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In late February, Mike Koshmrl, a reporter for the independent news outlet WyoFile, was having a hard time getting a government official on the phone. He had gotten a tip that the Saratoga National Fish Hatchery, a 120-acre, ten-building site in southern Wyoming that breeds millions of trout to stock the nation’s rivers, had lost all its employees thanks to government cutbacks. But no one would tell him if that was true—or if anyone would ultimately remain to care for the stock. “There were just no numbers,” he said. So Koshmrl turned to an old-fashioned solution: he got in the car and drove a hundred and fifty miles to see the hatchery for himself. “That’s not a normal approach to try to get the basic information,” Koshmrl said. “But that’s kind of what we’re left to do.”
Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, has spent the past month making sweeping cuts to federal employment. It’s a story that has largely been observed through the experiences of federal workers in and around Washington, DC. But over 80 percent of the federal workforce lives and works outside the greater DC area, doing jobs from monitoring nuclear facilities to researching plant diseases, which means that the fallout from DOGE has been a local story, too.
Nicole Blanchard, an investigative reporter for the Idaho Statesman, has been covering the cuts in her state, where 60 percent of the land is owned by the federal government, and dozens of federal forestry workers have lost their jobs. Last year, half a million acres burned in wildfires across Idaho, and while the cuts have so far reportedly spared firefighting crews, other key roles in fire mitigation have not been so lucky. “It was trail crews, biologists, botanists, educators, and all these different people,” Blanchard said. So far, the cuts have led to large protests in the capital, Boise, as well as smaller ones in towns across the state, where job losses affected hundreds—in McCall, for instance, more than fifty forest service workers were laid off, including backcountry rangers and people who worked in avalanche safety. “Idaho fancies itself a small-government state, but it no longer feels detached from Washington,” said Royce McCandless, who has been reporting on the cuts for the Idaho Press. “This is affecting people in their day-to-day lives, and it’s affecting the public lands that define the Idaho experience.”
In Alaska, the state that receives the most federal funds per capita, Corinne Smith, a reporter for the Alaska Beacon, said the sudden job losses pose an entirely new challenge, even for locals who are used to uncertainty and adapting to change. In remote communities that rely on small planes for everything from mail and daily groceries to medical appointments, Smith noted, the cuts to weather service employees in particular could be catastrophic. “We’ve heard from pilots who say they are terrified of not having that data available,” Smith said. And fewer national park staffers could mean increased risk for tourists, especially in the expansive bear country. “I think it’s going to get dangerous.”
“The cuts are radically different than anything I’ve seen in over forty-five years of reporting,” said Angus Thuermer, another journalist for WyoFile who has been covering the local effects of the layoffs. Thuermer pointed to the loss of a longtime state official who’d recently joined the Bridger-Teton National Forest as a spokesperson, and was laid off along with other probationary employees. For years, Thuermer and other reporters have relied on the spokesperson, Mark Gocke, for connections to wildlife experts and access to areas not normally open to visitors. “He did more to help educate the public about their wildlife resources than almost anyone else in the state, and now the public doesn’t have him anymore,” Thuermer said.
At the Saratoga hatchery, Koshmrl found two staff members and an intern struggling to keep the facility operating—less than half of the usual team. “Chaos,” is how a US Fish and Wildlife Service employee put it, when Koshmrl asked about the conditions at the site. “Just trying to do the bare minimum to keep things going.” If the hatchery is forced to shut down, that could result in a major loss of trout populations across the country.
Covering these stories has given Koshmrl a renewed sense of purpose. While some federal employees in the state remain reluctant to speak to a reporter—many still hold out hope that the layoffs will eventually be rescinded—others have been more open, particularly after WyoFile rolled out a blanket offer of anonymity, something the publication has never done before. “People I spoke to are bothered about how they’re being treated, and also really sad,” Koshmrl said. “A lot of people are losing their jobs, and their livelihoods. And there’s really no prospect for them to stay employed in those communities.”
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