Scream after Jalen hurts the Eagles Super Bowl parade last week, JJ, a federal employee who worked at John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge at Tinicum, looked at her lyrics.
Several started with the words, “I am so sorry ….” Worry, jj then read an e email from 1 p.m. 15, who said she had been completed and would be locked out of the computer system at. 17.00 JJ asked to remain anonymous because she hopes to regain her job one day and fears the setback from the government.
“So on the parade, I’m surrounded by thousands of cheering, happy people, while my world suddenly collapses,” she said.
In the mid -20s, JJ grew up and lives in Camden County. She is the only caretaker for her mother suffering from various serious suffering. “Financial stability for us,” she said, “has been torn away. I don’t know what to do.”
JJ is one of three workers at the Heinz Refuge staff, who was fired by President Donald Trump’s administration last Friday, said Jaclyn Rhoys, a member of the board of Friends of Heinz Refuge, a nonprofit that implements education and outreach work for the refuge.
The layoffs are part of a wave of terminations commissioned by the so -called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), run by Elon Musk.
They are not previously reported.
The refuge is part of the American Fish & Wildlife Service, the Agency, from which another worker in South Jersey was laid off, also on February 14.
All three fired employees in Heinz were under the one-year mark in their positions, with one of them-one biotechnological worker-only two weeks shy for a whole year of service, Rhoads added. She said nine workers are back.
One of the 570 wildlife refugees in the nation, the Heinz place of flight protects wildlife and the habitat of the largest freshwater tidal ant in Pennsylvania. It is a stopover for migratory birds and the home to a wisely pair of bald eagles. Intention 1,100 hectares are popular destinations for bird transfers, hikers and students on school trips.
Participation has doubled in the last five years to 350,000 annual visitors, Rhoads said.
“Put on this with running a company,” she said. “If you continue to provide more and more service and do it with such a staggering number, why would you shrink the workforce?”
Calls and E emails to local and national American fish and animal life officials as well as to other agencies were not returned.
The layoffs were part of the estimated 420 redundancies of workers in wildlife Refuge’s nationwide, leaving 2,230 employees to supervise 850 million Acres land and water, the largest network of conservation countries in the world, according to Desiree Sorenson-Groves, president and CEO of National Wildlife Refuge Association in Washington.
“There is absolutely no idea of ​​what is being done,” said Sorenson-Groves. “These employees are just numbers to the dog of using shock and awe tactics to cut. But this is the life of people who in turn provide services to the American people.
“We have lost some of our best and brightest. Many of these people are scientists who save the most threatened by endangered species.”
Although a large number of the fired employees are probation, “a great deal” has PH.DS and 20 or more years of experience with preservation or other sciences, she added.
“Now years of work are away,” said Sorenson-Groves. She added, “Look, not all governments are bad. It can do good things – like managing public countries.”
‘An oasis from the chaos’
JJ started working in the South Philadelphia Wildlife Refuge three years ago, but had been in her full -time position less than a year. Her job in Heinz Refuge’s visitors Service Team let her teach archery for visitors, lead fishing events and work to remove invasive vegetation species. She was scheduled to represent refuge at the Philadelphia Flower Show next month.
“Heinz is my life and I love it,” said JJ. “I fought hard To be here. Having it torn away is unreal and alarming.
“For visitors and for me it is an oasis from the chaos you often find in Philadelphia.”
The refugee fires come in the wake of the reported redundancies for other land use workers: About 3,400 employees of the US Forest Service still in their probation. The service is part of the US Ministry of Agriculture, while Fish & Wildlife belongs to the US Ministry of the Interior.
The administration has also fired about 1,000 newly hired National Park Service employees who maintain and cleanse parks, train visitors and perform other features.
Two test employees were terminated in Independence National Historical Park last weekend. Five were dismissed in the Gettysburg National Military Park and five at Steamtown National Historic Site in Scranton, according to David Fitzpatrick, local treasurer in Afge Local 2058 and Secretary Treasurer for AFGE COUNCIL 270.
‘Brain Fog Days’
Lisa Brouellette’s supervisor came out of a meeting and cried on Valentine’s Day. The only test employee in an office of 17 in Fish & Wildlife’s Ecological Services Field Office in Galloway, Atlantic County, Brouellette immediately knew she had been released.
The loss of her job has left her in a state of grief. “Since I was released, I have had these brains fog days from grief where I lost my cat for 11 hours, I left my front door open all day,” said the biologist.
Brouellette, 31, moved from Minnetonka, Minn., To May’s landing just five months ago to the job that is now gone.
“I don’t know where I’m going from here,” she said. Because so many workers with similar jobs and conservation experience are dismissed at the same time from the US National Park Service, US Forest Service and Fish & Wildlife, “We hit all the job market at once,” Brouellette said. “There’s a lot of fear going on.”
In the last decade, Brouellette endured unpaid, seasonal and temp work to get to her position – and ensure that federal agencies and others do not run for rules that protect endangered species. Even to $ 54,000 a year – the lowest salary in her office – it was a dream job.
“I loved it and I loved my colleagues and communities,” she said. “It’s hard to get it taken from a dove.”
She added, “I really think the layoffs were targeted to eventually weaken protection for endangered species, possibly to allow development.”
For the time being, Brouellette said, she may have to move back with her parents and say a sad goodbye to her protectors, including: Book Turtle, New Jersey State Reptile and a threatened species; Indiana Bat and the northern long -eared bat, both threatened; and the red knot, a threatened wandering coastal bird.
And as she wonders if she will ever work on the East Coast again, Brouellette is aware that she has never had the chance to swim in the sea only 15 miles away from her apartment.
“It all still hits me,” she said. “It’s just so surreal.”