Recently appointed Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dan Ashe and Deputy Director Greg Siekaniec.

NWRA is pleased to report that Dan Ashe has been confirmed as the new Director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The U.S. Senate confirmed Ashe on June 30, 2011, several months after being nominated to the position by President Obama in early December 2010. His nomination was held up by a few individual Senators seeking to secure guarantees by the Department of Interior over many non-FWS related issues, most notably, Louisiana’s Sen. David Vitter, who wanted the Interior Department to approve more offshore oil leases in the Gulf, something the FWS has no jurisdiction over.

NWRA also congratulates Gregory Siekaniec for his appointment as Deputy Director for Policy of the FWS. A career FWS employee for more than two decades, Siekaniec has served as the Chief of the National Wildlife Refuge System since 2009. Most recently, he oversaw the “Conserving the Future” process to create a reinvigorated vision to guide the Refuge System to meet the challenges of the next decade. The new vision was ratified in July, and reflects more than 10,000 comments submitted from refuge supporters across America. “We’re confident that Greg is exceptionally qualified to provide strategic program direction to the Fish and Wildlife Service in these challenging economic times,” said NWRA President Evan Hirsche.

Assistant Secretary for Fish, Wildlife and Parks nominee Rebecca Wodder.

Unfortunately, another key Presidential appointee is still being held hostage over Gulf oil permits. Rebecca Wodder has been nominated to become the new Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Fish, Wildlife and Parks and would oversee many refuge issues. Senator Vitter is pursuing the same tactic used in Ashe’s nomination with Wodder’s. He has placed a hold on her confirmation until additional Gulf oil permits are issued.

As with Ashe, NWRA is urging Vitter to lift his hold and Congress to approve Wodder to head the management team that will help the FWS and National Wildlife Refuge System navigate the rough fiscal waters ahead.

The first comprehensive national inventorying of the National Wildlife Refuge System’s lakes, rivers, wetlands and streams begins its first full year in 2011, as population growth and climate change increase competition for water resources.

The inventory of water resources is expected to take at least five years. By mid-2011, the Natural Resources Program Center hopes to start entering data on water quantity, quality, legal rights and infrastructure into a new national database. Survey data will also identify water-related needs, trends and threats for each of the 553 refuges.

“We will look at the quantity and quality of water available to wildlife habitats and species through the System,” says Mike Higgins, national water resources coordinator based at the new Natural Resources Program Center in Fort Collins, CO. “That will help us prioritize our efforts in a strategic way, so that if it looks like a refuge is not going to have enough water in 10 years to meets its conservation needs, we can explore what we can do to assure that refuge gets additional resources.”

Among the first refuges to provide data to the Water Resource Inventory and Assessment was Hamden Slough National Wildlife Refuge in Minnesota, which completed its inventory and draft report last November.   The refuge, about 3,000 acres of prairie wetland used by migratory and nesting birds, lies within the Red River Basin, which has experienced increased flooding in recent decades. Wetland restorations completed by refuge staff for wildlife benefits are also reducing flood damage for people living nearby. At “full pool,” the refuge’s nine actively managed wetlands hold more than 800 acre feet of water, the new report shows. Acquiring the remaining 3,000 acres within the refuge boundary would permit additional restorations to benefit wildlife and further relieve downstream flooding.

Great Lakes/Big Rivers Regional hydrologist Josh Eash calls the inventory “extremely useful” both in culling available information and in highlighting data gaps. “Almost everything we do is tied to water.  Without understanding what we know — and what we don’t know — about our water resources, as well as specific threats and needs, it’s often difficult to meet biological objectives.”

Quivira Refuge in Kansas, Shiawassee Refuge in Michigan, Alamosa Refuge in Colorado, Aransas Refuge in Texas and Cahaba River Refuge in Alabama are among the next in line for water inventories based on regional prioritization.

One challenge will be the immense scale of the project, Higgins says. “There’s no way we can inventory every small stream and wetland in Alaska’s millions of acres of refuge lands; we’ve accepted that,” he says. Seasonal variations present another challenge. Some wetlands, for example, hold water only three months of the year; others have been dried up for years by drought.

“How do we capture threats imposed by climate change,” asks Higgins. “One way we’ve chosen is to look at long-term trends, long-term data for stream flow, for example. Is it decreasing or increasing? Are water temperatures decreasing or increasing? In addition, where we have appropriate data from climate change models, we’ll incorporate those into our assessments.  “There’s a huge data gap there that needs to be filled,” he says.

Each year, as we celebrate the Refuge System’s anniversary on March 14, we have a chance to think once more about the twin driving forces behind wildlife refuges: a responsibility to save for future generations the wild treasures bequeathed to us; and the extraordinary people who work day-in and day-out to deliver our conservation mission. This year, we have one more element: The Conserving the Future process that will give us a renewed vision to guide the Refuge System for the next decade or so.

With Conserving the Future, we are building a new legacy for the future — giving birth to bold ideas even as we attract new partners, young people and more supporters for the timeless ideals embodied in the Refuge System mission. If you have not yet given your bold ideas or commented on the draft vision, you have until April 22, Earth Day, to say what you think on the Web site, http://americaswildlife.org/. Giving your comments on the draft vision will be your birthday gift to the Refuge System.

The Refuge System has had quite a year. The Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico exploded April 20, 2010, igniting the worst environment disaster in the nation’s history. National wildlife refuges were hit with oil, as were the brown pelicans, an iconic species, that formed the basis for the Refuge System’s beginning. The final chapter of that disaster has yet to be written, but one fact is certain: employees of the Refuge System and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service served with dispatch and distinction as we fought millions of gallons of oil hitting our shores and soiling our waters.

The disaster can’t dim our successes:
• The 553rd refuge – Cherry Valley in northeastern Pennsylvania – was established on October 18. It is just 75 miles west of New York City, square in the midst of a growing metropolitan corridor where conservation of wild places is so challenging and so critical.

• When First Lady Michelle Obama unveiled her Let’s Move Outside! Initiative, where did she go? To Desert Wildlife Refuge Complex in Nevada, where the thriving Southern Nevada Agency Partnership shows what federal agencies working with city, county and state officials can do on behalf of youngsters and wildlife.

• After years of planning, the Refuge System launched its inventorying and monitoring program that will help garner much needed scientific data for making the best possible habitat management decisions.

And then there is what we do for wildlife, on refuge after refuge, year after year. Consider the Friends of Tualatin River National Wildlife Refuge, who, for the first time, staged a three-day songbird festival to show a new generation of conservationists the beauty of nature when habitat is conserved. Take Buffalo Lake Refuge in Texas, which has restored about 4,000 acres of shortgrass prairie that is essential to bison. And then there’s Assabet River Refuge in Massachusetts, which again enlisted Bristol County Agricultural High School in helping establish a population of Blanding’s turtles – benefitting the students right alongside the species, which is listed by the state as threatened.

Every wildlife refuge has played a central role in conserving wildlife habitat and species for a nation that is growing more urban, less connected to its natural resource foundations, and more in need of appreciating America’s great outdoors. Please join me as we celebrate our conservation legacy and most importantly, as we celebrate one another. Thank you for what you do each and every day.

Greg Siekaniec
Chief
National Wildlife Refuge System

Tyler Hotten, 18, a high school senior in Underwood, North Dakota, got his wish this summer: a chance to work outdoors. After two months of mowing, weed trimming, goose banding and other labor at Audubon National Wildlife Refuge, he also came away with something more: an interest in a career in wildlife conservation. “If you like being outside, it’s the job for you,” he says.

That’s just what the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service likes to hear.

The Service increased youth employment more than 50 percent in fiscal year 2010, exceeding the Department of the Interior’s goals. The Service hired 2,434 people ages 15 to 25 to work on national wildlife refuges and other sites — up from 1,535 in 2009 and 515 more than the 2010 target of 1,919 set by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar’s “Youth in the Great Outdoors” program.

New employees included 771 hired through the Youth Conservation Corps (YCC); 551 through the Student Temporary Employment Program (STEP) and Student Career Experience Program (SCEP); and 254 through permanent and temporary positions.

Partnerships with more than 70 organizations — such as the Student Conservation Association, The Corps Network and refuge Friends groups — brought 858 young people into the Service fold. To see highlights of Service-wide accomplishments, visit the 2010 Youth Employment Report, “More Than a Job.”

The jobs were varied and often physically demanding. At Baca National Wildlife Refuge in Colorado, YCC crews removed 13 miles of barbed wire fence. At Bitter Lake National Wildlife Refuge in New Mexico a youth crew improved access for visitors with disabilities. At William L. Finley National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon, YCCers helped build a boardwalk, maintain trails, install landscaping and hand-pull invasive English ivy, tansy ragwort and oxeye daisy. “It’s very labor-intensive, bending over in the heat, pulling plants up by the root,” says refuge biologist Jock Beall. “The idea is not to dig or disturb the soil because that causes more seeds to germinate.”

Finley Refuge YCC crew member Lexxs Sutton, 17, of Monroe, Oregon, agreed the work was hard. But, she added, “I learned a lot of things, and it was probably the most fun job I will ever have.”

Read about youth hiring in the Northeast region.
See photos of YCC crews at work on refuges in the Northwest.
The Service hopes to maintain the same level of youth hiring in 2011. Learn more about youth job opportunities in the National Wildlife Refuge System.
Learn more about the Department of the Interior’s Youth in the Great Outdoors program.
See photos of some of the amazing young people at work on our national wildlife refuges.