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A former Western North Carolina forest ranger and public affairs specialist working in disaster recovery said she is touched by the outpouring of support since her termination story went viral on social media.
Jenifer Bunty, 40, is one of at least 17 North Carolina U.S. Forest Service employees reportedly terminated under President Donald Trump administration’s wide-ranging cuts to the federal workforce.
“I keep hoping that we'll be reinstated,” she told BPR. “That someone will realize this is necessary work. I did picture being in the Forest Service till I retired. I loved the work I did. Even with everything that's happened in the past few days, it was so hard and so fun."
On Feb. 17, Bunty posted on Facebook that her termination letter claimed she was fired “based on performance” and recounted the pride she’d felt working with the Forest Service for the last year and a half.
Her story went viral with 10,000 shares on Facebook alone.
“It started really getting traction and I was sitting on the couch and I kind of looked at my husband and I was like, ‘I think something's happening,’” Bunty told BPR.
“I've been so touched by the outpouring of support and especially from people I've worked with in the past and people from Western North Carolina saying, ‘We saw what you did and we're so grateful.’ That means the world to me and to my other colleagues who have been fired and the ones who are still there and still working really hard on these things,” she said.
Bunty is one of tens of thousands – with one estimate saying close to 200,000 are at risk – of federal workers who have lost their jobs, according to the Associated Press.
About 1,400 of those were with the U.S. Forest Service. These workers, like Bunty, worked across a myriad of fields to manage public lands and timber across the country. Most were fired on Valentine’s Day or over the weekend.
Matthew Brossard, general vice president at the Forest Service Council of the National Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE-FSC), fears about 3,400 probationary employees may eventually be cut.
The terminations were in addition to the administration’s hiring freeze, rescinded job offers and the offer for federal employees to resign known as the “Fork in the Road” option.
In early February, at least 75,000 employees had opted to resign, according to the Associated Press. The Department of the Interior, which manages the Park Service, has reported that about 2,700 Interior Department employees took the buyout.
The NFFE-FSC, whose membership includes about 20,000 Forest Service employees, has joined a lawsuit against Trump alongside other federal workers’ unions.
The lawsuit asked that these firings and resignations be designated “unlawful” and that the resignation program be ended.
The unions are still waiting on a decision in the lawsuit, and as other unions put lawsuits forward, Brossard said the NFFE-FSC will support them.
Western North Carolina is home to more than a million acres of national forest controlled by the Forest Service. In addition, the U.S. Department of Interior and Park Service controls the over 250,000 acres in national parks in the region as well as the 469 miles of the Blue Ridge Parkway.
The Department of the Interior did not respond to BPR’s request for the specific number of those fired in the region.
A spokesperson with the U.S. Department of Agriculture – which oversees the Forest Service – would not confirm to BPR the total number of Forest Service employees who have been terminated.
“USDA cannot comment on individual personnel actions. Protecting the people and communities we serve, as well as the infrastructure, businesses, and resources they depend on to grow and thrive, remains a top priority for the USDA and the Forest Service,” a spokesperson said in an email.
The recent terminations happened mainly to employees who were still within a probationary period, Brossard said, in a move the union is challenging as unlawful. This came directly after a federal directive to lay off federal employees across government agencies.
New employees complete a probationary period but the length differs by the job. Some employees restart the probationary period if they are promoted or change jobs within the federal government.
Probationary workers in the Forest Service include the people who keep campgrounds clean, work out logistics for sending firefighters to the field, maintain trails and trail signage, and monitor the agency’s timber harvests, which are particularly essential after forest damage as extensive as the post-Hurricane Helene blowdowns as well as many other positions, Brossard said.
Brossard referenced a federal employee who has worked for the Forest Service for 38 years and said he was fired last week.
“What the administration wants you to believe is these are young people. [That] there's plenty of jobs out there for them. It's not."Matthew Brossard, general vice president at the Forest Service Council of the National Federation of Federal Employees
“What the administration wants you to believe is these are young people. [That] there's plenty of jobs out there for them. It's not,” Brossard said.
Meanwhile, seasonal position hiring has been frozen, and Brossard said some seasonal workers have had their positions revoked.
Public safety employees, including firefighters, are expected to be exempt from the broad workforce reductions.
“Our wildland firefighter and other public safety positions are of the utmost priority,” USDA spokesperson said in an email.
But, Bunty said, this appears to not include everyone who works on fires such as those who help coordinate fire personnel.
“Almost everyone on our forest, the vast majority of our employees, hold fire qualifications. It's all hands on deck when it happens,” Bunty said, referring to the Pisgah National Forest where she worked.
She said she knows people who fought fires that were terminated.
“They might have not been in fire positions. They had different day jobs, like they might have been, you know, a different kind of specialist the way their pay worked out, but they went to fires and fought fires when there were fires,” Bunty said.
The Appalachian Trail Conservancy also weighed in on the cuts stating that these terminations threaten the “very fabric of the A.T.’s cooperative management” as well AS Helene recovery and emergency response.
The Appalachian Trail runs over 2,000 miles through 14 states and sees around 3,000 thru-hikers every year, BPR previously reported.
The ATC estimates recent terminations represent a 10% staff reduction in the Forest Service and a 5% reduction in the Park Service across the nation.
“Unprecedented in magnitude, these firings are being carried out without regard to the agencies’ ability to perform their essential duties as required by law to effectively manage our public lands and resources,” ATC President and CEO Sandra Marra said in a statement.
“The Appalachian Trail is a beloved and internationally revered American treasure that depends on strong public-private collaboration across 14 states. These terminations will significantly impact the quality of the hiking experience and safety for millions of people who visit the Trail every year.”
Park service reeling
The Great Smoky Mountains National Park was the most visited park in the country with over 13 million visitors. That’s more than Yosemite, Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon combined, according to the park service. About 1,000 park service employees were fired during this flurry of terminations, according to the Associated Press.
Sara Rivera, 29, a museum tech at the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, got the now-infamous Valentine’s Day email saying her position had been terminated.
“This was my dream job. I never expected that I could have the opportunity to work in the park collections,” Rivera, who started working at the park last summer, said.
Rivera was part of a team that managed the park’s natural history collection and was working on a 20-year backlog of specimens that needed to be cataloged and added to a new database.
Rivera said the collection includes a taxidermy passenger pigeon that is now extinct, a pressed flower from the early 1900s and much more.
“We have record-size hellbenders in our collection, they are the largest hellbenders that have been collected and they do not get to that size anymore because of pollution and habitat destruction and all those problems,” Rivera said. “So if we didn't have our collection, these sorts of things would be lost. And as we lose more species, the collection becomes even more valuable.”
The National Parks Conservation Association said that the Department of the Interior will exempt 5,000 seasonal positions under the current hiring freeze, while simultaneously terminating 1,000 National Park Service employees.
“Exempting National Park Service seasonal staff from the federal hiring freeze means parks can fill some visitor services positions. But with peak season just weeks away, the decision to slash 1,000 permanent, full-time jobs from national parks is reckless and could have serious public safety and health consequences,” Theresa Pierno, President and CEO for the National Parks Conservation Association, said in a statement.
NPCA’s Southern Appalachian Director Jeff Hunter told a Tennessee TV station that any reduction in staff would have a negative impact on the GSMNP.
“Any kind of shortfall in staff is going to directly impact the visitor experience. But also these parks contain our shared heritage - our cultural and natural heritage - and those resources need to be protected by park rangers."NPCA’s Southern Appalachian Director Jeff Hunter
“Any kind of shortfall in staff is going to directly impact the visitor experience. But also these parks contain our shared heritage - our cultural and natural heritage - and those resources need to be protected by park rangers," Hunter said.
Rivera, a master’s biology student at Western Carolina University, said she isn’t sure if a federal job is a good route for the future.
“Things feel dire right now. We don't know what's coming next and it's scary, but everything's going to be okay, even if it's not okay for a little bit or a lot of it,” Rivera said. “We're going to get out of this somehow and we'll find a new normal. I wish that this was not happening, but the federal workers aren't alone. I've seen so much community rising up out of this.”
