06/25/2026
Have you ever wondered why it’s so difficult to know how many people have actually gone missing in our national parks?
Here’s what’s strange.
There isn’t a centralized public database that tracks every missing person case across the National Park System. Information is spread across different agencies, jurisdictions, and law enforcement departments.
That doesn’t mean cases aren’t investigated—it means the data isn’t all collected in one place for the public.
For a system visited by hundreds of millions of people every year, that’s a question worth asking.
Should there be a national public database?
