The Resistance Rangers Want Your Help in Protecting National Parks

On March 1, under a clear sky, hundreds of people flocked to Colorado’s Rocky Mountain National Park—not to picnic but to protest. Two weeks earlier, the National Park Service had fired roughly 1,000 employees.

A group of guides hiked up a bluff and hung an American flag upside down from its face. Protesters lined the road to the park’s entrance, carrying signs and chanting “Save our parks!” Among them were the park’s former superintendent, terminated probationary employees, and a 97-year-old who had spent many years as a park volunteer.

The protest was one of nearly 150 held across the country that day thanks to Resistance Rangers—a group of 1,000 off-duty and former Park Service employees who are pushing back against the Trump administration. The group plans actions, shares information about cuts to programs and threats to public lands, and preserves disappearing park web pages.

“We are advocating for our places, for the stories we protect, and for each other as people who work to fulfill that mission,” said Robin, a Resistance Ranger who was fired in February and, like some other Resistance Rangers quoted, asked that their name be changed to avoid retaliation. “One of our goals is just to raise the visibility of harms that are coming, if we can, before they hit. Because once something has happened, it is so much more complicated to un-ring that bell.”

More than 20,000 employees at the National Park Service help manage approximately 85 million acres at 433 sites. These include beloved parks like Yosemite and Yellowstone as well as national monuments, battlefields, historic sites, seashores, rivers, and trails—even the White House and President’s Park.

The Organic Act of 1916 created the National Park Service to protect these sites. Staff are tasked with a mandate to “preserve unimpaired the natural and cultural resources and values of the National Park System for the enjoyment, education, and inspiration of this and future generations.”

Soon after Election Day in 2024, some Park Service employees recognized that the Trump administration’s actions were making it impossible to uphold their mission. The wholesale firing of probationary employees on February 14, dubbed the Valentine’s Day Massacre, was part of a multipronged plan to gut federal agencies. Shortly thereafter, national park visitors confronted dirty bathrooms, closed campgrounds, and long lines.

Park Service staff began connecting on group chats to make sense of what was happening. “A large stated goal of this administration is to make us feel isolated and afraid,” said Jay, a Resistance Ranger whose position was one of hundreds “consolidated” by the new Department of Government Efficiency. “We realized pretty quickly: We need this.”

The rangers wanted to empower the public too, which led to the creation of Resistance Rangers. The group’s social media presence quickly gained traction and continues to rally supporters and raise awareness.

Federal judges later ruled that the February firings were illegal, and Park Service staff, including Robin, were reinstated. (A Supreme Court decision in July allowed the firings to proceed.) Meanwhile, two DOGE-inspired resignation offers, including the one presented in the infamous “Fork in the Road” email on January 28, had compelled federal employees to retire en masse. The Park Service lost an estimated 2,400 employees—12 percent of its workforce—to these voluntary resignations.

Trump ordered the heads of every federal agency to craft large-scale “reduction in force” plans. The Park Service could see up to 1,500 more positions eliminated—up to 10 percent of its remaining workforce. The cuts are expected to target roles in regional and national offices as well as programs that provide critical support to parks. While these positions are less visible to the public, the impact of their loss will be no less crippling. In response, Resistance Rangers has drawn attention to what’s at risk—including volunteer and youth programs, infrastructure-planning offices, fire management, and the Inventory and Monitoring program, which tracks the long-term health of park ecosystems.

Meanwhile, the popularity of national parks continues to rise, with a 17 percent increase in visitation since 2010 (and a record high of nearly 332 million visits in 2024). During that same period, the Park Service lost about 20 percent of its workforce—and that’s before the most recent cuts.

The Park Service is among the few government agencies that are widely seen as apolitical. People regard it as a trusted source of information. Raven, a Resistance Ranger who has worked for the Park Service for six years, worries that this could change as Trump targets programs that focus on climate change, sustainability, and diversity, equity, and inclusion. Resistance Rangers has used Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine to preserve web pages that administration officials erased or edited to conform to Trump’s “anti-woke” agenda.

“Not only are we losing that information short term because it’s not available, but with these staff cuts and the decimation of entire programs and offices, it’s going to take the Park Service decades to rebuild the institutional knowledge that we’ve lost,” said Raven.

Trump’s original budget proposed slashing $900 million from the Park Service’s operations and transferring management of many smaller sites to the states. Thanks to widespread opposition to the cuts, Congress has largely preserved funding for parks in 2026.

Resistance Rangers has partnered with public lands influencers and nonprofits to distribute its message. The group’s posts, even when chronicling the latest “fresh hell,” are engaging, even funny, and aim to inspire in-person participation. During National Park Week, rangers invited people to host Public Lands Picnics in May to build community and trust and prepare for the next mass action.

Adam Auerbach, who served as an interpretive ranger at Rocky Mountain National Park for three years, answered the call. He helped gather 50 people in a park in Boulder to write postcards, make signs, and learn about threats to public lands.

“I am a pretty introverted person and never thought I would be called upon to do community organizing, but the moment demands it,” said Auerbach, who has been writing 
articles and sitting for interviews. “I just call on others to reconsider their comfort zones and think about ways they can contribute.”

The spontaneous outpouring of support during the March protests energized the Resistance Rangers. But sustaining that momentum is no easy task, especially when every day brings a fresh insult.

“Our biggest ally is the American people,” said Raven.