He then directed Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to determine whether gray wolves and Mexican wolves should lose federal protection under the Endangered Species Act. Without waiting for an answer, he also directed Burgum to support Congressional removal of gray wolves from the endangered species list.

Wildlife defenders noted that Trump’s directives were in part meant to distract the public from the impact of the President’s decision to ease tariffs on imported beef, making life harder for American ranchers. The truth is that killing wolves won’t do a thing to lower meat prices or help the industry, as according to USDA data, just 1% of cattle and sheep losses are attributed to wolves in states with wolf populations. 

Research also shows that killing wolves doesn’t prevent conflict. When conflicts do occur, there are tools like range riding, carcass removal, scare devices and other deterrents. Senators Adam Schiff, D-California, and Steve Daines, R-Montana, recently introduced the Human-Wildlife Conflict Reduction Act, which would help ranchers by assisting with such livestock-protection strategies.

Beyond dramatically overstating wolves’ impact on the cattle industry, it was particularly troubling to see an American president repeat the absurd claim that federal protections for wolves should be eliminated because they put people’s lives at risk — that “innocent people can get in bad shape.”

Such misleading statements not only have serious consequences for wolf conservation and recovery, they also do a disservice to those living in wolf country by stoking unnecessary fear. It is already legal to kill a wolf, even a federally endangered one, in defense of human life.

More importantly, wolves want little to do with people and generally avoid us. Like bears and cougars, they share spaces with us in rural communities and areas in which human development and wild spaces overlap, where they can be curious. They can also be territorial toward domestic dogs and can sometimes follow us at a distance until we’re away from their pups. Wolves can sometimes approach hunters imitating animal calls, too, not realizing what’s making the noise.

But wolves are simply not out to get us.

I began tracking wolves — following their tracks through the woods — in my teens, sometimes with friends and family, sometimes solo, sometimes for fun, sometimes for work (always carrying bear spray). I’ve been close to a lot of wolves. If humans were on their menu, a short woman hiking alone should be like a free hot dog. But I’ve never once felt threatened.

One encounter now on video, where a wolf walked in my direction (not knowing I was there) and then retreated, was published by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife to educate people about wolf behavior. It has amassed over 23 million views: “What to Expect if You Encounter a Wolf” on YouTube. It’s worth watching.

Every year, millions of people live, hike, and hunt in wolf territory without incident. Since their populations began to recover in the 1980s, wolves have caused just one human injury in the Lower 48 states. In Canada and Alaska, where more wolves roam, only about 10 incidents— two fatal — have occurred since 2000. Almost all of these involved wolves conditioned to human food or garbage. Lightning killed more than 40 Canadians in that timespan. Mexican wolves, a smaller subspecies in the Southwest, have never attacked a human.

In a recent review of wolf-human conflicts, researchers stated that “the risks associated with a wolf attack are above zero, but far too low to calculate.”

Millions flock to Yellowstone National Park for the opportunity to see wolves. Sometimes hazing is required when wolves become too comfortable with people — for their safety more than ours. Yellowstone wolves are targeted by trophy hunters and recreational trappers when they cross the invisible park boundary. In Montana, Wyoming and Idaho, wolves are killed by the hundreds, demonstrating the deadly consequences for wolves when protection is removed.

The return of wolves is an opportunity for curiosity, wonder and respect, not scapegoating. Wolves deserve better than to be used as a distraction by the Trump administration, and those living alongside wolves deserve better than fearmongering.

Story Warren is a contributor to Writers on the Range, an independent nonprofit dedicated to spurring lively conversation about the West. She is wildlife program manager with Humane World for Animals, formerly called the Humane Society of the United States.

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That they flourish is due to Yellowstone’s huge expanse of wildlands — you’d have to drive 1,000 miles to circle what’s called the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. 

But new policies from Washington, D.C., would dramatically reduce the size of these wildlands and threaten wildlife’s ability to survive.

Bigger is better for wildland ecosystems, a lesson learned soon after Yellowstone was established as the nation’s first national park in 1872.  When General Philip Sheridan explored the region, he realized even then that the park was far too small to contain its migrating wildlife; he urged expanding the park. I’m an ecologist who has studied the region, and we know even better today that climate, soils and food sources vary enormously from place to place, causing wildlife to sometimes seek new ground.

Through the years Congress has understood this pattern and acted. Federally protected lands around Yellowstone have been steadily enlarged, with national forests created in the late 1800s, designated wilderness areas created in the 1960s, along with wilderness study areas from the 1970s to 1980s, and inventoried roadless areas in the 1990s.

The Yellowstone ecosystem now has as much — or more — lands protected for wildlife than anywhere else in the lower 48 states. These lands are needed to keep intact what makes Yellowstone unique.

Protected federal lands have been the most important buffer against fragmented and developed private lands. In an Ecosphere paper, I reported that on privately owned land, vital signs of ecological health across greater Yellowstone had mostly deteriorated since 1970. But it was the opposite on protected federal lands, with most remaining stable or improving.

As this disparity became widely known, conservation collaboratives have formed to maintain or restore wildlife habitat on large private ranches, while also helping rural homeowners and recreationists learn how to reduce their impacts on wildlife. 

For example, the Greater Yellowstone Coalition is using wildlife-friendly fencing to contain cattle while still allowing wildlife to migrate. The coalition also supports range rider programs to reduce predator impacts on cattle. And the Teton Conservation District provides The Mountain Neighbor Handbook: A Local’s Guide to Stewardship in the Tetons to new residents around Jackson, Wyoming. 

Now, this administration is promoting policies that harm rather than help the Yellowstone area. If enacted, these policies would:

• Accelerate logging in national forests and expand access for motorized vehicles.
• Open inventoried roadless areas to roadbuilding, logging and mining.
• Roll back protections for wilderness study areas.
• Open the habitats of endangered species to development.

The Trump administration is telling us that these policy changes are needed to reduce fuels and protect communities from severe wildfires. The science shows otherwise. An analysis published in the International Journal of Wildland Fire in 2014 found that people’s lives and property are best protected by reducing fuels immediately around homes — not in remote wildlands that are critical for wildlife.

Stripping federal land protections would deliver a knife to the heart of what makes Yellowstone special. Unfortunately, the other great natural ecosystems across the country face the same loss of protections.

What can we do? Comment on the Roadless Rule before October 6. We can also speak loudly and tell our elected representatives to halt the administration’s destructive policies. We can vote wisely in November to stop proposed rollbacks of federal land protections.

If we can block these threats, we can return to working collaboratively across ranchland associations, land trusts, conservation groups, local and tribal governments, recreationists, residents, and visitors. We all know how precious wild country and wild animals are to this nation, and we’ve learned what it takes to keep wildlife thriving.

We have to fight harder than ever now to keep intact the wild places we have left.

Andrew Hansen is a contributor to Writers on the Range, an independent nonprofit dedicated to spurring lively conversation about the West. He is professor emeritus of ecology at Montana State University and lives in Bozeman, Montana.

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What we literally have in common – own in common – are our public lands, our national parks and forests. In the West especially, glance at the photo library on your phone and it will probably look a lot like the person’s next to you in the coffee shop. Your parents’ and grandparents’ faded photo family albums probably have similar pictures too. That’s because our public lands shape us. They hold our uniquely American stories.

Memories of that backcountry trip. High meadow lakes. Campfires. A bird dog, smiling next to grouse. A successful deer hunt. A first fish. A family picnic. Close your eyes for a second, and you can probably see your own moments in a wild place.

All of this comes from the wild public lands we all still own. Which is why it is so unsettling that the administration continues to try to hand those places over to the highest bidder. And why it’s so disturbing that they are pushing deeper into our forests, threatening future generations’ freedom to experience what we have been lucky enough to know.

It’s hard to keep up, but the direction is clear: sacrificing our wild public lands.

Recently, the president tossed aside executive orders from Presidents Nixon and Carter that formed the foundation for how agencies manage recreation on our public lands. The process is called travel management planning and it helps identify the best places for ATVs, dirt bikes, horses, hikers and mountain bikers so people can enjoy public lands safely, responsibly and without undermining each other’s experiences. We have enough public land to support many different ways of getting outside, but only if we plan carefully. 

These agreements can be hard to forge, but they help protect access, reduce conflict and keep public lands healthy for all. By ending the basis for them, the administration has left many public land users rightfully nervous about what will happen now.

Meanwhile, the media reported that the administration plans to direct the Forest Service to open lands recommended for wilderness designation to development and other damaging uses. Through an ongoing review, the administration has also signaled it plans to take a similar approach to more than 100 million acres of wildlands managed by the National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The result would be permanent and intentional: wild places degraded so badly that they would no longer qualify for wilderness designation. Because once wildness is gone, you can’t bring it back.

Most troubling of all is the largest proposed rollback of conservation protections in American history. The administration has announced it intends to remove protections on 45 million acres of national forests and instead allow roads to be punched into some of our wildest public lands.

Here’s what happens when roads get built: they bring wildfire. They pollute streams. They harm wildlife. In my home state of Montana, 97% of summer elk habitat is on unroaded forests, away from civilization, high in the mountains, in cool, deep cover. Such forests also provide clean drinking water for millions of people. They are where people go to hunt and fish and camp and hike — where memories are made.

So why these attacks on our wildest forests? Why steal from future generations? Why open remote places to development when there is an enormous and urgent need to manage the forests near communities, to protect them from wildfire? Why develop wild lands when we could instead put people to work improving access and maintaining trails?

Our country is blessed with lands that are still wild, where wildlife can roam freely, cold creeks still flow, and a person has the freedom to wander. These lands are our common ground. They are where we go to remember what freedom feels like. In a way, conquering them conquers us.

One force can stop this: the people who own these lands, all of us. We can demand better of our elected officials now, and at the ballot box in the months and years ahead. Future generations are counting on it.

Tracy Stone-Manning is a contributor to Writers on the Range, writersontherange.org, an independent nonprofit dedicated to lively conversation about the West. She is president of The Wilderness Society and The Wilderness Society Action Fund.

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With advice like that assuring what seems a doable hike, it’s probably not surprising that during 2025, Grand Canyon Search and Rescue responded to 848 hiker assists and 232 search and rescue incidents. What’s more, 11 people died. In just the month of May last year, there were 13 rescues in a seven-day stretch.

One of the “in” hikes these days is the Grand Canyon rim-to-rim. This involves hiking 21 to 24 miles with almost 10,000 feet of elevation change. This feat requires serious levels of fitness and preparation. Yet on social media, posters encourage complete strangers to go for it, even daring people to try it twice. That would be almost 50 miles.

This seems like telling strangers traveling to Boston to be sure and run the marathon while there.  After all, lots of runners do it in four hours.

All of this makes me yearn for a little humility. When I led hikes for my local Sierra Club chapter, I would post that the trail was for experienced hikers.  I then got calls from people who had never even laced up their boots before, saying they had read online that someone ran it in three hours, so how hard could it be? Well, I’ve read about climbing K2 without oxygen, but that does not mean anyone can do it.

Online posters always like to brag about what a piece of cake it was for them, so surely an average hiker could do the same thing. But “surely” might turn into finishing a hike at midnight or knocking on the door of the ranger station at 2 a.m., whimpering that they simply cannot go another step.  Or they may end up being one of those search and rescues.

No one seems to post that a hike in Grand Canyon was the gnarliest thing they have ever done, that they almost collapsed on the trail due to heat stroke — a current danger — and thirst. 

Print media is often no better.  Outdoor magazines tout “Ten trails where you will never see another hiker!” That’s usually because the trail is expert-only, or not really a trail at all. I have met these backpackers far from the madding crowd, and usually they aren’t where they thought they were because they tried but lost the “see no other hikers” route. 

Backcountry rangers have told me that they cringe every time one of these articles comes out.  Partly because sending novices onto expert routes often results in calls to SAR, and partly because when hikers get lost, they often construct unnecessary and often misleading trail cairns which then must be removed. Nor does it help that the Park Service isn’t as adequately staffed to help hikers after losing about one-quarter of its permanent staff since January 2025. 

Online influencers rarely have skin in the game. Have they even been to the trail they brag about?  In cyberspace, one may say anything and there is no way to fact-check. I could post that I was the first woman to hike rim-to-rim with one foot tied behind my back, and no one could prove otherwise.

We need more humble hikers, people who post that a difficult and popular hike is not a creampuff, that it was a long, scary trek and they came out after dark with no flashlights, threw themselves at the feet of the nearest park ranger, and pledged their first born for a drink of water. 

I hope humble-hike descriptions may one day be welcome. Most hikers might not want to admit that they could not blithely knock off 20-plus miles with a song on their smiling lips, but they might relish the truth of a posting that went like this: “It was the hardest thing I have done IN MY ENTIRE LIFE, I threw my pack at the nearest dumpster, and I am now going to track down the person who said it was a cakewalk and slap him upside the head.” 

I can only hope that this might generate a few “likes.”

Marjorie “Slim” Woodruff, a Grand Canyon educator, is a contributor to Writers on the Range, writersontherange.org, an independent nonprofit dedicated to spurring lively conversation about the West.

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The Utah congressional delegation is not likely to celebrate. They’re chomping at the bit to challenge this executive power. In the Senate, Utah Republican Mike Lee leads the charge against what he calls “presidential abuses of the Antiquities Act.” The Act, though, deserves high praise, and Iowa Congressman John Lacey, a witness to cultural vandalism run rampant in New Mexico, deserves our belated gratitude for championing the law.

The law allows presidents to establish preserves solely on public lands that already belong to the people of the United States, and only if these lands harbor “objects of historic and scientific interest.” These objects can be big. One of Teddy Roosevelt’s first uses of the Act protected the Grand Canyon, a bold interpretation of the law that was upheld by the Supreme Court in 1920.

After a president uses the Act to conserve historic places or significant landscapes, Congress often later elevates these national monuments to national parks, as happened with Grand Canyon, Petrified Forest, Grand Teton, Olympic, Death Valley, Saguaro and two dozen others.

One national park pilgrimage traced by millions of awestruck travelers begins at St. George, Utah, following an itinerary that wouldn’t exist without the Antiquities Act. Heading east, first comes Zion, preserved originally as Mukuntuweap National Monument by William Howard Taft in 1909, and now the second most visited national park.

This national parks tour leads next to Bryce Canyon, where you perch above hoodoos protected by President Warren Harding in 1923. Winding east on Scenic Byway 12, you drive through the slickrock bowls and fossil-filled badlands of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. President Bill Clinton designated Grand Staircase in 1996, and for the first time gave the Bureau of Land Management a conservation role instead of transferring control to the National Park Service. President Joe Biden used the Antiquities Act in 2021 to restore the monument after its evisceration by Donald Trump.

Highway 12 leads to Capitol Reef National Park and its great wall of barrier cliffs. Established as an Antiquities Act national monument by Franklin Roosevelt in 1937, it was later greatly enlarged by both Dwight Eisenhower and Lyndon Johnson.

Onward through Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, which embraces Rainbow Bridge National Monument, designated by President Howard Taft in 1910, to Bears Ears National Monument, Barack Obama’s 2016 bow of respect to regional tribes and their sacred lands. After a five-year truncation by Trump, Joe Biden restored Bears Ears to full size.

On to Moab, past Canyonlands National Park, created by an act of Congress and so the single exception to all these Antiquities Act preserves, and, finally, to Arches National Park, first designated a national monument by Herbert Hoover in 1929.

This is only a partial list of Antiquities Act preserves in Utah. Why so many?

The answer: aridity. Utah has the nation’s second highest percentage of public land because we are the second driest state. Our arid land couldn’t provide a living to homesteaders, so two-thirds of Utah remains publicly owned. Utahns surrounded by these public lands have inherited a gift.

All Americans have equal say over national public lands, yet the Utah delegation claims state rights that have no basis in law or history. They pepper the Supreme Court with lawsuits, and are attacking Grand Staircase right now, seeking to overthrow the current conservation-leaning resource management plan.

The American people believe otherwise. An impressive 91 percent of Western voters say national monuments should retain existing boundaries; 94 percent say rollback of environmental laws is a serious problem. In Utah, 75 percent of voters want the delegation to prioritize conservation on public lands over energy production.

On its 120^th anniversary, let’s celebrate this essential law that allows presidents to maintain, strengthen and highlight the bedrock values of our diverse lands, cultures, and communities. The writer Wallace Stegner famously said that national parks are “America’s best idea.”

The visionary Antiquities Act brings this idea to life, on the ground, for us all.

Stephen Trimble is a contributor to Writers on the Range, writersontherange.org, an independent nonprofit dedicated to spurring lively conversation about the West. A new edition of his classic natural history of the Great Basin Desert, The Sagebrush Ocean, will be published in October.

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That approach is relevant for those of us working to protect public lands as we confront the equivalent of a massive hemorrhage. It is Congress’ unconstrained use of the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to destroy management plans that were thoughtfully considered and years in the making.

With only simple majority votes required in each chamber of Congress, bypassing committee review and without the Senate’s 60-vote filibuster, management plans that involved extensive public participation are being thrown out.

The CRA has already been used to undo six resource management plans and one mining prohibition. What replaces these plans is unclear and has plunged public land managers, local communities and even industry into uncertainty that will linger for years.

Last month, Congress used the CRA to remove protections against mining for roughly 225,000 acres at the headwaters of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. This was a major blow to the watershed of America’s most visited wilderness and a grim moment for conservationists. Now, the focus has shifted to Utah.

Senator Mike Lee and Rep. Celeste Maloy, both Utah Republicans, have introduced joint resolutions to undo the management plan for the 1.9-million-acre Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. When you think of Southern Utah, Grand Staircase-Escalante is at its heart; its vast landscape of canyons and mesas knits together Bryce Canyon and Capitol Reef national parks and the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area.

If this CRA resolution passes, it could devastate the monument, turning it into a place where out-of-control off-road vehicle use, landscape-level clearcutting, and other extractive activities would all be possible. 

The good news is that this fight is one that we, together, can win. When we do, it will set a precedent to protect all national monuments, national parks and beloved public lands that might be next in line.

In the House of Representatives, the ever-changing margins are razor thin—just ask Republican Speaker Mike Johnson, who struggles with vote counts daily. In the Senate, Mike Lee has proved notorious for wasting valuable time with legislation that has little chance of passing.

We know these elected officials have been hearing from their constituents who are unhappy about their previous votes using the CRA. In both chambers, a growing list of Republicans find they need to bolster their public lands and environmental credentialsbefore the mid-terms.

Lee and Maloy’s doomed efforts last year to sell off public lands proved highly unpopular nationwide and in Utah. Knowing that, members of Congress might want to think twice before tying themselves to the duo’s latest attempts to weaken protection for Grand Staircase-Escalante.

At the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, we’re no stranger to an uphill battle. Ever since SUWA was founded in 1983, we’ve sparred with Utah’s anti-public-lands politicians, who show a level of disdain for our national heritage that seems bizarre in its tenacity. A deep-rooted belief that a federal public lands system simply should not exist seems to drive these politicians—defying logic, economic data and poll after poll.

That’s why we are not shy about asking people outside of Utah to join us in speaking up for protecting public lands in Utah. Public lands belong to all Americans, and every day, we urge people across the country to tell their elected officials to speak up for public lands, Indigenous sacred sites and intact ecosystems in Utah—because our politicians won’t.

This is the moment to urge members of Congress to vote “no” on the Grand Staircase-Escalante CRA resolution. A vote could be coming anytime in the next few weeks. Time is of the essence.  

To make the case, everyone who cares about the magnificent red-rock canyons of Grand Staircase-Escalante and Southern Utah needs to act now. The more our voices are raised and registered, the stronger our message urging Congress to listen to the people who want protection and stewardship, not short-term exploitation of our public land.

Scott Braden is a contributor to Writers on the Range, writersontherange.org, an independent nonprofit dedicated to spurring lively conversation about the West. He is the executive director of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA).

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Congress largely rejected those cuts the last time around, but the administration is trying again, hoping to bully Congress into further weakening the management and protection of our public land.

A major part of Burgum’s strategy has been to continue the administration’s policy of driving out the people who do the work. Over the past year, Elon Musk’s DOGE-driven firings and buyouts gutted the Interior Department’s workforce. About a quarter of National Park Service employees have left since January 2025, including rangers, biologists, historians and maintenance workers, all pushed out through waves of terminations and early retirement offers. There’s also been the slow demoralization of being told your life’s work doesn’t matter.

This month, Interior announced yet another round of buyouts, the latest effort to thin the ranks of the people who keep trails open and fight wildfires.

What’s almost hard to believe is the policy of erasing history itself. Under orders from Secretary Burgum and President Trump, the National Park Service has removed or flagged for removal hundreds of interpretive signs and exhibits across the country.

At Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia—the birthplace of the 250-year-old democracy that we’re about to celebrate—an exhibit about enslaved people at the President’s House has been removed. At the Grand Canyon, signs acknowledging that white settlers displaced Native American Tribes were taken down. At the Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail, some 80 items have been flagged for removal. At Stonewall National Monument, the Pride flag came down.

Climate science has been banished from Glacier National Park, and Grand Teton removed a sign about an army officer who bragged about the massacre of more than 170 Piegan Blackfeet people. The stories of Japanese American internment in the western states, of women’s suffrage, of labor rights—all deemed unpatriotic by an administration that believes you can only honor America’s 250th birthday by pretending half of its history never happened.

At the end of March, Burgum also convened the “God Squad,” officially known as the Endangered Species Committee, for the first time in more than three decades. Its meeting lasted less than 30 minutes, yet the committee voted unanimously to exempt all oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico from the Endangered Species Act. The decision will almost certainly doom the Rice’s whale, a species found nowhere else on Earth, of which roughly 50 remain. It was the first time national security has been invoked to override the Endangered Species Act, and conservationists warn that it will not be the last.

As for the U.S. Forest Service, draconian cuts in its staff are planned along with wholesale closings of regional offices and dozens of research stations. The agency’s reorganization also includes moving its main headquarters from Washington, D.C. to Salt Lake City, Utah.

This administration has made its intent clear: Cut budgets, drive out the workforce, erase history, greenlight extinction. Energy extraction is paramount, while conservation, research, and preservation are all values that can be discarded.

These are not disconnected policy decisions. They are part of the coherent vision of a cabinet secretary who sees public lands as surplus inventory and history as a branding problem.

But this is what Doug Burgum will learn: Americans are not going along with it. Polling shows that nearly 80 percent of the public opposes removing factual history from national parks. More than 99 percent of public comments opposed rolling back roadless protections for national forests. Congress rejected the worst of last year’s budget cuts, and it will be pressed to do so again. When the administration, aided by Senator Mike Lee of Utah, tried to sell off public lands through the reconciliation bill, bipartisan outrage killed it.

Doug Burgum can propose all the budget cuts he wants, but he will face determined opposition from all of us who treasure our public lands.

Aaron Weiss, director of the Center for Western Priorities, is a contributor to Writers on the Range, writersontherange.org, an independent nonprofit dedicated to spurring lively conversation about Western issues.

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Since then, visitors have continued flocking to parks: More than 25,000 visitors poured into Utah’s Zion National Park on a single day; at New Mexico’s Bandelier National Monument, hikers went off-trail across closed restoration areas; at Colorado’s Rocky Mountain National Park, sightseers walked through sensitive meadows, ignoring posted signs.

Meanwhile, there’s been virtually a public blackout about what’s been happening inside parks after key staffers were fired. That’s because top agency officials curtailed the freedom of park staff to communicate with the public, while website updates went dark. As the shutdown continues, national parks lose $1 million a day in uncollected fees.

But the government shutdown and its salary hiatus are only the latest blows to national park management. Because of new federal policies aimed at shrinking government agencies, including the Interior Department, one in four Park Service staffers is now gone for good. 

I’ve been learning what this severe cutback looks like as the new Southwest regional director for the National Parks Conservation Association, a nonprofit dedicated to protecting the 433 national park sites across the country. I get to care about and advocate for a landscape of remarkable parks across Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Arizona.

One of these parks, the Black Canyon of the Gunnison, sits close to my home in Paonia, in western Colorado. Early in the Trump administration, federal reductions cut one-third of its staff. That meant even before the shutdown began, all custodial workers had lost their jobs. Workers who were already filling in for missing staff had to set aside core responsibilities and shift to bathroom maintenance.

With no rangers left, signs posted on the canyon’s North Rim warned visitors that they would need to “self-rescue” if they got into trouble. Then came the South Rim fire, which closed the park for the first time in its history, consuming several park buildings though sparing the visitor center. It’s no secret that wildfires in the West are increasing in frequency, even as fewer staff remain to respond.

Of all the American institutions I thought would outlive me, the National Park Service seemed like a safe bet. Throughout 109 years of park history, national polls consistently show that Americans of all stripes love their national parks. They also respect the rangers who bring deep knowledge to their work, rescue adventurers who get into trouble, and help ensure that visitors enjoy themselves. People from all over the world come to experience our national parks and monuments because this country has been wise enough to preserve our magnificent landscapes, wildlife and history.

Yet here we are witnessing a deliberate effort to mismanage our national parks by depriving them of the very people and funding needed for their upkeep. The Trump administration also plans another round of mass terminations, meaning many furloughed park staff may never return.

Earlier this year, Congress gutted $267 million from the Park Service budget, eliminating funding that was congressionally allocated for critical park staffing. President Trump’s proposed 2026 budget also calls for a $1 billion cut, which could force hundreds of park sites to close across the country. 

By starving the Park Service of necessary money for maintenance and repairs, wildlife management, research and other important functions, the administration is setting up our national parks to be sold out from under the American public or handed over to private interests.

We’re living in a moment where hypotheticals—once unbelievable—have become possible scenarios. That is, unless Americans speak up loudly. We need strong advocates to ensure that the Park Service can carry out its mission to “preserve unimpaired the natural and cultural resources and values of the National Park System for the enjoyment, education and inspiration of this and future generations.”

We can help by urging members of Congress to hold the line against more indiscriminate firings of Park Service staff, and to restore funding so that parks can rebuild and flourish in the years to come.

Alex Johnson is the Southwest Regional Director at National Parks Conservation Association, npca.org, and is a contributor to Writers on the Range, writersontherange.org, an independent nonprofit dedicated to spurring lively conversation about the West.

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“Good Morning.” As an introvert I don’t understand why I have to say Good Morning to every member of a 30-person group. Nor does Good Afternoon roll of the tongue as nicely. Too many plosives and fricatives. Yesterday I got yelled at for not saying a cheery enough “Good Morning” to a passing hiker. I did not realize I was at a Downtown Abbey garden party.

Then there’s the consoling “You’re Almost There” hello. For one thing, I am almost never almost there when assured that I am. Volunteers at 10-Ks or marathons are warned to never, ever, tell someone they are almost there. Almost there is when you can see the parking lot.

An annoying question is “Everything OK”? Why are they asking this? Admittedly I have more gray hair than brown, but do I look so decrepit that they are concerned about my well being?  What would they do if I said, “It would really be 0K if you took my pack!”

“How you doing?” Do they really want to know that my trick hip is acting up, and my pack irritates that weird spot on my scapula? Probably not. 

“Good Luck.” Again, why? Is the only thing that will assure my success a whim of fate? I used to answer, “In the words of the immortal solo climber of Mount Everest, Reinhold Messner, ‘I do not believe in luck.’” That usually gets me a blank look.

“Where did you start and how long did it take you?” People usually ask me this while hiking in Grand Canyon. But why ask a random stranger how they did? I’m not racing. One woman asked me this at Bryce Canyon National Park because she and her boyfriend were attempting a loop. She thought they were on the wrong trail, but her boyfriend thought she was wrong. Turned out he was the one who was wrong, and he wasn’t happy about finding that out.

“Is it really harder hiking uphill?” Is this a trick question?

“Where are you going?” That seems a deep philosophical question to pose to a complete stranger. 

“How was it?” I guess I could answer on a scale of one to ten…

“Was it worth it?”  I’m always tempted to reply, “No, turn around now.” 

“Does this trail go anywhere?” “No,” I want to say, “it just kind of sits there.”

“If I hike down this trail, is there another way out?”  Not really: Walk in, walk out, is usually the case. 

Sometimes a joker will ask, “Are we there yet?”  “I sometimes answer, ‘Buddha would say, ‘We are always there.’ That gets me a laugh now and then.”

Several times I have been asked where the next shuttle bus stop is. If this is asked while on a trail in the Grand Canyon, the answer is “A mile back and a thousand feet up the way you came.” Poleaxed stare. “The bus doesn’t come down here?”  “No,” I want to say, “they tend to stick to the paved road.”

One young man told me, “I hope I can do this.”  I said, “It looks as though you are.”  “No, I mean when I am as old as you.” I guess I can take that as a compliment. Then there is the compliment: “I hope I’m as fit as you when I’m your age.” I want to reply: “I might be as fit as your age!”

A friend who let her hair go grey during COVID told me that she gets a lot more positive comments than she used to: “Young hikers used to mutter under their breath when I passed them. Now they tend to do a thumbs up and say, ‘Good for you.’”

I was hiking one day with a group of women who have hiked the West on trails for years, when a man stepped to the side to let us pass. He beamed at us as he said, “You ladies look radiant.”  Now that is the kind of trail talk I like.

Marjorie ‘Slim’ Woodruff is a contributor to Writers on the Range, writersontherange.org, an independent nonprofit dedicated to spurring lively conversation about the West. She is an educator at the bottom of Grand Canyon. 

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It is our place of origin and Navajo spiritual traditions are rooted here. Even when we were forcibly removed from our homeland by the federal government’s Army in the 19th century, our spiritual and cultural connection to these lands has never been extinguished.

Utah Navajos still make use of this historic homeland, which is now known as the 1.35-million-acre Bears Ears National Monument, designated by President Obama in 2016. It is where we practice our ceremonies; gather herbs, firewood and cedar poles; hunt for game; rejuvenate our spirits and caretake our sacred places. Because the monument closely involves us, Navajo and other tribes in the area have been pushing for tribal management.

For many years, the Navajo and other local tribes—Hopi, Uintah, Ouray Ute, Zuni and Ute Mountain Ute—worked together to gain federal protection for this land. But what we gained is now threatened by developments that defile and dishonor the cultural and spiritual significance held by Navajo and other Native peoples.

The most recent example is the plan to build a 460-foot telecommunications tower on a parcel of land owned by a Utah state agency, the Trust Lands Administration. The land that would house the tower is in the heart of the Bears Ears National Monument.

If erected, this alien-looking tower will be a spear in the heart of the Bears Ears area. I am also saddened to think there will likely be more inappropriate developments on Utah Trust Lands within Bears Ears, now that the state has derailed a proposed land exchange between the Trust Lands Administration and the federal government.

The land exchange would have helped ensure that Navajo homelands are managed to protect our cultural and spiritual traditions. Now these lands—our heritage—face death by a thousand cuts.

The company placing the telecommunications tower has applied for and received a conditional use permit from San Juan County. But the company must also apply for and receive a variance from the county, because any tower higher than 35 feetis prohibited. So far, it has not applied for a variance.  

The National Park Service opposes the tower and has submitted comments to both the Utah Trust Lands Administration and San Juan County. The federal agency said the tower would blight the viewshed, diminish the area’s dark skies, and harm habitat for several threatened and endangered bird species.

For more than a century my people have had to fight for our rights. In 1868, when Navajos were finally allowed to return from forced exile, we were confined to a reservation south of the San Juan River. It was much reduced in size from our original homeland.

The prime lands higher up near the water and lush vegetation of Bears Ears were denied us. Nevertheless, these lands have always been a part of our cultural traditions, despite a documented history of racial injustices levied against Utah Navajos.

At every level, from county to state to the federal government, that history includes violations of voting rights, education and civil rights. All had to be litigated in federal court. Through all of that, Utah Navajos have fought to conserve and protect the public lands we traditionally used.

These lands need to exist as nature intended—to regenerate traditional plants and provide homes to wildlife that in turn sustain Navajo cultural traditions.

The Utah Trust Lands Administration and the federal government have a chance to do the right thing for Bears Ears. I urge the state of Utah and the federal government to restart discussions about a land exchange.

Otherwise, more out-of-place and inharmonious developments such as this 460-foot blinking tower could come to dominate the Bears Ears landscape.

Mark Maryboy is a contributor to Writers on the Range, writersontherange.org, an independent nonprofit dedicated to spurring lively conversation about the West. He served from 1984 to 2000 as a San Juan County, Utah, commissioner, and from 1990 to 2006, he was a delegate to the Navajo Nation Council.

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