No no no
WHAT THE HELL. Rolling budget cuts across the National Wildlife Refuge System are coming to the Southeast, and the national picture is just as bad.
The 96 million acre National Wildlife Refuge System, managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, is buckling under the weight of persistent under-funding and a crippling $3.1 billion budget backlog. Without sufficient funding, the Service can not adequately manage and restore wildlife habitat, safely maintain facilities and provide quality education and outdoor recreation programs for millions of visitors. As a result, these chronic funding shortfalls have led the Fish and Wildlife Service to mark dozens of refuges for mothballing - a step that withdraws staff from the refuge and eliminates programs to manage public access and other activities on the refuges.
Seriously - NWRs have never operated with bloated budgets. These places operate on freaking shoestrings already and, like our national parks system and BLM land out West, are already perilously understaffed and in need of more money - not less.
(via Facing South)