Wildlife Refuges Suffering, Managers Say
12/25/99
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Title: Wildlife refuges suffering, managers say
Source: The Associated Press
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: December 25, 1999
With buildings in bad condition and dikes poorly maintained, more
than 200 national wildlife refuge managers say they want a new
leadership structure or else the refuges should be removed from the
Interior Department's Fish and Wildlife Service.
"I would characterize the entire system as being in a fairly serious
state of disrepair," said Gene Hocutt, a retired refuge manager who
spent 29 years in the National Wildlife Refuge System.
A survey of the managers released Wednesday found that the nation's
521 wildlife refuges suffer from poor leadership, inadequate
staffing, and low funding. The managers also want Congress to hold
hearings on refuges' future.
Dan Ashe, the Fish and Wildlife Service official who oversees the
refuge system, said he was disappointed in the survey results. "The
refuge system right now is going through one of the best periods of
time the refuge system has even seen," he said.
Ashe said the operations and maintenance budget for refuges has grown
from $161 million in 1995 to more than $280 million this year.
Refuges are located in all 50 states and cover 93 million acres,
making the system the third largest land agency behind the Bureau of
Land Management and the Forest Service.
About 34 million Americans visit refuges each year to watch birds and
other wildlife, hunt, fish and go on interpretive hikes.
But despite having more land than the National Park Service,
environmentalists call refuges "America's hidden lands" and say they
are poorly promoted to taxpayers.
"Refuges are commonly referred to as the black-sheep federal land
system," said Evan Hirsche of the National Audubon Society.
Nearly nine of 10 refuge managers who responded to a survey by a
public employee group said refuges fail to compete for staff and
funds with other programs under the Fish and Wildlife Service,
including endangered species enforcement and wetlands conservation.
About 60 percent of the managers endorsed a 1997 proposal by more
than 100 colleagues calling for a refuge "chief" in the Fish and
Wildlife Service at the deputy director level and a line of budgetary
command flowing to regional refuge chiefs, supervisors and managers.
Ashe is an assistant director.
Another 34 percent endorsed a National Audubon Society proposal to
create a separate agency for refuges within the Interior Department.
The director of the Fish and Wildlife Service, Jamie Rappaport Clark,
has recommended a minor reorganization that would allow Ashe to focus
more on refuges by dropping his responsibility for overseeing
migratory bird conservation programs.
In the survey, only 1 percent of refuge managers endorsed Clark's
idea, which has not yet been acted on by Congress.
"Refuge managers across the country believe they have not had a great
deal of voice and direction in where the refuge system may be going,"
said Hocutt, who works on refuge issues for Public Employees for
Environmental Responsibility.
The Washington-based group of 10,000 state and federal environmental
agency employees mailed the survey to all refuge managers a month
ago. About 61 percent of the 380 managers responded.