A Wyoming mule deer advocate is leading a Trump administration review of the National Wildlife Refuge System as former agency officials worry the effort is being rushed and may lead to divesting of federal land owned by all Americans.
Josh Coursey, a Donald Trump-appointed senior advisor to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Brian Nesvik, will undertake a “programmatic comprehensive review” of the 573-unit refuge system, according to Nesvik’s Dec. 16 order. The review also will inventory five marine national monuments, 71 national fish hatcheries and more.
Coursey is the co-founder of Wyoming’s Muley Fanatic Foundation. WyoFile was unable to reach him for an interview before this story published. Nesvik is the former director of the Wyoming Game and Fish Department.
The review of hatcheries, marine monuments and 96 million acres of national refuge land — an area larger than Montana — is being rushed and may not account for the purposes for which various refuges were established, seven former career refuge system officials wrote to Nesvik in a Jan. 5 email obtained by WyoFile.
The retirees, who have hundreds of years of combined experience, warned Coursey that the Fish and Wildlife Service “does not have broad authority to dispose of lands” in the refuge system.
“With certain limited exceptions, [refuge] lands can be disposed of only by act of Congress,” the retirees wrote.
The seven retirees, who reached the upper echelon of the Fish and Wildlife Service, signed the email to Nesvik, Coursey and Dave Miko, the agency’s acting deputy director for operations. They include four former deputy directors: Marshall Jones, Gary Frazer, James Kurth and Greg Siekaniec. The other three signers are: retired National Wildlife Refuge System Chief Geoffrey Haskett, Division of Migratory Bird Management Chief Brad Bortner and Megan Durham, a former deputy assistant director of external affairs at Fish and Wildlife.
The ad-hoc group also appears worried that Nesvik’s order signals some refuges or hatcheries might be eliminated. Nesvik asked field managers to “look for refuges or hatcheries established for a purpose that no longer aligns with the [U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service] mission.”
Nesvik’s directive calls for “an initial summary of organizational change recommendations” due by Monday with final recommendations due Feb. 15. That’s a rushed timeline, the former officials contend.
“Such a large and important analysis should certainly be given more time and resources to develop a thoughtful and useful product,” their email reads.
Nesvik responded immediately, according to Jones, one of the deputy directors who signed the email.
“Brian stays on top of his email,” Jones told WyoFile in a Wednesday telephone interview. “I’m very impressed.”
Nesvik wrote, “I appreciate you and the other co-signers’ efforts to provide your initial thoughts and offer your assistance in our review,” according to Jones, who didn’t share the email but read it to WyoFile.
Nesvik sent the email to Durham, one of the retirees.
“You can expect to hear from someone on the team in the coming weeks as we conduct this important work,” Nesvik wrote.
Room for improvement
The ad-hoc group of retirees supports the overall review.
“We think it’s a good idea,” Jones said. “I’m sure there’s always improvements that can be made.”
The National Wildlife Refuge Association’s president is also cautiously standing behind the Coursey-led assessment.
“It is a good and necessary thing to understand the complexity of the situation,” President Desiree Sorenson-Groves told WyoFile.
The audit comes on the heels of long-term declines in staffing and funding that have left the whole system “at risk,” with not a single refuge possessing the resources it requires, according to a recent U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service inventory. Since 2010, national wildlife refuges have hemorrhaged more than 30% of their employees, mainly as a result of losing funding, Sorenson-Groves said.
“Before the second Trump administration, the refuge system was already in a dire place,” she said.
Trump’s “Department of Government Efficiency” exacerbated the situation, further trimming staff at refuges and hatcheries in Wyoming and beyond. Last month, 20 Democratic U.S. senators wrote Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to “sound the alarm” on the service’s “staffing crisis.”
“A startling amount of staff and expertise needed to manage the refuge system and protect America’s wildlife have been lost due to the administration’s firings, early retirement programs, and other efforts to push staff out of FWS,” the senators wrote in a Dec. 18 letter. “We ask that you provide Congress with your plan to address FWS’s staffing crisis…”
Meanwhile, Sorenson-Groves is holding out hope that the audit now underway won’t result in recommendations that further whittle away at wildlife refuges, or proposals that would sell them off.
“If that is the case, then we will deal with that,” she said. “You don’t just divest refuges, as they [the retirees] pointed out in that letter. There’s a process, most of them are public processes, and there would have to be a really good reason.”
Another underpinning to the retirees’ worries is the distinction between the refuge system and the Fish and Wildlife Service itself. That difference appears lost in Nesvik’s order.
“The refuge system has its own organic act that lays out the purposes of the system — the way the system should operate,” Jones said. “It’s not just a subsidiary part of the Fish and Wildlife Service.”
(Fish and Wildlife Service’s mission is “working with others to conserve, protect, and enhance fish, wildlife, plants, and their habitats for the continuing benefit of the American people,” according to the agency website.)
The retiree’s email to Nesvik states that federal laws establish specific purposes for individual refuges, “and any review should use these as a guideline, not the overall mission of the FWS.” Federal laws say refuge units should be managed for “the specific purposes for which each refuge was established,” the email says.
The Migratory Bird Treaty Act also obligates the U.S. to conserve cross-border avian migrants, the retirees stated.
‘Things that concern me’
Jones wouldn’t characterize his former colleagues’ views about what’s been called Trump’s anti-environmental agenda, but he has worries.
“It’s not about the political party — it is about the mindset and what people think is important,” Jones said. “There are things that concern me about the current administration. The concerns are very significant now.”
Migratory birds are declining, and even mule deer are another species “in trouble,” Jones said. It’s “a fight” to educate people about the needs of wildlife and make sure those needs are taken into account amid development pressure and pollution that weighs on the natural world, he said.
“The worries don’t magically disappear, depending on what administration is in power in Washington D.C. or state capitols,” he said. “We are passionate advocates of the refuge system [and marine sanctuaries]. These areas are important to the American people for the long-term health of our country’s resources, and they make large financial contributions to the communities involved.”
According to Nesvik’s order, the National Wildlife Refuge System review is to be completed along with “a list of actionable recommendations” no later than Feb. 15. The agency is not soliciting comments from the general public, but it did establish a system so that refuge system staff could anonymously provide feedback.
The National Wildlife Refuge Association will be weighing in too, using the same approach the retirees did — sending an email.
“Josh [Coursey] and Dave [Miko], I know that they’re actually interested in hearing feedback,” Sorenson-Groves said. “I’m not jumping to any conclusions because I want to see where they go with this.”
Well, though it appears that there’s some restrictions in place that a normal administration would not tackle this group of clowns at every layer could care less, including the upper layers of the USF&W.
Sportsmen/and women, all wildlife advocates need to follow this very closely.
Even if they tried which we don’t know yet, they won’t.
Too many eyes watching from too many angles. Just like the Lee bill, would be shot down by the public.