Sen. Feingold Needs Help to Save Wildlife Refuges (more Bush cuts)

[rodeodance]

I did not know anything about this until just now.
hope the cross post is OK.



Sen. Feingold Needs Help to Save Wildlife Refuges
by Naturegal
Thu Mar 22, 2007 at 05:01:02 PM PDT

On March 11, I posted a diary about the Bush administration’s plan to eliminate 20% of the staff in the National Wildlife Refuge System. Members in the House have mounted a campaign to increase the Refuge System budget and prevent the massive cutbacks. Now there’s an effort underway in the Senate to do the same, and Russ Feingold is leading the way. Here’s how you can help.

.............

Refuge supporters Sen. Russ Feingold and Sen. Olympia Snowe are collecting signatures for a letter to the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior and Environment asking them to increase the FY08 budget for the National Wildlife Refuge System to $451.5 million. This is the same amount as recommended by refuge supporters in the House, who have also contacted their appropriations committee.

If this budget amount is not achieved, the National Wildlife Refuge System will be forced to proceed with massive staff cuts as laid out by the Bush administration. Impacts of the cuts at our wildlife refuges will include the following: a reduction of environmental education programs for thousands of school children; reduction of biological surveys and invasive species monitoring; reduction of endangered species protection; reduction of monitoring for poaching and ATV abuse; reduction of hunting and fishing access; and closures at numerous Visitor Centers for multiple days during the week, which will greatly impact local tourism dollars. In addition, de-staffed refuges will be closed to the public and will deteriorate as the managers overseeing them will sometimes be located hours away at neighboring refuges and will be unable to provide proper oversight and upkeep.

Every region of the System has now published their downsizing plans, including the Mountain-Prairie Region of the US Fish and Wildlife Service, which just today announced that they will be making the following cuts – cuts that are similar to every other region in the country:

* Regional office in Denver will lose 32% of its staff
* Colorado will lose 20% of its staff on its 7 refuges
* Kansas will lose almost a third of its staff on its 4 refuges
* Montana will lose over 15% of its staff on more than 20 refuges
* Nebraska will lose over 13% of the staff on its 6 refuges
* North Dakota will lose over a fifth of its staff on over 40 refuges
* South Dakota will lose a quarter of its staff on its 6 refuges
* Utah will lose almost a fifth of it staff on 3 refuges
* and Wyoming will lose over half its staff on 7 refuges, including the National Elk Refuge which is visited by approximately 900,000 visitors every year.......

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/3/22/182448/376

[nam78_two]

1. K&R

Thanks for posting this :thumbsup:
I will be kicking this till it gets some more K&Rs....