• 1:16:43Speaker 02

  Well, thank you very much for that. I think that's the perfect way to end this conversation. We're gonna, we're not gonna stop fighting. We're gonna fight for public lands and we're gonna fight for the employees that work there. And this is the beginning of, I think I'm envisioning is going to be a long and hard fight. But people are passionate and we're not going anywhere.

• 1:17:02Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:17:03Speaker 02

  Thank you so much, Morgan, for joining us and sharing your experience and. Just how important your work and the work of your coworkers and everyone else who is in your field, how vital that really is. So, thank you for giving us a little window into your work and we will definitely be handing out those petitions left and right.

• 1:17:26Speaker 06

  Thank you, guys.

• 1:17:27Speaker 02

  And finally, to conclude our interviews today for this episode, we're going to speak to Liz Crandall, who was also removed from her position in the U.S. Forest Service, and she has a lot of really good insight on why these terminations are illegal and what is happening to the staff that is remaining in these park positions. Liz Crandall began her career as a volunteer within the U.S. Forest Service in 2016 before she eventually landed a job as a recreation technician in Amquah National Forest in 2018 and 2019. In 2020, she moved to Bend, Oregon to pursue a bachelor's degree in tourism, recreation, and adventure leadership at Oregon State University. There, she secured

• 1:18:08Speaker 02

  a job as a developed recreation technician within Willamette National Forest. Two years later, she landed a seasonal field ranger position in Deschutes National Forest and was given a permanent position there in 2023. That new position was under a two-year probationary period, which would have been up in November of this year. Unfortunately, Liz was amongst those terminated from that permanent position in the administration's new efforts to downsize the government and cut federal spending. She is here to speak with us today regarding her job duties in these parks and why her firing and others is illegal. So, hello, Liz. Thank you so much for being here and welcome to National Park After Dark.

• 1:18:46Speaker 07

  Thank you so much for having me. I'm really grateful to be here and to share my story and to speak up for those that might be afraid to speak up for themselves right now.

• 1:18:55Speaker 02

  Perfect. Well, let's just kind of start at a basic level here and just give everyone an idea of what your job duties as a field ranger in the national forest were.

• 1:19:06Speaker 07

  Yeah, absolutely. So, as a field ranger, it's kind of a unique position on the Deschutes because field ranger in other forests in Region 6, which is the Pacific Northwest Region, so Washington State and Oregon, usually field ranger are more in the interpretive realm, but on the dischutes, we have a specialty focus on our dispersed recreation. So anything that's not designated wilderness or developed recreation, so like campgrounds, uh, trailheads, uh, toilets, stuff like that. I am everywhere else. Any, anything else that is not those two categories is dispersed. So any random forest road you're driving on, no one in sight, no facilities anywhere, that's, that's where I patrol. And it's really important because there's a lot of things that happen in the dispersed rec areas.

• 1:19:48Speaker 07

  Because people go there to get solitude and, and camp in dispersed sites because they're free. And you typically are in areas where you're further away from town and designated trailheads and campgrounds and stuff like that. So I'm patrolling those areas for trash mitigation. I'm also helping with extinguishing abandoned campfires, which in my almost nine years with the forest service, I've definitely reported at least over a hundred abandoned campfires, which is pretty wild. I mean, they're usually in dispersed areas because um, in, in campgrounds, people are there to see it happen and they'll put it out pretty quickly. But in dispersed areas, like we don't, sometimes we'll get calls for a wildfire incidents that were from abandoned campfires that had been there for, we don't even know how long, like days, weeks, um, depending on weather and fire risk behavior.

• 1:20:33Speaker 07

  So dispersed recreation, being a field ranger, I'm helping be the eyes of the forest that other people can't get to. So that's, that's like a, a basic overview. There's a lot of other things I would do as well, like patrol, trail closures, um, and timber harvest units. Uh, because in dischutes, we have a lot of ponderosa pine and lodgepole and harvesting for that. So I help keep the public safe and make sure that they're not riding their bike past something, chipping wood, throwing, throwing debris out 200 feet. So I'm there for safety, I'm there for fire mitigation, and I'm there for recreation patrol and mitigation essentially.

• 1:21:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, very important roles in the park. Thank you for outlining all of that too, because I think some people have questions on what is going on in some of these positions. And I think that there's a misconception that's going around right now that anyone who is involved in jobs that entail public safety, were not let go, which is just not true. So. Thank you for outlining that your role is very much detailed in public safety. Can you walk us through how you found out you were being fired from this position?

• 1:21:39Speaker 07

  Yeah, the crazy thing about this entire series of events that have happened this weekend was it came out of nowhere. Basically, on Friday, I had coworkers that had learned that they were being let go for being probationary. And most, I think all of them on Friday were one-year probationary period, so competitive hire. And just real quickly, for people that don't know, being considered a competitive hire employee as a permanent means that they had to apply through USA Jobs. They went through all the different hiring phases. They had to compete against a lot of people because these jobs are competitive. I mean, they're fun. People want to work in the outdoors, right? So that doesn't make them easy, just put it, just make that clear. But they are jobs that people want to have. There's a lot of passionate people that apply and work for the Forest Service and National Park Service, et cetera.

• 1:22:24Speaker 07

  But so competitive hire, you kind of go through a lot more hoops. You compete with more people. So when you do get that job, it's like, oh, my God, I got it. Like, it's amazing. Whereas two-year probationary period employees, such as myself, which are Schedule A, which is disability hire, and VRA, which is Veterans Preference, anybody that's served in the military. The compensation is because you don't have to go through as many hoops and compete with as many people to get directly hired into a permanent position. How they mitigate that is that you have a two-year probationary period instead, kind of to show like some fairness in there as well. Not that it's not fair, because veterans absolutely deserve to work for federal government in a, in the Forest Service, and also people with disabilities deserve that as well. So that's, that's a little background on that real quick. So as a two-year probationary period, I, employee, I didn't find out until Saturday at 3 o'clock.

• 1:23:10Speaker 07

  No warning, I had a missed call from an unknown number. And in my gut, I was like, oh, my gosh, this is it. And it was our Forest Supervisor, Holly Jukes, who is an amazing human. And she was very upset and crying and was like, I'm so sorry. This was not our decision as a forest. This was way higher up. We also had no notice. They were called on the weekend and told you need to lay off X amount of employees. And the names trickled in throughout the day. So they weren't even given like a master List. It was like one after the other, like my friend who works in Crescent Ranger District on the Deschutes. She was let go an hour and a half before I was. So it's pretty bizarre how that happened.

• 1:23:50Speaker 07

  And on a weekend is a huge slap in the face because our human resources office in Albuquerque is closed. So we can't call to get more information and have documentation. And then also like the union NFFE, which is the National Federation of Federal Employees, which they have been fighting for us, which is really great as bargaining unit employees protected. So they weren't available as well because again, it's the weekend and it's a holiday weekend to top it all off. So people are out of town, they're on vacation, et cetera. And in general, this kind of stuff has never happened in a time period like this. This is really strange and unfortunate.

• 1:24:28Danielle LaRock?

  When, yeah, I think that it almost feels intentional that people were away for the weekend is the vibe that I get.

• 1:24:36Speaker 07

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:24:36Danielle LaRock?

  When you found out that you were being fired, did you get a letter that said it was due to your performance?

• 1:24:43Speaker 07

  Yes. So when Holly called me, the forest supervisor, she said, okay, I'm going to send you your termination letter now that I've talked to you. And she's made sure to make it really clear. She's like, this does not reflect what we think. This is not our words and I'm so sorry in advance. And when I got the letter, it stated that based on my performance, I am no longer considered public interest as an employee, which is bizarre because my performance evaluations have all been glowing. I have fully successful on all of them. I've even achieved cash awards every year for my good work and recognition. So that's, it wasn't even like a, I didn't had, I didn't question it for a second. I looked at it and I was like, that's just not true.

• 1:25:26Danielle LaRock?

  Right. Before we actually hit record, you were talking about your knowledge of the, the legal processes and different operational structure within the US Forest Service as far as this termination and its legal standing and things like that. Can you elaborate on that for us?

• 1:25:46Speaker 07

  Yeah, absolutely. So. When you're hired on as a probationary employee, it's kind of seen as a trial period to make sure, okay, before we officially have this person in as competitive service, meaning that they've been in the Forest Service for X amount of time, and we've approved them, they're great, they're vetted, you know, now they can fulfill their career goals within whatever permanent positions they want. So, the trial period, the probationary period, is meant to serve as kind of a way to be able to legally let somebody go if it turns out this person's a terrible fit. I'm trying to put it more eloquently than that, in like more legal terms, but that's kind of like the vibe of how a probationary period works. And the common misconception that I've been reading,

• 1:26:32Speaker 07

  people expressing online and on social media and on the news is that people are like, well, if you're probationary period, you can get fired for no reason. That's, you should have expected this, this is normal. And that's actually not true. So, you still have rights, right? Like, why would you agree to go to a job that they could fire you tomorrow for no reason? Like, that doesn't make sense, it's not legal. You have to have some type of cause. And it's in our Code of Federal Regulations, if you look it up on our website, within our documentation, you have rights as an employee even when you're probationary. So, for types of cause would be like poor misconduct, so acting inappropriately, doing things that you're absolutely not supposed to be doing and getting caught for it, as well as having poor performance evaluations. So, not being successful. Because on our performance evaluations,

• 1:27:16Speaker 07

  we used to have like a larger range of like what you could be considered in your role. So, it was like exceeds expectations, meets expectations, successful, not successful. And now, there's three. It's basically you are successful, or you're unsuccessful, or you're kind of in the middle. And I've always gotten fully successful. So, if you have anything that's unsuccessful, then that would be grounds to be terminated for a probationary employment. But, again, you have to have cause. You can't just toss somebody out simply because they are probationary. That's, you know, and on our termination letters, they're all copied and pasted. Everyone in the Forest Service said the same thing as mine, saying, based on your performance. So, that's what they're saying is the cause.

• 1:27:58Speaker 07

  There's nothing to back that up legally because on our performance evaluations, they say successful. So what do you mean my performance? What, what you, you know what I'm saying? Like it's just, it didn't make any sense.

• 1:28:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, and it definitely feels like this loophole that they're using to make it feel like it's legal. Because like you said, you have rights, you can't just terminate you for no reason. And to have this reason that it's a performance issue. But of course, when we're seeing it copy and pasted across thousands of jobs, that suddenly thousands of employees who have no history of not performing well are being terminated due to lack of their performance. It seems very fishy.

• 1:28:36Speaker 07

  Yeah, it is.

• 1:28:38Speaker 02

  Do you have any plans to appeal this decision?

• 1:28:41Speaker 07

  Yeah, I mean, I'm kind of joking about it with people like I'm going out kicking and screaming. Like you can't just get me out of here and expect me to comply quietly. I've worked way too hard to get to where I am. And it's, I keep getting people saying to me, well, you know, maybe you just see this as one door closes and another door opens. But that door, that did not have my consent to close. That did not close fairly. So no, I'm not letting that close. I'm wedging myself in it, even if it hurts. Like I'm going to fight this. So I'm working with the union. Um, there's been several state lawyers that are working on providing a case for Oregonians in the federal service that were wrongly terminated in this event.

• 1:29:22Speaker 07

  Um, and then there's other ones, other uh, law firms that have offered up their services for free for employees to be able to uh, appeal with them as well. So there's definitely stuff out there and I've, I've been looking into it and sending out my forms and just trying to be seen and recognized because I don't, I think a lot of the, the goal of this government efficiency, quote unquote, that they're trying to unravel is that they're trying to push people out into private sector jobs, et cetera, instead. But I mean, the federal government is already largely understaffed. We already were not getting our seasonal employees. And now they're cutting thousands of us um, that were permanent. So yeah, I mean, I, I can't, as, I feel like it's my duty as an American citizen to not let this happen because this is not good, this is not efficient.

• 1:30:06Speaker 07

  Um, and it's, it's going to Prove really detrimental for our national forests and our public lands this year. And beyond that, because things don't recover quickly in the natural world. You have to have a lot of effort involved and that takes people.

• 1:30:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, and that's a really good point and one that I definitely wanna touch on while you're here. But backtracking for a second, you mentioned that in Oregon, there's a lot of, there's a lot of push with lawyers and lawsuits that are gonna start coming out and coming forward. For people who are listening who may have been terminated as well. Did people reach out to you or was this something that you found on your own? And if so, how do you find these resources?

• 1:30:46Speaker 07

  So I'm incredibly lucky and gifted with a lot of amazing coworkers. And because I've been in the federal service for, you know, quite some time since my early twenties. I'm thirty-two now. Um, I have a lot of connections and people that I've worked with throughout my years. And because I've proven myself to be a great employee, like I've, I've had good relationships with my, my coworkers in the past. So a lot of them have come forward and sent me the resources and different lawsuit lawyer firms that are working on filing for us and the union. I have, we have our union representatives on our forest as well as our region. And they've been really amazing on reaching out to employees as well. I can't comment for how the National Park Service has been handling it because I haven't worked for them before.

• 1:31:30Speaker 07

  But I know that there's similar things going on with them as well and other agencies that are experiencing these terminations. But yeah, I've been really fortunate that people have been reaching out to me and sending me things. And then also I, I posted on my Instagram, which you guys so wonderfully shared. Thank you. Um, and I also posted on my Facebook and I had people, strangers, reaching out to me and sending me stuff as well. So there's clearly a lot of people out there that care and are offering their support. And I'm just extremely grateful. So I encourage people to share their story if they've been terminated publicly, whether that's on social media or talking to the news or talking to like amazing podcast hosts like yourselves or whatever it is. But I know a lot of people are really scared and that's totally valid.

• 1:32:11Speaker 07

  And I, I don't shame anybody for not wanting to speak up, but that is what helped me also get these. Resources. So that's something I would recommend if people feel that they have the mental capacity to do that.

• 1:32:23Danielle LaRock?

  Good on you for going down kicking and screaming and hopefully fighting your way back to your rightful spot because it's inspiring to hear. And like you said, a lot of people are scared and it's, it's so out of left field that it's disorienting, it's confusing, you may not understand like the legality behind it. And I feel like Cassie said with the timing of this, it feels strategic and intentional in the way that it's being done. So good on you for speaking up and taking a stand. And there are thousands of other people who are doing the same. So commend you on

• 1:33:04Danielle LaRock?

  that. I did want to ask, you talked about a misconception that you have been seeing online, and we have been seeing a lot of them as well. I mean, you can't help it. Every comment thread of every post that is talking about this, there's some sort of debate going on. So from your point of view, what is like the top, maybe one or two misconceptions that you would like to clear the air on right now?

• 1:33:27Speaker 07

  Yes. Thank you so much for asking because that's really my biggest point in talking to people about what's going on is because I just want people to have the actual facts and the truth because the federal government, working within the Forest Service and other similar agencies, it's, it's a complicated world. And unless you're really familiar in it, it can seem really overwhelming and hard to follow. Even being in the Forest Service, I still struggle to follow certain things because, you know, it's the government and not everything is always laid out for you and, and set in stone with how they speak. So something that I really want to bring light to that I've seen some people say is I had one, I had one woman, like all caps, like, you're lying, you were a temporary employee and you were fired in 2024 by Biden. And I was like,

• 1:34:11Speaker 07

  okay, well, you know, I'm not going to react and get angry at you because from your perspective, maybe you don't actually understand what's going on. And I don't blame you because I think most people don't. And that's that what she was referring to and other people have referred to because she's not the only one that's that said this is that in 2024 December, under the Biden administration, he ordered that we did not hire any seasonal workers. And that was the first, like, big blow to the agency of, like, recent events. Because we've always relied so heavily on our seasonal workers. They're the backbone of what we do in the field. And that's what I did forever. I was a seasonal worker for a long time. And so were the majority of my colleagues that now are in permanent positions.

• 1:34:53Speaker 07

  So that's one, because that was, that was in 2024, that was in December. This event that's happening right now, where everybody is getting terminated for being probationary employees, this is completely separate, and these are all permanent employees. None of these employees being laid off are temporary. The technical term for a seasonal temporary employee is called a 1039, because you work up to 1,039 hours as a seasonal. And then once those hours are met at capacity, you're done for the season, and you can come back next year, repeats. So that's, that's what that was about, that event that happened. So we're not hiring any 1039s for this summer season. So that was then. So that's one thing to clear up. Another thing is going back to probationary employees can be fired for any reason, or for no reason, rather, which isn't true, which I said earlier.

• 1:35:38Speaker 07

  You have to follow the Code of Federal Regulations, and you have to be fired for a just cause. So like misconduct, poor misconduct, or poor performance evaluations, et cetera. So that's another really big one. And then I think, lastly, the, another big one that I've been reading is the numbers. People saying, well, that's not that many. That 3,400, I mean, in the grand scheme of things, it's like, I think 10% of the US Forest Service workforce was laid off from this event. And people are saying, well, it could be worse, that's not that many. You guys aren't really going to get that affected, you'll be fine, there's other jobs. You know, that kind of language being spoken. Which, again, I totally actually empathize, and I understand why people are thinking that way. Because if, again, if I was not in the Forest Service, I would think, yeah, that's probably not that many people, right?

• 1:36:22Speaker 07

  Like, there's thousands and thousands of people that work for the government, so they'll be fine. And that's actually further, really far from the truth. Because even just losing one person in a program area that's really vital to the forest ecosystem and the way that our projects are implemented is so detrimental. Like in my program, for example, as field rangers, there's three of us. One of us is the lead, the supervisor, and he's often office bound because he's doing project planning and program coordinating and collaborating with our partners in our different program groups that we work with regularly. So that leaves myself and my coworker as the sole field workers that are patrolling these massive dispersed areas that you can't even cover in a day.

• 1:37:04Speaker 07

  Like not even, it would take a few days to to go to every corner of the dispersed rec area on our district. So now, now there's one because I'm terminated. So now she has an entire district, like thousands and thousands of acres to patrol all by herself. And we also have other projects that we're working on, right? Like, we can't patrol every day. That's just not feasible. We have to make signs. We have to fix trails. We have to help with closures. We have to work with fire. There's just so much going on. Not to mention our jobs are dangerous and my coworker actually was in a snowmobile accident this winter. So she's still recovering from that. So it's, that's just an example. Losing one person in a small program like that is so horrible. Like, it's going to put a huge dent in getting things done, being efficient.

• 1:37:48Speaker 07

  So looking at that, now you're zooming out at a grander scale to the 3,400 in the Forest Service and over 1,000 in the National Park Service. Think about that situation I just explained, times 3,400. Like, it's, when you think about it that way. Yeah, when you think about it that way, it's like, oh, that is a lot of people. And that is going to have a massive effect because in this case, it's not so much about the quantity. It's the quality of these people that were terminated. And I, I really encourage people that are seeing it, you know, from a perspective as it's not that big of a deal to, to think about it a little bit differently because it's really bad.

• 1:38:26Danielle LaRock?

  Well, not only from that perspective, which is very important, but to say to someone who worked their whole lives and dedicated so much to their position and to say like, oh, get over it, like get another job, like that's another, like, come on. Like, you know, just, what do you mean? Like, why, why? Would you ever think that's okay to say to someone, especially, I mean, it's coming across so beautifully in your words, but you did mention like, these are a passionate group of people, like, public land servants are not in it for fame or fortune,

• 1:39:03Danielle LaRock?

  you know, and it shows. So to, to tell someone who is just dedicated so much of their heart and soul to a position that's often not compensated well, or given the admiration or thanks that it deserves to just, you know, get over it is just insulting.

• 1:39:24Speaker 07

  Yeah, that and that's a really good point. And working in the federal government for the Forest Service, I am no stranger to people coming up to me and yelling at me and telling me I have a useless job and I'm a waste of taxpayer money. Like, I hear that stuff all the time, right? I mean, we live in a very divided country, political views all over the board. And I work in an area that's pretty mixed, both liberal, conservative, everything in between. So we don't really have like a heavy one way or the other. Sometimes it might feel like it based on the type of conversations I have in a day, but it's, it's so mixed. So I'm no stranger to that. And honestly, when I get those comments, I kind of just like roll my eyes and I'm like, ah, that's unfortunate. Like, next. Like, I try not to respond too much to those. And that's the mentality you have to have, being a public speaking person in the field, because you go crazy if you let that stuff get to you.

• 1:40:09Speaker 07

  So luckily, I'm pretty resilient on that front, but it's still, you know, it's still like unfortunate that people think that way, because it is really hurtful and just, it's just the lack of tact and empathy from people. And then I just actually remembered something that I really think is important to share. And it goes back to the question about, you know, what do I want people to know and like to clear up? And this is kind of crazy. So with the performance evaluation aspect of the terminating jargon that they had in the letter, on January 30th of this year, so obviously after the Trump administration took office, we had a message on our online human resources portal, which we call Connect HR. And it stated that our performance evaluations were not going to be available

• 1:40:51Speaker 07

  to employees and supervisors until further notice. And we were like, hmm, that's weird. That's never happened before. Because we don't usually download and save those. They're always on our platform. We've never had to worry about saving those before. That's never been a thought in our mind ever because usually if we are trying to prove employment, we use what's called an SF 50, which is your your form on your employee personal page. And so usually that's what we reference when we need to prove that, oh, we worked for the federal government for this amount of time. Performance evaluations are just kind of a plus, like, and I was a great employee. See? So never thought about that before until they took it away and said, you cannot access these anymore.

• 1:41:28Speaker 07

  And then fast forward to Friday, the 14th of February, you know, two weeks later, we're getting these letters that are saying, based on your performance, you're being let go. And then we can't access our performance records. So it obviously was very planned out and it's, I guess, for lack of a better term, feels really sneaky. Because we were totally caught off guard and they were five steps ahead of us. So I just wanted to point that out, too.

• 1:41:53Danielle LaRock?

  It's calculated, for sure. I mean, when you lay it out like that, it's not in a, it's, it's hard to say, it's my opinion that it was calculated when it seems, you know, laid out to be exactly that.

• 1:42:06Speaker 07

  Yeah. I mean, they're intelligent. I, I don't like to admit it because a lot of the decisions they've been making have been, in my opinion, not good for our society in any way. But they, you have to give it to them that they are smart. They know what they're doing. This is all calculated, like you said. And it's also another reason why I'm really scared for what else is to come because I'm like, okay, if this was up their sleeve and we didn't see it coming, what else, what's next?

• 1:42:29Danielle LaRock?

  Well, so early on into the administration, I mean,

• 1:42:33Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:42:34Danielle LaRock?

  It's like they came in guns blazing, ready to go with a plan in mind. And it's, you know, less than, as of this recording, less than one month in. So I totally understand that, that fear of what's in the future.

• 1:42:49Speaker 02

  Yeah. And focusing a little bit on the future, you mentioned a lot of your job duties and what you had been doing. And now that there's only one person to do that same job, can you walk us through what you think it's going to be like for visitors now that there's not enough staff?

• 1:43:06Speaker 07

  Yeah. I mean, we've already been Short staff for the last few years. Um, we luckily had gotten some funding in two thousand and twenty three and were able to do a mass hiring event for permanent employees, which I was a part of. And um, now that those people are being let go, it's worse. We have less staff than we probably ever have had, um, at least on my forest. And I know a lot of other forests across the nation lost even more people than we did. On the Deschutes, we lost sixteen employees as of um, on Monday. And then there's going to be more because there's going to be another wave. Um, I heard today, more people getting fired. So those numbers are going to go up. And then, you know, like, uh, sorry, this is emotional. Um, Yeah.

• 1:43:51Speaker 07

  On the Ochico National Forest, which is our neighbor, um, north of us in central Oregon, they lost twenty five. And their, their staffing numbers were even smaller than ours. So their proportions are even worse off. So what visitors are going to be experiencing, speaking specifically for central Oregon, because we're such a booming, popular place. People have been moving here even more and more every year, um, because it's close to nature. It's a mountain town. We have a ski resort. We have the, we have the Deschutes River, like mountains, like we have everything that you would want in an outdoor world. So now that you're going to be coming out here and recreating, you're going to see more trash that's not being picked up as soon as it can be.

• 1:44:31Speaker 07

  Um, you're going to see probably toilets being locked like it was during COVID because we don't have people to clean them, which means that we're probably going to see more human waste out in the woods. We're probably going to be experiencing prolonged wildfire incidents. Because another thing that's really important to realize, and I, I meant to mention this earlier, is that in the news and, and people in general are saying, well, no firefighters were, were fired. So, you know, that's not going to be affected, but that's actually not true. While we don't have firefighter in our job titles, most of the people that were laid off just, just this weekend were actually fire qualified to fight in wildfire incidents. So for me, for example, I went to guard school

• 1:45:13Speaker 07

  and got my red card and I'm a firefighter type two. I'm also a resource advisor and a security. Security manager. So anytime there's an assignment for a wildfire, I'm able to go and I can either help fight fire on the line and actively put it out with my hands. Or I can help do resource advising, making sure that really critical habitat trees for wildlife are not being cut for no reason. Um, also, security management, making sure that the public isn't coming into these areas and getting themselves in harm's way. So, and that I'm just one of the many thousands that were fired that are considered militia is what they call us. That are firefighting qualified, but it's not in our job title. So I'm definitely going to expect to see less personnel on these fires than there have been in the past.

• 1:45:57Speaker 07

  Even with recruitment efforts to get more firefighters in, just the fact that we're cutting out more and more militia. It's either going to even itself out or it's going to get worse. I don't see it getting better. So that's another thing for people to really think about. So I hope people, when they go out in the woods and recreate, they're being a lot more fire safe. And understanding, you know, putting out their campfires efficiently and not having fires during fire restrictions. Um, not lighting fireworks because that's already legal and you shouldn't be doing that anyways. Um, yeah, so I'm, I'm hoping that the public is able to step up and be better. But honestly, looking at the future, I, I don't have a lot of, um, positive thoughts towards it. Because I, I think that it's going to be a really rough year for our public lands.

• 1:46:39Speaker 02

  Yeah. And I'm really glad that you brought up fire as well, because we're seeing historic fire in every season. Every season it seems to be getting worse. And like you mentioned yourself, you're trained in fire. And to not have people like yourself on the ground. And in addition to that, not only are you all being let go of your positions, but also there's a hiring freeze for the wildland guys that are guys and women, uh, who fight these fires as well. And they are not, they are already not staffing, they're already not in training, which they normally would be at this time of year. So it's already a really scary time for the upcoming fire season because we're missing a lot of people already.

• 1:47:23Speaker 02

  And then to be letting people like yourself go as well is not helpful.

• 1:47:28Speaker 07

  Yeah, absolutely. I mean, even on our forest, on the Deschutes are, so we do have seasonal firefighters that we're still hired on, but with the hiring freeze, their start dates are being pushed to June. And fire season starts in central Oregon in April. So

• 1:47:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:47:42Speaker 07

  It's, it's, and it's already started in the east coast areas, like North Carolina, they have a big incident going on over there. Arizona already has a few wildfire incidents, New Mexico, Texas, like these areas are already starting to show wildfires. So yeah, I mean, waiting till June is insane. Like we, we have so many seasonal firefighters that are being pushed back because of this hiring freeze.

• 1:48:03Speaker 02

  Yeah. And then you're missing out on all of the newer people coming in and then just the beginning of the season. My fiance was in, in wildland for over a decade and he was speaking to me about it yesterday. And he's like, this time of year I'd be in training, we'd be getting ready to go.

• 1:48:18Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:48:18Speaker 02

  And nobody's doing that right now, which is really, really concerning.

• 1:48:23Speaker 07

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 1:48:24Speaker 02

  Yeah. I guess to kind of wrap this all up and all of these conversations, for people who are listening, who are just as frustrated as we all are today, do you have any advice on what people can do to help speak out against what's happening right now?

• 1:48:41Speaker 07

  I think if people are willing to share the, all the different rangers and employees that have been terminated, share our stories. Goes a long way because I think really showing like a humanizing factor within all of this doesn't show us as just a number of people that were let go. Like these are actual humans who are, you know, United States citizens and work really hard to protect our beautiful country. Uh, I, I would hope that sharing our stories would, would help with that. And then also just talking about it is, is really means a lot. And I think also remembering to always leave no trace. And when you go out into the outdoors, maybe have more responsibility taken on than you normally would as a recreator out in the woods or wherever you are.

• 1:49:22Speaker 07

  Because if you, if you see trash on the ground this summer, you might think, oh, well, somebody's going to pick it up. But actually there might not be. So maybe that's you. Maybe you're the one that's helping with that instead, which I think we all should be doing anyways. But I think it's especially critical for this year. With everything that's been going on and is going to continue to happen because we just don't really know how many more are going to get laid off because we know there are going to be more. So yeah, I would hope that people are talking about it, sharing our stories, really trying to educate themselves on the facts and everything that's going on and trying to keep emotions out of it as much as you can first. You know, it's, it's good to feel things. It's good to be angry, to be upset, to be sad,

• 1:50:01Speaker 07

  etc. But I think as long as people have all their facts first and then choose to take on the emotions, that's really important in situations like this because if you go in with a certain state of mind, if you tend to listen to what you want to hear or read things how you normally would interpret them without considering the brevity and like how unique this situation is.

• 1:50:23Danielle LaRock?

  Very well said. And thank you so much for taking the time on such short notice to come and speak with us and inform us all on what's going on, you know, on a an high level, but also, like you said, this is, we need to humanize this, like you are a very real person who had your very real life affected and you're just one of many. So thank you for coming on and, and speaking with us today. We really appreciate it.

• 1:50:49Speaker 07

  Thank you so much for having me. I'm, I'm honored. I've been a fan of MPAD since, I don't even know, it's been years. So I was even on one of your trail tales. You, you told one of my Yellowstone stories, so.

• 1:51:02Danielle LaRock?

  Which one?

• 1:51:04Speaker 07

  Cassie was on the Reddit. Um, it was when I was hiking in the Bear Tooth range in Montana and we got caught in a lightning storm and the people I was with like ditched everybody and it was just a terrible, terrible experience.

• 1:51:17Danielle LaRock?

  I remember that story very well. Cassie will always remember a lightning story. That is true.

• 1:51:25Danielle LaRock?

  Thanks, Liz. Thank you so much. Yeah, thank you so much. We've had a lot of conversations today about what you can do to help our public lands, but we wanted to take a moment to outline the steps that you can take. Yes. And first, we want you all to be vocal and reach out to your local representatives. We know that that sounds really daunting and difficult and personally I had very rarely.

• 1:51:48Speaker 02

  Ever done it before this, but we've decided that we wanted to make it very easy for you to do. So in our show notes, we have included a letter template for you to use along with a link that will bring you to the contact information for your specific reps.

• 1:52:02Danielle LaRock?

  Yes, because before this, you know, again, me too. I was like, I think I've contacted my reps like twice in my whole life before this. And I'm like, who even is my, for $5 billion, I would have never been able to name my local representative. So there's going to be information on how you can easily look that up with their contact information and everything is super easy to locate. Sign petitions advocating against these executive orders is another thing that you can do. Again, to make it easier for you, this can also be found in our show notes.

• 1:52:33Speaker 02

  Yes. And another thing that is really big, and we touched on this with Alex and his conversation, is that look for volunteer opportunities within your local communities, especially for your local lands that you're recreating and you love already. With the staffing shortages, national forests, national parks, and other public lands are going to be affected. So see if there's anything that you can do to help the local places near you.

• 1:52:56Danielle LaRock?

  And if you have the means, donate to organizations that support the National Park Service and other outdoor organizations. Again, we've compiled a little list for you in our show notes.

• 1:53:07Speaker 02

  Yes, we have it all here. We're outlining it. We're making this so easy for you all. And the last thing that we have to say for what you can do, and we're going to be looking at more options and we hope to bring more to you as well, but it's time to protest. This is not the time to be silent. This is a very, very concerning time for our public lands, and we can't stress that enough. The executive orders that are coming out of our highest government is out to destroy our lands. They're there for the resources and the money that is there, which is really upsetting because there's already income there. You know, ecotourism is a multimillion dollar industry, and they are out here to get money from our natural resources that we know will

• 1:53:49Speaker 02

  not be there forever if we're exploiting them. So this is only the beginning of a much larger fight. This issue extends far beyond political belief. Because they've launched an attack on something that we are all connected by. And that's our love for wild places. It's time for us to come together as a united front and to save them.

• 1:54:08Danielle LaRock?

  And that is our episode for today. We really hope that it has been insightful and that you have a firmer understanding of what is unfolding. And even as we record this, between when we hit end and when we publish this, who knows what's going to be announced, what changes are going to have taken place. Hopefully not for the worst, but this is a developing issue. So stay informed. Hopefully now you have a foundational knowledge base, which you can take off on and just keep up with everything. And you know, it's kind of designed to tire you out and wear you down. Like not only this, but everything else that's coming out. It's kind of like, oh my God, like what, what else can I take? And

• 1:54:53Speaker 02

  What do I focus on?

• 1:54:54Danielle LaRock?

  Right. Where do I, it's like, it's like we said, it's daunting. It's intimidating. It's tiring. It's depressing, but it's designed that way in hopes that people will kind of just throw their hands up and not fight back. And they picked the wrong ones, honey, because

• 1:55:10Speaker 02

  Sure did.

• 1:55:11Danielle LaRock?

  Like Cassie said, we're all united by our love for the outdoors and this is everyone's fight. And we hope that you feel inspired to do whatever you can, whether it's writing, protesting, calling your representatives, having a conversation with a friend or a family member who either isn't aware or may not know the severity of the situation. So we hope that this episode did its purpose and that is to just raise awareness and inspire you to take action.

• 1:55:40Speaker 02

  And we hope that if you were listening today and maybe you didn't know this information, or maybe you disagreed with our argument today, maybe you came on here to be like, hey, I don't believe any of this. And you heard from people who are real life experiencing it and heard a lot of really important facts today in this episode. And we hope that maybe we've changed our minds. Maybe we've informed some people who just didn't know. And maybe we've inspired others who knew, but are ready to really rally around this cause. All right, everyone. Well, This is such a different episode because it's actively unfolding and usually we focus on things from like hundreds of years ago. So we'll do our best to kind of keep everyone in the loop of what's unfolding. But until then, please enjoy the view.

• 1:56:25Speaker 02

  But watch your back. Bye, everyone. Bye, everyone.

• 1:56:29Danielle LaRock?

  Thank you for joining us again this week. If you love National Park After Dark and want to hear exclusive bonus stories, join us on Patreon or Apple subscriptions. Patreon subscribers have access to our National Park After Dark Book Club, live streams, Discord, and much more. If you prefer to watch our episodes, video episodes are now available on YouTube. If you're enjoying the show, please take a moment to rate, review, and subscribe on your favorite listening platform. And to follow along with all our adventures, you can find us on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and X at National Park After Dark.

• 1:57:13Speaker 03

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