What Is The Alt National Park Service? What To Know About Group Protesting Trump Layoffs

Yosemite staff protest Pres. Trump's firings with upside-down flag

Yosemite National Park staff hung an upside-down U.S. flag on El Capitan summit to protest staff firings at the park by the Trump administration.

• The Alt National Park Service is a self-described "resistance" team, dedicated to protecting the National Park Service.
• The Alt National Park Service was established in 2017, after Trump ordered the real National Park Service to stop using its social media because it re-shared posts about him.
• According to a Facebook post made by the coalition, more than 160,000 people make up the Alt National Park Service.

The National Park Service is the latest federal agency targeted by layoffs from President Donald Trump' administration, and park advocates wish to make their frustrations heard.

One of several activist organizations, the Alt National Park Service has been vocal about Trump's handling of the federal agency since he first took office eight years ago. The coalition has previously taken to social media to discuss the latest news involving the National Park Service.

Most recently, the Alt National Park Service shared a photo on Facebook of the upside-down American flag hung at Yosemite National Park's El Capitan summit on Tuesday morning. The demonstration came after roughly 1,000 National Park Service employees were laid off on Feb. 14.

Though the coalition shared the photo of the flag on social media, it had not confirmed its involvement with the incident as of Wednesday afternoon.

"We can't say much more about this right now," the coalition said on Facebook. "Apologies if we're sometimes unusually quiet − everything happens for a reason."

The Alt National Park Service did not immediately respond when contacted by USA TODAY on Wednesday afternoon.

Here's what to know about the Alt National Park Service.

Self-described at the "resistance" team of the National Park Service, the Alt National Park Service is an activist coalition dedicated to protecting and promoting U.S. parks.

No, the Alt National Park Service is not a legitimate federal agency. It is an activist group.

The Alt National Park Service was established in January 2017, shortly after President Donald Trump was sworn into office the first time, according to the coalition's website. The coalition was created, in part, as a response to restrictions placed on the official National Park Service social media accounts.

In 2017, the Department of Interior, which oversees the National Park Service, ordered the NPS to shut down its X account (then, Twitter) after two controversial posts were re-shared on the official government agency account. One of the posts was about Trump's inauguration and the other was about the disappearance of White House webpages, according to previous USA TODAY reporting. The re-posts were swiftly deleted.

In response, several unofficial accounts that parodied the National Park Service sprung up, including the Alt National Park Service. The accounts "aimed to communicate scientific facts, environmental concerns and information about climate change that they felt were being suppressed or underemphasized by the official channels," according to the coalition's website.

After some time, the National Park Service was allowed to resume using its X account.

The Alt National Park Service does not publicly disclose its members, but according to a Facebook post made by the coalition on Tuesday, more than 160,000 people are members.

Nearly 3 million people had "liked" the Alt National Park Service Facebook Page, as of Wednesday.

Contributing: Eve Chen and Fernando Cervantes Jr., USA TODAY

Greta Cross is a national trending reporter at USA TODAY. Follow her on X and Instagram @gretalcross. Story idea? Email her at gcross@usatoday.com.