One of the great stories of wildlife recovery in the US history began in the mid -1980s when the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFW) and other agencies began Aleutian Cackling Goose Recovery Program. Then was erected as threatened, the aleutic goose population had fallen to fewer than 700 individuals.
The most important factor in the decline was the predation of the Arctic fox introduced to the Aleutian Islands of Russian fur dealers as early as 1836. The elimination of the fox population brought the geese back from the edge of extinction, but the removal of the predator was not enough. The geese still needed protection in their wintering area, which turned out to be almost exclusively in northern San Joaquin -dal, most specifically in western Stanislaus County, near the river’s confluence of Tuolumn, San Joaquin and Stanislaus.
The San Joaquin River National Wildlife Refuge (Sjnrnw) was established in 1987 under the authority of the Law of Endangered Art and Migrant Bird Conservation to protect these wintering areas. The refuge was largely due to a collaborative effort led by the then congressman Tony Coelho, Stanislaus Audubon Society, Audubon California, Mapes Ranch and the deceased Robert Gallo. Since the establishment of the refuge, the Aleutian goose population has risen to over 200,000.
Habitat expansion and conservation for endangered species have several benefits for wildlife and nature lovers. Such a benefit in the case of Aleutian Goose has been a huge increase in the number of local waterfowl, including snow geese, Ross Geese, Mallards, Wood Ducks and others. Thousands of Sandhill cranes and tens of thousands of other waterfowl now join Aleutian Geese every winter.
Until last year, visitors to the USFW Public Viewing platform on Beckwith Road near Modesto had the opportunity not only to observe the various Ducks geese and cranes, they can also see white pelicans, bald eagles, peregrine falcons, western blue birds, logger head cremals and DUSS of other bird species. Last year without warning, access to the platform was closed by a blocked gate.
Nature lovers who asked why they learned to see the area was closed when refuge Eric Hopson retired. A typical old school wildlife biologist, Hopson’s time clock was always turned on. When he serves like everything from armed park ranger to Rabbit Wrangler and Weed Puller, Hopson could be seen working at the refuge most at any time, including Sundays and holidays. When he retired, there were no staff left, not even to open the gate to the viewing platform.
Further to the south, staff shortages have also had negative effects on San Luis and Merced National Wildlife Refuges, where wetland management in particular has suffered. Local Birders, Hikers and Photographers were stunned when the Trump administration became aware of these shortcomings, lot over 400 USFW employees on February 14 in what constituted a Valentine’s Day that made up a Valentine’s Day that made up the Trump administration.
“Losing these many dedicated employees at once is a particularly devastating blow to conservation efforts nationwide and a intentional dismantling of science,” said Desirée Sorenson-Groves, president and CEO of the National Wildlife Refuge Association.
Trump -cuts, part of a slash and combustion campaign advertised as “government efficiency”, proves to be textbook examples of falling incompetence in too many areas to count. Like Trump’s almost catastrophic release of water from Lake’s CaWEH and success earlier this year, random cuts to USFW staff show to be impulsive, taled and almost catastrophic.
“This is a crisis,” said Sorenson-Groves. “These terminations will have long -term consequences for the protection of wildlife and habitats as well as for the societies that depend on refugees for recreation, tourism and financial benefits.”
At almost the same time as the cut to USFW staff came news of a mass connection of federal employees working in nuclear weapons programs at the National Nuclear Security Administration. The cuts were so poorly advised that they actually threatened national security and security. When Trump officials tried to cancel the end after learning from potential serious consequences, they found that they lacked contact information for many of the fired employees.
“The Doge people come in with absolutely no knowledge of what these departments are responsible for,” said Daryl Kimball, CEO of the Arms Control Association, which refers to the Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency Team. “They don’t seem to realize that it’s actually the Department of Nuclear Weapons more than it is the Department of Energy.”
If Donald Trump really wanted to cut waste and promote efficiency, he would bring in system analysts and efficiency experts to provide qualified assessments of each government body that was reviewed and then cut the fat. Instead, he has transferred the government to Elon Musk and his team of Teench-Tech-Meenies, none of which knows or cares about anything about public interest, so much less the critical functions of state agencies ranging from energy to disease fight to the preservation of animals to wildlife.
Of course, government’s effectiveness is not Trump’s goal. Turning Elon Musk loose on public agencies armed with a dull bred ak has nothing to do with cutting garbage; Instead, the goal is to terrorize government employees, feeding government-hating maga cults with lavish banquets of revenge and retaliation and freeing money to blood-sucking oligarchs such as Elon Musk himself, who is currently under 32 pending investigations from agencies that he has been authorized to itch without any apparently.
In addition to Valentine’s Day massacres on the National Wildlife Refuge, the news that the Trump/Musk tag team had fired approx. 1,000 National Park Service employees yesterday. This news was released at about the same time that Park Service announced that it reintroduced nearly 5,000 seasonal staff who had been fired just a few weeks earlier, in another case of lubricating excitement.
For especially the San Joaquin Valley citizens, Donald Trump’s humbling war against public resources such as water, wildlife is reflected and parks nothing less than an attack on the nation’s natural heritage. Just east of the San Joaquin Valley, Yosemite National Park exists as one of the great wonders of the natural world designated as a protected national treasure by Theodore Roosevelt himself, one of our greatest presidents. Now it is almost certain to suffer seriously from the loss of qualified staff.
Today, not only the nation’s national heritage, but the very public security itself is not threatened by foreign enemies and agents, but by a presidency that more and more resembles a tabling of cyclops, one eye focused not on government effectiveness, but on increasingly hurtful demonstrations of brute strength that was intended to scare, confuse and ran a public, it thought it thought that it thought that it thought that it Egg prices.
The only thing that is more alarming than Musk’s obvious joy in the possibility of destroying and destroying the nation is the idea that he has only just begun. Even the most eager Maga Acolyte should be to feel that the buyer’s remorse by the growing realization that things will soon be much, much worse.