WASHINGTON – The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service is eliminating hundreds of jobs, cutting back programs and closing some national wildlife refuges as it grapples with a $2.5 billion budget shortfall.

In the Pacific region that includes Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Hawaii, 49 jobs will be eliminated, including a quarter of the region’s biologists.

In the Southwest region that includes Arizona, Texas, New Mexico and Oklahoma, 38 jobs will be eliminated.

In all, the agency plans to cut 565 jobs from wildlife refuges by 2009, a 20 percent reduction.

The national refuge system encompasses 547 refuges and more than 96 million acres in all 50 states.

The Southwest region has a $27.3 million budget for its 45 refuges, which attract nearly 5 million visitors a year.

There are eight wildlife refuges in Arizona encompassing more than 1.43 million acres.

Environmentalists said the staffing cuts that follow two years of other reductions will leave an already lean employment force depleted and result in a decrease in habitat management, restoration projects and education projects.

More than 200 wildlife refuges across the country will be unstaffed.

“Our national wildlife refuges are literally crumbling before our eyes,” said Rodger Schlickeisen, president of Defenders of Wildlife.

“Across the country we’re seeing how the culmination of years of negligent funding devastates these special places,” he said.

Agency officials acknowledged that the budget cuts will affect services, but said that with a $2.5 billion backlog in operations and maintenance, the reductions were unavoidable.

Few, if any, layoffs will be needed, they said, with most job losses occurring through attrition.

“If the service does not act decisively now, it will become unable to effectively operate most national wildlife refuges within a few years, even if budgets remain level,” said David Eisenhauer, an agency spokesman.

Critics said leaving refuges unstaffed could lead to problems with invasive species and increased crime, including vandalism on the rustic sites, many of which are within an hour’s drive of a major city.

President Bush has requested about $398 million for the National Wildlife Refuge System for the next budget year, a $12 million increase over current spending but far short of what critics said is needed.

This entry was posted on Friday, March 16th, 2007 at 12:00 am and is filed under Local. Tags for this post: page-a22, The Associated Press. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.