Refuge fuding cuts...

[Top Dawg]

A reason why lacassine and Sabine are the way they are. Enjoy your refuges while you can folks. Likely won't be hunting them a lot longer. Thanks Obama.

"... Sandy struck as the Obama administration and Congress prepared to lock horns over the year-end “fiscal cliff,” which includes plans to cut the Interior Department’s budget for refuges by 10 percent, according to a report being released Monday by the Cooperative Alliance for Refuge Enhancement (CARE), a coalition of groups from the National Rifle Association to Defenders of Wildlife.

In the report, CARE argues that the 150 million-acre National Wildlife Refuge System cannot absorb another cut. Its more than 550 refuges, with 700 species of birds, 200 species of fish and 200 species of mammals, get by on about $3.24 per acre.

The cuts would hurt the ability of refuges to respond to hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, earthquakes and fires, which cost nearly $700 million between 2005 and last year, the report said. Refuges would be forced to divert funding from programs that reduce trees, brush and assorted debris that help fires burn out of control.

Refuges also pay to control invasive species, such as pythons that are squeezing native animals out of the Everglades. Some of the refuges, which lure 45 million visitors and bring $4.2 billion to local economies, would probably close..."

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/nation...02a_story.html

PDF: http://www.fundrefuges.org/CARE/CARE...Final_2012.pdf