The National Wildlife Refuge System, founded by Theodore Roosevelt in 1903, is the only service within the federal government whose sole mission is the conservation of wildlife and the preservation of habitat – meaning the places wildlife need to survive. Resident within these refuges are the last great migrating herds of caribou, humpback and right whales, polar bear, grizzlies, rare orchids and hummingbirds, elk, moose and river otter. Closer to home, the Stewart B. McKinney National Wildlife Refuge covers almost the entire Connecticut shoreline. Included are many nearshore islands, salt marshes and riverine ecosystems. Contiguous marine areas benefit through reduced pollution.
But after more than a century of unparalleled success, these refuges have been pushed to the brink by fifteen years of cuts, flat-funding, and more recently, inflation. As it stands, Congress would have to boost funding for the National Wildlife Refuge System by $250 million just to return the budget to where it was fifteen years ago, in inflation-adjusted dollars. Tragically, the latest budget request by the Biden administration, still falls short.
Few Americans realize what is at stake.
Unlike the National Park System, where fees are often substantial and lines of entry can be daunting, the McKinney is underutilized, free, open year-round, and encompasses some of the most important wildlife habitat in New England. Locally rare species such as the royal tern make stopovers here. Migrating monarch butterflies and dragonflies use the refuge for food and for rest. Less common species such as little blue heron raise their young on islands within the Refuge. Osprey, once on the brink, also nest here and fish in the waters of the Refuge for scup and sea robin and the menhaden that pass through in schools of hundreds of thousands. There are great egrets, tall, elegant, shock-white wading the shallow edges after glass shrimp, tautog and peanut bunker. Black-crowned night herons can be found stilting on the rocks and feeding at the edges of the rivers that course the McKinney’s coastal salt marshes at dusk. Bald eagle and great blue heron nest on the periphery and enter into the Refuge to find fish for their fledglings. Deer and bobcat come stealthy through its woodlands and the tall spartina of the riverbanks.
Above all, the refuges are “nature next door,” or as the National Wildlife Federation’s Mike Leahy likes to put it, “The National Park next door.” There is no major population center in the United States that is more than half a tank of gas or one full charge on an EV from a National Wildlife Refuge. The refuges are “near, accessible and constitutes the largest and most diverse network of conservation lands and waters in the world.”
Along with the value of its mere presence, active conservation work also takes place in the Stewart B. McKinney. A growing colony of threatened least tern has made its home on the bar at Menunkatesuck Island and endangered roseate terns have been resident on Falkner Island along with large numbers of common terns for decades. All three tern species are in place only because of the efforts of refuge staff. Both islands are posted warning people not to land especially in breeding season but in recent years the signs are often ignored. This year on July 4, 22 people and a dog were escorted from the Menunkatesuck least tern colony.
Roseate terns in particular need active protection from natural predators due to several factors. Climate disruption has negatively affected the availability of the small fish upon which roseate terns feed. Warmer water drive fish deeper in the water column and the roseates, slight bodied as compared to the larger, heavier common terns, cannot dive deep enough to reach them. But the larger problem is habitat loss. If there were more habitat there would be more roseates colonies but human occupation of previously unoccupied coastline has squeezed the species into the narrow protection of the McKinney. Fewer terns in one place likewise concentrates native predators and Refuge staff have to guard against them 24 hours a day throughout the breeding season. For many species, what the refuges including the Stewart B. McKinney are defending is a last redoubt.
The richness and the difficulties of the McKinney are replicated nationwide.
There are 572 National Wildlife Refuges, distributed among all 50 states of which eight are flagship urban national wildlife refuges, 75 wilderness areas, 38 wetland management districts, 1,000+ miles of wild and scenic rivers, in all 95 million land acres. 5 Marine National Monuments add 759 million acres of coastal waters.
None of these assets are adequately funded.
The budgets for National Wildlife Refuges proposed by President Joe Biden have been higher, admittedly, than under President Donald Trump. The current ask of $602 million is 10% more than the allocation for 2024.
However, given inflation, to stay even with 2010 funding President Biden’s 2025 budget number would need to be over $700 million.
And those figures do not account for the growth in lands and marine sanctuaries in the refuge system over the past 15 years – as well as the attendant costs – nor added vigilance required because of pollution and climate disruption.
According to the bipartisan National Wildlife Refuge Association, “the Refuge System needs an annual budget of at least $2.2 Billion to provide for its basic needs, meet mandates and [accommodate] public demand.” By comparison, the National Park Service has a staff equivalent to 30,000 fulltime employees and a proposed 2025 budget of $3.57 Billion. The refuges can expect no more than 1/6th of that money to preserve 10 million more land acres and 757 million more marine acres than the National Parks and must do all that with a steadily shrinking full time staff of barely 2300 people.
Nor can the National Wildlife Refuges look toward fees. Through the Great American Outdoors Act the National Parks Service will receive $1.3 Billion a year for the next five years from the allocation of oil and gas licensing fees – $15 an acre.
From the same pot the National Wildlife Refuge System gets $95 Million – $0.11 an acre.
Recently, refuge managers of the 14 states in the Northeast Region met with their superiors from US Fish and Wildlife regional headquarters in Hadley, Mass and made the following calculation: The inflation corrected operational budget for 2025 even as requested by President Biden represents a reduction from 2023 levels of 25%. What household budget could survive this? For the refuges, the same.
At the Maine Coastal Islands National Wildlife, a 40 year cooperative agreement with National Audubon Society for the management of three staffed seabird restoration projects at Matinicus Rock, Seal Island, and Pond Island is in jeopardy. These islands and a few others within the Maine Coastal Islands NWR host the only breeding colonies of Atlantic puffins and great cormorants in the United States and the largest colonial nesting sites of Artic terns in the world. Grey seal, harbor seal, many species of auks and shearwaters, harbor porpoise, and peregrine falcons also call these islands and the surrounding waters home. The refuge will go short-handed in 2025 and while their volunteer Friends of the Refuge group picks up as much of the financial slack as it can, the future is unclear.
At the Stewart B. McKinney, I was able to detail actual dollar amounts and their consequences. For a lack of $10,000, boats will not be able to be winterized nor engines tuned. These are large heavy craft and trailers used to take the boats to distant launch points will have to forgo safety checks without which transport is dangerous and therefore impossible. For lack of $30,000, Falkner Island will not be staffed at all in 2025, putting decades of conservation work at risk. Refuge outreach and educational projects will also be curtailed. Because of a total shortfall of $50,000, the core mission of the McKinney is now at risk.
As soon as it was discovered that I was asking questions, refuge staff for the entire Northeast Region were ordered by their superiors not to talk to me.
I was referred instead to Keith Shannon, Chief of Public Affairs at Fish and Wildlife’s Northeast Regional headquarters in Hadley, Mass. He claimed no knowledge of the budget cuts and said he would have someone contact me. Mason Wheatley, one of Shannon’s colleagues, sent me an email extolling both the 2024 enacted funding level, the 2025 funding request as submitted, and the good works of the US Fish and Wildlife Service.
All government agencies and employees are prohibited from lobbying senators and congressional representatives. According to a senior employee of USFWS (who spoke only on the condition of anonymity) the more cogent reason for the failure to directly address the funding crisis within the National Wildlife Refuge System is an overly strict and fearful interpretation of of this prohibition. No one is allowed to so much as mention money. Staff are not even allowed to be seen in for example, wildlife documentaries in uniform. This both denies the public’s right to know, and only serves to perpetuate the further erosion of Refuge funding.
The fulltime on-the-ground employees of the individual wildlife refuges, both woman and men, are profoundly dedicated human beings. Financial compensation is middling. The rewards come out of mission and belief. For most this is their life work. By the time they were muzzled, many already had already spoken to me and even after others continued to do so. The information garnered is solid and consistent. Every refuge I was able to reach as far west as New Mexico’s Bosque del Apache NWR indicated the self-same problems.
What makes this particularly surprising is the broad base of institutional support. The Congressional Wildlife Caucus has over 100 members. Non-governmental organization support is also extensive and bipartisan. C.A.R.E., The Cooperative Alliance for Refuge Enhancement, counts among its members Audubon, Defenders of Wildlife, The Wilderness Society alongside Ducks Unlimited, Congressional Sportsmen’s Association, and the NRA.
According to the National Wildlife Refuge Association, “Over 67 million people visit national wildlife refuges every year. This generates over 41,000 jobs and provides more than $3.2 billion in economic output each year. For every dollar appropriated to the Refuge System, an average of nearly five dollars is returned to local economies.”
I repeatedly contacted the offices of both of Connecticut’s senators and all four congressional representatives to ask if they could find that $50,000 for the McKinney.
Senators Chris Murphy and Richard Blumenthal and Connecticut Congresspersons John Larson, Joe Courtney, Rosa DeLauro and Jim Himes all have 100% environmental voting records for 2023 according to the League of Conservation Voters. Congressperson Jahana Hayes trails only slightly at 97%. Courtney and DeLauro have openly confirmed through aids their support for the National Wildlife Refuges and John Larson is a member of the Congressional Wildlife Refuge Caucus. Yet, despite environmental bona fides, hard dollar support has not been forthcoming. To their credit, both Rosa DeLauro and Chris Murphy asked Stewart B. McKinney and Northeast Regional HQ for a detailed accounting of needs and shortfalls. Perhaps, something will break. As we go to press, it has not.
How bad is it, overall? Desiree Sorenson-Grove, incoming President and CEO of the non-profit National Wildlife Refuge Association describes it this way. “They’ve cut the fat, the muscle, and now they are into the bone.” Others I spoke to who are conversant with current and continued funding shortfalls echoed these sentiments. Arguably the most important hunting, fishing, and environmental conservation asset in the United States is approaching functional extinction.
