Fired Great Basin rangers find temporary roles at nonprofit

The five rangers who lost their jobs managing Nevada’s only national park last month now have temporary roles at a related nonprofit.

Great Basin National Park Foundation, the official nonprofit partner of the park, wrote in a Facebook post Wednesday that leaders invested $25,000 in hiring those rangers. It’s not a permanent fix, but it’s one that allows the rangers to stay in rural White Pine County.

“The Foundation is creating a bridge to keep talented and trained individuals — people who are passionate about the (National Park Service) mission — on the ground until they can be hired as seasonal rangers,” the foundation said in a statement.

The park, about 300 miles northeast of Las Vegas near the Utah border, lost 20 percent of its staff in what many called the Trump administration’s “Valentine’s Day Massacre” of federal employees who had less than one year in their current roles. Eight roles had been unfilled already when the layoffs happened, according to the foundation.

A ranger who spoke to the Las Vegas Review-Journal anonymously last month raised concerns about search and rescue efforts as well as park maintenance.

Across the country, the National Park Service has fired about 1,000 employees, though about 50 of those employees were rehired, according to The Associated Press. The agency has said it planned to rely more heavily on seasonal employees to fill the gap in services.

Since President Donald Trump took office and issued an executive order, the so-called Department of Government Efficiency — with ties to Tesla CEO Elon Musk — has taken aim at what some see as excessive federal spending.

In response to questions about sweeping firings, a White House spokesperson told the Review-Journal that the Trump administration arrived with a “mandate from the American people” to cut “waste, fraud and abuse” in the federal government.

Contact Alan Halaly at ahalaly@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AlanHalaly on X.