3 major changes at national parks since the 'Valentine's Day massacre'

• The Trump administration has directed the National Park Service to remove or revise interpretive materials that may be seen as disparaging to American history.
• Advocacy groups report that the National Park Service has lost about 25% of its full-time staff over the past year.
• New orders from the Interior Department encourage energy exploration on federal lands and aim to expand hunting and fishing access.

It’s been roughly a year since the sweeping National Park Service layoffs that park advocates dubbed the "Valentine’s Day massacre."

Around the same time, references to transgender people were scrubbed from Stonewall National Monument’s website and conservation groups began sounding alarms about other potential changes to public lands.

A lot has changed for parks since then. However, unlike the recent introduction of new fees for foreign tourists at some of America's most popular parks and new public lands pass featuring Presidents Donald Trump and George Washington, some changes aren't always obvious to visitors.

"They just need to be more aware of what is happening to their beloved national parks," Bill Wade, executive director of the nonprofit Association of National Park Rangers, told USA TODAY.

Here are the three biggest systemic changes over the past year:

1. Representation in parks 

In recent years, national parks made a concerted effort to "find those stories that are less told or haven't been told yet, and to tell them fiercely," Biden-era National Park Service Director Chuck Sams, the first Native American in that role, told USA TODAY shortly before leaving office in Jan. 2025. "So over the last three-plus years, working all across the park system, we've been able to tell stories to ensure that every American sees a reflection of themselves in the parks."

On his first day in office, Trump issued several executive orders tackling federal diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, then later, how America portrays its own history. The former called DEI programs "illegal and immoral," while the the latter specifically directed the Interior secretary to "ensure that all public monuments, memorials, statues, markers, or similar properties within the Department of the Interior’s jurisdiction do not contain descriptions, depictions, or other content that inappropriately disparage Americans past or living ... and instead focus on the greatness of the achievements and progress of the American people or, with respect to natural features, the beauty, abundance, and grandeur of the American landscape."

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum followed suit with department-level orders aimed at "ending DEI programs and gender ideology extremism" and "restoring truth and sanity to American history."

As parks took action, some, like Cuyahoga Valley National Park in Ohio, asked visitors to report signs that may be negative about Americans.

This January, visitors at Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia recorded video of signage about enslaved people being removed from President George Washington’s house. More recently, volunteers reported that a pride flag was removed from the Stonewall monument in New York City. The Washington Post also reported on plans to remove signage on Native American history and climate change in parks like the Grand Canyon, sparking pushback from tribal members. Wade said many parks have been asked to remove signs, videos and website information.

The Interior Department told USA TODAY in January: "The President has directed federal agencies to review interpretive materials to ensure accuracy, honesty, and alignment with shared national values. Following completion of the required review, the National Park Service is now taking action to remove or revise interpretive materials in accordance with the Order."

However, Kristen Brengel, senior vice president of Government Affairs for the nonprofit National Parks Conservation Association, told USA TODAY, "It is absolutely an effort to sanitize our history, and it's absolutely an effort to minimize some of the tragic moments of our history and just completely erase it from our parks." The association says its mission is to protect and preserve parks "on the ground, in the courtroom or on Capitol Hill."

"Some of those events that occurred in the history of this country ... we probably are not very proud of these days and shouldn't be proud of, but they are part of history," said Wade, who spent his career serving in parks before retiring as superintendent of Shenandoah National Park in Virginia. The Association of National Park Rangers is comprised of current and past park staff, volunteers and supporters.

When asked about interpretative changes and how the Park Service decides what to remove, the Office of the Secretary of the Interior told USA TODAY: "The National Park Service is continuing to operate under existing law, policy, and Department of the Interior direction, and we reject the premise that there has been a systemwide effort to remove history, limit science, or politicize park operations." The office added that there’s no centralized directive to purge interpretative content and no change to the sites’ core mission.

2. Staffing cuts

The National Park Service’s mission, according to its website, is to conserve the system’s natural and cultural resources for current and future generations.

However, there are fewer people to carry out the mission these days. Over the past year, the National Park Service lost about 25% of its full-time staffers, according to the National Parks Conservation Association and Association of National Park Rangers.

"That is due to both firing and people being encouraged to take a resignation or people retiring and just trying to get out before they might get fired," Brengel said, adding that more staffing reductions may still be to come.

Wade noted many who’ve left were senior leaders and specialized scientists working on issues that don’t just affect the parks, like water quality and air quality. He and Brengel pointed to long-standing research being paused and other park projects being shelved.

Brengel also flagged visitor-facing concerns, like potential vandalism and poaching.

"All of these activities that we've been preventing for over 100 years, they start to happen again because people know there aren't enough staff out there," she said.

The Office of the Secretary of the Interior told USA TODAY it does not "confirm third-party staffing claims or speculate on hypothetical impacts, and continues to manage its workforce, research, and visitor services to keep parks open, safe, and accessible."

Burgum issued a secretarial orderlast April"ensuring national parks are open and accessible" and that the National Park Service would "provide the best customer service experience for all visitors."

Both Brengel and Wade lauded National Park Service staff for their continued commitment even while losing colleagues and taking on extra duties, at times. "The National Park Service staff are still very passionate about doing the best job that they can for the American public," Wade said.

3. Managing the land

There are 433 units in the National Park System, including 87 national monuments.

National monuments have drawn particular attention across recent administrations. They're unique because presidents may establish them on existing federal lands or waters at their discretion, under the Antiquities Act of 1906.

"No congressional approval needed. Just boom, here's a national monument – so long as it is designed to protect natural, historic, or scientific features," said J.B. Ruhl, the David Daniels Allen Distinguished Chair in Law at Vanderbilt Law School. Ruhl specializes in environmental and natural resources law and likened the proclamations to an executive order or presidential memorandum.

Once established, national monuments may be managed by one or more Interior agencies, including but not limited to the National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, or BLM, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

During his first presidential term, Trump shrank the size of two BLM-managed national monuments in Utah: Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Esclante. At the time, Trump said local communities know best how to care for their land and accused prior administrations of abusing the Antiquities Act to lock up resources from local communities, placing "harmful unnecessary restrictions on hunting, ranching and responsible economic development."

Former President Joe Biden then reversed Trump’s changes in 2021, but Grand Staircase-Escalante remains contested and concerns have grown for other national monuments, after executive and secretarial orders encouraging "energy exploration and production on Federal lands and waters."

In May, a Department of Justice legal opinion found that presidents have the power to revoke or reduce the size of national monuments established by past presidents under the Antiquities Act.

The National Parks Conservation Association previously shared a list of potential targets, including some within the National Park System.

"I absolutely believe national monuments are still threatened," Brengel said. "What we're hearing is that they're trying to figure out monuments that are legally vulnerable ... The administration is continuing to push for energy development and so we are making an assumption that they are going to specifically target places where they think they can develop fossil fuels or some kind of mining."

Even if national monuments are spared, she and Wade noted many national parks are bordered by other types of public land and could still be impacted.

"If you have mining activity right on the border of a national park unit, you're going to affect the water quality going into that national park unit. You're going to affect wildlife habitat," Brengel said.

Protected lands could also be opened up to other types of activities. This January, Burgum issued a secretarial order directing Interior agencies to reduce barriers and expand access to hunting and fishing, "where compatible with law, refuge purposes, park enabling statutes, reclamation area requirements, safety, and conservation needs."

Contributing: Phaedra Trethan and Dinah Voyles Pulver