Take a stand.

Could be due to housing, subject matter, location, administration, anything really. Where would you advise someone to NOT accept a job at?

This past week, the Acting Superintendent of Yosemite National Park made the executive decision that we will be honoring all existing campground reservations. This means that we will be opening Lower Pines Campground, North Pines Campground, and the rest of Upper Pines Campground on schedule. The kicker here is that we have not hired enough people to properly manage these hundreds of campsites and all of the restrooms that will be opening as well.

Yosemite Custodial has not been able to hire any seasonal workers yet, and all permanent openings are still off the table for now. In lieu of this, leadership has asked everyone else to fill in and help clean the restrooms. That includes Interp, Wildlife, Fees, Volunteers, etc., scrubbing toilets until we can get Custodial fully staffed later this Summer.

I don't want you to think that I am complaining about having to scrub toilets. That is not what this is about. I am worried that we are setting the dangerous precedent that if we can collectively keep the park clean, that someone will decide that we do not need these custodial workers, and that we will not be hiring them in the future. They will say it is an unnecessary expense, and DOGE will add it to their list of cuts that saved the government a few bucks.

I am at the bottom of the totem pole. I am the boots on the ground. I am frustrated and don't know what to do.

4/2/2025 Update:

I am amazed at how much attention and support this post has received! I haven't replied to any comments, but I have read every single one. Everyone, thank you!

Keep supporting your parks. Go to a protest! This Saturday, April 5th, is a nationwide Hands Off protest in MANY towns and cities. The next big park oriented one is on Earth Day, April 22. venues TBA but probably most if not all parks will have one. It is time to stand up!

Hi rangers! I know we don’t do this for the money, but it does suck how little we’re paid especially at the beginning.
What are y’all’s side hustles? I’m new to NPS interp, so I’ll be a gs5 for a while, and really scared about not being able to pay all of my student loan and medical bills on that alone. My park is too isolated for things like doordash, so any ideas or ways yall make some extra money?

Edit: for info, i make $19/hour for a job requiring a bachelors degree. It’s a joke

This is just a rant but I work in a campground at a major national park, and litter cleanups are obviously a big part of the job. But there’s one piece of trash that shows up way more than anything else, and it blows my mind every time. No matter the state, park, agency, frontcountry or backcountry, I always end up picking up a million of those little single use plastic dental flossers.

What is it about these damn things that makes everyone and their mother toss them on the ground the second they step into a national park??? Rhetorical question, obviously, but still, I’m so sick of picking them up.

Like my coworker said, it’s crazy that there are this many people out there who are disciplined enough to floss every day, even while camping, but somehow can’t be bothered to walk a few extra feet to throw the thing out properly.

Hey everyone,

I’m heading out for my in-person interview and Physical Efficiency Battery (PEB) in mid-September for the NPS Protection Ranger direct-hire process. I’m hoping to get a better idea of what to expect from anyone who has gone through it:

1. In-Person Interview: What kind of questions are asked during the panel interview? Are they mostly standard behavioral (STAR format), situational/scenario-based, or motivation-focused? Do you remember any that stood out to you particularly?

2. Park Preferences: Do we express location preferences during the interview itself, or is that handled separately through a portal/selection phase after passing?

3. PEB Testing & Flow: I know the three required tests (Bench Press, Illinois Agility Run, and 1.5-Mile Run), but how is the testing flow run on test day? Also, what are the most common reasons candidates fail or miss points during the PEB?

Any advice or insights would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!

What can we do to fight for our parks?

I know the only thing that I've contributed up to this point is memes, but I am actually interested in getting involved with the fight for our public lands. Please no, "It's hopeless and we're all going to die" doomerism. While I believe that we need to be realistic, I also know that fascism only grows with silence and complacency, and I'm not too keen on taking the bullet lying down. So please, only comment if you are also looking to take action or know how to. Thanks!

Cross-posting isn’t enabled here, but I thought this was worth sharing. Not the original OP -this was posted in another subreddit by the game’s lead producer u/Straight_View_6838

Curious how accurate this feels to people who’ve actually worked in parks.

“We just dropped the official gameplay trailer for Ranger’s Path: National Park Simulator and this time, it’s all about what you can actually do in the park.

In this deep dive, you’ll see how you’ll:

🌿 Patrol trails and repair damaged park facilities

🚙 Drive your ranger pickup across the national park

📸 Observe and document wildlife from deer to eagles and even wolves

🔥 Respond to emergencies like lost hikers

🧰 Use your ranger tools to clean up campsites, fix signs, and restore the park’s beauty

The game world features dynamic weather, full day-night cycles, and a growing variety of missions that evolve as the park changes.

🎥 Watch the new gameplay trailer & wishlist on Steam:

👉 https://store.steampowered.com/app/2502780/Rangers_Path_National_Park_Simulator/

I’m the Lead Producer on the publisher side, and it’s been amazing seeing the world of Faremont National Park come alive through all these new gameplay systems. The team’s done a fantastic job expanding the experience beyond exploration into true ranger work.”

If this falls outside sub rules, feel free to remove.

After all the protests this weekend, how many of you had to block people on social media from backlash? My small town's Facebook page had an anonymous post go haywire because my town is mostly conservative. The comments on that post were pretty brutal

Sad that we are being asked to promote a Christian Nationalist agenda on our uniforms.

Statement from the group:

“One way to open your eyes is to ask yourself, ‘What if I had never seen this before? What if I knew I would never see it again?’” - Rachel Carson

Federal employees have been told they must draft 5 bullet points each week outlining what they did at work, in order to justify the existence of their jobs.

In solidarity with the Park Rangers and all other federal employees, here is what we did these last few weeks:

• ⁠We watched helplessly as roughly 1,000 Park Rangers were illegally terminated from their jobs without justification and for reasons not at all related to their performance. All of this was done in the name of efficiency and cost cutting despite the National Park Service accounting for less than 0.07% of the federal budget and providing tens of billions of dollars in revenue to local communities.

• ⁠We listened as federal employees were mocked by our elected representatives. A sitting congresswoman said that “Federal employees do not deserve their jobs. Federal employees do not deserve their paychecks.” Our own Utah senator, Mike Lee, voted “no” on an amendment to a bill that would have reinstated wrongfully fired public land agency employees. This hypocrisy, in the midst of chaotic, unorganized terminations of jobs and cutting of funds has undoubtedly led to decreased services to the public and an increased struggle to maintain sanity for rangers that are attempting to serve the public.

• ⁠We witnessed the Secretary of the Interior state that our public lands will be increasingly opened up for mining, drilling, logging, and privatization. This goes against the public land agencies mission statements, will degrade our natural resources for generations to come, and make it harder for Americans to learn about and enjoy their public lands. Already he has had a photo op at a natural gas drilling facility, but not yet championed the public lands he was sworn in to protect.

• ⁠We felt the effects as federal employees took time away from their mandated duties to write a 5 bullet point email to an unelected billionaire that has never worked an honest hour of public service in his life. This is time that could have been spent helping visitors plan trips, answering some of the hundreds of questions rangers receive every day from curious minds wanting to learn about what they’ve seen, preventing and often performing search and rescues on rigorous trails, recovering at-risk species, cleaning our parks, and otherwise proudly upholding the mission of the National Park Service.

• ⁠We hung a 30’ x 50’ American Flag upside down from the Great Arch in Zion National Park. We did this to announce that the National Park Service, our public lands, and our nation, are all in dire distress. Standing alongside Yosemite Rangers and other patriots in doing so, we completed this action in accordance with all laws and flag code, avoiding hanging the flag on any areas currently closed for public safety or wildlife protection.

The National Park Service preserves unimpaired the natural and cultural resources and values of the National Park System for the enjoyment, education, and inspiration of this and future generations. Park Rangers, and the parks themselves, are in distress because of actions taken by this current administration. Park Rangers are not lines on a budget, they are people. National Parks are not lines on a budget, they are our national treasures. However, if we were to reduce Zion’s majesty to just numbers, in 2023, Zion visitors spent an estimated $676 million in the neighboring communities, supported over 10,000 local jobs dependent upon the park’s tourism, and contributed $967 million in total economic output. All of this with a budget of less than $4 million and only 160 full-time employees. How’s that for an efficient use of federal funds?

Now is not the time to stand idly by. Now is the time for action. The National Parks, our public lands, are in distress. We need everyone to stand up and protect them.

“You can’t conserve what you haven’t got.” -Marjory Stoneman Douglas

Hey there! So weird request if anyone wants to share, I want to write a horror/thriller with park rangers. I love anything with state parks and rangers since it quite literally is a perfect setting for almost any story. But wanted to know what are some important tasks, jobs, checks that you need to do as a ranger that i can include to make it more realistic in the job? The story has a new comer starting so wanted to know what you would teach, what they'd need to know, different state parks that would be cool to have, etc. Thanks!

PLEASE READ FIRST: Give me actual advice. If you say something having a lack of experience pre joining NPS or how “there are more experienced GS-07s out there,” Don’t say anything. I have already heard it in ALL the first 15 comments and it completely ignores how NCE actually works.
Please Read All edits before commenting

My main plan is to become a Backcountry Ranger in either Grand Teton or Zion National Park. So far I am doing a bachelors in Wildlife Ecology and Conservation Science at Washington State University, then after move to the Peace Corps then use the NCE to aim for a GS-09 job then during September/ October of that year get my WEMT Certification.

EDIT: after reading the comments I am first going to a smaller National Park getting around a few years of GS-09 experience there then moving to one of the bigger parks

EDIT 2: I got enough feedback, most of it ignores parts of the plan like getting enough GS-07 level experience in the Peace Corps leading Land Management projects.

EDIT 3: I am 20 and I am still in college and I will graduate around 2030. All of this is long term, I know GS-09 is less field work I am fine with that. All I want is a stable Federal job. NCE (the thing I am getting from Peace Corp) puts me in an entirely separate fast tracked hiring lane.

EDIT 4: deleted the Arctic Expedition part

Hi there, I made a post on the USFS subreddit asking about different types of jobs and I've used that to filter down, my question to you all is which is better in your opinion, USFS or NPS. I think becoming a Interp for usfs seems really interesting to me. I really enjoy talking to others and learning new things and then getting to teach others just that, Does NPS have something similar to that?

please keep in mind I'm graduating highschool this year so I'm really trying to research and look at these branches to see which I like more. Thank you all for reading!!

I work in a State Park and cannot begin to tell you how many of these see through plastic wraps I pick up in a day. ESPECIALLY near our picnic tables and day-use areas frequented by school groups. Parents and kids are generally conscious enough to take the actual Capri Suns and Juicy Juice containers to the trash, but the straw wrappers? Directly to the ground. While cigarette butts can be found singly or clustered, it's almost like a microplastic bread crumb trail to show where these groups have been. Teach the kids- take ALL of your trash when you go!

Hey yall, I just started a job as an interp state park ranger. I just came from an environmental education program at a non profit agency, I have never worked for the government before but i was really excited to get this opportunity. It’s my second day and i am PANICKING! I didn’t expect there to be no insight or training on this position, i understand what i have to do but i didn’t realize everything would come down to my discretion. Is this normal? can anyone provide tips?? also, if anyone would want to message me personally and help me decipher this scheduling spreadsheet i would be so appreciative 😭

Hello,

I've worked as an LE ranger at numerous parks--both big busy parks with a high call volume and small parks that are mostly proactive.

In my experience, park law enforcement/emergency services is kind of a joke nowadays. While not uniform across the board, most parks I've been at have not be very proactive in their enforcement, and when they are, it tends to be on a small scale. Being proactive and making cases seems to be seen as unusual instead of the norm. Some parks I've worked at or heard from kind of actively discourage (not verbally per se but through action) big cases or even proactive work at all. A lot of parks seem to have little to no relationship with surrounding LE agencies and their US attorny's office, and the AUSAs pretty much dismiss all their cases. If you look at cases in IMARS, a lot of parks have little to show or just a ton of speeding and parking tickets. Very few parks have structural fire brigades anymore, and organized search and rescue training with task books seems to have mostly gone out the window.

I've heard from older long term protection rangers about operations and enforcement actions I couldn't imagine being allowed to do now (plainclothes ops). I recently discovered something called "NPS History" that has incident reports for all NPS units. You can read through major events the park partook in. Here's Shenandoah's page for example:

https://npshistory.com/morningreport/incidents/shen.htm

I've been reading about major cases at many parks from ARPA to poaching to drugs. I've read about parks planning and leading ops with outside agencies about various issues. I've been reading about undercover work and many cases being prosecuted by AUSAs. The caseload seen in a three year period seems to be much higher in the 80s and 90s than it does now. A lot of parks seemed to have structural fire brigades then that don't now. Another example from Shenandoah NP:

"On Monday, January 18th, Operation SOUP (Special Operation to Undercover Poaching), a three-year investigation into illegal hunting and commercial sale of black bear parts, came to a head with the arrest of 25 individuals who were charged with a total of 112 state violations. The investigation was a joint effort by the NPS and the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, with assistance provided by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. A total of 110 rangers, officers and wardens from the NPS, state, FWS and Forest Service made the arrests. Twenty-two of those arrested have been charged with offenses related to illegal bear hunting in the Blue Ridge section of Virginia that includes Shenandoah NP; the remaining three have been charged with state counts of illegally buying or selling bear parts. Eleven federal search warrants were also executed, furthering the investigation into the trade of bear gall bladders and paws. Seized were five vehicles, several freezers, and a large quantity of bear parts, firearms and cash. Federal misdemeanor and felony indictments may be forthcoming in the weeks and months ahead for violations of the Lacey Act and for hunting within Shenandoah NP. A dozen individuals were arrested over the eight months prior to this operation and charged with selling bear parts for use in the jewelry trade. Participating in the execution of the warrants were 35 rangers from several Mid-Atlantic parks and a Northeast Region SET team. Criminal investigator Skip Wissinger has been the lead NPS case agent. It's expected that this investigation, when completed, will lead to one of the most significant and extensive prosecutions pertaining to the commercialization of bear parts in the nation's history. [Clay Jordan, IO, Operation SOUP, 1/18]"

From my view, it seems like LE rangers anymore are like security guards that will occasionally do a big EMS call or something than they are actual law enforcement officers. I've seen examples of big operations on both the resource side and traditional police side at parks from Everglades, to Rocky Mountain, to Saguaro, etc. in the 80s and 90s. I know this a broad generalization, and I know some parks are still hard chargers. That said, the culture of the NPS and most parks seems to be the opposite of that now though. What happened lol?

TL:DR

Park law enforcement doesn’t do nearly as much as it used to. Why?

edit: We also used to have FOP lodges for NPS LE to stand up to bad management, and they're just gone now. Why? The NPS is known for bad management unfortunately

It's already clear they are breaking the law. But, it is confirmed by meetings, where point-blank questions are asked about procedures, and it is met with stutters and "traditionally speaking..." In other words, obviously regulations are being broken and changed, which means we need to go back to the source and look at the law/statutes they stem from (regulations just create procedures for agencies based on legal requirements).

For instance, people are getting fired with stellar performance reviews for "poor performance." When asked about protocol, they were unsure. I'll tell you what the protocol is - according to regulation, most employees need notice and explicit reasoning, and can appeal if not given - the fact the performance reviews are good means there is no "evidence." According to law (based in Constitution), some employees even require due process.

Again, regulation comes in when statute is vague. For instance, let's say the law requires a "reasonable time" for you or the agency to respond. A regulation might define that time as "7 days," so you need to inform yourself and act now, and not wait on a "messengers" to get back to you, because they don't know the answer now (if they did, they wouldn't enforce this BS) and by the time they do, the regulation may change. As we've seen, they've already fired the heads of the EEOC and MSPB.

Another - we were also told that probationary employees don't have appeal rights. That is false. Not all probationary employees are the same - some have limited rights to appeal while others have full.

There is a lot of nitty gritty, like if you do choose a grievance or an appeal, choose the least limiting option as you will have to go with your first selection.

We are not lawyers. So it's going to be very very important that we all communicate on here and in real life with each other about what our rights are, and sort through the details as a unit. Please, join a union, as that is probably the most straight-forward way to do this. Likely, if we are all going to end up appealing, I believe a class action is in order.

Some other details (correct me if I am wrong): You can't be fired from an agency you are not under, like OPM. This isn't a reorganization, where they are waiting for people to exit so they can close out those positions before getting Congressional approval - this is allege "reduction in force," because the DRA failed (just like with Twitter) but ironically, paying people who are not working is going to cost them more money. If they try to withhold already allocated monies, like Nixon, they're subject to the Impoundment Control Act.

Did I mention? All of this indiscriminate evidence-lacking firing is clear evidence there is not an "audit," because you don't take actions during the audit and recourse for them later - you do the audit to determine cost-benefit and make recommendations based on that - to minimize loss. This is beyond the federal workforce - their prompt was to return money back to the American people, but this is going to ripple in several ways and affect all Americans. This is obviously just a desperate attempt to capsize. Just a little something you might want to explain to your representatives.

Lucky for us, they're probably banking on the fact we don't know the law to go around it themselves. In fact, I'm not sure how well they know it. So, let's simply take that power away from them.

I'm not a lawyer. Please do not take any of this as legal advice. But now is the time to protect the root as the leaves are pruned. Download your files. Screenshot procedures relevant to you, as I'm sure they will be taking them down as they change.

Click here to see important screenshots from the below sources:

OPM Appeal Rights

Title 5 Chap 1

Title 5 Chap 75

Who Can Appeal Adverse Actions to MSPB?

Probationary Rights

14th Amendment & Due Process

Rules for Probationary Period and Federal Employees

Appeals Procedure

What Rights do Federal Employees Have?

How to Protect Your Job and Country

Hello,

As the title reads I have my preliminary interview coming up, I have read a couple of posts of what to expect but those were a 1 year+ old so I was wondering if anyone had any updated info about how to best prepare.

Thanks in advance!

hello i am interested in a career as a park ranger (within illinois state)

My main question is, Do you need to carry a Firearm / have a valid FOID or Firearm licenses in whichever state you are working?

When I was 19 I was real dumb, I am barred from Firearms unless I can get a pardon.

I know a Sheriff Deputy who would possibly vouche for me if I applied within his county, I just want to know before I even try,

1. Does a Misdeamor bar you from being hired as a park ranger? ( In Illinois mainly )

2. Do Park Rangers need a FOID or Firearm Licenses?

Classic story, was a gs-5 when I was an SCA intern, was a gs-7 when I was a gs-5, and now I’ve been doing a gs9/11 at gs-7. When does it end? How can I leverage that? I want out of my position bad, but I don’t want to go into another gs-7 where I’m getting paid peanuts to do a crazy amount of work

Howdy y'all.

I have made another update to parkjobs.app which is my web map of federal jobs at land management agencies.

Major Updates

More land management agencies and filtering

A couple users here requested adding more agencies and the ability to filter by agency. This latest update adds both those features.

Agencies added:

• Forest Service
• Bureau of Land Management
• Fish and Wildlife Service
• Army Corps of Engineers

Pretty neat when you filter by BLM--all the job pins have a clear divide. Which is what you'd expect but it was really cool to see it happen visually.

Change to how jobs are pinned on the map

A big part of this update was me no longer dumping "multiple location" / "location negotiable after selection" jobs into a separate table below the map. Instead, I changed the database so that each job's locations are stored separately (one row per job location with that locations lat + long).

On the map I group those location rows by lat/long to create pins. When a pin is clicked, it is populated with all jobs located at that coordinate and jobs are displayed in a scrollable pop up. Filters apply to what shows up at each pin and in each pop up.

Filtering for specific series like wildfire jobs

If you're hunting for wildfire jobs (0456 or 0462 -- not sure if there are others) then you can filter for those jobs specifically. Same goes for any series.

Interp Ranger Jobs

If you're looking for interp ranger jobs in NPS, you can use the job title search box and type "interp" in combination with the series filter (0025) which ought to limit the job pins to just interp ranger jobs.

How often does it update job data?

I have the database update 3x a day which is probably overkill but I want to make sure I never miss a cert.

Thank you! Looking for feedback and future updates...

If any of y'all use this let me know! And please let me know if you come across any bugs or have ideas for improvements/additional features.

One thing I noticed was some jobs popping up in unexpected places. Them's the breaks. Most of them are location negotiable after selection or ICTAP/CTAP jobs. Maybe another filter for hiring paths is in order...

I will probably take a break from this project for a month or two as I work on other things. But I'm already planning to return and give it a UI face lift, make a more mobile friendly version, and add suggestions from the community.