As officials of the National Park Service cope with job cuts ordered by the Trump administration and confusion over whether future cutbacks will take place, Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument announced that it will be closed two days a week until further notice.
“Due to a lack of staffing, effective Monday, February 24, 2025, Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument will be closed Mondays and Tuesdays,” a monument employee wrote on Facebook Thursday. “There will be no access to the visitor center, trailhead parking or public restrooms. The monument is open 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Wednesday through Sunday.”
Located 35 miles west of Colorado Springs and administered by the National Park Service, Florissant Fossil Beds attracted 63,739 visitors in 2023 and is home to “one of the richest and most diverse fossil deposits in the world,” according to the park’s website. “Petrified redwood stumps up to 14 feet wide and thousands of detailed fossils of insects and plants reveal the story of a very different, prehistoric Colorado.”
As of Friday morning, the Facebook post had generated more than 7,500 comments, many of them denouncing the Trump Administration, however, the post didn’t tie the staffing problems to jobs cuts or any other specific reason.
A woman answering the phone at Florissant Fossil Beds referred an inquiry from The Denver Post to the media office of the National Park Service. Public affairs officers at Rocky Mountain National Park and Mesa Verde National Park did the same. E-mails to spokespeople at Colorado’s other two national parks — Great Sand Dunes and Black Canyon of the Gunnison — went unreturned.
Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet has introduced amendments to the Senate Fiscal Year 2025 budget resolution including one that would have reinstated roughly 5,500 employees of the National Park Service, Forest Service, Fish and Wildlife Service and Bureau of Land Management who have been fired in recent days. It was voted down Thursday night in a close vote.