Everything Parks and Recreation got right about the plight of national parks during a government shutdown

An estimated 21,000 National Park Service (NPS) employees have been furloughed due to the shutdown. That's around 87% of the department total — a number that's oddly close to Ben Wyatt's estimate.

The remaining 3,3000 or so NPS employees have stayed on to provide essential services such as law enforcement and emergency medical attention.

Leslie Knope couldn't have been more right: A major concern among politicians and public advocates is the large amount of human waste piling up in park restrooms.

At the beginning of January, Joshua Tree National Park closed its campgrounds due to "human waste in public areas." Visitors have also ignored signs telling them not to use the bathroom at some parks in Oregon.

"There are piles of human sh-t everywhere," a Yosemite National Park ranger said in a Facebook post, according to Outside Magazine. "Gross, but so seriously true."

Business Insider spoke to park rangers about how the shutdown was affecting them and the parks where they work.

"Everybody's really tired of riding the roller coaster," said John Tillison, a retired park ranger with two decades of experience in the state of Washington. "There's a lot of frustration, and rightfully so."

A park employee in the southwest, who wished to remain anonymous so she could speak frankly, said: "My whole community is affected by this. It creates a lot of stressful decision-making and visitor confusion."

Tom Haverford might have used a government shutdown as an excuse to work on his cologne line, but for many real-life parks employees, the future seems daunting.

Gary Stellpflug, a park ranger at Acadia National Park, told Business Insider that he's considering filing for unemployment. A few of his colleagues, he said, had already been forced to take second jobs.

Multiple park rangers told Business Insider that they were eager to return to work.

"I really love my job and I would do everything I could to come back to it," said the park worker in the southwest.

In an editorial for the Chicago Tribune, a park ranger at the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area echoed this sentiment.

"None of us took our jobs to get rich," she wrote. "We are public servants who love what we do. We are incredibly frustrated that we can't do a fair day's work for a fair day's pay."

Season three of Parks and Recreation begins with the shutdown over and the department forced to go into "maintenance mode."

Tillison made a similar prediction to Business Insider, saying that parks employees would be tasked with picking up garbage and restoring filthy restrooms once they return to work.

"When this is all said and done," he said, "the rangers are going to come back and have messes to clean up and resources to protect."