Fish and Wildlife lost quarter of staff, faces questions on refuge management

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has lost about 1,800 employees, roughly a quarter of its workforce, including 530 biologists and more than 100 regional senior staff. Nine percent of the agency's wildlife refuges are now classified as shuttered without on-ground management. For Alaska, which holds 16 of the system's refuges and more than three-quarters of its total acreage, the staffing reductions land on a uniquely large operational footprint.

FWS Director Brian Nesvik told the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Wednesday that the agency is working to align its workforce with available resources and emphasized partnerships with 160 refuge partner groups to address staffing gaps. He has not responded to a December letter from 20 senators requesting a staffing crisis plan.

"It's been half a year since we asked you how you're going to deal with these staffing shortages," Senator Adam Schiff, D-California, said. "We need to insist on answers to very basic questions about how you can meet your statutory obligation after losing a quarter of your staff."

The Alaska stakes are particularly distinct. The state's 16 refuges — including the Arctic and Yukon Delta refuges, each around 19 million acres, along with Kenai, Kodiak, Alaska Maritime, and 11 others — are largely roadless, accessible primarily by aircraft and boat, and managed under the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act of 1980. ANILCA imposes obligations on FWS that don't exist in the Lower 48, including a federal subsistence management responsibility for rural Alaska residents and bilateral migratory bird treaty coordination with Russia. The FWS Alaska Region is headquartered in Anchorage, with field staff at refuges across the state.

Which Alaska refuges, if any, are among the 9% now shuttered without on-ground management has not been publicly broken down by Nesvik or the agency. Whether the 530 biologists and 100-plus senior regional staff lost include personnel based in or assigned to Alaska is similarly not specified in the testimony.