How Will National Park Mass Firings Affect South Dakota?

South Dakota has many employees who look after the wonderful National Parks in the state...so how will the abrupt firing of nearly 1,000 National Parks affect South Dakota families and visitors?

South Dakota makes a lot of money every year from tourism.

In 2024, 14.9 million visitors came to South Dakota, spending a record $5.09 billion.

READ MORE: Iowa Park Ranger’s Heartbreaking Response to Being Fired Goes Viral

Last week the President oversaw the unexpected mass firing of almost 1,000 National Park workers across the nation.

One Park Ranger who was blindsided by the firings, Brian Gibbs from Effigy Mounds National Monument in northeast, Iowa, said: “It felt merciless, I felt violated, very disheartening,”

AP is reporting that “park advocates say the permanent staff cuts will leave hundreds of national parks including some of the most well-known and most heavily visited sites understaffed and facing tough decisions about operating hours, public safety and resource protection.”

South Dakota has many very popular national parks including:

Mount Rushmore: A top-visited national park in South Dakota.

Wind Cave: The first cave in the world to become a national park, and home to the densest cave system in the world.

Badlands National Park: A unique landscape of buttes, pinnacles, and spires, and home to one of the world's richest fossil beds.

Jewel Cave: A National Monument in South Dakota.

Minuteman Missile National Historic Site: During the Cold War, a vast arsenal of nuclear missiles were placed in the Great Plains.

Missouri National Recreational River: Imagine a 100-mile stretch of North America's longest river, a vestige of the untamed American West.

It's not yet clear how the firings will affect South Dakota national parks and their employees.