Latest news with #BenjiJones
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
Trump officials plan to destroy a critical government program they probably know nothing about
Nearly two decades ago, scientists made an alarming discovery in upstate New York: Bats, the world's only flying mammal, were becoming infected with a new, deadly fungal disease that, in some cases, could wipe out an entire colony in a matter of months. Since then, the disease — later called white-nose syndrome — has spread across much of the country, utterly decimating North American bats that hibernate in caves and killing over 90 percent of three bat species. According to some scientists, WNS has caused 'the most precipitous wildlife decline in the past century in North America.' These declines have clear consequences for human populations — for you, even if you don't like bats or visit caves. Bats eat insect pests, such as moths and beetles. And as they decline, farmers need to spray more pesticides. Scientists have linked the loss of bats in the US to an increase in insecticide use on farmland and, remarkably, to a rise in infant deaths. Insecticide chemicals are known to harm the health of newborns. The only reason we know any of this is because of a somewhat obscure government program in the US Geological Survey (USGS), an agency nested within the Interior Department. That program, known as the Ecosystems Mission Area, is the biological research division of Interior. Among other functions, it monitors environmental contaminants, the spread of invasive species, and the health of the nation's wildlife, including bees, birds, and bats. The Ecosystems Mission Area, which has around 1,200 employees, produces the premier science revealing how animals and ecosystems that Americans rely on are changing and what we can do to keep them intact — or risk our own health and economy. This program is now at an imminent risk of disappearing. Are you a current or former federal employee with knowledge about the Trump administration's attacks on wildlife protections? Reach out to Vox environmental correspondent Benji Jones on Signal at benji.90 or at or at benjijones@ The Trump administration has asked Congress to slash USGS funding by $564 million in its preliminary 2026 budget request. And while the proposal doesn't specify cuts to Ecosystems Mission Area, an email obtained by Vox indicates that his administration had proposed eliminating funding for the program. (The email was originally reported by Science.) Such cuts are also in line with Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation's conservative policy roadmap, which calls for the government to 'abolish' Interior's Biological Research Division, an outdated name for the Ecosystems Mission Area. USGS has requested that the White House maintain at least some funding for the program, according to a current senior Interior Department employee with knowledge of the Ecosystems Mission Area. Whether or not Trump officials heed that request will be made clear when the White House releases a more detailed budget proposal in the coming days. The employee spoke to Vox on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk with the press. Meanwhile, the Trump administration is also reportedly trying to fire government employees in the Ecosystems Mission Area, though a federal judge has so far blocked those efforts. View Link Eliminating biological research is not good. In fact, it's very bad. For a decade now, EMA's North American Bat Monitoring Program, or NABat, has been gathering and analyzing data on bats and the threats they face. NABat produces research using data from hundreds of partner organizations showing not only how white-nose syndrome is spreading — which scientists are using to develop and deploy vaccines — but also how bats are affected by wind turbines, another known threat. Energy companies can and do use this research to develop safer technologies and avoid delays caused by wildlife regulations, such as the Endangered Species Act. The irony, another Interior Department employee told me, is that NABat makes wildlife management more efficient. It also helps reveal where declines are occurring before they become severe, potentially helping avoid the need to grant certain species federal protection — something the Trump administration would seem to want. The employee, who's familiar with Interior's bat-monitoring efforts, spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation by the Trump administration. 'If they want to create efficiencies in the government, they should ask us,' yet another Interior employee told Vox. 'The damage that can be done by one administration takes decades to rebuild.' In response to a request for comment, an Interior Department spokesperson told Vox that 'USGS remains committed to its congressional mandate as the science arm of the Department of the Interior.' The White House did not respond to a request for comment. In a Senate appropriations hearing last week, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum refused to commit to maintaining funding for EMA. 'There's no question that they don't know what EMA does,' said the senior Interior employee. Ultimately, it's not clear why the administration has targeted Interior's biological research. EMA does, however, do climate science, such as studying how plants and animals are responding to rising temperatures. That's apparently a no-go for the Trump administration. It also gathers information that sometimes indicates that certain species need federal protections, which come with regulations (also a no-go for President Donald Trump's agenda). What's especially frustrating for environmental advocates is that NABat, now 10 years old, is starting to hit its stride. 'We should be celebrating the 10-year anniversary of this very successful program that started from scratch and built this robust, vibrant community of people all collecting data,' said Winifred Frick, the chief scientist at Bat Conservation International, an environmental group. 'We have 10 years of momentum, and so to cut it off now sort of wastes all that investment. That feels like a tremendous loss.' Meanwhile, the cost of maintaining the program is less than 1 percent of Interior's overall budget. The government's wildlife monitoring programs are 'jewels of the country,' said Hollis Woodard, an associate professor of entomology at University of California Riverside who works with USGS on bee monitoring. 'These birds and bats perform services for us that are important for our day-to-day lives. Literally everything I value, including food, comes down to keeping an eye on these populations. The idea that we're just going to wipe them out is just terrifying.'
Vox
14-02-2025
- Politics
- Vox
Leaked emails show the nation's leading wildlife agency has halted critical funding for wildlife conservation
The US Fish and Wildlife Service, the nation's only government agency dedicated to conserving plants and animals, has frozen its vast portfolio of international conservation grants, Vox has learned. The agency, which supports wildlife protection in the US and overseas, ordered many of the organizations it funds to stop work related to their grants and cut its communication with them. According to USFWS internal communication shared anonymously with Vox, the agency has frozen grants for international projects that amount to tens of millions of dollars. The freeze jeopardizes dozens of projects to conserve wildlife around the world, from imperiled sea turtles in Central America to elephants in Africa. Grant programs from the federal government protect species whose habitats straddle borders, and they also benefit Americans, such as by reducing the risk of pathogens like coronaviruses from spilling into human populations. Do you have information to share about the Fish and Wildlife Agency or government efforts to protect biodiversity? Reach out to Benji Jones on Signal at 641-919-7862 or at benjijones@ On January 20, President Donald Trump issued an executive order calling for a three-month pause on 'foreign development assistance.' The effort suspended funding under the US Agency for International Development, the nation's humanitarian and development agency, as part of a broader effort to dismantle the agency (which does literal life-saving work). USAID also funds biodiversity conservation overseas, on the scale of hundreds of millions of dollars a year. Some of those funds support grants for international conservation under the US Fish and Wildlife Service, making a pause on its grants somewhat expected. (On February 13, a federal judge temporarily lifted the pause, which should soon allow foreign aid money to flow again. It's not clear whether this means the Service will lift its freeze on grants.) But the Fish and Wildlife Service funding freeze goes well beyond conservation projects supported by USAID. Numerous other projects are supported directly by the Fish and Wildlife Service and, according to some of their recipients, could not accurately be described as foreign development assistance — and thus shouldn't be impacted by Trump's pause. In other words, money should still be flowing to organizations that work to conserve wildlife overseas with support from the Fish and Wildlife Service. Instead, the agency has put all of those projects on ice. The sudden suspension of Fish and Wildlife Service grants reveals how government agencies are scrambling to fall in line behind new leadership, often lacking clarity on how to carry out the Trump administration's orders. Legally, the Service may still be able to fund many of its international grantees, though experts I spoke to said the funding falls into a gray area. One Fish and Wildlife Service Employee familiar with the agency's international efforts said they think agency leadership 'thought the optics would be better' if they halted funding for all international projects. The employee spoke with Vox on the condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak with the press. The employee told Vox they fear the Trump administration will be hostile towards international conservation efforts. In his first term, President Trump's administration moved to weaken the Endangered Species Act — the nation's strongest wildlife protection law, implemented by the Fish and Wildlife Service — and other environmental regulations meant to protect threatened animals and their ecosystems. 'I hope that most people care about wildlife, even if I fear they do not,' they told me. This week, further inflaming concerns about wildlife protections, the Department of Interior laid off more than 2,000 employees as part of broader government job cuts. The Fish and Wildlife Service is part of the Interior Department. International conservation is a little-known part of the Fish and Wildlife Service's remit. The agency, which had a budget of about $4 billion in 2024, works to protect some of the world's most endangered and globally recognized animals including elephants, rhinos, and primates. Many of them live in poor regions of the world that lack funding for conservation, making US government support essential. Animals, such as migratory birds, also move and live across borders, so conserving them requires working internationally. Americans undoubtedly benefit from curbing threats to wildlife overseas, which, among other things, can cause zoonotic diseases. As the world's largest economy, the US has precipitated the declines of animals abroad. Mining rare earth metals for our smartphones, for example, has helped destroy forests in Africa's Congo Basin, whereas US carbon emissions drive global climate change — a threat to many species, and especially coral reefs. Several nonprofit organizations that receive funding from the Fish and Wildlife Service confirmed with Vox that they received stop-work orders. Any costs associated with their grants would be 'temporarily disallowed,' they were told, according to two emails reviewed by Vox. The grants range from under $100,000 to a few million. In an email from agency leadership, Fish and Wildlife Service staff were directed on what to say in response to questions from grantees about funding: 'The Department of the Interior continues to review funding decisions to be consistent with the President's Executive Orders. The Department's ongoing review of funding complies with all applicable laws, rules, regulations and orders.' Funding from the Service supports most of the world's major conservation groups, such as the Frankfurt Zoological Society (FZS). Peyton West, the FZS US executive director, said that money — at least some of which is now on pause — goes a long way. It helps support, among other things, anti-poaching efforts in a game reserve in southern Tanzania that have helped elephant populations rebound. 'Less poaching means less illegal wildlife trade and all the illegal activity that goes along with it,' West said. 'The grants from USFWS Species Funds are probably the most efficient grant funds we have because they're so targeted,' she told Vox. 'The goal is to do one thing — protect the world's most iconic but vulnerable species — and the focus is on the basic core needs to make that happen.' Several other organizations that receive funding from the Fish and Wildlife Service declined to go on the record, in fear that drawing attention to themselves may put their funding from the federal government at risk. The World Wildlife Fund (WWF), which has received hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants from the Fish and Wildlife Service, did not respond to a request for comment. The National Audubon Society, which also has grant funding from the Service, directed Vox to a February 6 statement from the organization. 'Audubon is prepared to work with the new administration, Congress, and our partners to meet the challenges ahead and secure a future where birds and people thrive,' Audubon CEO Elizabeth Gray said in the statement. The Fish and Wildlife Service spends an almost invisible fraction of taxpayer money, compared to other government efforts. What it does, however, is vital and cannot be overlooked, environmental advocates told me. 'There are so many issues with efficiency in our government, but I think it's fair to say that the USFWS species conservation funds are managed very well in that respect,' West said. 'They are also probably the best bang for buck of any of our grants because they focus on critical core activities, they leverage other funding, and they bring law and security into some of the most remote areas in the world.' See More:
