The federal government has notified U.S. Geological Survey researchers and students that funds could be frozen and staff laid off in the Department of the Interior, according to USGS staff and university students who work with the grants.
These efforts fall in line with the Trump administration’s stated desire to reduce the federal workforce.
“The federal government would not honor its contract with the University of Florida to pay me,” said TWS member Darcy Doran-Myers, a PhD student at the University of Florida whose funding through the U.S. Geological Survey’s (USGS) Florida Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit will be frozen.
While a judge temporarily paused any administration-directed reduction in workforce (RIF) activity Friday in response to a lawsuit filed by a coalition of nonprofit organizations, local governments and labor unions, federal lawyers have already appealed the action, leaving U.S. Department of Interior employees and their future work uncertain.
“The Ecosystems Mission Area within the USGS is absolutely completely targeted,” said Sam Droege, head of the USGS Bee Lab at the Patuxent Research Refuge in Maryland.
The USGS did not respond to a request for comment by the time of this publication.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration’s discretionary budget request for the Fiscal Year 2026 states, “The budget eliminates programs that provide grants to universities, duplicate other federal research programs and focus on social agendas (e.g., climate change) to instead focus on achieving dominance in energy and critical minerals.”
These cuts would result in widespread losses for the science and data collection of the USGS’s Ecosystems Mission Area, a wide-reaching section that leads the way in wildlife research on everything from the state of migratory birds to game and endangered and threatened species.
Frozen grants
The USGS funds Doran-Myers’ work through its Cooperative Research Unit (CRU) program, which leverages partnerships between universities and state wildlife agencies. Late last week, her supervisors informed her that reports on pending RIFs were “credible,” and that her advisor—a USGS employee working with the CRU—would likely be let go as part of the RIF. If the RIFs occurred, a stop work order on her grant was likely. “I’m federally advised and federally funded, so I’d lose both my advisor and my funding,” she said.
They also told her anyone dependent on these grants should begin to make arrangements.
Doran-Myers had used the money to help fund field and lab work, as well as for her tuition and project-relevant costs like conference attendance.
Her research focuses on the accuracy of expert opinion when making species listing decisions under the federal Endangered Species Act. To understand this better, she studies black bears (Ursus americanus) in Florida—a species that isn’t listed but that has plenty of data—comparing the opinions of experts with what the data actually shows about the species to see if they match up.
“It’s relevant to all aspects of wildlife science and wildlife decision-making,” Doran-Myers said.
TWS member Kaili Gregory worked with the University of Florida CRU during her master’s degree. She said that none of her work modeling populations of pond turtles currently under consideration for federal listing would have been possible without grant money from the USGS. While her current PhD work at the University of Georgia isn’t supported by the USGS, her supervisor is employed by the CRU there, and she is still uncertain how she will continue her studies if her supervisor is laid off.
For some, these cuts aren’t just about their current situations. They’re also about their future dreams and aspirations in the wildlife profession.
“I’m at the beginning of my career here, and I kind of thought that it was an honor to be somebody that was funded on a federal grant,” Doran-Myers said. “My work is important, but also the work that my advisor does is important.”
Layoffs on the horizon
Bee chief Droege received a similar email as others in the Ecosystems Mission Area announcing his funding would be frozen at the Bee Lab. Contractors had already been fired in the agency, he said, and staff couldn’t be transferred to new positions. They also received offers to retire, but Droege planned on never retiring. “I loved working here and the work that much,” he said.
Meanwhile, another Ecosystems Mission Area researcher, who would prefer to remain anonymous due to fear of losing her job, said that she had received multiple offers to retire in the face of upcoming RIFs. “The ecosystem branch of the USGS is being targeted for a very serious reduction,” she said. On the one hand, it may be seniority-based, and on the other hand, the whole Ecosystems Mission Area might get cut, regardless of seniority. “It’s not based on anything that makes any sense.”
Even if she’s not laid off in the RIF process, she is afraid of what her section will look like after reductions.
“It doesn’t mean anything to be the last person standing on the battlefield—you’re still surrounded by dead people,” she said.
While a judge put a temporary restraining order on the planned wave of RIFs at the DOI, the Trump administration has already appealed the move. But at the bee lab—a one-of-its-kind facility tracking the relationships between native pollinators and plants important for everything from the baseline working of ecosystems to the agricultural economy—Droege and his staff and volunteers aren’t taking any chances. They have already begun boxing up specimens in the small, remote building so that if the RIFs hit, years of work aren’t suddenly abandoned to the elements. “It would be eaten by mice and beetles,” Droege said.
The administration also informed Droege that he couldn’t talk to the press. “I’ve been told that I cannot any longer talk to reporters, but I also know that we are going to be RIFed,” Droege said. “Somebody has to push back—it’s time to speak out.”
The lab provides all kinds of services to the public for free, whether it’s identifying bee species people captured at their farms or trapping and tracking native bee species that help boost pollination and crop yield. There is no other group that can provide this kind of expertise in the federal government, he said.
“It’s a really good example of the kinds of things that will go away that the government should provide,” Droege said.
True American values?
Even if some of these jobs are clawed back or protected through lawsuits, long-term damage may have already been done to government wildlife science.
Currently a PhD student, Gregory questions her career choices. Her mother worked most of her career for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, while her father’s side of the family fought in every major war that the U.S. has been involved with in the past few decades—so serving with the federal government, in one capacity or another, is in her blood. “If you had asked me six months ago, my dream would have been to go and work for a federal agency, whether it was [the U.S.] Fish and Wildlife Service or NOAA,” she said. Now, as “existential dread” has set in, she is considering leaving the country to seek job opportunities in Europe.
Doran-Myers worries these losses clash with the core of a century of U.S. values. “All of these agencies are here for a reason,” she said. “They were built in response to wildlife decline and degradation that people saw happening around them in the early 20th century,” she said.
“It’s not just wildlife people that should care about this,” Doran-Myers said. “It’s such an American ideal—conservation is so rooted in the American identity. I don’t know what it’s being thrown away for.”
