WASHINGTON— The Trump administration today fired at least 2,300 federal workers at the Department of the Interior, including 1,000 National Park Service employees, 800 Bureau of Land Management employees and 400 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service employees — or 4% of the agency’s entire workforce. Most of those fired were working through a probationary period and have limited rights to appeal the decision.

“How horrifying that an unelected petulant billionaire is allowed to loot America’s beloved national parks and sacrifice our critical wildlife agency,” said Taylor McKinnon, Southwest director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “These cruel and clumsy firings will damage national parks from coast to coast and push our most imperiled animals and plants closer to extinction.”

Thousands of federal workers across other agencies have already been affected by mass firings. Today’s actions come as the Interior Department is already understaffed and a day after 3,400 Forest Service employees were laid off. Employees at the Environmental Protection Agency are reportedly next.

“Trump’s promise of bringing us ‘the cleanest air and water on the planet’ is just a sick joke,” said McKinnon. “The American people were swindled. This isn’t what they voted for.”