Retired leaders of agencies that work on wildlife conservation and management fear the loss of capacity, leadership and collaborative relationships caused by the ongoing slew of mass terminations.
“What we’re seeing is the start of a trophic cascade for the conservation institution,” said John Organ, retired chief of the U.S. Geological Survey’s (USGS) Cooperative Research Unit (CRU) Program. “These cuts, which are just the beginning, are going to have impacts well beyond the federal government. It’s going to impact state fish and wildlife agencies, NGOs and ultimately, biodiversity on this continent.”
The Trump Administration and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have fired, laid off and offered buyouts to thousands of federal workers as part of their stated goal of reducing “federal bureaucracy and waste” and reducing the size of the government. Though the administration has not published official numbers, news outlets have estimated 3,400 employees have been fired from the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) and 1,000 from the National Park Service. According to the National Wildlife Refuge Association, 420 have been fired from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS).
Many of these job losses, which make up part of the Office of Personnel Management’s (OPM) “large-scale reduction in force,” were probationary employees fired en masse in February. Although OPM updated its memo to federal agencies on March 3 based on a judge’s recent ruling, the future of the thousands of fired federal workers—and the wildlife they manage—is murky.
Past leaders in federal and state agencies are concerned that this loss could have long-lasting impacts on visitor experiences on federal lands; hunting and fishing; the agricultural economy; and wildlife conservation and management across the country, among other issues.
“This profession is arguably not even 100 years old, but we have a system in place that has restored wildlife throughout the country in a spectacular fashion,” said TWS member Steve Williams, director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service from 2002 to 2005 under President George W. Bush. “This is shaking that entire system.”
Economic losses
Losing federal staff isn’t just about interruptions to wildlife management. These employees can affect public opportunities for recreation and the economy at large.
“The termination of staff in the National Wildlife Refuge System is going to affect the ability of the public to utilize those resources, whether they want to hunt, fish, birdwatch or just enjoy nature,” said Organ, a former TWS president and 2020 Aldo Leopold Memorial Award recipient.
These impacts could go beyond the tourists and others who use these parks. TWS member Kathy Granillo, a former USFS biologist and regional refuge biologist for the Southwest Region of the USFWS—where she provided biological expertise to 45 refuges for 17 years—worries the federal cuts will even affect the communities around public lands that rely on tourism, wildlife viewing, hunting and fishing for their local economies. “The communities around these wild places are going to feel the economic impact,” she said.
According to a report by Southwick and Associates in 2016, the $38.5 billion of direct spending on conservation efforts—61.5% of which comes from the federal government—generates $92.4 billion of total economic activity. That means every dollar spent on conservation in fthe U.S. has a positive return of 2.4 times its original investment. Additionally, the economic contributions of conservation support over 655,000 jobs with $41.2 billion of income—including salaries and wages—while adding $59.2 billion to the U.S. Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The resulting economic activity returns $12.8 billion in the form of tax revenues to the state, local and federal governments, which, in effect, represents a “conservation rebate” relative to the public’s investment.
Also, further economic impacts could affect American agriculture, especially if layoffs hit some of the agencies under the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Wildlife Services and other staff at the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service are responsible for managing wildlife conflict with livestock and crop damage. Meanwhile, the National Resource Conservation Service has contracts with farmers to address issues like crop predation. “The impact of that on the landscape cannot be overestimated,” Organ said.
Conservation dollars in limbo
On Feb. 14, Allison Keating was fired from her new position as wildlife biologist at the USFWS’ Office of Conservation Investment (OCI), where she was responsible for managing 64 grants with state fish and wildlife agencies across the northeast. These tasks will now be distributed among the remaining employees, but between the hiring freeze and the layoffs in her department, Keating said her team was cut by 25%.
Last year, OCI disbursed nearly $990 million in funds collected through the Pittman-Robertson Act, which levies an excise tax on firearms, ammunition and some archery equipment. The program operates as a reimbursable program, distributing annual grants that support the conservation of wild birds, mammals and their habitats. States often use funds for habitat management and restoration, species surveys, protection of endangered species, hunter education and the operation and maintenance of wildlife management areas for hunting and recreation.
“A lot of these states rely heavily on this dedicated funding for their agencies to operate, for their staff to get paid, and for the on-the-ground conservation and management to get done,” Keating said. “The Pittman-Robertson Act was established in 1937, and hunters, sportsmen and target shooters have been the foundation of conservation in our country since then. And all of that is at risk right now.”
The states that rely on the grants are “going to be stretched very thin,” Williams said. “I don’t know how [the OCI] is going to handle that workload, but I’m afraid it’s going to have repercussions in every state in the country.”
A decimated workforce
Probationary employees—those who just started their positions and, for some, just entered the workforce—felt the brunt of federal job loss. But these often new hires are “the ones that are actually implementing management plans and interacting with the public,” said Granillo. Entry-level wildlife biologists, technicians and trail crews handle the day-to-day operations that keep public lands safe and accessible to the public.
Granillo is worried about the closures of public areas, decline in visitor experiences, and even more serious effects, like slower responses to wildfires. Although the Trump Administration said USFS firefighters would not be fired, Granillo said that trail crews are often the first line of defense in terms of fire suppression and management. On the basis of the new executive order banning DEI in the federal government, a program training female wildland firefighters has been terminated, and some federal employees have reported canceled, or unrenewed, seasonal contracts.
All three former leaders are concerned about the loss of future leaders in the profession. “[The federal government] has lost a lot of good people who have committed their lives to wildlife conservation,” Williams said. He is especially concerned about the indiscriminate dismissal of newly promoted employees within their probationary periods. These employees had been recently promoted due to their knowledge, skills and wisdom and should have been among those that make up the future leadership of these agencies. Their loss may lead to an erosion in leadership. “I don’t know how you put a price tag on that,” he said.
The uncertain future of cooperative relationships
Since 1935, the USGS CRU program has helped solve real-world natural resource management problems while training the next generation of wildlife management leaders. Organ, who served as chief of the CRU program, described the units as “the lifeblood of actionable science for state and federal agencies and the source for trained professionals for natural resource conservation.”
CRUs are cooperatives between USGS, state fish and wildlife agencies, universities and private natural resource organizations. Organ worries that job cuts, which have already begun in the CRU program, could curtail the important work they do. “States rely on the science provided by CRUs to address the on-the-ground issues,” he said.
Organ currently serves on the Massachusetts Fisheries and Wildlife Board, which oversees the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife, an agency that collaborates with its local CRU. One such project deals with the detection and monitoring of chronic wasting disease (CWD), a deadly prion disease that infects deer species. Scientists haven’t yet detected the disease in Massachusetts, but Organ worries that staff cuts and contract terminations will mean that wildlife biologists won’t have the science they need to keep CWD out of the state.
“This is the beauty of the conservation system we have in North America: it’s a public-private coop. We’ve realized, over almost 100 years of the wildlife profession, that no one agency or group can do things by themselves,” Organ said. “But we’re losing a huge leg of that stool, and so that’s going to mean a lot of pressure on our other partners.”
Williams agrees. “I don’t know how you put it all back together if you take a major portion of the federal assistance and federal cooperation away,” he said. “I’m sure they’d love to, but it’s just the economic reality.”
Doing more with less
Natural resource managers have always faced limited resources and budget cuts. “From the refuge system perspective, those folks have always done a lot with a little. They’ve scrimped, saved, and run those refuges without enough people on board,” Williams said.
Before the cuts, Granillo said that refuges had already lost 30% of their funding over the last fifteen years. Williams said that the recent cuts—and whatever firings and budget cuts might come down the line—are “stressing out an already stressed-out workforce.”
At Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge, where Granillo was the refuge manager for the last 12 years of her career, she said optimal staffing was calculated to be 17, but she never had more than five employees. “We excel at doing more with less,” she said.
Over her 40-year tenure in the federal government, Granillo said that workforce planning was an ongoing conversation, where agencies determined how to handle budget cuts rather than “this bull in a china shop approach.” She added that agencies themselves are the best poised to make cuts in the least disruptive way possible.
Williams agreed that there should be routine audits to ensure that programs are effective, and if need be, he supports changes on a deliberate, evidence-based evaluation of the workforce. “If someone’s not performing, you work with them to improve and let them go if you have to,” he said, but the recent approach by the federal government is far different.
Shaking up the system
Organ, Williams and Granillo are all worried about the prospect of future staff and funding cuts and what that could mean for already weakened agencies.
Organ is concerned for the National Wildlife Refuge System itself, saying that the mass firings are putting “tremendous constraints” on the active management of wildlife refuges—which was the purpose of why the refuges were created in the first place. “That’s going to have a negative effect on biodiversity, and in particular, endangered species and species of greatest conservation need,” he said.
Even with remaining employees, Organ said that morale has never been lower, and that affects productivity and performance.
On March 13, a federal judge ordered that all fired probationary employees from six agencies—including the Departments of the Interior and Agriculture, which house the USFWS and USFS, respectively—be reinstated immediately. In his ruling, the judge said he believed that OPM’s directive to lay off probationary employees was unlawful. Keating said she’s “cautiously optimistic” about what this news might mean for herself and other recently hired or promoted federal employees. “This is encouraging for a lot of the probationary employees that were fired, but we’re waiting for more information. There are a lot of unknowns right now,” she said.
Williams calls the treatment of wildlife professionals “truly heartbreaking.” He knows many of those affected. “They’re good people, they’re professionals, and they’re in it out of commitment and dedication,” he said.
Granillo’s advice to the young people who are looking for jobs and opportunities in the industry: patience and perseverance. “We will survive this,” she said.
