Signs have gone up at National Parks across the country warning visitors that there may be interpretive plaques or information from Rangers that may be “negative about either past or living Americans.” The sign has a QR Code on it which can be used with a cell phone to report the offending information to the higher-ups within the National Park Service (NPS) and the Interior Department. A recent report from the Washington Post indicates that visitors who use the QR Code have not been reporting on bad behavior at the Parks, but instead use it to praise the Park staff and to laud the interpretation at the parks.
Here is what the article says:
The Washington Post reviewed more than 200 comments submitted since then that were obtained by the National Parks Conservation Association, a nonprofit advocacy group.
The comments overwhelmingly praise the parks as beautiful national treasures, with dozens complimenting rangers for their knowledge and navigational help. Many called for undoing funding cuts and rehiring staff who were fired by the Trump administration.
“The vast majority of public comments show what we’ve always known — people love their national parks and deeply value the dedicated staff who protect them every day,” said Theresa Pierno, president of the NPCA….
Only a handful of comments aligned with the administration’s goal of condemning “inappropriate” or “divisive” information. One of those comments criticized a guide for speculating on the sexuality of a historical figure. Another claimed that “woke” park rangers had taken away all the garbage cans.
Most of the complaints about signage were nonspecific, saying that a park display went too far or made them uncomfortable but not spelling out why. Similar comments about Petersburg National Battlefield in Virginia said it unfairly villainized a historical figure, who went unnamed.
Positive comments — along with direct criticisms of Trump’s policies — vastly outnumbered those that were critical of educational materials.
“It’s great I like it,” reads one terse comment without punctuation about Olympic National Park in northwestern Washington state near the Canadian border.
Many other comments stayed out of politics entirely, like one about Yellowstone National Park: “The bison were great! But the bison delayed traffic. There were so many bison!”
While some found too many large mammals, others saw too few.
“Not enough moose. They are so hard to find! Moose pond was supposed to have moose, but we didn’t even see them there,” said a visitor to Grand Teton National Park.
Many park visitors said they enjoyed learning about Indigenous people or said that parks needed more information about them — even if that history involved atrocities committed by White settlers.
Some visitors criticized the Trump administration for changing references to landmarks from their Indigenous names back to colonial names such as Mount McKinley in Alaska, reversing President Barack Obama’s decision to rename it Denali.
At least nine comments criticized the removal of information about Stonewall National Monument, a site that is central to the early fight for LGBTQ+ rights, primarily taking aim at the administration’s decision to erase recognition of transgender people there.
“This initiative to ask the public to identify negative stories about Americans in the past or living, seems aimed at distorting history to meet partisan ideology,” read one comment about the Manzanar National Historic Site in California, arguing that the story of Japanese Americans interned there needed to be told.
President Joe Biden did not institute a wide effort to remove statues from national parks, though his interior secretary, Deb Haaland, removed the word “squaw” from the names of hundreds of federal properties. Efforts in recent years to take down statues of Confederate figures or historic enslavers have primarily been pursued by local governments. In New York City, the American Museum of Natural History removed a statue of President Theodore Roosevelt that Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) said depicted Black and Indigenous people as inferior.
One commenter called for the removal of the Stonewall Jackson statue at Manassas National Battlefield Park in Virginia.
The Interior statement cited two examples of inaccurate information discovered since Trump’s executive order. In one instance, at Capitol Reef National Park in Utah, a visitor reported that a postcard misidentified a landmark and appeared to have used Wikipedia text without attributing it. In another case, a video on the Washington Monument’s website attributed a historically inaccurate phrase to George Washington.
Visitor complaints about the parks themselves generally had little to do with the administration’s aims. There are comments requesting benches in visitor centers and one asking for empty flower beds to be replanted at a former Russian bishop’s house at Sitka National Historical Park in Alaska. Another visitor complained about a horse at Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve in Kansas that appeared neglected, dirty and sad.
“Too many mosquitoes,” said one brief comment about Congaree National Park in South Carolina.
“There are a lot of mosquitos can we do something about that,” read another about Biscayne National Park, which includes a stretch of coast and islands near Miami.
A common theme running through many comments was a sense of dismay at funding and staffing cuts made by the Trump administration. These visitors complained about unclean bathrooms and the absence of rangers to give tours, with one typical comment concluding: “Hire back park staff. We need them.”
