Eight full-time employees at Acadia National Park have been suddenly fired, sparking a local backlash and raising concerns about further cuts to services for the public because of staff shortages at Acadia.

The terminations at Acadia are among 1,000 probationary employees who were terminated at the National Park Service across the country as part of President Donald J. Trump’s widespread cuts in the federal government. The 1,000 employees had worked for the NPS for less than a year.

Many people are upset about the staff shortages at Acadia in the wake of the terminations. The terminations constitute almost 10 percent of  the approximately 90 permanent employees at the park.

“The whole thing is a complete tragedy…not just for the national parks but for the individuals who staff the parks,” said Maureen Robbins Fournier, a former longtime seasonal ranger at Acadia National Park. “Real people, not numbers.”

Fired employee has no hard feelings toward Acadia NPS

One of the terminated Acadia National Park employees told us in an interview that “everything was turned upside down” after the firing on Valentine’s Day via an emailed termination notice from a deputy director at the US Department of the Interior.

The former employee said it was a great job at Acadia. “I was loving it,” said the former employee, who asked to remain anonymous. “I felt like I was pretty lucky.”

In a phone call, the former employee emphasized there are no hard feelings toward anyone at Acadia National Park. The fired employee said no one at Acadia NPS wanted to terminate any workers.

Perrin Doniger, vice president of communications and marketing at the Friends of Acadia, wrote in an email: “We are aware of eight Acadia National Park full-time staff that were impacted by the layoffs on Friday (Feb.14). These roles included fee collectors and trail maintenance staff. The trail crew positions were primarily funded by Friends of Acadia.”

“We are incredibly sad that these layoffs are hitting Acadia and our community. These cuts impact crucial positions that keep our trails safe and generate significant revenue.”

Longtime volunteer decries staff shortages at Acadia

Mary Ann Schaefer, a longtime volunteer at Acadia and other national parks with her husband, Ray, questioned how the parks will function after the cuts. Staff shortages at Acadia could lead to other problems, she added.

“One thing we have learned working in the parks is that educating visitors about the parks helps build respect for them,” Schaefer, who volunteered at Acadia for five summers and one winter season with her husband, said in an email. “Without rangers we will see some visitors disturbing resources and damaging the environment. The parks are already understaffed, the future, I fear, does not look good.”

Gary J. Stellpflug, who retired in 2022 after being foreman of the Acadia trails crew for more than 35 years, said he could not recall any prior terminations of full-time employees at Acadia National Park, other than temporary layoffs during a number of federal government shutdowns over the years.

Stellpflug, who has volunteered with the park since retiring, said two of the eight terminations came from the Acadia trails crew.

Acadia is one of the top-ten most visited national parks even though it is the fifth smallest in land area. There are 155 miles of hiking trails to maintain, many of which date back to the mid-1800s and mid-1900s and are included in the National Register of Historic Places as a result of efforts by Stellpflug and others.

Firings called sad and waste of talent at Acadia National Park

“They were wonderful guys, energetic and looking forward to careers in a great organization,” Stellpflug said of the two members laid off from the trails crew. “It’s so sad and such a great waste of talent.”

The trails crew, plagued for several years by staff shortages at Acadia, has seven permanent employees after the layoffs, according to one estimate. The crew was only able to hire four seasonal employees in 2024 after being funded to hire 22.

Two emails apiece to the NPS’s national office of communications and to an official at Acadia were not returned. The emails asked for information about the layoffs and the delays in hiring seasonal workers at national parks.

The layoffs at Acadia come after the Washington Post reported this month that the National Park Service nationwide planned to fire 1,000 probationary employees who have worked for the NPS for less than a year.

Trump increased investments in national parks during first term

President Trump had also imposed a federal hiring freeze in January. The hiring freeze resulted in the National Park Service revoking about 5,000 offers to seasonal employees across the nation, the Post reported.

Trump’s cuts at NPS are at variance with a couple of the president’s moves to boost national parks during his first term.

In 2020, Trump signed the Great American Outdoors Act after it was passed by Congress. The law provided up to $1.5 billion a year for five years for national parks, other federal lands and American Indian schools. At Acadia, the law financed $32.6 million maintenance and operations building and about $8 million for rehabbing water and wastewater systems at the Schoodic District.

In 2020, the Trump administration awarded a critical $9 million grant to help build the Acadia Gateway Center, a state of Maine project expected to open in May north of Acadia off Route 3 in Trenton. The welcome center and transit hub had a total project cost of about $32 million, but was stalled until the federal grant was announced.

Shortfalls in seasonal hires an ongoing issue at Acadia

Trump’s hiring freeze comes after Acadia has already been plagued by difficulties in hiring seasonal employees for the past several years and cuts in services following staff shortages at Acadia. The Acadia staff shortages occurred when the park hosted big crowds since 2021 including 3.961 million visits in 2024, up 2.1 percent from 3.879 mjllion in 2023, according to the NPS.

National parks, including Acadia National Park, have apparently resumed hiring of seasonal workers after approval from the Interior Department. The Bar Harbor Story reported that Acadia advertised to fill 45 seasonal positions on an internet site for federal job openings.

Even before Trump’s hiring freeze, staff shortages at Acadia intensified because of troubles in  hiring seasonal employees.

Overall, the park each year attempts to hire between 150 to 170 seasonal employees but has only hired 115 seasonal employees each of the last two years with a key reason being a lack of affordable housing near the park, according to Amanda Pollock, Acadia’s public affairs officer.

In 2024, because of a lack of seasonal workers, the Acadia trails crew could only complete two major trail projects – the Great Meadow Village Connector Trail and the Bubbles Divide Trail, according to Pollock.

Fee collections and campgrounds hurt by lack of seasonal employees

Staff shortages at Acadia have occurred beyond the trails crew. The park also had funding to hire 45 seasonal fees staff in 2024 but could hire only 21. Campgrounds had reduced staff with shorter hours, meaning the park could not serve people who arrived late, Pollock told us. Because of lack of staff, the park also closed the Islesford Museum on Sept. 7 when it is usually kept open all of September, Pollock told us.

Acadia has faced other possible cuts in services the past several years. The main visitor center has been hampered by long lines at certain times and the park has stopped hiring lifeguards.

The Cadillac Summit Road, which currently requires a vehicle reservation, will also continue to shut at 9 pm each day, ending overnight star gazing.

Robbins Fournier, the former ranger, saw the effects of staffing cuts at Acadia when the NPS shut down the Village Green Information Center in 2020 during the pandemic and then, citing limited personnel, did not subsequently staff it again with rangers, as it previously had for 20 years during the busy season. Robbins Fournier worked for nearly a decade at the downtown information center, helping sell park entrance and commercial passes, swear in hundreds of junior rangers and plan visits and hiking for thousands of visitors.

Federal grants could also be in jeopardy at national parks

It’s also unclear if Acadia will be impacted by Trump’s chaotic Jan. 27 order to pause some $3 trillion in federal grants and loans.

The list of threatened programs included dozens of Park Service programs and accounts, according to an article by the National Parks Conservation Association. The administration rescinded the order two days later but made clear that the efforts to evaluate and maybe reduce federal programs will continue, and therefore, the future of these funds remains in limbo, the NPCA stated.

Acadia has received a generous number of federal grants in recent years. The park announced in April of 2024 that it received $950,000 from the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act for creating a model for tackling certain effects of climate change following extensive damage caused by early January storms in 2024 and a record breaking rainstorm in June of 2021.

Previously, Acadia received $500,000 from the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to help restore the Great Meadow and $400,000 from the same law to revive the Bass River Marsh.

Acadia also received a $1 million grant from the US Department of Energy to help install rooftop solar panels and 12 electric vehicle charging stations for the new maintenance and operations building at park headquarters.

Friends of Acadia and park work for affordable housing

The FOA and the park have launched a major effort to take up the shortage of affordable housing for park employees.

FOA’s initiatives include purchasing an old inn in Southwest Harbor that housed 10 seasonal employees in 2024, buying six two-bedroom town homes in Trenton to provide housing for Island Explorer drivers starting in 2025 and completing eight bedrooms in two new buildings on Dane Farm in Seal Harbor.

The National Park Service has also awarded $10 million contract to build new apartments on an existing park apartment development off Kebo Street in Bar Harbor.

But while the second Trump administration’s actions have created uncertainty in Acadia around staffing, services, research and efforts to build affordable park employee housing, anyone who has a sense of the more than 100-year history of the park and the millennia of geological forces at play, knows one thing is certain:

President Trump, all those who came before, and all those who are still to come, are but just a speck in the Acadian timeline, and whichever way the tide is going, the place is as solid as a rock.