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Report: Parks Shutdown Saps $750 Million In Visitor Spending

A hiker gazes 3,000 feet down to the Colorado River at Toroweap Overlook in Grand Canyon National Park. A parks advocacy group says the Grand Canyon region has lost 120,000 visitors and $11 million in visitor spending since the government shutdown began.
Courtesy of Wanda Gayle
A hiker gazes 3,000 feet down to the Colorado River at Toroweap Overlook in Grand Canyon National Park. A parks advocacy group says the Grand Canyon region has lost 120,000 visitors and $11 million in visitor spending since the government shutdown began.

An estimated 7 million people have been shut out at 12 of the busiest and biggest U.S. national parks, costing parks and nearby communities about $76 million in lost visitor spending for each day the partial government shutdown drags on.

That's according to a report just out from the , which derived its estimates from actual National Park Service visitation numbers from last October and an independent analysis of park economic impacts conducted by the nonpartisan group Headwaters Economics.

The report also concludes that more than 40,000 non-Park Service jobs are at risk in and outside these 12 national parks alone.

"These figures are mind-boggling, and they only begin to capture the full economic shock of locking up the crown jewels of America," says Maureen Finnerty, the Coalition's chair and a former superintendent at Everglades and Olympic National Parks.

Here are the calculations park-by-park for the first 10 days of the shutdown. (Figures apply to areas inside and outside the parks):

Acadia National Park, Maine

Lost visitors: 68,493

Lost visitor dollars: $5,263,013

Non-NPS jobs at risk: 3,147

Badlands National Park, South Dakota

Lost visitors: 27,767

Lost visitor dollars: $656,986

Non-NPS jobs at risk: 375

Boston National Historic Park, Massachusetts

Lost visitors: 54,794

Lost visitor dollars: $2,032,876

Non-NPS jobs at risk: 904

Cuyahoga Valley National Park, Ohio

Lost visitors: 68,219

Lost visitor dollars: $1,545,205

Non-NPS jobs at risk: 599

Everglades National Park, Florida

Lost visitors: 25,083

Lost visitor dollars: $3,857,534

Non-NPS jobs at risk: 1,951

Gettysburg National Military Park, Pennsylvania

Lost visitors: 27,397

Lost visitor dollars: $1,796,712

Non-NPS jobs at risk: 1,051

Glacier National Park, Montana

Lost visitors: 60,273

Lost visitor dollars: $3,076,712

Non-NPS jobs at risk: 1,632

Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona

Lost visitors: 120,000

Lost visitor dollars: $11,750,684

Non-NPS jobs at risk: 6,167

Great Smoky Mountains National Park, North Carolina and Tennessee

Lost visitors: 257,534

Lost visitor dollars: $23,123,387

Non-NPS jobs at risk: 11,367

Olympic National Park, Washington

Lost visitors: 77,808

Lost visitor dollars: $2,912,328

Non-NPS jobs at risk: 1,395

Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado

Lost visitors: 80,821

Lost visitor dollars: $4,821,917

Non-NPS jobs at risk: 2,641

Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, Idaho and Montana

Lost Visitors: 98,630

Lost visitor dollars: $9,452,054

Non-NPS jobs at risk: 4,481

Yosemite National Park, California

Lost visitors: 106,849

Lost visitor dollars: $10,021,917

Non-NPS jobs at risk: 4,602

Zion National Park, Utah

Lost visitors: 72,876

Lost visitor dollars: $3,495,890

Non-NPS jobs at risk: 2,136

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Howard Berkes is a correspondent for the NPR Investigations Unit.