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Nation’s Wildlife Refuges Facing Impacts of Fiscal Cliff

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Tuesday, November 20, 2012   

PHOENIX - Crippling cuts could be coming to the system of National Wildlife Refuges if Congress fails to prevent the country from going over the so-called "fiscal cliff" at year's end, according to a new report. Already operating on what's been called a "shoestring budget," the refuge system faces a further cut of nearly 10 percent if sequestration happens.

Eight of the nation's 560 refuges are in Arizona, including the third-largest, Cabeza Prieta, along the Mexican border.

Desirée Sorenson-Groves, vice president of the National Wildlife Refuge Association, a member of the coalition which issued the report, says the system operated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is severely underfunded.

"The managers of these National Wildlife Refuges, I liken them to the 'MacGyvers' of wildlife management. They make do on duct tape and chewing gum, and they figure out a way to get things done."

Sorenson-Groves says the nation's wildlife refuges attract 45 million visitors a year and generate more than $4 billion for local economies.

"People go there for hunting, fishing, wildlife watching. But when they're there, they're going to go to restaurants, they get gas, they may stay overnight. People come from around the world only to go birding."

Sorenson-Groves says the automatic cuts also threaten volunteers who perform 20 percent of all the work in the refuge system, from pulling invasive weeds to doing bird counts, building boardwalks, or cleaning up after storms like Hurricane Sandy.

"There is a strong possibility that Fish and Wildlife Service would have to curtail a lot of those efforts, because they would have to divert staff that right now oversee volunteers, and they would have to put them on doing other things."

She says cuts to the refuge system could even affect border security in places like Arizona's Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge, which runs for 56 miles along the border with Mexico.

"Those are places where the federal wildlife law enforcement officers work very closely with Border Patrol. And in some cases, you're going to see dramatic loss of law enforcement from the refuge side."

Sorenson-Groves says the automatic budget cuts threaten both wildlife and local economies. She represents a coalition of 22 wildlife, sporting and conservation groups ranging from the National Rifle Association to Defenders of Wildlife, which are calling for full funding of the refuge system.

The report, "Fiscal Cliff Dwellers: America's Wildlife Refuges on the Edge," is at www.fundrefuges.org.




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