One of the great wildlife recovery stories in United States’ history began in the mid-1980s when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFW) and other agencies began the Aleutian Cackling Goose recovery program. Then listed as endangered, the Aleutian Goose population had declined to fewer than 700 individuals.
The chief factor in the decline was predation by the Arctic Fox, which was introduced to the Aleutian Islands by Russian fur traders as early as 1836. Elimination of the fox population brought the geese back from the brink of extinction, but removal of the predator wasn’t enough. The geese still needed protection on their wintering grounds, which turned out to lie almost entirely in the northern San Joaquin Valley, most specifically in western Stanislaus County, near the confluence of the Tuolumne, San Joaquin and Stanislaus rivers.
The San Joaquin River National Wildlife Refuge (SJNRNW) was established in 1987, under authority of the Endangered Species Act and Migratory Bird Conservation Acts, to protect those wintering grounds. The refuge came about in large part because of a cooperative effort led by then-Congressman Tony Coelho, the Stanislaus Audubon Society, Audubon California, Mapes Ranch, and the late Robert Gallo. Since establishment of the refuge, the Aleutian Goose population has increased to over 200,000.
Habitat expansion and preservation for endangered species has multiple benefits for wildlife and nature lovers. One such benefit in the case of the Aleutian Goose has been a huge increase in numbers of local waterfowl, including Snow Geese, Ross Geese, Mallards, Wood Ducks, and others. Thousands of Sandhill Cranes and tens of thousands of other waterfowl now join the Aleutian Geese every winter.
Until last year, visitors to the USFW public viewing platform on Beckwith Road near Modesto had the opportunity not only to observe the various ducks geese and cranes, they might also see White Pelicans, Bald Eagles, Peregrine Falcons, Western Bluebirds, Loggerhead Shrikes and dozens of other bird species. Then, last year without warning, entry to the platform was closed by a barred gate.
Nature lovers who asked why learned the viewing area was closed when refuge manager Eric Hopson retired. A typical old school wildlife biologist, Hopson’s time clock was always on. Serving as everything from armed park ranger to rabbit wrangler and weed puller, Hopson could be seen working on the refuge most anytime, including Sundays and holidays. Once he retired, there was no staff left, not even to open the gate to the viewing platform.
Further south, staff shortages have also had negative effects on San Luis and Merced National Wildlife Refuges, where wetlands management in particular has suffered. Keenly aware of these shortages, local birders, hikers, and photographers were stunned when the Trump administration summarily terminated over 400 USFW employees on February 14 in what amounted to a Valentine’s Day massacre of science-based conservation.
“Losing this many dedicated employees all at once is an especially devastating blow to conservation efforts nationwide and an intentional dismantling of science,” said Desirée Sorenson-Groves, President & CEO of the National Wildlife Refuge Association.
The Trump cuts, part of a slash and burn campaign advertised as “government efficiency,” are proving to be textbook examples of blundering incompetence in too many areas to count. Like Trump’s almost catastrophic release of water from Lakes Kaweah and Success earlier this year, random cuts to USFW staff are proving to be impulsive, unlearned and near-catastrophic.
“This is a crisis,” said Sorenson-Groves. “These terminations will have long-lasting consequences for the protection of wildlife and habitat, as well as for the communities that depend on refuges for recreation, tourism, and economic benefits.”
At almost the same time as the cuts to USFW staff, news came of a mass-termination of federal employees working in nuclear weapons programs at the National Nuclear Security Administration. The cuts were so ill-advised they actually threatened national security and safety. When Trump officials tried to rescind the terminations after learning of potential dire consequences, they found they lacked contact information for many of the fired employees.
“The DOGE people are coming in with absolutely no knowledge of what these departments are responsible for,” said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, referencing Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency team. “They don’t seem to realize that it’s actually the department of nuclear weapons more than it is the Department of Energy.”
If Donald Trump really wanted to cut waste and promote efficiency, he’d bring in systems analysts and efficiency experts to provide qualified assessments of each government agency under review and then cut the fat. Instead, he’s turned the government over to Elon Musk and his team of adolescent tech-weenies, none of whom knows or cares anything about the public interest, let alone the critical functions of government agencies ranging from energy to disease control to wildlife conservation.
Government efficiency, of course, isn’t Trump’s goal. Turning Elon Musk loose on public agencies armed with a dull broadax has nothing to do with cutting waste; instead, the goal is to terrorize government employees, feed government-hating MAGA cultists with lavish banquets of vengeance and retribution, and free up money for blood-sucking oligarchs like Elon Musk himself, who is currently under 32 pending investigations by agencies he’s been given authority to cripple with virtually no oversight.
In addition to the Valentine’s Day massacres at National Wildlife Refuges, news that the Trump/Musk tag team had fired approximately 1,000 National Park Service employees came out yesterday. That news was released about the same time the park service announced it was reinstating almost 5,000 seasonal employees who had been fired just a few weeks earlier, in yet another instance of blundering ineptitude.
For San Joaquin Valley citizens in particular, Donald Trump’s bumbling war on public resources like water, wildlife refuges and parks represents nothing less than an assault on the nation’s natural heritage. Just east of the San Joaquin Valley, Yosemite National Park exists as one of the great wonders of the natural world, designated as a protected national treasure by Theodore Roosevelt himself, one of our greatest presidents. Now, it’s almost certain to suffer grievously from the loss of qualified staff.
Today, not only the nation’s national heritage but public safety itself are endangered not by foreign enemies and agents, but by a presidency that more and more resembles a blundering cyclops, its one eye focused not on government efficiency but on increasingly hurtful demonstrations of brute strength intended to intimidate, confuse and rob a public that thought it was voting for lower gas and egg prices.
The only thing more alarming than Musk’s obvious glee at the opportunity to wreck and ruin the nation is the thought that he’s only just begun. Even the most ardent MAGA acolyte should be feeling pangs of buyer’s remorse at the dawning realization that things are soon going to be much, much worse.
