Dave Harmon, PW editor
Who are the people trashing NPs during the shutdown? Academics give us a clue
Like an unlocked museum, national parks have been left largely defenseless during the most recent government shutdown, allowing scoundrels and cheats to tramp over unstaffed lands.
While much of the federal government is funded during the longest-ever shutdown, the national parks aren't. Yet in 2018, the Trump administration made the unusual — and possibly illegal — decision to keep many of the nation's crown jewels operating with skeleton crews.