Democratic lawmakers decried a staffing “crisis” at the Fish and Wildlife Service on Thursday and urged the Trump administration to “immediately act” before conditions worsen.
Citing threats both to national wildlife refuges and to the protection of endangered species, Sen. Adam Schiff of California and 19 Democratic colleagues said they wanted to “sound the alarm” as well as seek some answers.
“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 the Service,” the senators wrote, adding that the service is “losing the capacity to manage America’s wildlife refuges and struggling to even keep them open.”
The senators gave Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and Fish and Wildlife Service Director Brian Nesvik until Jan. 2 to provide Congress with a “plan to address FWS’s staffing crisis.”
