The Green & Gray Retort, Volume I, Issue 5

⛺ Welcome back to a spooky edition of the Green and Gray Retort, the official newsletter of the Resistance Rangers. In this edition, we take a look at a nationwide protest, the latest on layoffs during the shutdown, and a lonely scene in San Antonio. As always: come for the real stories unfolding on our public lands; stay for the adorable animals, a healthy amount of snark, and heartwarming personal anecdotes.

☎️ Action Alert!☎️

Many of y’all saw the “Action Alert” email sent earlier in October - thanks to everyone who called their Congressfolk! With the recent bump, we have now surpassed 4300 calls using our 5Calls script! We’re proud to partner with 5Calls, and proud to know so many supporters of public lands! Our next goal is 5,000 calls: can you help us? 

🥶Deep Freeze

Buried deep in the news cycle: October 15th came and went without an extension of the federal hiring freeze that has been in place since January 20th. Counting positions subject to the freeze, PLUS the various retirement and buyout offers made to Park Service employees throughout the year, AND employees who did not return to their positions following the Valentine’s Day Massacre, there are an unprecedented amount of unfilled positions throughout your public lands. This, in turn, means a vast amount of institutional knowledge about how to run a complex beast like the National Park Service has been lost in just a few short months. 

While the freeze is technically over, that does not mean that all the open positions can be filled immediately (upon the end of the shutdown). A corresponding Executive Order, “Accountability in Federal Hiring”, was released on the same day the freeze ended. This mandates certain bureaucratic requirements be fulfilled before creating a new position or filling a vacant one, including the eye-opening second requirement, which forces every agency to have a “Strategic Hiring Committee” to “ensure that agency hiring is consistent with the national interest, agency needs, and the priorities of my Administration.” Written notice must also be provided to the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) upon approving any position for listing. One can imagine how long this will stretch an already overburdened and onerous hiring process.

💔Cast A-RIF’ed, Court Filing Edition

After a year full of trouble for the National Park Service and your public lands, another blow might strike at the NPS’s remaining workforce. The Department of Interior (DOI) is pushing forward again with plans for a Reduction in Force (RIF). We have written about the RIF plans since our first edition of the Green and Gray Retort, and we have been tracking this rapidly-evolving situation since early 2025.

Last week, DOI was forced by the courts to confirm their plans to RIF numerous positions within all agencies under their umbrella, including NPS. Due to a lawsuit championed by NPS Unions like the American Federation of Government Employees, a preliminary injunction (PI) has (until the shutdown ends) blocked positions slated to be axed. While we don’t know the number of employees they plan to fire or when they’ll enact the RIF, we DO know that every day that the RIF is stalled is a victory, thanks to the voices of people who are getting loud on behalf of public lands and the folks who protect them. 

An RR member developed the above Venn diagram, which illustrates how little the DOI is sharing. While we don’t know a lot, we do know that collective bargaining units have really gone to bat for the NPS: DOI was ordered to release the full RIF plan and numbers on Tuesday 10/28, and we await their compliance. 

👑🚫No Kings

Across the United States, an estimated 7 MILLION people gathered to reaffirm what the colonists figured out in the 1700s: America is no place for Kings. The only monarchs we hold allegiance to are: King’s Canyon, Kingfishers, Kinglets, King Eiders, King Mackerel, and… Monarch butterflies.💖

The No Kings protests held on October 18th were the second largest recorded in this country’s history, only surpassed by the first Earth Day protest on April 22, 1970. These were peaceful, lawful protests held across all fifty states (and in several cities across the globe) protesting the authoritarian actions of the current administration. The Resistance Rangers encouraged protest-goers to share messages demanding protections for public lands, protections of rangers’ careers, and even shared lovingly-designed posters and informational leaflets to be shared and dispersed at each location (see example of one at right). 

🤟Look for the Helpers 🥰
While our organization and this newsletter are park-focused, we would be remiss not to mention and acknowledge the pain of millions of Americans who, as of this writing, will be going without SNAP benefits this month, including, but not limited to, furloughed and excepted park workers. 

For our fellow rangers, we have put together a list of resources that may be helpful professionally, financially, and personally to navigate this shutdown. In addition, our friends at myFEDbenefits have put together a map of shutdown assistance available to all federal employees who are furloughed, including financial resources, transportation assistance, pet care, and more! Ultimately, we are all in this together and are stronger together with our communities. 

🎤Indigenous Impacts On the Air!

October 13th, Indigenous Peoples’ Day in the United States, allows for a chance to honor the first peoples of the land we call home, celebrate their cultures, and tell the real story behind America’s Best Idea - one of connection and resilience. 

Our crack podcast team, Resistance Rangers on the Air, released a wonderful episode detailing the historic and present-day relationship between the National Park Service and Native tribes. The team hears a historical critique of the establishment of the NPS, including the painful reality of tribal displacement and the legacy of settler colonialism. Then, our Indigenous guests share their personal definitions of Indigenous Peoples' Day. Join us if you haven’t already for a powerful celebration of Native cultures—their resilience, survival, and continued resistance against erasure.

⭐A Lil’ Something Wholesome

The following are 92 notes left by attendees of the 2025 Geological Society of America annual meeting in San Antonio, Texas, at the vacant NPS booth. The NPS (along with other federal agencies) were not allowed to attend the conference because of the shutdown. Instead of leaving an empty booth, a note was left that said “We miss you!” Attendees were encouraged to leave personal messages on post-its and answered the question, “How is the NPS meaningful for you?” Link to the post-its here.

🙃National Snark Service - AI Edition

On September 30, all DOI employees received an email with the subject line “AI at Interior: Empowering Innovation and Reimagining How We Serve” 

In past years, while Congress was still working out a continuing resolution, agency leadership teams have passed down clear guidance to employees who are questioning whether or not they will come to work on October 1. This guidance generally arrives up to a week in advance, and has previously included information such as which work groups will be exempt, which work groups will be furloughed, how to apply for unemployment, and local community resources. 

This year, all we got was “Park leadership is awaiting guidance” at 5pm the evening before the shutdown, and… this AI propaganda email. This email continues to illustrate the Secretary’s priorities, and it’s painfully obvious that even the East Wing new ballroom of the White House is above us on that list. 

“To lay the foundation for AI across the Department, we are directing every Departmental Office and Bureau to designate an AI Coordinator by October 10, 2025. Each AI Coordinator will serve as the point of contact to advance the AI Secretary’s Order and Implementation Plan, which will be issued today.”

This email was never followed up with an implementation plan (unsurprising). 

🔥Words to Wallow With

Poe wrote “The Fall of the House of Usher” while living in Philadelphia. The six years Poe spent in Philly were some of the most productive of his life; Edgar Allen Poe National Historic Site preserves the site where he lived. Learn more about Poe’s life & times at nps.gov/edal.  

“I know not how it was --but, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit. I say insufferable; for the feeling was unrelieved by any of that half-pleasurable, because poetic, sentiment, with which the mind usually receives even the sternest natural images of the desolate or terrible. I looked upon the scene before me --upon the mere house, and the simple landscape features of the domain --upon the bleak walls --upon the vacant eye-like windows --upon a few rank sedges --and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees --with an utter depression of soul which I can compare to no earthly sensation more properly than to the after-dream of the reveller upon opium --the bitter lapse into everyday life --the hideous dropping off of the veil.”

Totally, definitely unrelated to this scary story about a house: we have a lot of thoughts about the White House East Wing. 

🗞️A note on future issues: 

Have a cool story you want highlighted here? Want to showcase that once-in-a-lifetime pic you captured at a park recently? Have some insight, reflection, or idea that you feel is worth sharing to the Resistance? What are you waiting for?! Reach out to us, and we may just include your submission in future editions! 

Was this newsletter forwarded to you? Sign up for the Resistance Ranger email list to receive the latest news and help us resist the destruction of “America’s Greatest Idea” (Following the email list link will take a brief moment because it goes to an encrypted form to keep your data safe).

In solidarity - and for the enjoyment, education, and inspiration of this and future generations,

Resistance Rangers