Pelican Island National Wildlife Refuge - Budget Cuts

Budget Cuts

Pelican Island, along with many other wildlife refuges, has been experiencing budget cuts. Many problems arise from the stagnant budget and lack of maintenance in the wildlife refuges. These are vital to preserve the habitat and the wildlife and to provide public education and recreation. This situation worsened further because of the failure of the 109th Congress to pass federal funding bills. “This, in return, means that the funding will limp along at the lowest possible level under a “continuing resolution” regimen."

Staffing at Pelican Island is made up of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The staff members have recently fallen from six to two which has had many negative consequences. The cuts have led to limiting refuge work and restricting public visitation. Another consequence is the end of 14-year tradition of the wildlife festival.

The United States has seen a huge increase in the wildlife refuge system. It all started with Pelican Island and now is 96 million acres (390,000 km²) including 545 individual refuges, 75 wildernesses, and 1,000 miles (1,600 km) of wild and scenic river, all overseen by USFWS. But with all of these additions, the budgets didn’t see a similar rise to match the refuge growth.

CARE (the Cooperative Alliance for Refuge Enhancement), a coalition of 21 sports and conservation groups, claims that nine of 10 refuges in the northeast won’t be able to meet basic operating costs by 2013. They also say that more than one third of the refuges will lack full-time workers. Along with this, Pelican Island will be losing its only public-use staff and eliminating all active outreach at the nation’s first wildlife refuge.

Many of the cuts are hitting the east coast more drastically than any other national wildlife refuges. However with time, the west coast could be experiencing the same. Grady Hocutt is a 30-year veteran of the USFW and is a former refuge manager. With the budget cuts, the government will put it in a preservation status. “Well, if there's no active law enforcement at a site, there will be trespass and poaching," Hocutt said. "Structures and dikes will fall down, and the invasive plants will sprout up. Try to come back in five years and fix it, and you will find all your problems have grown much, much worse."

Maribeth Oakes told Land Letter, a natural resources weekly report, “There will be a variety of important services lost throughout the Southeast Region such as important law enforcement functions on the refuges, trail maintenance and wildlife management.” Oakes does not expect for these cuts to threaten the wildlife on the refuges directly, but she is worried that the refuges will experience neglect without proper staffing.

Pelican Island will directly lose its only public-use staff and will also eliminate all active outreach. Pelican Island Refuge manager and project leader Paul Tritaik expects the refuge to be hit hard. He is afraid that they will be unable to have volunteer opportunities for people in the local communities. "When you cut us down to a full time staff of two people then our ability to do all the functions of the refuge is going to be so thin. There will be areas that we can't cover and we may end up having to close a number of trails," he said. Tritaik hopes that the staffing cuts are short-lived and that funding will return in the near future.