When someone dies in a national park, the details are usually revealed by park officials within days of the incident. That’s not just because deaths and serious injuries on federal land are a matter of public concern. It’s also because the deaths are often preventable, and officials want to make sure the information is disseminated widely to educate the public and hopefully prevent tragedies in the future.
GearJunkie writers are familiar with that status quo, as we’ve been reporting on mishaps and accidents within national parks for many years.
But policies about how the National Park Service (NPS) shares information with the public seem to be changing. Since President Trump took office last year, questions about the national parks are nearly always funneled through the Interior Department, which manages the NPS. And now, the Interior Department wants to change how deaths and serious injuries in national parks are reported to the public.
New guidance from the Interior Department prohibits park staff or department employees from directly notifying the public about the details of deaths or serious injuries in the national parks, The Washington Post reported Wednesday. The Post obtained a December memo from the Interior Department, which outlined the new policy.
“The guidance was developed to create a more consistent approach to incident communications across the Department and is not intended to conceal fatalities or delay information,” Interior press secretary Aubrie Spady told The Washington Post.
GearJunkie reached out to the Interior Department on Thursday for independent verification of this story, but did not hear back as of this writing.
No Details on Recent Park Deaths
Recent reports of deaths in national parks seem to underscore that something is changing with how the NPS reports on these tragedies.
On the one hand, the NPS is still reporting on some deaths in national parks on the government website. That includes four deaths in June: three heat-related deaths at Grand Canyon National Park and an NPS employee who died from falling into a crevasse on Denali.
But four other people have reportedly died at national parks within the last week — and neither the NPS nor the Interior Department has released a statement about any of them.
- June 19 in Sequoia National Park: A 17-year-old girl drowned in Sequoia while on a hike with family and friends. The Tulare County Coroner’s Office confirmed the death, SFGate reported.
- June 20 in Yosemite National Park: A 22-year-old man died after being pulled into the current and carried over a 600-foot waterfall in Yosemite. The Mariposa County Sheriff’s Office confirmed the death and the details of what happened, SFGate reported.
According to The Washington Post story, two other incidents occurred this past weekend at national parks: a motorcyclist died in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and a body was found in the desert at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument.
As other publications followed up on The Washington Post‘s initial reporting, Interior Department spokespersons have disputed that anything substantive has actually changed. The “narrative being presented is false and reflects a significant mischaracterization” of the new guidance, according to an Interior Department statement shared with Forbes.
“We continue to provide public safety information, statements, news releases, and incident updates as appropriate, while respecting investigative processes, privacy considerations, next-of-kin notifications, and, in some cases, requests from family members not to release identifying information,” Interior press secretary Spady said.
However, former park superintendents have defended past practices of giving out information about park deaths quickly. That includes Dan Wenk, who served as head of operations for the park system, as well as superintendent of Yellowstone National Park.
“The basic process was always to get people as much information as you could give them as soon as possible around an incident,” Wenk told The Post.
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