Wildlife refuge budget cuts threaten services

The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service plans to cut 18 workers at its Louisiana refuges over the next five years, which will likely result in a scaling back of educational programs and maintenance.

The cuts have already started to impact two local National Wildlife Refuges-Mandalay NWR in Terrebonne Parish, and Bayou Teche NWR in St. Mary Parish.

Paul Yakupzack, refuge manager for both refuges, says the cuts will negatively impact operations at the refuges. “It’s going to effect it in a very negative way,” said Yakupzack. “We’ll have less people to do our jobs. Less will get done. It’s terrible that we have all of this wonderful property that we won’t be able to properly look after.”

Currently, two employees look over both refuges. “A lady that was at Bayou Teche transferred to Arkansas (about a year ago), and they’re not filling that job,” said Yakupzack. “And my job is slated for abolishment as soon as I vacate it, either by retirement or transfer.”

That would leave one person to monitor a combined 13,240 acres of refuge, according to Yakupzack.

In an Associated Press article, Mindy Gautreaux, refuge manager of Cat Island NWR in Marksville, La., said, “I can see where it can be a little disconcerting. Positions are cut, but we are still expected to get the job done. We once had as many as 13 on staff I believe, but we lost two in 2004, and we are down two now.”

The cuts are part of the agency’s five-year plan for a 20 percent reduction in the work force nationally. The Fish and Wildlife Service, which oversees a system that consists of 544 refuges covering 96 million acres, has been working on smaller budgets in recent years.

The cuts in Louisiana represent 20 percent of the total for the Southeast region, and are the largest cuts in the 11-state region.

Yakupzack said he feels it is important that the public is aware of what is happening. “We’re being forced to do more with less, and we just can’t do it anymore.”

He added that programs designed for the public may have to be cutback because of a shortage of workers.

“We have hunting and fishing programs on all these refuges, and they’re not going to get the attention that they normally get,” Yakupzack said. “There will be less public services; less wildlife trails for people to go down; less hunting opportunities on the refuge; less law enforcement. There will be less of a lot of things that we do.”

Other services impacted by the work force cuts include monitoring wildlife at the refuges. Yakupzack said there will be less things such as waterfowl surveys and spraying of water hyacinths in the refuge. “At Bayou Teche we did a lot of monitoring of the threatened Louisiana black bear,” he said. “We did that probably once a month before, and now we’re doing it maybe three times a year. We’re not being able to keep up with our bears like we like to.”

After receiving a high of $391 million from Congress in 2004, the refuge system has had to do more with less. Its funding levels for the past three fiscal years have been around $9 million to $15 million below the 2004 amount as other priorities such as the Iraq war and hurricane relief took precedence.

Meanwhile, the agency estimates it needs about $16 million a year in additional funding to meet increases in salaries, energy and other inflationary costs. It also says there is a $3 billion maintenance backlog.

To cope with the deficit, the agency has cut about 10 percent of the jobs at refuges in the Northeast and about 20 percent in the Southeast and Midwest. More cutbacks are expected late this year in those regions and in the West.

The Associated Press contributed to portions of this article.