Fired federal workers share the crucial jobs no longer being done

Jim Landahl, a National Park Service biological science technician, spent Friday, February 14, moving willow trees from a nursery to a helipad in Grand Canyon National Park. The trees were part of efforts to restore vegetation at a popular campground located at the base of the canyon, where temperatures can reach around 49° Celsius (120° Fahrenheit). The trees were to provide privacy and much-needed shade for visitors.

But before he could hike 12 kilometers down to the campground to start planting the trees, Landahl — a probationary employee — learned that his job had been terminated.

Landahl is among thousands of employees, including many scientists, across government agencies who have recently been fired in a push by the Trump administration to reduce the federal workforce. The efforts, spearheaded by Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency, take aim at probationary employees in the federal government, those within around one to three years of starting a new job. More than 200,000 federal workers had less than one year of service in the federal government in June 2024 — the latest data available at the time of publication — according to the Office of Personnel Management.

Employees at health agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration, are among those affected. The terminations, as well as other moves to cut science-related spending, have led to confusion and concern about public health and safety and the environment both within and outside of the government.

For instance, many members of the CDC’s Epidemic Intelligence Service — a competitive program that trains “disease detectives” to respond to outbreaks — were reportedly warned February 14 that their positions were being terminated, leading to outcries by scientists. The program since has apparently been spared.

At the U.S. Department of Agriculture, employees working on the response to bird flu reportedly received termination letters, only for the department to then scramble to rescind the firings.

Past presidents have shrunk the overall federal workforce, but not in such a quick, sweeping manner, and rarely in ways that have so deeply affected federal support for science. “No president has ever done anything like this,” says science historian Naomi Oreskes of Harvard University. Although there have previously been debates about the role and extent of science agencies, she notes, both Republican and Democratic presidents since the U.S. Civil War have by and large supported science in the federal government.

To better understand the jobs of people affected by these firings, as well their impact on health, safety and popular programs like the national parks, Science News spoke to employees across the federal government whose science-related jobs have been terminated.

Science outreach at NIH

One month into her job at the National Human Genome Research Institute in Bethesda, Md., Katie Sandlin received official word about her impending termination. Sandlin had just moved from Alabama for her new role as an outreach education specialist. There, she helped create activities and resources not only to inspire students, but also for the general public and health workers to better interpret genomic and genetic data. For instance, she says, people can easily order DNA tests to their doorsteps these days, and they may seek guidance on what the results mean.

Further, many health care providers haven’t been extensively trained in genomic or genetic analysis, Sandlin notes. “We want to make sure that they’re equipped with the right information to help their patients.”

Such resources help emphasize that two people with the same health issue may need different treatments tailored to unique characteristics embedded in their DNA. It’s part of a larger push toward personalized medicine. “In order to reach that [understanding], you’ve got to educate students, you’ve got to train their teachers, you’ve got to inform health care providers,” Sandlin says. “If we’re not there doing it, it’s not going to happen.”

Protecting waterways with the U.S. Forest Service

In the Tongass National Forest in southeast Alaska, Anna Tollfeldt scouted streams as part of her job as a biological technician at the U.S. Forest Service’s office in Wrangell. She mapped the waterways to ensure logging didn’t take place too close to fish-bearing streams, which receive special protections. Those areas require a certain amount of shade and plant diversity to provide adequate temperatures and food for fish, particularly salmon, to thrive, Tollfeldt says.

She also worked with a local tribe, the Wrangell Cooperative Association, to identify previously logged areas that should be restored to make the streams healthier for salmon. “We do need wood; logging does need to occur,” Tollfeldt says. But “it needs to be done responsibly if we want other resources, such as salmon, which is incredibly important here as a subsistence food and to the culture.”

Tollfeldt was born and raised in southeast Alaska and hired by the Forest Service in July 2023 through a program that preferentially selects local residents. “These communities are really small, and they’re really expensive to move to,” Tollfeldt says. There’s also little to do in Wrangell, a town with roughly 2,000 people. Around a quarter of the employees were fired from Tollfeldt’s office of about 25 permanent workers. “When you remove that many people, that impact is big here” in Wrangell.

Assessing the safety of medical devices at FDA

Among its many roles, FDA reviews medical devices for safety and performance. But many of the people responsible for those reviews — reportedly as many as 200 — were fired. One reviewer, who asked for Science News not to use their name for fear of retaliation, says they were in the midst of reviewing a submission from a company seeking FDA clearance of a new device when they got their termination letter on Saturday, February 15.

It cited poor performance as the reason for being fired from FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health. But the reviewer noted that they regularly worked long hours to handle the overwhelming amount of materials. “I work on Saturdays because of the load of these submissions,” the reviewer says. 

At first glance, some technologies look incredible, the fired reviewer says. For example, one may claim an artificial intelligence–enabled device that aids disease detection would reduce the amount of radiation patients are exposed to during CT scans. But further examination of the methods used to create the device might reveal fatal flaws.

The mass firing may have dire consequences if medical devices are no longer as rigorously examined, the reviewer says. Inaccuracies when detecting or diagnosing diseases can have disastrous effects. If a cancer diagnosis is delayed, the reviewer says, the cancer could spread and move into a more deadly stage before being identified. “The American public [is] going to face the consequences if those unsafe devices are going to be in the market.”

Protecting habitat and spotting bird flu deaths for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

When Harlan Gough took a job at Columbia National Wildlife Refuge in his home state of Washington last year, he was excited to do work that he found meaningful as a wildlife biologist.

The job involved managing habitat and doing conservation work for waterfowl like ducks, including warding off invasive species that would otherwise “completely swamp” wetlands at the refuge. At one point, Gough recalls clearing out debris that a beaver had stuffed into a culvert, which had in turn flooded public roads.

Coordinating with officials from USDA to respond to waterfowl affected by bird flu was also part of Gough’s job. He’s witnessed die-offs of dozens of geese that appear to have succumbed to the virus. Some dead animals have even popped up in towns near the refuge.

Gough worries that with his firing, there may not be people to continue the work he was doing at the refuge, which is also a popular hunting ground. He suspects that avid birders and hunters may be the first to witness environmental degradation at the refuge caused by a lack of personnel.

“My worry is that this is not the end, but only the beginning, for the trouble for these federal agencies that manage our natural areas and conduct science,” Gough says.

Mapping airspace at the Federal Aviation Administration

Pilots and air traffic controllers consult flight maps on a minute-by-minute basis to avoid disasters, such as the Jan. 29 plane crash at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. But several cartographers who create and maintain those maps, formally called aeronautical information specialists, at the FAA received termination letters in mid-February, according to one cartographer. They requested that Science News not use their name for fear of retaliation.

“Our work is strictly critical public safety and keeping our nation’s airspace safe,” the cartographer says. “I honestly did think that we might have been safe from the firings given our critical positions.”

The FAA, part of the Department of Transportation, is the only group authorized to create U.S. airspace maps, the cartographer says. The job requires highly specialized training and knowledge. “If you look at just a square inch on the map, you will see over 30 symbols just in that area,” the cartographer notes.

“We not only have to learn the symbology, we have to learn the meaning behind it.” For instance, certain symbols tell pilots where they must report their location to air traffic control to ensure the plane is on a safe and efficient route and to avoid congesting airways.

The cartographer worries about pilots and others lacking information needed for flight. When the team creating such maps becomes understaffed and overstressed, the cartographer says, “that’s where mistakes can start to happen. And those mistakes would be widespread.”

Protecting visitors and the environment for the National Park Service

Instead of planting trees at the foot of one of America’s most popular national parks, Landahl spent the week after he was fired speaking out on behalf of his community. As a biological science technician at Grand Canyon National Park, Landahl was tasked with leading efforts to restore vegetation affected by upgrades to a pipeline that shuttles water across the canyon. Hedges used to provide privacy and shade at a campground at the bottom of the canyon.

Efforts to restore vegetation at the campground are now on hold with the firings, Landahl says, calling the need for shade a “public safety issue.” Rather than preventing waste — a reported goal of the government downsizing — the unexpected nature of the termination led to a waste of resources, he says.

“We were ready to keep working on Saturday and Sunday to get this project off the ground,” Landahl says. “I was supposed to be in the canyon right now, planting and getting that work done for the American public, but it was a waste of money, and it was a waste of time the way they did that.”

Landahl was also responsible for assisting the nursery and greenhouse, managing invasive species and organizing programs for a local Grand Canyon public school. 

“We’re out in the field, out in the desert, grinding it out, doing our life’s work, doing work for the country, doing work for the American public to keep their country looking great,” Landahl says. “When you kick a small American town like ours, and you make impacts to those communities, you really kick a bee’s nest with us. We take it personally.”