Joshua Tree National Park Superintendent David Smith was on the Z107.7 Up Close Show Friday, talking about the effects of the COVID-19 shutdown on the park. One of the effects—that visitors never got to see—was the animals wandering around areas where they hadn’t been seen before, such as bighorn sheep in campgrounds, and so many tortoises crawling across the roads. Smith added that the desert tortoise population had a zero mortality rate from being run over by vehicles. Managing editor Tami Roleff shares some of the highlights of the conversation…
“Bighorn sheep hanging out in Belle campground and White Tank campground, places you never see them.”
While the animals enjoyed having Joshua Tree National Park closed to visitors, Superintendent David Smith said the closure is causing financial difficulties for the park.
“It’s a huge hit to the park. We rely on those fees to pay for a lot of our operations. A lot of the rangers, a lot of the researchers, the interpretative staff, they all get paid with the money that comes in through those gates. We’re down about $3 million.”
The spring months—March, April and May—with the blooming wildflowers, is the park’s busiest time of year, and it was closed during that time.
So Smith said he’s looking for ways to cut the budget. He noted that many employees weren’t hired during the closure, so he hopes to leverage their salaries toward infrastructure projects.
“What we’ve done is we did not hire as many people during the shutdown. So we were able to package some money to keep the west entrance [project of adding four new entrance gates] moving forward. So I think we’re still slated to have that in about 18 months or so.
Smith noted the park has become a year-round attraction. “We were getting 100,000 to 150,000 visitors every month in the summertime,” and he added it will be interesting to see who comes to the park this summer. as it was typically Europeans who visit during the summer months; he thinks Southern California residents will make up the majority of visitors this year.
