Across the US’s fabled but overstretched national parks, unusual scenes are playing out this summer following budget cuts by Donald Trump’s administration. Archeologists are staffing ticket booths, ecologists are covering visitor centers and the superintendents of parks are even cleaning the toilets.
The National Park Service (NPS), responsible for maintaining cherished wildernesses and sites of cultural importance from Yellowstone to the Statue of Liberty, has lost a quarter of its permanent staff since Trump took office in January, with the administration seeking to gut the service’s budget by a third.
