"I am honored to exercise the delegated authority of the National Park Service director to ensure the continuity of the critical work you all do as we support President Trump and his administration," Bowron said in an email to the Park Service workforce. "I know you all have many questions about what is to come. Our senior leadership team is working closely with the [Interior] Department to understand how to implement the recently signed executive orders and additional directives. We will issue guidance as we learn more. In the meantime, I urge you to remain patient and refrain from speculation and planning for contingencies until we have official guidance."

Bowron joined the Park Service in 2007 as a budget analyst and steadily worked her way up to her current position, which she's held since 2017. She will serve as acting director until a Senate-confirmed director is named, or until May 31, unless her assignment is extended by President Trump.

During his first term Trump did not have a permanent, Senate-confirmed Park Service director. After winning the election, he relied on deputy directors of the agency to act as director. While David Vela was nominated in August 2018 to become the permanent director and in November 2018 went through a confirmation hearing, the full Senate did not vote on his nomination before the congressional session ended that year. Instead of renominating Vela, the president continued to use a succession of acting directors throughout his term.

A host of issues could make the director's seat a hot one:

• While Trump does not believe in climate change, climate-change impacts have been battering some parks and threatening others with sea-level rise. Will the next director continue to push for funding to mitigate those impacts and build climate-change resiliency into parks?
• The National Park Service for years has been underfunded and understaffed.
• Will the administation's position to greatly increase energy development impact parks?
• What do they think of Trump's executive order to relax predator hunting regulations in national preserves in Alaska?
• Will they order superintendents to identify and implement visitation carrying capacities for their parks, as Congress directed in 1978 via the National Parks and Recreation Act and as the Park Service's 2006 Management Policies underscored? 
• How can morale of the agency be improved? It ranks the agency among the lowest in the federal government.
• Yellowstone National Park's plans for managing bison continue to irritate Montana officials, who have sued the Interior Department and Yellowstone Superintendent Cam Sholly. Dan Wenk, Sholly's predecessor at Yellowstone, was forced out of the Park Service because he disagreed with the-Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke over bison numbers.
• The Biden administration focused on building "co-management agreements" between parks and Indigenous groups. Trump has had at times a fractious relationship with tribes, shrinking Bears Ears National Monument in Utah despite tribal opposition and supporting the Keystone Pipeline again despite tribal opposition. Among his first actions during his second term was to overturn the Biden administration's blocking of a 211-mile-long road to reach copper deposits in Alaska, a road some tribes support while others oppose it. Will the Trump administration continue to work with tribes on national park management?