U.P. Forests and Parks Hit by Federal Budget Cuts and Layoffs

National Park stewards, wildlife biologists, and Forest Service representatives raise alarm over DOGE-mandated cuts

By Ren Brabenec | May 17, 2025

Most Michiganders have a favorite seven-word phrase, and it goes something like this: “I’m heading Up North for the weekend.” If they could say that phrase 52 times per year, they would.

No matter where in the mitten our residents live, the consensus is that somewhere further north of where they are is always the best place to be, with the Upper Peninsula being the crown on Michigan’s brow. The U.P. is home to just 3 percent of the state’s population, yet it contains 29 percent of its total land area, arguably the most rural, wild, and beautiful landscapes in the Great Lakes State.

The U.P. is a favorite summer vacation destination, but following recent efforts to axe federal programs, funding, and staff, many are worried about what will await them when they cross the Mackinac Bridge this year.

National Parks in the U.P. Face New Challenges

“You want to be able to go to the visitor center and talk to a ranger who can tell you how to have the experience you’re hoping to have. You want to walk on trails that aren’t washed out, sleep in campgrounds that aren’t in disrepair, and have the peace of mind that there are rescue teams nearby in the event of an emergency.”

That’s from Tim Koenning, the Midwest Field Representative for the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA). Founded in 1919 by the first director of the National Park Service (NPS), the NPCA advocates for the nation’s most iconic places.

Koenning describes how, despite the U.P.’s low population density, the region’s parks are the equivalent of economic gold mines for the communities that thrive in the far north. At Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, the City of Munising and other gateway communities benefit from the 900,000 people visiting the Lakeshore annually and the $45.8 million in tourism revenue they generate.

At Isle Royale National Park, 30,000 visitors generate at least $12 million annually. Koenning notes that because Isle Royale records more return visitors than any other park, many of its gateway communities thrive on excited travelers who return to experience the island again and again.

But then Koenning tells us it’s time for the bad news.

“We can confirm that, nationwide, there are as many as 100 superintendent vacancies across the NPS, meaning about one-fourth of all parks managed by the Park Service are operating without leadership,” he says.

Superintendents are one of the most valuable human resources within a park. They’re usually NPS veterans who’ve dedicated their lives to managing biologically and culturally significant sites. They’ve learned more about the sites than anyone else and developed essential relationships with gateway communities, wildlife biologists, conservationists, park supporters, recreational visitors, lawmakers, Indigenous tribes, and other stakeholders.

“The superintendents were forced into retirement, given a painful fork-in-the-road choice, or they simply left under duress,” Koenning continues. “And given the federal hiring freeze that’s now been extended into the middle of July, we expect at least 100 national park sites to be without superintendents during the busy season.”

Koenning brings the discussion back to the U.P. “We can also confirm that there are critical staff vacancies at Isle Royale and Pictured Rocks,” he said. “It’s not an exaggeration to say we’re seeing the dismantling of the Park Service.”

Intent on leaving things on a brighter note, Koenning says the NPCA is encouraging residents to contact their Congressional representatives and ask them to pressure Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to lift hiring freezes, reverse the Trump administration’s planned dismantling of park protections for resource extraction, and to hand control of the federal government’s 640 million acres of public lands back to the experts who’ve spent their lives managing them.

“They’re more than just landscapes,” Koenning concludes. “The parks are living, breathing stories that shape the broader narrative of our national identity. However, it takes funding and human resources to keep these places alive. If we don’t protect the parks today and everyday, we might lose essential chapters in the American story.”

Wildlife Biologists Voice Questions Over Interruptions in Scientific Research

It isn’t an exaggeration to say that the wolves and moose of Isle Royale National Park are world-famous. Wildlife biologists have studied the animals since 1958, making the island the site of the longest ongoing predator-prey study in the world.

Rolf and Carolyn Peterson have been running the Wolf-Moose Project since the early 1970s. The married couple spends every summer in a rustic cabin on the island so that they may immerse themselves in the island’s living laboratory. It’s no vacation, but they’ll tell you it feels like one.

“The purpose of this project is to better understand the ecology of predation and what that knowledge can teach us about our relationship with nature,” says Rolf. “Much of what we have learned is associated with having been patient enough to observe and study the fluctuations in wolf and moose abundances. As predator and prey, the lives and deaths of wolves and moose are linked in a drama that is timeless and historic. Historic because we have been documenting them for more than six decades. Timeless because we still have so much more to learn.”

Carolyn Peterson agrees. “The project is a powerful reminder that America’s public lands serve many purposes, including as laboratories for scientists to learn about the nature of the world we all occupy,” she says. “Without funding from research grants and without logistic support from the Park Service, both of which are currently threatened, our research would not be possible.”

The Petersons express grave concern about the future of their research. Though their work is separate from Park Service operations, Rolf says his team is nearing the end of their current five-year federal grant from the National Science Foundation. Will they get a renewal on their grant? Rolf doesn’t know.

Then there’s the logistics of running a delicate scientific operation on a remote island located in the northwest corner of one of the most unforgiving lakes in the world. Rolf explains that his team experienced a major scare earlier this year when federal cuts threatened the transportation vessel the Petersons use to bring their research equipment to and from the island.

Rolf was referring to an MLive article from April that announced the engineer and assistant engineer of Isle Royale’s main ferry, Ranger III, had retired under a buyout program offered by the Trump Administration ahead of the island’s opening, effectively rendering the vessel inoperable due to insufficient crew. A retired Isle Royale superintendent interviewed for the article explained that, if the Ranger III could not operate, Isle Royale could not be functionally open for that season.

The National Park Service has since put out a statement saying it did not anticipate disruptions to the ferry’s passenger season, but they did not say whether the agency had hired replacement engineers. Per a May 1 National Parks Traveler article, park spokesperson Elizabeth Valencia confirmed the ferry would make its first trip on May 27.

Layoffs in Hiawatha National Forest Rouse Concerns Over Fire Management

Fourteen employees at the U.P.’s Hiawatha National Forest were fired in February as part of the federal workforce reduction efforts. Spanning 894,836 acres and boasting protected shoreline on Lakes Superior, Michigan, and Huron, the forest comprises about one-tenth of the Upper Peninsula’s total land area, making management a daunting task even with a full employee complement.

A rehiring order was issued in March by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (which manages the Forest Service), but the order is only temporary while a Merit Systems Protection Board investigates the legality of the terminations and the effects such terminations will have on the economic and ecological benefits of Hiawatha and other U.P. forests.

Andy Vanderheuel, president of the Forest Service Council of the National Federation of Federal Employees, a union for Forest Service employees, is concerned about forest fire risks posed by understaffing.

According to Vanderheuel, the Trump Administration had said it hadn’t terminated any firefighters, but that wasn’t true. “In fact, they did, because the way the Forest Service works is you could be a timber marker or a biologist and then take the fire training and help firefighters during a fire,” Vanderheuel tells us. “We rely on them a lot.”

While the federal government does not record specific figures on the local economic contributions of national forests, the broader Midwest region of national forests generates about $122 billion annually in timber production and recreation. From an environmental perspective, Hiawatha National Forest provides clean air, clean water, forage for livestock, habitat for wildlife, and is a major carbon sink.

Campfires are allowed in designated areas of most National Forests, Parks, and Lakeshores—with some restrictions and occasional bans due to weather, conditions, or other issues—but this year, many outdoors enthusiasts are cautioning visitors to avoid fires whenever possible to mitigate the risks of a wildfire spreading…and not having enough staff to put it out. Always check a park’s website to learn about their campfire policies and best practices.

What Comes Next?

Last year was an all-time high for national park visitation, with 331,863,358 visits recorded across the NPS’s 433 sites. Meanwhile, outdoors journalist Wes Siler reported early in May that “DOGE is preparing a ‘reduction in force’ for the National Park Service that would remove a further 1,500 full-time members of that agency’s workforce. That would take total workforce losses to approximately 5,000, or one-quarter of all NPS staff.”

Visitation isn’t likely to go down in 2025, but with fewer employees (and fewer resources available to the employees who remain), what can visitors expect to encounter in the parks this year?

Truthfully, it’s almost impossible to know. We reached out to Park Service offices at various U.P. parks for comment, but they were hesitant to speak to the current situation. An anonymous spokesperson for the NPS came forward and gave a statement, speaking to how it has never been more important for park visitors to take care of themselves, stay safe, and do their part to protect the parks.

“Travelers visiting national parks this summer should do their due diligence by planning their trip. This means doing research about the park you’re looking to visit, understanding what passes or reservations you will need, creating a backup plan in case things don’t go as planned, packing the 10 essentials, and making sure you download the NPS App to access park information and maps while in the park. We want visitors to have safe and memorable trips to national parks, but we ask our visitors to prepare adequately for their trip and make good choices while in the parks.”

As we were preparing this story for press, the NPCA got their hands on a draft budget proposal from the Trump Administration, and that proposal includes the single greatest budget slashing to the National Park Service in the agency’s 109-year history.

Tim Koenning shared his official statement from the NPCA:

“NPCA has calculated the Trump administration’s proposed budget cuts to the National Park Service budget could result in more than a 75 percent reduction to the National Park System. With 433 national park units across the country, that would essentially wipe out budgets and staffing for at least 350 national parks. The administration’s recently released budget proposal calls for a cut of more than $1 billion to the National Park Service, which includes a $900 million cut to the operations of our national parks, the largest proposed cut in the Park Service’s 109-year history. A list of targeted national parks will likely not be available until the president’s full budget comes out later this month. However, based on a review of the latest reliable budget data for each unit in the Park System, achieving a $900 million cut to operations would require eliminating funding for roughly 350 park sites—from the smallest to some of the largest.”

Photo by Ken Crane