'Badass' national park flooded with fan mail after fighting Trump on Twitter
In the days immediately following President Donald Trump's inauguration, when the world was in need of a climate change defender, a few National Park Service Twitter accounts epically rose to the challenge.
The rebellious Badlands National Park Twitter account went rogue in January, fighting the president's climate change denial by sharing environmental facts.
We've now learned that in addition to the positive response on social media, the staff at the national park was flooded with messages of love in the form of handwritten postcards and emails from hundreds of thankful supporters around the country. The emails and postcards were among other documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.
SEE ALSO: 'Rogue' national park Twitter account wasn't so rogue after all, emails show
Though tweets containing important information about climate change were deleted from the Badlands Twitter account on Jan. 24., they clearly made a powerful impact on followers discouraged by the Trump administration's anti-climate change beliefs and the temporary social media gag order placed on The Interior Department.
Image: twitter
In response to Badlands' Twitter activity from Jan. 20 to 23, heartfelt letters and doodles were sent, assuring the Badlands social media director and employees of the park that their heroic, uncensored acts of resistance and efforts to properly educate using scientific facts did not go unnoticed.
Here are just a few of the many grateful messages, selected from more than 800 included in the documents:
Image: INTERIOR DEPARTMENT
Image: INTERIOR DEPARTMENT
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Image: INTERIOR DEPARTMENT
Image: INTERIOR DEPARTMENT
Image: INTERIOR DEPARTMENT
Image: INTERIOR DEPARTMENT
Image: INTERIOR DEPARTMENT
Image: INTERIOR DEPARTMENT
Image: INTERIOR DEPARTMENT
Image: INTERIOR DEPARTMENT
Image: Interior department
According to the documents, the story isn't quite as heroic as the email and letter writers believed. A former seasonal employee at Badlands National Park was responsible for sending the climate change tweets, the records show.
Once the outside access to the park's Twitter account became apparent to the park’s employees, they deleted the emails, and eventually provided a report to the National Archives about the incident. The archives is responsible for storing government social media content.
This case differs from the Twitter account of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which also tweeted climate change facts right after the inauguration. In that case, the tweets were authorized based on Park Service guidelines in place at the time.
Science Editor Andrew Freedman contributed reporting.
