After the Trump administration denied it ordered a shutdown of a National Parks Twitter that went rogue, new accounts, critical of the White House, are springing up like wildflowers in Yosemite.
Twitter feeds associated with at least one other U.S. National Park, and another claimed to be led by active park rangers, also appear to be taking some swipes at the country's new leadership over issues as varied as climate change and the restriction of immigration from predominantly Muslim countries.
Then online publication The Daily Dot reported that a Twitter feed called @AltNatParkSer gained about 170,000 followers overnight, and was also publishing information about climate change and other issues on Trump's docket. By Wednesday afternoon, the number of followers rose to more than 550,000.
Whoever is overseeing that feed claims it is run by "several active NPS rangers and friends," but they are not naming names.
Now someone at Death Valley National Park is joining the party, posting pictures of a Japanese-American man interned in Death Valley during World War II.
It could be a coincidence.
The message itself does not mention the Trump administration's proposed restrictions on Muslim immigration, but if the responses on Twitter are any indication, some are interpreting it that way.
And Redwood National and State Parks tweeted about climate change.
So did the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.
On Tuesday, a former employee of Badlands National Park in South Dakota took over the park's official Twitter account to post about climate change, an issue that has become particularly contentious since the election.
"The pre-industrial concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 280 parts per million (ppm). As of December 2016, 404.93 ppm.," a tweet on the Badlands park account said, according to NBC News.
Another read, "Today, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is higher than at any time in the last 650,000 years. #climate."
The National Parks Service apologized for the "mistaken" tweets, which were later deleted.
Some had speculated that the administration was cracking down on social media accounts run by government agencies in light of the White House's recent interactions with the Environmental Protection Agency and President Trump's complaints that American businesses are being hampered by excessive environmental regulations.
The administration recently ordered the EPA to freeze all grants and contracts, pending a review. Reports surfaced Tuesday that the administration had also ordered the EPA to remove information about climate change from its web page, but newer reports suggest the White House is walking back that order.
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said Wednesday the administration did not force the removal of the tweet from the San Francisco account, which had retweeted a report about the inaugural crowd.
"No, no there's nothing that's come from the White House, absolutely not. I think in some case, I know in the Parks Services, for example, over the weekend somebody who was an unauthorized user had an old password in the San Francisco office, went in and started retweeting inappropriate things that were in violation of their policy," Spicer said.
He didn't address the Badlands account.
Correction: This story was revised to correct Spicer's first name.
