Forest Service worker in Western NC says Trump termination was ‘devastating sucker punch’
The only wildlife biologist who covered the more than 500,000-acre Pisgah National Forest says he was one of the thousands of U.S. Forest Service workers let go under the Trump administration’s recent federal employee layoffs.
Another terminated Forest Service employee from Western North Carolina posted on Facebook on Monday that the agency had lost 17 employees, all working on hurricane recovery projects North Carolina forests.
Since taking office, President Donald Trump’s administration and the Department of Government Efficiency overseen by billionaire campaign donor Elon Musk have laid off thousands of federal employees in an attempt to reduce the government workforce.
This included 3,400 employees at the U.S. Forest Service, the agency’s union president told Bloomberg Law on Thursday. Public safety Forest Service employees, including firefighting jobs, were exempt from the firings, according to Politico.
Mike Knoerr, who lives in Asheville and has spent the last 20 years working in wildlife conservation, said in a social media post on Friday it was a “devastating sucker punch” to be fired from his “dream job.”
Knoerr declined to comment when reached by phone Wednesday.
“Without my and other critical positions filled, Pisgah National Forest will be unable to meet statutory law requirements as it navigates both Helene recovery and every day work,” Knoerr’s post said. “Our most dedicated public servants were fired right when we need them most.”
The U.S. Forest Service is a federal agency that manages the country’s forests, public lands, and wildlife and employs over 35,000 people across the country, its website says.
This included Knoerr, who said he juggled multiple responsibilities, including “monitoring rare species, to improving habitat conditions for game animals, to restoring spruce-fir forest and wetlands, to prescribed fire.”
In recent months his work has been focused on Helene recovery.
“Much of my work in the coming years would have been focused on making our floodplains more resilient, addressing fuel risks, and working to keep rare species on the landscape,” he said.
But now, with his termination, there’s no one left to do his work in the region.
That’s work for which he received “stellar” performance reviews, he said, and a job at which he was never reprimanded. He was two weeks away from completing his 12-month probationary period, and was set to advance to “career status” after his supervisor had recently filed the paperwork, his post said.
Yet it was his performance that was cited as the reason for his termination, his post said. He included a quote from the agency in his post.
“The Agency finds, based on your performance, that you have not demonstrated that your further employment at the Agency would be in the public interest,” Knoerr’s post said.
Thousands of federal employees at other agencies, including the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Education Department, and the National Park Service have been laid off under Trump and Musk, who have also tried to freeze federal funding to a litany of government programs and agencies in order to scrutinize and reduce government spending.
Federal employees going through their probationary period, like Knoerr, were primarily targeted by the layoffs and told their performance was the reason for their termination.
Lawsuits have been filed by labor unions, including the National Federation of Federal Employees, challenging the terminations of probationary employees. Some positions have been reinstated, according to Forbes.
There haven’t been any reports of Forest Service workers being reinstated as of Wednesday afternoon.
The staff reductions have Knoerr concerned about the agency’s ability to lead recovery efforts in the region.
“I’m not opposed to finding efficiencies in our government. But the tools being leveraged today are hammers, not scalpels,” his post said. “They are breaking the agencies tasked with critical work, not refining them.”
Fired Forest Service workers helped after Helene
Jenifer Bunty, the fired worker who made the Facebook post, wrote that she worked 19 days straight after Hurricane Helene hit Western North Carolina on Sept. 26.
“People needed us,” she wrote. “Our first focus was clearing a path to get to 35 kids and their teachers who were trapped in a facility behind several landslides and giant piles of debris. After that, we focused on supporting search and rescue, clearing roads for emergency access, and helping everywhere we could.
“On Thursday, I stood on the ruined part of I-40 with a team planning how to stick an interstate back on the side of a mountain. People probably don’t realize that portion sits on National Forest land and cannot be fixed without Forest Service employees. That afternoon we got word that 14 of our employees were indiscriminately fired. All of them were actively working on hurricane recovery.”
Like Knoerr, a letter said her termination was performance-based. Bunty wrote that she only had excellent performance reviews.
Do you have information about how federal changes are affecting government agencies or nonprofits in North Carolina? Contact Observer editor Lisa Vernon Sparks at lvernonsparks@charlotteobserver.com or by phone at 980-297-6607 to help us investigate.
This story was originally published February 19, 2025 at 3:55 PM with the headline "Forest Service worker in Western NC says Trump termination was ‘devastating sucker punch’."
