Worried about unexpected vet bills?
Pet insurance can cover thousands in unexpected vet costs. Get a free quote from Lemonade in under 2 minutes.
Get My Free Quote →Sponsored · Opens Lemonade.com
When the U.S. government formally shut down on October 1, 2025, President Trump’s administration made a provocative decision: keep the nation’s parks largely open, even as thousands of National Park Service employees are furloughed. On paper, the move is a gesture to avoid visitor frustration and maintain tourism revenue. In practice, conservation advocates warn it amounts to turning America’s most fragile public lands into unsupervised playgrounds, ripe for encroachment and vandalism. As critics ask whether this is a tactical strategy to weaken environmental oversight, history offers a cautionary tale from the 2018–2019 shutdown — when leaving parks accessible with minimal staffing led to widespread degradation of natural and cultural resources.
The 2025 Shutdown and the Plan to “Open the Gates and Walk Away”
Under the 2025 lapse-in-funding, the Interior Department and National Park Service have adopted a contingency plan that aims to keep “roads, lookouts, trails, and open-air memorials” accessible to the public, while shutting visitor centers, museums, and indoor facilities.
Only a skeleton crew of essential personnel — mostly law enforcement, emergency responders, and minimal maintenance — remain on duty, while about 9,300 of 14,500 NPS employees are furloughed.
Yet critics argue the plan is inherently flawed: directing staff to open gates and depart amounts to “walk away and hope for the best.” As Theresa Pierno of the National Parks Conservation Association put it, “the administration is once again putting our national parks and visitors at risk, effectively directing staff to open park gates and walk away … It’s not just irresponsible, it’s dangerous.”
Conservation voices warn that with minimal oversight, the parks face unchecked visitation, illegal activity, trash accumulation, and habitat disturbance.
Because only parks that generate recreation fees may sustain some minimal operations during the shutdown, more remote or lower-revenue sites may receive zero maintenance or staffing. In effect, parks without robust fee revenue will be effectively open but unmanaged.
Historical Precedent: What Went Wrong in the 2018–2019 Shutdown
The Trump administration’s previous strategy during the 35-day 2018–2019 shutdown offers a grim precedent. Though parks remained open in many sectors, lack of staff and enforcement led to documented damage across multiple sites.
Among the adverse outcomes:
- In Joshua Tree National Park, vandals cut down Joshua trees, trespassed into closed areas, carved unauthorized roads, and created illegal campsites.
- In Death Valley and other fragile desert environments, visitors drove off-road across dry lake beds and cryptobiotic surfaces, leaving long-lasting scars on the ecosystem.
- Some park units had to close mid-shutdown because of overflowing human waste, overflowing trash, health concerns, and lack of restroom maintenance.
- Cultural sites were vandalized: petroglyphs at Big Bend were defaced.
- Some trails became unusable, access roads degraded, and visitor safety incidents went unmonitored for days.
- The Government Accountability Office later determined that using park recreation fees to prop up services during the shutdown violated appropriations law.
- In total, many parks require months or years of recovery; in Joshua Tree, authorities warned that restoration could take centuries.
- The 2018–2019 experience remains a vivid warning about leaving parks open without adequate protection.
Risks, Critics, and the Path Forward
Without staff on site, delicate ecosystems become vulnerable. Soil crusts, endemic plants, wildlife habitats, and archaeological features lack active protection. Illegal vehicle incursions, off-road driving, unauthorized trails, and human waste accumulation can have long-term or irreversible consequences.
Veteran park superintendents and conservation organizations warn that running the parks in “zombie mode” may lead to a de facto weakening of resource protections.
Legal, Governance, and Funding Questions
The plan adopted echoes prior controversies over using recreation fee funds during shutdowns — a move the GAO deemed illegal in prior years.
Critics argue the administration is pursuing a strategy that undermines environmental regulation under cover of a funding lapse.
Moreover, because oversight and law enforcement will be minimal, the burden of enforcement could fall to outside parties or states. Some states with major parks had in previous shutdowns chipped in funding to keep operations going — though NPS’s contingency plan says it will not reimburse such contributions.
Public Safety and Reputation Risks
Visitors entering parks expect basic services: functioning restrooms, emergency response, maps, signage, ranger guidance. In this scenario, many of these services are unavailable. Accidents or misadventure may have delayed response.
From a political perspective, any incidents or damages may erode credibility. The administration risks being blamed both for a shutdown and for its chosen approach to handling parks.
Alternatives and Safeguards
Given the dangers, many conservation voices, including 40 former park superintendents, are appealing for full park closures until funding is restored.
Others propose hybrid models — for example, selective closures of ecologically sensitive zones, or reliance on state, tribal, or nonprofit partners for oversight and cleanup.
In the short term, monitoring agencies, watchdog groups, and local stakeholders will need to watch for signs of deterioration, trespass, and vandalism — and act swiftly. The longer the shutdown continues, the greater the risk that irreparable damage will occur.
As of now, the Trump administration’s decision to keep national parks open amid a budget lapse is generating fierce debate. The question is not only whether Americans may lose access to services, but whether we risk losing the parks themselves — or at least inflicting scars on them that will take years or decades to heal.
Worried about unexpected vet bills?
Pet insurance can cover thousands in unexpected vet costs. Get a free quote from Lemonade in under 2 minutes.
Get My Free Quote →Sponsored · Opens Lemonade.com
