A report released today by the Cooperative Alliance for Refuge Enhancement (CARE), a diverse coalition of sporting, conservation and scientific organizations representing 15 million Americans, warns that unless Congress abandons the automatic “sequestration” cuts scheduled to occur in January, the Refuge System could be forced to close refuges and eliminate popular recreational opportunities which many communities depend upon as economic drivers.

Evidence of sea level rise at Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge in Delaware. Photo taken in early spring of 2012 — before Hurricane Sandy. Credit: Bentley Johnson

1. Closed refuges and visitor centers;
2. Loss of hunting and fishing opportunities;
3. Volunteers turned away;
4. Lost revenue to local economies;
5. Increased poaching, vandalism and drug smuggling;
6. Lost opportunities for birding and wildlife watching;
7. Spread of invasive species;
8. Halted habitat restoration and fire management;
9. Delayed response to natural disaster devastation; and
10. Terminating a newly initiated inventory and monitoring program.

Already we are seeing wildlife refuges struggle to keep up with existing challenges, such as sea level rise and damage from extreme weather as a result of climate change (check out this story from the Washington Post on how Hurricane Sandy wreaked havoc on East Coast refuges). Any further cuts will leave refuge managers with hard decisions and no-win scenarios. Refuges aren’t alone: the conservation of wildlife and America’s public lands in general (including National Parks) is at risk.

Banking on Refuges

Wildlife refuges don’t just provide habitat for migratory birds or endangered species: they are drivers for our economy.

“The 560 national wildlife refuges that make up the 150-million-acre Refuge System generate more than $4.2 billion annually for local economies and create nearly 35,000 U.S. jobs annually.” says David Houghton, President of the National Wildlife Refuge Association and Chair of the CARE coalition.

Connecting People to Nature

Much of this economic activity is generated by the refuge system’s nearly 45 million visitors each year.  Activities like wildlife-watching, hunting, fishing, photography, hiking, canoeing, kayaking, and environmental education programs may be curtailed if America’s refuges go over the Fiscal Cliff.  As Larry Schweiger, National Wildlife Federation’s President & CEO, gave a sense of urgency to the sequestration situation after the CARE report was released:

“Wildlife refuges give Americans fantastic opportunities to get outside and connect with nature as well as providing critical habitat for wildlife, which is vital in a warming world. Continued investment in our refuges will also drive our recreation economy through activities like hunting and fishing. The CARE coalition’s Fiscal Cliff report details the potentially devastating consequences to America’s wildlife refuges if our elected leaders do not put aside differences and agree on a budget solution. It’s critical that we all work together to conserve and protect wildlife for future generations.”

You can make a difference to help prevent the budget crisis from devastating wildlife and our shared National Wildlife Refuge System by clicking on the link and sending a message to your elected official now.

To learn more about the sequestration process AND look at adorable wildlife photos at the same time, check out this blog post in which wildlife complain about the fiscal cliff budget cuts: http://bit.ly/T5qywI

No more than 1 day old, this killdeer chick was already scurrying around its home in Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. Photo by Jack Rogers.

More Adorable Wildlife Photos, Please.

Vote for your favorite wildlife photos in the 2012 National Wildlife Photo Contest. Or enter your own by July 16th for a chance to win!
 
 

This Photo of the Day was donated by a participant in the annual National Wildlife Photo Contest. See more photos or sign up for the 42nd Annual National Wildlife Photo Contest.

This week (October 9-15) is National Wildlife Refuge Week, commemorated for the first time by the Senate in a historic resolution last year and officially recognized this year.  In honor of National Wildlife Refuge Week, I decided that my first blog post on Wildlife Promise should be about the Wildlife Refuge right out my front door.  I’ve lived in the Bay Area for over 7 years now, and during the last two years, I’ve lived near Lake Merritt in Oakland, CA.

Aerial view of Lake Merritt. Photo by Bernard Zee.

Lake Merritt is often referred to as the heart of Oakland.  This is partially due to the heart-like shape of the lake, but mostly because it’s a central meeting place for many residents and visitors.  Whether you’re taking a jog or a stroll, playing in the playground or exploring the botanical gardens, rowing crew or riding in a gondola, the lake is the perfect urban park to meet friends.

What many people don’t know is that Lake Merritt was actually the first designated wildlife refuge in North America.  Oakland Mayor Merritt declared it as wildlife refuge for migrating birds in 1869.   In 1870, the state of California designated Lake Merritt a state game refuge.  The governor’s dedication set its purpose “to educate and inspire through understanding the values of conserving the natural resources of this state.”

The lake serves as a home to hundreds of egrets, herons, ducks and geese, and a popular landing spot for many other

photo by Brian Costales

migratory birds.  Over the last 150 years, five bird islands have been built as sanctuaries for the birds.  And in 1953, Oakland opened the Rotary Nature Center where residents could come learn about the refuge and the birds that take advantage of it.

The Wildlife Sanctuary and the Rotary Nature Center are both alive and well today, so if you live in the bay area, I encourage you come take a stroll around the lake and stop by the center to learn more about the history of this urban park.

Since Theodore Roosevelt established the first national wildlife refuge in 1903, the National Wildlife Refuge System has been preserving native habitats to protect hundreds of animal and plant species. Not only do refuges provide protection for wildlife and plants, they also provide excellent recreational opportunities to get people interacting with nature. However, refuges need our help to continue to be the world’s premier habitat conservation system.

NWF's initiative will help restore wild, free ranging bison to their native prairie habitat.

A Safe Haven for Wildlife

The refuge system’s top priority includes protecting wildlife and preserving native lands. As the largest refuge in the lower 48 states, the Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge contains approximately 1,100,000 acres. Animals protected within the Charles M. Russell refuge include mule deer, bighorn sheep, black-footed ferrets, approximately 235 species of birds, and hopefully soon, American bison.

The National Wildlife Federation has been actively engaged in bison restoration in the Charles M. Russell. To help restore this once prevalent and majestic creature to its native habitat, you can help protect bison by taking action.

Interacting with Refuges

National Wildlife Refuges provide many opportunities for outdoor recreation including:

• Hunting
• Fishing
• Bird-watching
• Photography
• Wildlife Observation
• Environmental Education

Annually, the 45 million visitors contribute nearly $1.7 billion to local economies and support tens of thousands of local jobs and additionally, studies estimate that refuges return over $874 for every $1 spent in refuge services. Every state has at least one national wildlife refuge, and there’s a national wildlife refuge within an hour’s drive of most major cities. Find out where your nearest National Wildlife Refuge is located.

Help Threatened Habitats

The Refuge System faces some serious problems, including:

• 

  Arctic wildlife are at risk from oil drilling's devastating impact on native habitats.

  The total operations and maintenance backlog for the Refuge System exceeds $3.3 billion.

• More than 2.5 million acres of refuge lands are overrun with non-native invasive plants, while nearly 4,000 invasive animal populations ravage millions more acres.
• Drug production and smuggling, wildlife poaching, illegal border activity, assaults, natural resource violations and other crimes are on the rise in the Refuge System, yet only 213 full-time law enforcement officers are available to patrol the System’s 150 million acres.

The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is especially threatened. The oil and gas industry wants to drill in the refuge, endangering the future of iconic wildlife species, such as caribou, gray wolves, polar bears, and more, due to toxic spills and habitat degradation. You can help support NWF’s efforts to stop the attack on arctic wildlife.

Contribute to the Future of Refuges

Go bird-watching, take pictures, or walk on the nature trails – your support and engagement in the refuges helps protect habitats and wildlife for future generations. Every state has at least one refuge, many located within an hour’s drive of most major U.S. cities. You can also observe local wildlife and find parks, trails, and other nature sites using NWF’s NatureFind.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Read more about how Enbridge is starting to back pedal on their legal liability around the largest tar sands oil spill in mid-west history. Also learn more about the proposed Northern Gateway Project by Enbridge and how it will impact pristine environments and extremely diverse coastlines.

The National Wildlife Federation’s Great Lakes Regional Center is committed to helping the communities and wildlife impacted by the Enbridge oil spill. Help NWF hold dirty energy accountable. Take action here against dangerous tar sands pipelines.

Here is Todd Paglia’s take on what the Michigan oil spill means for the Pacific Northwest in his Huffington Post story.

What incredible images of this majestic animal, and what a great success story for the many conservationists who helped make these wildlife road crossings a reality.   With millions of miles of roads slicing up the American landscape, it is really exciting to see that we have now found a way to build tunnels, culverts and other crossings above and beneath roads to connect habitat areas, and that panthers and many other wildlife species are actually utilizing them.

The national movement to build wildlife crossings began with efforts by the National Wildlife Federation and others to protect the Florida panther from the harmful effects of converting State Road 84 to Interstate 75 across so-called Alligator Alley in the 1980s.  Working with its affiliate Florida Wildlife Federation and others, NWF attorneys filed a lawsuit and ultimately persuaded the Department of Transportation to add 23 wildlife crossings to the project’s design.  Completed in the early 1990s, these crossings have been essential to allow Florida panthers and other wildlife to move through their habitats and avoid collisions with vehicles.   They also have served as a model for wildlife crossings efforts around the country and around the world.

Another exciting piece of Florida panther news was the announcement that 2010 was a year with a record number of panther kitten births.  According to state wildlife officials, 29 documented Florida panther kittens were born in 2010, and another 30 to 40 likely were born to panthers without radio collars (and whose movements are therefore not being documented).  In contrast, just 11 documented panther kittens were born in 2009.  This population boomlet – the estimated total size is now around 160 cats, after having dropped to as low as 30 to 50 in the mid-1990s  - is due in part to the hard work of the National Wildlife Federation, Florida Wildlife Federation, state and federal wildlife agencies, and many other conservation partners in the past few decades.

Despite receiving the protection of the Endangered Species Act in the 1970s, the panther was rapidly heading toward extinction in the 1990s because of genetic inbreeding (due to its small population size) and habitat loss (due to sprawling residential and commercial development).  To bolster the cat’s genetic diversity , and with the support of the conservation community, the state wildlife agency introduced western cougars (a close cousin of the Florida panther).  This genetic restoration has proved to a major wildlife success story that serves a model for wildlife managers worldwide.

Stopping development from destroying and fragmenting the panther’s habitat has been a much bigger challenge.  Until the recent financial downtown, southwest Florida was one of the most rapidly developing areas of the country.   Although the panther’s habitat was supposedly protected under the Endangered Species Act, some developers found creative ways to circumvent the law.   One strategy was to develop a self-serving and unscientific methodology for identifying important panther habitat.   The developers used this methodology, as well as political pressure tactics, to convince wildlife officials that panther habitat was not really panther habitat, thus leading to the destruction of thousands of acres of valuable habitat for sprawling golf course communities, roads and other development.  National Wildlife Federation, Florida Wildlife Federation and Florida Panther Society sprung into action.  We issued two scathing reports and won two major lawsuits that limited harmful development and highlighted the way that junk science had infected in permitting decisions.  Due in part to these efforts, wildlife officials are now using a more scientifically rigorous approach to identifying panther habitat.

Today, the panther is thankfully reproducing successfully and roaming across the southwest Florida landscape just as it has done for tens of thousands of years.  But it is hardly out of danger.  Roads and vehicle collisions continue to pose serious threats – in fact, 2010 was a near-record year for panther mortality due to vehicle collisions.   Despite occasional movements of male panthers into central Florida, the panther population is effectively boxed into a small portion of southern Florida and longtime calls by scientists to reintroduce the cat into other parts of its historic range do not yet appear to be gaining traction.  And the financial incentive for developers to build on the panther’s habitat on private land remains strong.

Fortunately, National Wildlife Federation (working at the national level) and Florida Wildlife Federation (working at the local level) continue to serve as vigilant advocates for the nation’s largest endangered cat.  Among other things, we are working to expand the Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge.  Given the relatively low prices for land in south Florida, now is a rare opportunity to provide crucial habitat and expedite the protection and recovery of the Florida panther by expanding the boundaries of the 26,000-acre refuge. Click here if you would like to help us advocate for expansion of protected habitat for this special animal.

ON DECEMBER 6, the United States will celebrate a conservation milestone. Fifty years ago on that date, for the first time in the nation’s history, U.S. authorities gave federal protection to an entire ecosystem. Located in northeastern Alaska, the place we now call the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge spans five different ecological zones and provides safe habitat for hundreds of species, including the highest density of land-denning polar bears in the country.

Today, however, the nation’s largest wildlife refuge is more renowned for a decades-long controversy over whether to open its coastal plain to oil development than for the biological reasons it was established. But those reasons are not lost on Michael Engelhard, an Alaska-based author and wilderness guide who has visited the refuge on several occasions. In the December/January issue of National Wildlife, he describes his love for what he calls “the land of stunted—or no—trees” and explains why global warming could pose an even greater threat to the region than drilling.

In the five decades since the refuge was created, Engelhard reports, winter temperatures in Arctic Alaska have risen by as much as 7 degrees F, and the ramifications of that increase on the area’s natural resources and environment could be enormous. To find out more, see his article “The Arctic Refuge Turns 50.”

In a press release about the Week the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said:

“President Teddy Roosevelt established tiny Pelican Island in Florida in 1903 as the first National Wildlife Refuge. Roosevelt’s mission was clear: protect Pelican Island’s birds from poachers and plume hunters,” said Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar. “And with that simple promise of wildlife protection, the National Wildlife Refuge System was born. It is my hope that citizens across the country will take advantage of this weeklong celebration to experience wildlife in their natural habitats and play a firsthand role in conservation by participating in special events and programs, or simply observing and enjoying the great outdoors at a local refuge.”

See full release >>

Looking for a way to get outdoors this weekend? Check out NWF’s NatureFind search engine. If you have a zipcode, you can find great outdoor places (including wildlife refuges) near you!

Some years later, In 1934, and after the ad hoc addition of more refuges along with the passage of the Migratory Bird Conservation Act, President Franklin Roosevelt appointed a blue ribbon panel to study waterfowl needs nationwide.  The panel included conservationists Aldo Leopold, Thomas Beck and NWF’s principal founder Jay Norwood “Ding” Darling.  This trio lobbied vigorously for increased funding and support of a more systemic approach to wildlife conservation.  Wildlife was suffering from drought, severe over harvesting, and habitat loss.

Ding Darling was soon appointed to head of the new Bureau of Biological Survey and recruited J. Clark Salyer II to head up its fledgling refuge program. Salyer worked tirelessly for the next 31 years to build the national system and maintain its integrity.

On the 75th anniversary of Darling and Salyer working to expand the Refuge System, there is a profound new threat — global warming.  Sea level rise, the drying up of the Prairie wetlands, loss of native vegetation and shifts in bird migration patterns could alter wildlife management in the U.S. as never before.  The Fish and Wildlife Service recently issued a new climate change strategy which points out the importance of adaptation and mitigation going forward.

So, as we celebrate National Wildlife Refuge Week this year, we would do well to be looking at how climate change will challenge us to keep what was built over the past century from unravleing in this century.

Learn more about National Wildlife Week activities.