The National Park Service would lose more than 5,500 employees under President Donald Trump’s Fiscal 2026 budget proposal, one that would have far-reaching impacts to the agency's mandate and which Defenders of Wildlife called an “extinction budget.”

The proposal says the Park Service workforce would drop from 13,648 during FY2024 to 8,130 for the coming fiscal year if Congress adopts Trump's request, which is unlikely to happen in full.

The proposal also cuts the Park Service’s central operations budget from just over $3 billion for FY24, the last enacted federal budget, to $2 billion, a massive reduction that would be expected to severly hamstring the agency's ability to manage the National Park System, which counts more than 430 units from "national parks" to "national historic sites" and "national lakeshores."

In an earlier analysis of the president's request, the National Parks Conservation Association estimated the request if approved by Congress would cost about 350 park units all of their funding.

NPCA had no immediate comment Monday on the more detailed budget proposal. But President and CEO Theresa Pierno earlier Monday criticized Interior Secretary Doug Burgum for misleading the Senate Appropriations subcommittee last week while testifying on Interior’s FY25 and FY26 requests.

“For months, Secretary Burgum has misrepresented the true state of the National Park Service, time and again justifying the administration’s damaging cuts to our parks and the staff who care for them,” said Pierno. “His latest Congressional testimony was just another attempt to deflect and distract. But the data is clear: national park staffing is at its lowest point in decades.

“Secretary Burgum’s narrative doesn’t match the reality unfolding in our parks. The Park Service is in a full-blown staffing crisis. Even national parks like Yosemite are struggling to provide basic visitor services with overwhelmed park staff,” Pierno added. “Thousands of essential positions remain vacant across the system, including roughly 100 superintendent roles. The agency is being stretched to the limit without the leadership or resources it needs to function. Any further reduction in force, as the administration is reportedly planning, would be devastating to the future of our national parks.”

Trump’s budget request also slashes Inflation Reduction Act funds the Biden administration secured to help the Park Service with climate change resilience projects, among other on-the-ground work, from $165 million to $74 million

At Defenders of Wildlife, officials said the president's budget request would deliver a direct hit to threatened and endangered species.

"The president's FY26 budget request affirms the destructive impact to wildlife evident in his early topline budget request. The Trump 'Extinction Budget' would destroy the national endangered species program, a highly effective and already underfunded effort that provides a lifeline for critically imperiled species, and is yet another example of the disregard this administration has for the people and agencies charged with conserving America’s wildlife,” said Robert Dewey, Defenders of Wildlife’s vice president of government relations.

“The fate of over 1,600 species listed under the Endangered Species Act is largely up to Congress which must reject the Trump Extinction Budget and affirm the nation’s longstanding commitment to saving wildlife,” he added.