Garbage, feces take toll on national parks amid shutdown
WASHINGTON (AP) Human feces, overflowing garbage, illegal off-roading and other damaging behavior in fragile areas were beginning to overwhelm some of the Wests iconic national parks on Monday, as a partial government shutdown left the areas open to visitors but with little staff on duty.
Its a free-for-all, Dakota Snider, 24, who lives and works in Yosemite Valley, said by telephone Monday, as Yosemite National Park officials announced closings of some minimally supervised campgrounds and public areas within the park that are overwhelmed.
Its so heartbreaking. There is more trash and human waste and disregard for the rules than Ive seen in my four years living here, Snider said.
The 10th day of the partial federal government shutdown, which has forced furloughs of hundreds of thousands of federal government employees, has left many parks without most of the rangers and others who staff campgrounds and otherwise keep parks running.
Unlike shutdowns in some previous administrations, the Trump administration was leaving parks open to visitors despite the staff furloughs, said John Garder, senior budget director of the nonprofit National Parks Conservation Association.
Were afraid that were going to start seeing significant damage to the natural resources in parks and potentially to historic and other cultural artifacts, Garder said. Were concerned therell be impacts to visitors safety.
Its really a nightmare scenario, Garder said.
https://apnews.com/e28b313197bb46bebef0faca24b333ed
2naSalit
(86,963 posts)I was saying about the kind of tourist that shows up at the parks these days. If they had any respect for these places they would stay away while the government is shut down. These are the trashy fucks who make life miserable for the rangers and scream that you are ruining their vacation if they can't destroy everything in sight out of ignorance or just plain being assholes, as many are.
The think that getting in for free is getting over on someone when all they are doing is creating more after-the-fiasco costs.
dalton99a
(81,708 posts)Igel
(35,390 posts)apparently need supervision or they can't manage to go a weekend without getting into trouble.
2naSalit
(86,963 posts)There's a great book, a quick read, about the history of management policy for YNP; Searching For Yellowstone. Paul Schullery.
The take home message in the book is that we the people don't know how to behave with respect to nature and its fragility, therefore, we must have management policies... to manage the people who come to the park. We seem to have lost sight of that necessity somehow. That and losing our ability to show respect.