DENVER (KDVR) — Hundreds peacefully protested the impacts to the National Park Service outside the Beaver Meadows Visitor Center at Rocky Mountain National Park on Saturday.
Some of the protestors hung upside-down American flags from Eagle Cliff, which is private property near the park.
An upside-down American flag has been a form of protest for decades, according to the Free Speech Center at Middle Tennessee State University. A similar act was reported at El Capitan in Yosemite National Park earlier this week, and on Friday, an upside-down American flag was also hung from the 2nd flatiron.
It’s far from the first protest regarding federal layoffs, which have been determined under Executive Order 14210: The Department of Government Efficiency ‘Workforce Optimization Initiative.” Local advocates with the National Parks Conservation Association told FOX31 on Friday that the NFS was given the green light to continue its seasonal hiring, but many positions were still eliminated at Colorado parks.
“It means shorter visitors hours, delayed openings, closed campgrounds, maintenance needs are going to pile up, trash will pile up. It’s going to be visceral,” said Tracy Coppola, the National Parks Conservation Association’s Colorado senior program manager.
Coppola also said that in 2023, gateway communities saw almost $800 million in spending from the approximately 7.3 million park visitors who come to Colorado.
It’s still unclear how many employees have been — or will be — fired. One group of nearly 500 outdoor-industry organizations said in a letter to Congress that between the Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, USDA Forest Service and the National Park Service, approximately 5,700 people have lost their jobs.
Saturday’s protests were organized across the nation by “Resistance Rangers,” a group of over 700 off-duty park rangers who were “illegally fired on 2/14, and seasonal rangers whose jobs were rescinded.”
“All of this support has brought tears to my eyes—and I know my fellow rangers are feeling the same way. It’s been scary and overwhelming to go into work everyday and not know if we can uphold our mission statement and protect public lands. The first time I’ve felt empowered again is when we asked people to show up in support, and not only did they, but they did it beyond our wildest imagination. Public lands are the heartbeat of what it means to be an American. To protect public lands is to stand up for who we are, and who we want to be,” an organizer of the group said in a provided statement.
Other protests found Saturday were not in-person: The sign board for the Dry Lake Trailhead parking lot at Buffalo Pass greeted snowmobilers with a number of “for sale” signs, and a central sign encouraging citizens to call their representatives and “Keep public lands public.”
Witnesses told Shannon Lukens, of Steamboat Radio, that U.S. Forest Service staff was there and saw the signs, which were gone before noon on Saturday.
