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U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
Fulfilling the Promise
The National Wildlife
Refuge System
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is the principal federal agency
responsible for conserving, protecting, and enhancing fish and wildlife
and their habitats for the continuing benefit of the American people.
The Service manages the 93-million-acre National Wildlife Refuge
System comprised of more than 500 national wildlife refuges and
thousands of waterfowl production areas. It also operates 65 national
fish hatcheries and 78 ecological services field stations. The agency
enforces federal wildlife laws, manages migratory bird populations,
restores nationally significant fisheries, conserves and restores wildlife
habitat such as wetlands, administers the Endangered Species Act, and
helps foreign governments with their conservation efforts. It also
oversees the Federal Aid program which distributes hundreds of
millions of dollars in excise taxes on fishing and hunting equipment to
state wildlife agencies.
Fulfilling the Promise
The National Wildlife
Refuge System
Visions for Wildlife, Habitat,
People, and Leadership
The National Wildlife Refuge System
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Department of the Interior
March 22, 1999
Cover photo by Don Hultman. Tundra swans at
Benton Lake National Wildlife Refuge, Montana
The Mission
“The mission of the National Wildlife Refuge System
is to administer a national network of lands and
waters for the conservation, management, and
where appropriate, restoration of the fish, wildlife,
and plant resources and their habitats within the
United States for the benefit of present and future
generations of Americans.”
National Wildlife Refuge System Improvement Act of 1997
Fulfilling the Promise iii
Table of Contents
Preface by Bruce Babbitt, Secretary of the Interior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii
Foreword by Jamie Clark, Director, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service . . . ix
Executive Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Wildlife and Habitat
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Vision for the Future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Issues and Needs
Wildlife Comes First . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Anchors for Biodiversity and Ecosystems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Healthy Wildlife Habitats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Leaders and Centers of Excellence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Strategic Growth—Land Acquisition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Models of Land Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
People
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Vision for the Future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Issues and Needs
Providing Quality Wildlife Experiences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Core Competencies—Meeting the Needs of the Field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Compatibility of Uses—Raising the Bar. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Putting the Greatest Needs First . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Making the Most of Fees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Weaving the Refuge Support Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Outreach—A Vital Tool for the Future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Building a Broader Base of Support. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
iv Table of Contents
Fulfilling the Promise v
Leadership
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Vision for the Future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Issues and Needs
The Importance of Leadership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Recruiting and Developing the Best and Brightest. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
Keeping the Best and Brightest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Continuous Improvement—Learning Something Every Day . . . . . . . 75
Rising to the Top . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
The Blue Goose Flies Again. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Core Values and Passion for Wild Places and Wild Things . . . . . . . . . . 80
A Consistent Organizational Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
It’s the Law—Let’s Get Our Act Together . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
References Cited . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Preface
For nearly a century, the National Wildlife Refuge System has been the
hidden jewel among our nation’s public lands. Quietly, with little fanfare
and often scant support, it has grown to a System with over 93 million
acres dedicated to the unique ideal that the wild creatures of this land
deserve their own special places.
This report on the System is an amazing story of dedication, self-reflection,
and strategic vision. When I attended the first-ever National
Wildlife Refuge System Conference in October 1998, I sensed among
the hundreds of Fish and Wildlife Service employees and conservation
partners that something special was unfolding. In many ways, the
conference and its focus on Fulfilling the Promise heralded a new
beginning for the Refuge System.
As Secretary, it is a privilege to support, and when needed defend, the
hundreds of refuges with names of mystery and magic such as Arctic,
Izembek, and Okefenokee. We can also take comfort in knowing the
Refuge System is more secure than ever thanks to the landmark
Refuge Improvement Act of 1997. This law provides a firm foundation
for a system of lands about to enter the challenges and opportunities of
a new millennium.
I look forward to seeing the recommendations in this report become
reality. I urge everyone, from the unsung heroes in the field to the
conservation leaders in Congress, to hold fast to the dream of a Refuge
System shining bright for wildlife, habitat, and people. Together, we can
all help fulfill the promise of these unique national treasures.
The Honorable Bruce Babbitt
Secretary of the Interior
Fulfilling the Promise vii
Foreword
The American character has been molded by its connections with the
land, and its spirit fortified by a close connection to the wild creatures
of prairie, forest, coast, marsh, and river. Our nation’s growth across
the continent was in part fueled by trade in fur, fish, and shell. Great
inland waters became thoroughfares for exploration and commerce.
The American spirit of independence and self-sufficiency became
legendary. Resources seemed unlimited as the forests were cleared, the
prairies tilled, and rivers tamed. For landless servants and immigrants
searching for a new life, the prospect of free land became a beacon of
hope. Public land policies of the 19th century spurred this expansion,
and sped the settlement of the continent.
Caught in this slipstream of growth was the untempered exploitation of
wildlife and its habitat. The thunder from herds of bison was virtually
silenced, and the clouds of passenger pigeons disappeared. These losses
did not go unnoticed. The early conservation movement was led by
people who were angered by the devastation caused by market hunters,
and appalled by the slaughter of birds for the vanity of fashion. They
intuitively knew the values to the nation of saving its fish and wildlife,
and together stepped forward to form organizations of influence
including the Boone and Crockett Club, National Audubon Society,
Izaak Walton League, Wilderness Society, and Sierra Club. Speaking
for nature, they sounded an alarm.
They caught the ears of presidents and other politicians who crafted
the principles of modern wildlife conservation: stop market hunting for
wildlife; wildlife that cross state and international boundaries are
national resources whose management is a federal responsibility; and
healthy habitat is the key to healthy fish and wildlife populations. They
also recognized the democratic ideal that all citizens should have equal
access to the use and enjoyment of fish and wildlife.
Fulfilling the Promise ix
It Began with a Promise
It was in the shadow of these ideals that the National Wildlife Refuge
System was born. It was born with a promise made by a President
named Roosevelt; carried out by a sometime boat builder, cook, and
orange grower named Kroegel; and quietly proclaimed on behalf of a
nation with an emerging consciousness about the value of things wild
and free. It was a promise to preserve wildlife and habitat for its own
sake and the benefit of the American people.
The promise began on a small and unassuming island full of pelicans,
ibises, herons, and roseate spoonbills in Florida’s Indian River, which
became the first national wildlife refuge, and the beginning of an idea
unique in the world. It was an idea that a network of lands should be set
aside for wildlife. From this humble start at Pelican Island would
emerge the National Wildlife Refuge System.
Special Places
Nearly a century after Theodore Roosevelt’s 1903 Executive Order
established Pelican Island Refuge, the System has grown to more than
93 million acres in size. It now includes more than 500 refuges and more
than 3,000 waterfowl production areas spread across 50 states and
several U.S. territories, a network so vast and sprawling that the sun is
almost always shining on some part of it. It is a system providing a
lifeline for millions of migratory birds; open spaces for elk, pronghorn
and caribou; and wild niches for the rare and endangered. And it is a
System which conserves a stunning array of the nation’s ecosystems:
tundra, deserts, forests, great rivers, vast marshes, small prairie
x Foreword
Wyman Meinzer
potholes, swamps, mountains, prairies, estuaries, coral reefs, and
remote islands are all represented under its canopy of protection.
Refuges are places where the music of life has been rehearsed to
perfection, where nature’s colors are most vibrant, where time is
measured in seasons, and where the dance of the crane takes center
stage. They are gifts to ourselves and to generations unborn—simple
gifts unwrapped each time a birder lifts binoculars, a child overturns a
rock, a hunter sets the decoys, or an angler casts the waters.
Each refuge or waterfowl production area is, above all else, land. They
are living, breathing places where the ancient rhythms still beat. To
many, they provide a sense of place, a timeless connection to instincts
barely discernible, and a tie to a natural world which nourishes the
spirit of individuals, and a nation. Refuges, as much as the monuments
in Washington, D.C., the boyhood homes of presidents, the sequoias in
California, the vast forests of the western mountains, or the expansive
swamps of the Everglades, are national treasures in the truest sense.
Yet, they are also a tool which has been used effectively to rescue and
recover species from extinction, has safeguarded breeding and resting
areas for millions of birds, and has staved-off the loss of unique and
irreplaceable ecosystems squeezed by a growing country.
Fulfilling the Promise xi
John & Karen Hollingsworth
A Firm Foundation
The National Wildlife Refuge System occupies a unique niche among
federal land management agencies. Rather than having purposes based
on scenic or historic values, or on the concepts of multiple use in both
recreational and economic terms, refuges focus on wildlife, and most
often, those species held in trust for all Americans. Trust species have
been defined in laws and treaties passed or ratified by Congress:
migratory birds; threatened and endangered species; certain fisheries;
and marine mammals. These trust species have played, and will
continue to play, a defining role in managing and growing the System.
The System functioned without a true organic act for nearly all of its
developmental years. There was no law giving the System a unifying
mission, and refuges were a patchwork of Executive Orders and
individual refuge or general conservation laws, held together by the
vision and fortitude of early leaders. The Refuge Recreation Act of 1962
and the Refuge Administration Act of 1966 helped bring refuges
together, but both laws were more concerned with how refuges would
be used rather than how they should function as a system.
This all changed, in 1997, with President Clinton’s signing of the
National Wildlife Refuge System Improvement Act. Building upon a
1996 Executive Order, the Act provided a mission for the System, and
clear standards for its management, use, planning, and growth. The Act
also calls for continued but expanded involvement from the public,
states, Tribes, and others who have a stake in how the System is
xii Foreword
White House Photo
administered. Forcefully and faithfully implementing this law will
provide a solid foundation as the System approaches its next century of
service to wildlife, habitat, and people.
Finally, the System’s foundation rests on the seemingly new, but time-proven
philosophy of an ecosystem approach to land management and
to the stewardship of its fish, wildlife, and plants. In simple terms, this
philosophy looks at the health and biological integrity of the land
(ecology), takes a view beyond boundaries (landscapes), works
shoulder-to-shoulder with the brothers and sisters of the entire Service
family (cross-program), views people and society as part of the
landscape and the mission (communities and economies), and leverages
ideas and resources by working with and through others
(partnerships). This approach to overall resource management, and
refuge management, is not only the Service’s plan, it is perhaps the
only plan that offers hope in conserving special places and wild
creatures in the face of ever-increasing pressure.
Fulfilling the Promise
The System story is distinctly American. A story of passion and vision,
of courage in the face of adversity, of women and men with a noble
mission etched across their hearts, of politics and evolving policy, of
things done right and some things not so right, and a story of a heritage
and culture unique in public service. It is a story as simple and
compelling as one man and one boat protecting birds on Pelican Island,
and a story as complex and challenging as seeking to understand the
intricacies of ecosystems on millions of acres of land.
This report is based on the very essence of what the System is all
about: leadership in serving wildlife, habitat, and people. These pages
look to the future as the System nears its 100th Anniversary. Visions
and recommendations outlined will serve as guideposts in the journey
to fulfill the promise of America’s National Wildlife Refuge System.
The ideas and philosophies expressed will fuel reflection, new ideas, and
debate, and form the basis of a continuing national dialogue on the
future direction of the System. Let the story unfold, the journey begin.
Jamie Rappaport Clark
Director
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Fulfilling the Promise xiii
Executive Summary
This report on the National Wildlife Refuge System is the culmination
of a year-long process involving teams of Service employees who
examined the System within the framework of Wildlife and Habitat,
People, and Leadership. The report was the focus of the first-ever
System Conference held in Keystone, Colorado in October 1998
attended by every refuge manager in the country, other Service
employees, and scores of conservation organizations.
The report is a reflection on where the System has been, a review of
the present, and a vision for the future. The heart of the report is the
collection of vision statements and 42 recommendations which are
presented below in paraphrased form. Each recommendation is
indexed to the page in the report where the full recommendation,
with preceding discussion, can be found.
Fulfilling the Promise 1
Wyman P. Meinzer
Wildlife and Habitat
The System contains a stunning array of the nation’s fish, wildlife, and
plants and has a proud heritage of excellence in wildlife and habitat
management. Management philosophies and practices have evolved as
the concepts and understanding of biodiversity, ecosystems, and
landscape-level ecology have evolved.
Keeping wildlife first in the System will require increased emphasis on
sound objective setting, populations and habitat monitoring, and
adaptive management. It will also require an increase in biological staff
and more attention to their training, networking, and career
development. The care and management of 20 million acres of
wilderness needs to be elevated within the System, and each refuge
must identify and rectify external threats to its soil, water, air, and
wildlife.
The growth of the System will need to be more strategic and consistent
in the future. Finally, refuges must be managed in the context of, and in
concert with, surrounding public and private lands, and become models
of land management for others to emulate.
The Vision:
Wildlife Comes First
Anchors for Biodiversity
Healthy Wildlife Habitats
Leaders and Centers of Excellence
Strategic Growth
Models of Land Management
The Recommendations:
WH1 Develop integrated population goals and objectives (p. 19)
WH2 Establish national, regional, and ecosystem habitat priorities
(p. 20)
WH3 Define how the System and each unit can contribute to
biodiversity (p. 21)
WH4 Develop policy and a national plan for wilderness and other
special area management (p. 23)
WH5 Conduct comprehensive assessment of water rights (p. 25)
WH6 Identify and recommend solutions to external threats to
refuges (p. 25)
WH7 Review and revise policies to strengthen support for problem
species management (p. 26)
WH8 Develop refuge inventory and monitoring plans for species
(p. 28)
WH9 Design or use existing databases to analyze and archive
information (p. 28)
WH10 Develop systematic habitat monitoring programs (p. 28)
WH11 Ensure an interdisciplinary staff of specialists (p. 29)
2 Executive Summary
WH12 Address inadequate and inconsistent biological staffing (p. 30)
WH13 Develop a program to address career and professional needs of
biologists (p. 30)
WH14 Use adaptive management techniques to evaluate effectiveness
(p. 31)
WH15 Identify management-oriented research needs for each refuge
(p. 32)
WH16 Identify thresholds of wildlife disturbance for public use
programs (p. 32)
WH17 Develop a national, coordinated approach for prioritizing lands
and waters for acquisition (p. 34)
WH18 Designate Land Management Demonstration Areas (p. 36)
WH19 Develop an outreach and interpretive program to convey the
importance of habitat management (p. 37)
WH20 Renew emphasis on conservation of materials, soil, and water
on refuges (p. 37)
People
After nearly a century of growth, a System for wildlife and people is
being realized. It is a System spanning the continent and reaching
across oceans. It is a System with refuges visited by thousands of
schoolchildren in the shadows of skyscrapers, and refuges visited by
only seals and seabirds in the remoteness of the Pacific Ocean. It is a
System with a wildlife conservation mission, but whose ultimate benefits
are to the people of America today, and for generations to come.
Fulfilling the Promise 3
USFWS Photo
To fulfill its mission, the System must have individuals with skills in
managing public uses on refuges. The Service must be prepared to
invest in visitor services and facilities that are designed to showcase the
wildlife treasures within refuges, but which do not intrude upon the
habitat or disturb wildlife. Staff at all levels must involve more people,
communities, and organizations in the decisions affecting the growth
and management of the System. And, the Service must be more
strategic in communicating the value of refuges to all Americans. As
employees meet these challenges, they can be sure of an idea that has
tested true for a hundred years: by sharing a passion for wildlife and
habitat, the System’s future is more secure.
The Vision:
A Legacy of Wildlife
A Place Where Visitors are Welcome
Opportunities for Public Stewardship
A System to Appreciate
The Recommendations:
P1 Assess the status of public safety and resource protection
through law enforcement programs (p. 46)
P2 Update the national public use requirements (standards) (p. 47)
P3 Provide each refuge with access to responsive and professional
public use specialists (p. 49)
P4 Develop and implement policy on appropriate and compatible
uses of refuges (p. 51)
P5 Establish a national Visitor Improvement Priority System for
facilities (p. 52)
P6 Complete improved fee and concession management policies
(p. 53)
P7 Forge new alliances through citizen and community
partnerships (p. 56)
P8 Strengthen partnerships, develop new policy, and seek
authorities to increase relationships with business community
(p. 56)
P9 Update and strengthen the System’s 100 on 100 Outreach
Campaign (p. 62)
P10 Build a broader base of support by reaching out to a larger
cross-section of the public (p. 63)
Leadership
Leadership is not simply doing things right, but doing the right things.
Without leadership, the System visions for wildlife, habitat, and people
cannot be achieved. With effective leadership, they cannot be denied.
Every employee has a leadership role and every refuge and wetland
management district, and indeed, every Service office, deserves the
energy of effective leadership.
4 Executive Summary
The System and the Service have a proud heritage of leadership.
Extending this legacy of leadership into the future will require that
leadership development be made a higher priority.
Leaders must ensure organizational vitality by seeing that new and
diverse talent is brought into the System, that employee pride remains
high, and that the System is administered as a true system of lands by
paying attention to the consistency of organizational structure and
management policies.
Meeting the needs and carrying out the recommendations for
improving leadership for the System and the Service will, in the end,
pay huge dividends for fish, wildlife, and plant resources. And doing
right by the resource is what doing the right thing is all about.
The Vision:
Best and Brightest
Esprit de Corps
System Integrity
The Recommendations:
L1 Make leadership development the priority of the System and
Service (p. 70)
L2 Establish a systematic recruitment, training, and mentoring
program (p. 73)
L3 Enhance retention and formalize career pathways to develop
leadership at all levels (p. 75)
L4 Actively promote opportunities and environment for
career-long education and development (p. 76)
L5 Ensure that the System produces a cadre of leaders for senior
Service leadership (p. 78)
L6 Recognize the importance of appropriate field experience for
senior System leadership (p. 78)
L7 Make the Blue Goose a visible and consistently applied symbol
of the System (p. 80)
L8 Articulate core values of the System (p. 82)
L9 Establish a Service policy to address housing needs on refuges
(p. 82)
L10 Develop and maintain consistent organizational structures
across regions in support of refuges (p. 83)
L11 Fully implement and integrate the provisions of the Refuge
Improvement Act (p. 84)
L12 Provide consistent refuge management guidance—restore the
Refuge Manual (p. 84)
Fulfilling the Promise 5
Introduction
Background
This report is rooted in past work by many Service employees and by
outside panels of experts. Substantive reviews of the System and
recommendations on its management, growth, and use have been
conducted over the past 30 years, and include the 1968 Leopold Report,
the 1979 Refuge Study Task Force Report, and the 1992 Defenders of
Wildlife report, entitled Putting Wildlife First.
In the late 1980s and into the 1990s, the Service spent considerable
effort in developing a new Environmental Impact Statement to replace
one issued in 1976. The EIS, entitled Refuges 2003, took a
comprehensive look at System management in the face of growing
concerns for the needs of fish, wildlife, and plants in the context of the
emerging concepts of biodiversity and ecosystem conservation.
However, the effort on Refuges 2003 was curtailed after a realization
that perhaps an EIS was not the most effective way to present a plan
for the System.
In 1996, following the issuance of Executive Order 12996, which
established a mission for the System and tenets for management,
growth, and use, the Service recognized the need for an articulated
vision for the System. The National Wildlife Refuge System—
Promises for a New Century presented a practical and inspiring vision
in words and pictures, and outlined challenges facing the System. It
listed several actions to address the challenges. Built on the basic
foundation of wildlife, habitat, and people, Promises became an
important rallying point for both action and outreach.
The passage of the landmark National Wildlife Refuge System
Improvement Act in 1997 cemented in law a mission and guidance for
managing and growing the System, and further underscored the need
for the Service to articulate what the System would be in its next
century. This organic act provided the foundation and opportunity to
build a new future for the System.
The Process
A steering committee of Service employees was established, early in
1997, to guide the development of this report. Workgroups of employees
from the System and other Service programs, headed by Regional
Directors, began meeting in January 1998, to begin writing the report.
Four teams—Wildlife, Habitat, People, and Leadership—developed,
debated, and articulated the visions and recommendations in this
Fulfilling the Promise 7
report. The workgroups were asked to answer three key questions in
relation to their topical area. Where is the System today? What do we
want the System to be in the future? How will the System achieve its
mission and vision?
The Wildlife and Habitat teams worked independently and wrote
separate first drafts. These drafts were merged during editing of the
second draft since the topical areas proved to be so interdependent.
Internal review was an integral part of the process, followed by an
invitation for comment from those outside the Service, and all leading
to a national dialogue on the report at the first-ever National Wildlife
Refuge System Conference in October 1998, in Keystone, Colorado.
The Audience
This report, as a guiding vision document, is intended primarily for
employees at all levels of the Service who will carry out its tenets.
However, the Service has always recognized the keen interest in the
future direction of the System from within the Department, other
agencies, states, Tribes, conservation groups, and concerned citizens.
The Service will need everyone’s support to fulfill the System’s
promise. The report contains background information in the section
introductions to ensure that all who read it, from the newest refuge
employee to the Executive Director of a national conservation
organization, will gain insight and a sense of the System’s history and
direction.
8 Introduction
John & Karen Hollingsworth
Scope of the Report
This report will help direct efforts toward the greatest needs and
challenges of the System and is intended to be a virtually timeless
series of guideposts for a long journey. In reality, many of the
recommendations will require continuous and open-ended effort. And
perhaps just as important, the report defines a philosophy and culture
of management that honors the past but looks optimistically forward to
the future.
Although some of the recommendations in the report will take
additional human and fiscal resources, the report is not intended to be a
budget document. The recommendations and discussions will help form
the basis for more strategic budget and policy formulations and
proposals in the years ahead. Also, this report was not intended to
address many of the specific policy decisions affecting refuges,
especially land and wildlife management practices which may be
sources of debate among various audiences. Rather, the report seeks to
set a framework for detailed planning and policy writing. Finally,
although this report focuses on larger System issues, the day-to-day
administrative issues facing refuge managers will remain a focus of
continuous improvement. These issues include streamlining of
procurement and personnel procedures; ensuring adequate
discretionary funding for refuge managers; and refinement of the
funding allocation process so that refuges receive a share of funds that
is reflective of their individual complexity, special management needs,
and levels of public use and required outside coordination.
Toward Fulfilling the Promise
To ensure that this report remains a living document for change, an
Implementation Team has been established. This team will facilitate
action on the recommendations and provide periodic progress reports
to employees, the Director and other Service leaders, and various
partners. It is expected that this report on the System will become a
well-worn document through continual reference and use, and that by
the System’s 100th Anniversary in 2003, the System will be well on its
way toward fulfilling its promise for wildlife,* habitat, and people
through effective leadership.
Fulfilling the Promise 9
*Note: Often in this report, the term “wildlife” is used alone, and in those cases, is
employed as shorthand for all species inhabiting the System, including fish, plants, insects,
and other invertebrates.
Wildlife and Habitat
First and Foremost
Introduction
From one-ton bison to half-ounce warblers, the National Wildlife
Refuge System contains a priceless gift—the heritage of a wild
America that was, and is. If it is a bird, mammal, reptile, amphibian,
fish, insect, or plant, it is probably found in the System.
The System supports at least 700 species of birds, 220 mammals, 250
reptiles and amphibians, over 1,000 fish, and countless species of
invertebrates and plants. Nearly
260 threatened or endangered
species are found on refuges, and
it is here they often begin their
recovery or hold their own against
extinction.
The ways in which the System
nurtures this diversity of life and
the habitat on which it depends is
the very foundation of its mission.
Without healthy and diverse
habitat, there is no wildlife—
without wildlife, the mission set forth in law is not achieved and the
trust with the American people is broken.
Caring for fish, wildlife, and plant populations and their habitat is also
the essence of the science of wildlife management, and the newer and
evolving disciplines of conservation biology and ecosystem
management. Just as wildlife populations and habitat conditions have
changed dramatically in America since the turn of the century, so has
wildlife management in the System. Understanding this history is an
important first step in articulating and realizing a vision for the future.
From Preservation to Reconstruction
Simple preservation was the earliest form of wildlife management. In
the System’s first years, it consisted mostly of posting boundary signs,
law enforcement, and periodic counts of wildlife. Despite the early
constraints of funding and staff, refuges were formed across the
country by Executive Orders and Acts of Congress. If the habitat could
at least be made secure at places called Wichita Mountains, National
Fulfilling the Promise 11
“Wild beasts and birds are by
right not the property merely
of the people who are alive
today, but the property of
unknown generations, whose
belongings we have no right to
squander.”
—Theodore Roosevelt
Bison Range, National Elk, Aleutian Islands, Malheur, Bear River,
Sheldon, and Upper Mississippi, it was a start.
As drought and economic depression swept across America in the early
1930s, waterfowl and other wetland wildlife seemed to be blowing away
with the soil. Concerned conservation groups and individuals took a
moment’s pause from the hardships of people to remember the
hardships on wildlife. With a Duck Stamp to raise funds, seed money
from Congress, and a host of Civilian Conservation Corps camps, the
System began an unprecedented crusade for waterfowl and other
wildlife through habitat restoration. In 1937, John N. Bruce, engineer
of the camp at Tamarac Refuge wrote:
“Hence, we wake up and live again, in reality, those forgotten
pioneer days of our forefathers, to bring back as near as possible,
at least in this area, those same abundant conditions of nature as
they existed before the advent of civilization.”
The machines of exploitation that drained the vast marshes, cleared the
pristine forests and plowed the prairie bare now became the tools for
restoring habitat. From constructing dikes and water control
structures to the purposeful neglect of drainage ditches, the flow of life
was restored to the great marshes and swamps of Agassiz, Horicon,
Necedah, Okefenokee, and Seney. Trees, shrubs, and grasses were used
as sutures to close the gaping scars of abuse at Piedmont and Noxubee.
Remnants of vast wetlands in the Klamath Basin and Sacramento and
San Joaquin valleys were saved and restored from giant reclamation
projects constructed in the name of agriculture. Bare soil was planted
to grasses and forbs on scores of prairie refuges from North Dakota to
Texas.
With habitat restored, wildlife returned and a national network of
habitat began to emerge. The System became the preeminent example
of habitat restoration in the country and perhaps the world. Americans
took notice. Other countries took notice and came to look, marvel, and
learn. Even today, habitat restoration remains a hallmark of the
System.
In Alaska, entire ecosystems were set aside as refuges by early
Executive Orders and through the passage of the Alaska National
Interest Lands Conservation Act in 1980. Refuges the size of states
were added to the System including Yukon Flats, Yukon Delta, Arctic,
Kenai, and the Alaska Peninsula. These living laboratories of biological
diversity (biodiversity) presented a new challenge and a new paradigm
of wildlife management. Rather than habitat restoration, the challenge
was to maintain intact natural systems through protection, extensive
monitoring, and oversight of wildlife-related recreation and subsistence
use by native people.
12 Wildlife and Habitat
As the System grew, the concepts of biodiversity, ecosystems,
landscapes, watersheds, and conservation biology would begin to creep
into the vocabulary of researchers, professors, and refuge staffs. An
evolution in habitat management occurred—from managing for a few
species to managing for many species using more natural processes.
Rather than hold water high in impoundments year-round just for
waterfowl, levels could be timed to provide habitat for migrant
shorebirds or to accommodate fish passage and spawning. Rather than
plant tame grasses and forbs just for ducks, a full array of native
grasses and forbs started to become available to help rebuild prairie
diversity. Rather than fighting seasonal flood waters on river refuges,
dikes could be designed so the floodplain could benefit from the life-giving
pulse of the river. Rather than mow and hay lands to set back
succession, natural processes like fire could do the work. Rather than
farming intensively to provide food for migratory birds, moist soil units
could provide abundant natural foods. Rather than fight wildfires,
prescribed fire could be used to reduce hazardous fuel loads and restore
wildland fire as an ecological process.
Today, many refuges are involved in the actual reconstruction of rare
habitats. At the Neal Smith Refuge in Iowa, land that grew corn and
soybeans for 150 years is the site of one of the largest tallgrass prairie
reconstructions in the United States. Refuge staff, students, and
volunteers are collecting seeds from the forgotten roadsides and
country cemeteries where prairie plants have avoided extinction, with
the hope of returning over 100 prairie plant species to several thousand
acres of refuge landscape. At Big Muddy Refuge in Missouri, the river
itself will be the habitat manager through its power to create chutes
and sandbars, willow thickets, and cottonwoods. It will continue to
renew the floodplain of this refuge by periodic scouring in time of flood,
effectively managing plant succession on a timetable set eons ago.
One can imagine Aldo Leopold himself looking over the shoulder of
managers, smiling and whispering: “take care of the cogs and wheels of
the land first and wild things will appear.”
Biological monitoring programs evolved as well. Surveys and censuses
were expanded beyond the traditional waterfowl and resident game
species to encompass the myriad of waterbirds, songbirds, and
endangered or threatened species whose welfare is entrusted to the
Service on behalf of the American people. Working with colleges and
volunteers, more thorough inventories of small mammals, raptors,
neotropical migrants, reptiles, amphibians, fish, and invertebrates were
undertaken. Research projects on traditional species were expanded to
include a broader array of species, including understanding more fully
the response of native plant communities to management practices
such as water level change and fire.
Fulfilling the Promise 13
This evolution in refuge management also included new insights into
objective setting. Numeric species population objectives, although still
important on many areas, are being replaced by habitat objectives.
Today, many refuges are focusing more on the amount of land that can
be restored to presettlement vegetation conditions than the sheer
numbers of a particular species or groups of species that can be
attracted. Thus, the population objectives for certain species are being
given a clearer link to habitat objectives, with an eye toward
maintaining or restoring native plant communities that sustained
America’s immense species diversity for thousands of years.
Wilderness and Natural Areas
As early as the 1950s, the System began to focus on preserving unique
plant communities. The Service had designated distinct grassland
areas on refuges in the Nebraska Sandhills as Research Natural Areas,
and in 1959, recommended to the Society of American Foresters that 25
unique forest stands on 17 refuges be added to the Society’s list of
natural areas. By 1993, the Service had designated 208 areas totaling
1,950,000 acres as Research Natural Areas, 35 areas totaling 211,000
acres as Public Use Natural Areas, and 43 National Natural
Landmarks. Collectively, these lands are part of a national network
representing a stunning array of North American ecological
communities and their biodiversity.
The System has also sought to preserve special places of wildness.
Prior to the Wilderness Act of 1964, many areas on refuges were
serving as de facto wilderness due to remoteness, inaccessibility, and
the protection provided by refuge designation. Beginning in 1968, with
the formal designation of the Great Swamp Wilderness Area on Great
14 Wildlife and Habitat
Galen Rathbun
Swamp Refuge in New Jersey, wilderness in the System has grown to
over 20.6 million acres on 75 designated areas. In addition, National
Wild and Scenic Rivers have been designated on five refuges in Alaska
and a stretch of the Niobrara River on Fort Niobrara refuge in
Nebraska; a total of 1,390 miles of river destined to always run wild and
free.
Evolution of Policy
It is debatable whether wildlife management policy was shaped by
activities on the ground or if policy shaped the activities. Like any
evolutionary or adaptive process, it was probably both. Policy sought to
define a balance between the intensive management often needed and
the “let nature take its course” management across an ever-growing
diversity of lands.
Today, the System seeks to better define, and refine, the often
compelling and at times contradictory ideas of how wildlife and habitat
should be managed and what new habitat should be brought into the
System. Rather than a return to strict preservation, managers seek a
balance through natural processes and native species in their habitat
restoration and maintenance efforts. As stated in a 1993 memo to
managers from an Assistant Regional Director in one region:
“Our national habitat base has been reduced to a point where we
must rely on refuges and other dedicated wildlife lands to produce
a larger portion of public wildlife benefits. Hence, manipulating
habitats will be imperative for most areas to meet their purposes
and approved objectives. You can, however, make your active
management practices as “natural” looking as possible. Use a
light hand and a fine brush whenever you can as you paint your
vision on the land.” —S. Haseltine
And in a memo to managers from a refuge supervisor in 1994:
“We will have the wisdom to know when to manage, and when not
to. Some lands and waters will best be left unmanaged to provide
a wide array of benefits in rhythm with their own natural history,
not man’s. On other lands and water, we will need to manage plant
succession to provide pioneering through climax communities that
accommodate species of all ecological niches. Stations should
eventually have a landscape plan that visually depicts their habitat
vision, the balance between naturalness and management, and the
spatial and biological relationship of the station with surrounding
private and public lands.” —D. Hultman
An emerging philosophy is also shifting emphasis from traditional, site-specific
wildlife population objectives to habitat objectives. This
philosophy, culminating in Comprehensive Conservation Plans and
holistic Habitat Management Plans, will emphasize habitat and species
Fulfilling the Promise 15
population objectives based on a broader view that considers not only
refuge purposes, but national, regional, and ecosystem level priorities.
The Refuge Improvement Act also enlarges the canvas for painting a
future vision for the System. The Act requires that System growth be
planned to contribute to the conservation of ecosystems, and
complement efforts of states, Tribes, and other Federal agencies to
conserve fish, wildlife, and plant habitats. It also requires that the
biological integrity, diversity, and environmental health of the System
be maintained for the benefit of present and future generations. Only
through sound wildlife and habitat science, and the resources and
partnerships to carry it out, will the System remain healthy and grow
strategically rather than opportunistically.
Vision for the Future
With the Service’s focus on an ecosystem approach to management,
and the development of partnerships to accomplish ecosystem
conservation goals, the System should provide a model of how to apply
good science in wildlife conservation. Clear policies and goals for the
System and ecosystems must be developed and stepped down to
individual refuges for incorporation in Comprehensive Conservation
Plans and other planning documents. Continued coordination with
states, Tribes, local governments, and private citizens will be
important.
Now and in the future, rigorous approaches to inventorying and
monitoring wildlife resources are needed to provide the information
critical to devise, evaluate, and refine management strategies
implemented to meet refuge goals and objectives. Although
conservation plans dictated by the Refuge Improvement Act will not be
completed for all refuges for 15 years, there is no need to wait until
plans are completed to implement good, scientific techniques. Refuges
must use the best information available to develop goals and objectives
now, and implement them on the ground. Management reviews must
then be implemented and used to evaluate programs and refocus them
as necessary. Recommendations for course correction must be
supported by the chain-of-command to ensure success. Tantamount to
refuges becoming centers of wildlife management excellence is the
development of a strong biological program with adequate resources to
provide critical information for difficult management decisions in an
atmosphere of competing needs and uses.
The wildlife and habitat vision for the System is multi-faceted reflecting
the breadth and scope of effective land, water, air, and fish and wildlife
stewardship. The vision stresses the basic principles that wildlife
comes first, that ecosystems, biodiversity and wilderness are vital
concepts in refuge management, that refuges must be healthy, and that
16 Wildlife and Habitat
growth of the System must be strategic. The vision also recognizes a
commitment to leadership and excellence in wildlife management, and
a responsibility to share this leadership by being models for others to
learn from and follow.
Wildlife Comes First: Refuges are places where wildlife comes first.
Anchors for Ecosystem Refuges are anchors for biodiversity and
Conservation: ecosystem-level conservation and the System
is a leader in wilderness preservation.
Healthy Wildlife Lands and waters of the System are
Habitats: biologically healthy, and secure from
outside threats.
Leaders and Centers The System is a national and international
of Excellence: leader in habitat management and a center
for excellence where the best science and
technology is used for wildlife conservation.
Strategic Growth: Strategically located lands and waters are
added to the System until, in partnership with
others, it represents America’s diverse
ecosystems and sustains the nation’s fish,
wildlife, and plant resources.
Models of Land The System is a model and demonstration
Management: area for habitat management which fosters
broad participation in natural resource
stewardship.
Issues and Needs
Wildlife Comes First
Trust Species—Integrating Objectives. Trust species include
endangered and threatened species, migratory birds, interjurisdictional
species of fish, marine mammals, and other species listed in individual
refuge establishing legislation or Executive Orders. The sheer number
of species for which refuges have trust responsibilities creates a
challenge for managers faced with what often seems like wildlife
management triage.
Of the nation’s 1,107 threatened and endangered plant and animal
species listed as of October 1998, 257 are found within the System.
Fifty-six refuges were created under the authority of the Endangered
Species Act, explicitly for conservation of endangered species. Refuges
have played an instrumental role in the recovery of several species
including the whooping crane, Aleutian Canada goose, Key deer, and
Fulfilling the Promise 17
American crocodile. Recovery of at least 90 more threatened or
endangered species is dependent in large part on how well they are
cared for on refuges, and refuges contribute substantially to
international endangered species conservation efforts by providing
habitat for species listed under the Convention on International
Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). Service policy ensures that
conservation of listed species is the highest priority on refuges, and
guidance to refuges usually comes through individual recovery plans.
Balancing the allocation of available resources among threatened and
endangered species, especially when they occur on refuges with
purposes for other wildlife such as waterfowl, can be challenging.
Conservation of migratory birds is often considered the central
connecting theme of the System. Over 200 refuges were established for
migratory birds and more than one million acres of wetlands on 356
refuges and over 3,000 waterfowl production areas are actively
managed for the benefit of waterfowl and other wetland-dependent
birds. Approximately 50 species of
waterfowl and other migratory
gamebirds have been Service and
System priorities since the 1930s.
The System has an outstanding
record for contributing to the
successful recovery and
subsequent support of sustainable
hunted populations for many of
these species. State-of-the-art
waterfowl management is being
practiced on many refuges. Additionally, emphasis for migratory bird
management has expanded over the past decade to include 700 non-game
species of colonial waterbirds, birds of prey, shorebirds, seabirds,
and songbirds. Separate, broad-scale plans and programs urge refuges
to develop conservation strategies for different groups of migratory
birds. These include Flyway Plans, the North American Waterfowl
Management Plan, Partners in Flight, the National Shorebird Plan and
associated Western Hemispheric Shorebird Reserve Network, and the
Colonial Waterbird Plan.
A large portion of the country’s freshwater and marine fish populations
are declining because of overharvest and water quality and quantity
problems. Many refuges are important in helping to meet the Service’s
responsibilities for conservation of interjurisdictional fish, for which
management is a partnership between the Service and other Federal,
state, tribal, or local jurisdictions.
Marine mammals using coastal refuges include sea otters, walruses,
manatees, polar bears, seals, and sea lions. As with interjurisdictional
fish, marine mammals require complex management strategies
employing partnerships with various groups such as the National
18 Wildlife and Habitat
“The language of birds is very
ancient,and,like other ancient
modes of speech,very elliptical;
little is said,but much is meant
and understood.”
—Gilbert White
Marine Fisheries Service, Native American commissions, and states. In
Alaska, cooperative management of marine mammals with Alaska
Natives, who use these animals for subsistence purposes, is underway,
and these partnerships are likely to expand in the future. Clear,
integrated goals are essential to avoid serious conflicts.
Finally, some refuges have trust responsibilities for large mammals or
other species that are normally not identified as trust species for the
Service. Examples include pronghorn at Hart Mountain Refuge, elk at
the National Elk Refuge, and
bison at the National Bison Range.
The Refuge Improvement Act
clarifies the intent to manage
refuges as a system instead of
disparate units. Refuges are faced
with the challenge of meeting
their establishing purposes, while
finding ways to contribute
substantially to broader System
and ecosystem needs. Individual
refuges at times try to manage for
too many species groups on each
unit based on directives from
various plans and programs.
There is a clear need to develop
and implement biological goals and objectives at various landscape
levels including System, individual refuges, and ecosystems, and in the
context of regional or national plans. Integration of goals, particularly
among Service programs, should reduce inefficiency and frustration
that sometimes occurs when refuge staffs and personnel from other
Service programs try to focus together on ecosystem priorities. Absent
broad System and ecosystem perspectives, it is difficult for managers
to resolve conflicting priorities among species groups. Refuge staffs will
need clear perspectives on how each refuge can contribute to broader
System and ecosystem needs.
Recommendation WH 1: Develop integrated population goals and
objectives (as appropriate) at the System,
regional, ecosystem, and refuge levels;
develop refuge priorities among species or
species groups accordingly; and use the
priorities to implement appropriate wildlife
conservation strategies at each refuge.
Better Habitat Management through Better Planning. Meeting the
conservation challenges of the 21st century will require large-scale and
long-term planning. To be leaders in this effort, the Service must set
Fulfilling the Promise 19
William Vinje
national and regional priorities for habitat protection and management
which address the nation’s most critical resource conservation needs.
Often, international resource issues and needs will shape these
priorities.
Collaborating with its conservation partners will greatly enhance the
Service’s effort. The North American Waterfowl Management Plan and
its Joint Venture Plans, Partners in Flight Regional Conservation
Plans, and information from the Western Hemisphere Shorebird
Reserve Network and The Nature Conservancy’s Natural Heritage
database are among the many important tools available for use in
setting the Service’s national and regional habitat priorities. In
addition, the resource planning and information databases completed
by the states are effective tools for refuge habitat planning. Ecosystem
Teams, working with national programs and individual refuges, could
have major responsibility for identifying national, regional, and
ecosystem habitat priorities.
The role of the System in meeting conservation priorities must be
defined through the Comprehensive Conservation Plan and Habitat
Management Plan for each refuge. Both the strategic growth and the
management of the System must be directed toward these conservation
priorities. These conservation priorities should be incorporated into the
nationally coordinated approach developed to prioritize lands and
waters for acquisition referenced under Recommendation WH 17.
Resources to ensure sufficient scope and quality of these plans must be
brought to bear. A training program on the development of Habitat
Management Plans, similar to what the National Conservation Training
Center has done for Comprehensive Conservation Plans, would greatly
contribute to quality and consistency. The habitat management
programs developed through these planning processes must reflect the
mandate of the System to conserve the nation’s ecosystems and its fish,
wildlife, and plant resources.
Recommendation WH 2: Establish national, regional, and ecosystem
habitat priorities to direct the strategic
growth and long-term management of the
System. Habitat priorities would be the basis
for national, regional, and ecosystem habitat
goals and objectives which will be
incorporated in refuge Comprehensive
Conservation Plans and Habitat
Management Plans.
Anchors for Biodiversity and Ecosystems
Biodiversity. The Refuge Improvement Act mandates conservation of
fish, wildlife, and plants on all refuges. Besides providing habitat for
specific trust species, refuges provide important habitats for a wide
20 Wildlife and Habitat
variety of transient and resident species. These species, including
plants, game and non-game vertebrates, and invertebrates, are
important contributors to overall biodiversity on refuges. Management
of many of these species remains a collaborative effort with states
which have primary responsibility for these species off System lands.
The Service has long recognized the importance of maintaining and
restoring biodiversity on refuges, but an operational definition of the
term has only recently been adopted. The Service Manual definition
states: “Biological diversity is the variety of life and its processes,
including the variety of living organisms and the genetic differences
between them and the communities and ecosystems in which they
occur.”
In order to maintain or restore biodiversity, management should mimic,
where possible, natural systems. Management strategies for desirable
successional stages required to maintain or restore biodiversity may
range from intensive to passive. There is no standard methodology to
identify how each refuge can best contribute to maintaining
biodiversity. The System needs information at ecosystem and refuge
levels on current and historic biodiversity to determine priorities for
management of each refuge. No clear guidance has been forthcoming
on how to prioritize efforts to maintain biodiversity compared to other
programs aimed at conservation of trust resources.
The concept of restoring and maintaining biodiversity must be applied
at the System and ecosystem scales. The challenge will be to set
realistic and reasonable goals for contributions by individual refuges
toward meeting System and ecosystem goals. Maintaining an
ecosystem’s biodiversity will most likely lead to conserving additional
lands and waters through conservation agreements with partners, or
acquisitions from willing sellers.
Recommendation WH 3: Define how the System and each unit can
best contribute to maintaining biodiversity,
and determine biodiversity objectives and
indicators for each refuge within the larger
ecosystem and landscape perspective.
Wilderness Preservation. Wilderness, due to its very nature, is
extremely important to the conservation of biodiversity within the
System. Wilderness on refuges deepens and broadens our perspective
of the refuge landscape, compelling our thought beyond managing it as
habitat for wildlife species. In the wording of the Wilderness Act,
wilderness is “where the earth and its community of life are
untrammeled by man.” It is a reservoir of biodiversity and natural
ecological and evolutionary processes. In the words of Aldo Leopold,
wilderness is a laboratory, “a base datum of normality, a picture of how
Fulfilling the Promise 21
healthy land maintains itself.” In some ways, Research Natural Areas
or other special protection status lands of the System provide these
same biological values.
But wilderness embodies values that transcend the biophysical.
Wilderness is a way of perceiving and valuing; it is as much about a
relationship with the land as a condition of it. It provides recreation,
although the term surely fails to capture the nature of the experience—
the sense of connection visitors find with these primal forces in which
their ancestors were surrounded and thus shaped, the adventure, and
the feelings of renewal, inspiration, and awe. Central to the experience
and awareness of wilderness is humility, with its corollary, restraint;
restraint in what is appropriate for visitors to do, as well as managers.
Restraint is the reason for the “minimum tool” rule, limiting use of our
mechanisms to that which is necessary, and necessary not only to
manage these areas, but to manage them as wilderness.
Beyond its tangible resources and experiential opportunities,
wilderness is a symbolic landscape. It encompasses values and benefits
that extend beyond its boundaries, to the millions of Americans who
will never visit, but find satisfaction in just knowing these vestiges still
exist. Wilderness areas are valued as remnants of our American
cultural heritage as well as our universal evolutionary heritage,
symbolically enshrining national as well as natural values. Wilderness
protection serves as the most
visible symbol of our generation’s
willingness to pass on some
natural treasures as we found
them. It is the finest example,
perhaps, of our sense of
stewardship of the System.
To meet its long-term stewardship
responsibilities, the Service needs
to elevate the stature of its 20
million acres of wilderness, both
internally and externally. The
Service needs to increase its role
in the interagency wilderness management community. It needs to
expand its commitment to effective management through interaction
with other agency managers, partners, and researchers. The Service
needs to acknowledge wilderness as a unique resource, the
management of which is a specialized discipline.
Internally, the Service needs to enhance understanding of the full
spectrum of wilderness values and the means by which they can be
protected and made available to the public. Training is needed because
many managers have difficulty incorporating even the physical
standards of wilderness into the traditional paradigms of refuge
22 Wildlife and Habitat
“It is easy to specify the
individual objects in these
grand scenes; but it is not
possible to give an adequate
idea of the higher feelings of
wonder, astonishment and
devotion, which fill and
elevate the mind.”
—Charles Darwin
management. Fewer managers are trained to assess and protect the
psychological, symbolic, and spiritual meanings wilderness offers. The
Service needs to better use the growing body of social sciences
literature that supports a land ethic that pairs both the biological and
human dimensions and more explicitly incorporates the hard-to-define,
but nevertheless real, values of
wilderness. Wilderness Areas,
Wild and Scenic Rivers,
International Biosphere
Reserves, Research Natural
Areas, and other specially
designated lands and waters are
special parts of the System
requiring special attention.
National wilderness policy
development and planning should
address possibilities for
expanding wilderness and other
special areas within the System.
Areas that have been
recommended for wilderness but
not yet designated by Congress should be managed to preserve their
wilderness characteristics. The Service should evaluate lands added to
the System since the Service completed its wilderness reviews and
recommend suitable areas for designation. In addition, the Service
should take a fresh look at areas previously studied for suitability as
wilderness that were not recommended. For example, while the Service
determined, in 1985, that 52.7 million acres of refuge lands in Alaska
qualified for designation as wilderness, only 3.4 million acres were
recommended for such designation. On many refuges, circumstances
and management may have changed since the recommendations were
made.
Recommendation WH 4: Develop national policies and a national
management plan which address wilderness
values on refuges, wilderness management
capabilities, and evaluation of lands for
wilderness or other special preservation
designation.
Healthy Wildlife Habitats
Lands protected through the System are in public ownership to meet
the life-long habitat needs of fish, wildlife, and plant resources. The
American public expects that refuge habitat should be protected or
enhanced in order to meet those needs for the benefit of current and
future generations.
Fulfilling the Promise 23
John & Karen Hollingsworth
A refuge does not exist in isolation of its surrounding watershed.
Habitat on many refuges can be threatened by external factors, such as
contaminated air and water; altered or depleted surface and subsurface
water supply; and other land, water, and air use factors within the
watershed. Given the size of watersheds in which most refuges are
located, it is not realistic for the System to contain enough land to
ensure lasting integrity for every
unit. Thus, to keep refuges
healthy, they must be managed in
concert with adjacent lands.
The Refuge Improvement Act
mandates that the health and
integrity of System lands be
maintained. The Service will
prepare Comprehensive
Conservation Plans and step-down Habitat Management Plans that
will address habitat management priorities on System lands. However,
to maintain quality habitat on refuges, the Service must address
threats beyond refuge boundaries. Communication and coordination
among all Service programs will ensure that these threats are fully
addressed. Additionally, all Service employees must continue to
communicate and develop progressive working relationships with
adjacent and upstream landowners, whose land management
perspective may be different from that of the Service. Cooperative
partnerships with private landowners and full collaboration with Tribes
and state fish and wildlife agencies to comprehensively address fish and
wildlife conservation needs in the watershed will be necessary to
sustain healthy habitats on refuge lands.
The growing complexity of external threats requires that a systematic,
interdisciplinary assessment be conducted at appropriate scales. The
scale may be at the level of the individual refuge, on the watershed or
ecosystem level, or at the regional level. Collecting the information in a
standardized manner will support a national initiative to address
external threats to air and water quality and water quantity issues and
ultimately will improve the health and integrity of the System as a
whole.
Having Adequate Water Quantity. Adequate supplies of surface and
subsurface water are necessary to nourish abundant and healthy
wildlife. The Service needs to be a strong advocate for fish, wildlife,
and plants in the adjudication and allocation of water rights and the
protection of natural hydrological systems. Habitat depends not just on
the quantity of water, but also on the timing and duration of flows and
other factors. To protect this important resource, and ensure that water
quantity problems are identified before they become too difficult to
remedy, a comprehensive assessment of the available water supply,
projected water needs, and status of existing and needed water rights
24 Wildlife and Habitat
“If you are protecting what
is inevitably an island in
the midst of degradation,
you’ve lost.”
—Bruce Babbitt
should be completed for each refuge. Recommended actions to address
existing or anticipated water rights/supply problems should be
included. The assessment should be undertaken concurrently with
Comprehensive Conservation Planning, unless existing issues—such
as general stream adjudications—require completion at an earlier
date. With clear direction and guidance from the Office of the Solicitor,
each region should conduct a comprehensive assessment to determine
the status of existing water rights and projected water needs for each
refuge. Furthermore, new refuge acquisitions must be secured with
existing water rights and the Service must maintain the ability to
negotiate for future water needs.
The Service will continue to cooperate with the states on all matters
related to water use and water rights, and will seek to resolve conflicts
through negotiation to the maximum extent possible in coordination
with the Office of the Solicitor.
Recommendation WH 5: Conduct a comprehensive assessment of
existing water rights and needs for water
quantity and timing in each region to
include, where appropriate, remedies to
resolve outstanding issues.
Assessing External Threats. Healthy watersheds are necessary to
sustain quality habitat on lands in the System. There is an ongoing
need to identify potential threats from contaminated air, soil, and
water; erosion and sedimentation; and cumulative habitat impacts from
land and water resource development activities.
Ecosystem Teams represent many Service programs and have the
interdisciplinary capability to identify existing and potential threats to
the integrity of System lands, and to recommend solutions. As
discussed earlier, each refuge Comprehensive Conservation Plan
should include provisions to resolve existing and potential threats
identified by the Ecosystem Teams. The Service’s Partners for Fish and
Wildlife and Challenge Cost Share programs, and other Federal, state,
and private programs should be used to address off-refuge threats and
provide opportunities for the Service to enter into partnerships to
protect refuge resources and interests. Internal capabilities of all
Service programs will be necessary to systematically monitor external
threats and the effectiveness of actions to resolve them.
Recommendation WH 6: Identify and recommend solutions for
external threats to refuge habitats, such as
air and water quality and cumulative
impacts from watershed development.
Fulfilling the Promise 25
Problem and Invasive Species Management. Habitat alteration,
particularly through urbanization and agricultural development, has
resulted in major changes in abundance and distribution of wildlife
populations. Introductions or expansions of animal and plant
populations to areas where they are not endemic have caused native
species to be displaced or reduced. Feral animals, such as cats, pigs,
and goats, also have direct impacts on local wildlife populations, or, as is
the case with cats on songbirds, their level of predation may be
impacting nationwide populations.
The ecosystem approach to fish and wildlife conservation embraces
both the management of wildlife populations and the maintenance of
biodiversity in natural systems. Refuges, as oases of high-quality
habitat, attract concentrations of wildlife, including those that prey on
or compete with trust species or adversely affect biological integrity.
On many refuges, the absence of limiting factors on predator
populations may create an imbalance that is adverse to maintaining
healthy ecosystems. The Service’s mandate is to conserve native,
endemic populations of fish, wildlife, and plants; however, conflicts in
managing native and non-native species are becoming more common.
Examples include beavers altering managed wetlands, purple
loosestrife choking out native wetland vegetation, leafy spurge
displacing native prairie plants, gull populations displacing other native
birds, and raccoons preying on endangered sea turtle nests.
Management interventions may be necessary to fulfill the Service’s
mandates for both specific wildlife resources and biodiversity. A clear,
biologically sound rationale needs to be documented whenever the
Service proposes to control wildlife and plant populations on System
lands, particularly when the target may be native species.
As noted in Recommendation WH1, System and individual refuge
priorities need to be developed for different kinds of wildlife. Where
appropriate and based on agency priorities and objectives, policies need
to be developed which provide sound justification for reducing impacts
of predators and competitors on other fish, wildlife, and plants. Clear
explanations for reducing problem species to restore ecological balance
need to be incorporated into strong public educational programs. More
research is needed on non-lethal control methods for species that are
most frequently of concern.
Recommendation WH 7: Review and revise existing policies to
strengthen support and action for problem
and invasive species management that is
biologically justified and consistent with
ecosystem and System priorities.
26 Wildlife and Habitat
Leaders and Centers of Excellence
Inventory and Monitoring. System policy requires inventories of
plants, fish, wildlife, and habitats; monitoring of critical parameters and
trends of selected species and species groups; and basing management
on scientifically sound data. Current approaches to inventory and
monitoring on refuges are not consistent across the System. Most
refuges have inadequate baseline data (inventories), so the
consequences of management
actions on non-target species are
frequently not understood.
Currently, systematic monitoring
associated with management
practices is often lacking,
inconsistent, or not focused on
target resources. Furthermore,
many refuges have volumes of
historical biological data that have
not been analyzed and are not
readily retrievable.
Except for a few national surveys,
standard protocols for
inventorying and monitoring are
rarely used, leading to data with
limited value beyond the individual refuge level. The System has not
yet effectively utilized databases to store and analyze basic inventory
and monitoring data. Geographic Information System technology and
other standards have not been consistently implemented for refuge
information to produce resource mapping data that can be shared
across the System, and with other land management agencies. There is
a need for better data analysis
and for biologists to publish
results. Further discussion of
these needs can be found in the
Service’s 1998 Biological Needs
Assessment.
The development of baseline data
for all refuges is a task that will
take years to accomplish.
Development of standard methods
for data collection, storage through computer databases, and
identification of the most significant resources to survey will be
challenging. Refuges will need new computer technology and training,
as well as access to staff specialists at either the refuge, complex, or
regional or Washington office level to ensure data are collected in an
efficient and statistically sound manner. To avoid reinventing methods
and database systems, existing national and ecosystem information
systems need to be reviewed and used as appropriate.
Fulfilling the Promise 27
“Wisdom is not knowledge
of many things, but the
perception of the underlying
unity of seemingly unrelated
facts.”
—John Burnet
USFWS Photo
A further challenge is to better integrate refuges into ecosystem
monitoring programs. Refuges need data for specific refuge
management purposes, but also need to contribute to the overarching
mission of ensuring the biological integrity, diversity, and
environmental health of the System. They should contribute to and
coordinate with other monitoring efforts of the Service (including
international programs), state, Tribal, or other non-governmental
programs.
Recommendation WH 8: Develop refuge inventory and monitoring
plans to ensure that refuges use standard
protocols to develop baseline and trends data
for selected species groups and habitats that
are indicators of biological integrity,
diversity, and environmental health.
Recommendation WH 9: Design or use existing database systems to
store, analyze, and archive inventory and
monitoring data to evaluate management
practices on individual refuges, as well as
link with System, flyway, and ecosystem
databases.
Habitat monitoring is also critical. If we are to lead the world in habitat
conservation, management, and monitoring, it must be by example.
Extensive losses of the bottomland hardwood forest of the Lower
Mississippi River Valley, the tropical forest of Central and South
America, and the old-growth forest of the Pacific Northwest are sad
reminders of failure in habitat conservation and management. Only
through long-term monitoring can humankind identify and highlight
the true effects of our footprint on this earth. The Service must lead in
long-term monitoring, evaluation, and habitat conservation. The
Refuge Improvement Act specifically directs the Service to “monitor
the status and trends of fish, wildlife and plants” on refuges. However,
establishing monitoring protocols on refuges is only a small step toward
understanding the status and trends of habitat change. A more
systematic monitoring system must be developed. The Service will
need to take the lead in developing the criteria and protocol at the
refuge, ecosystem, national, and international level. The success of this
program will hinge on collaboration with partners and the use of up-to-date
technology. Much of the direction at the refuge level is outlined in
the Biological Needs Assessment.
Recommendation WH 10: Develop systematic habitat monitoring
programs at the refuge, ecosystem,
national, and international levels.
28 Wildlife and Habitat
Increasing Interdisciplinary Expertise. Planning and management at
the landscape and ecosystem levels have increased the complexity of
the System’s responsibilities. Maintenance of ecological processes and
natural biodiversity, while considering human needs and influences
within natural systems, requires a broad spectrum of expertise. An
interdisciplinary cadre of specialists (for example, ecologists, physical
scientists, and social scientists) is needed at the appropriate
organizational level to support refuges.
State-of-the-art technologies, such as Geographic Information Systems
and Global Positioning Systems, are highly effective and cost-efficient
tools for landscape-level planning. The Service must increase its
capabilities to use these tools, and should establish and maintain a
national habitat database and metadata management and analysis
capabilities to track habitat trends and monitor the effects of its
landscape-level management efforts. These capabilities will greatly
improve System management.
Sound refuge management decisions demand reliable information
about the causal interrelationships between habitat quality and
quantity, and fish and wildlife population dynamics. Strategies to
achieve an interdisciplinary biological workforce and meet the
information needs of the System, from local to landscape level, are
outlined in the Biological Needs Assessment.
Recommendation WH 11: Ensure an interdisciplinary staff of
specialists and increased use of advanced
technologies at the refuge, ecosystem,
regional and national levels (as
appropriate) to provide habitat
management and monitoring expertise for
the System.
Increasing Staff Expertise and Career Development. The Service’s
biological program for the System is fundamental to wildlife
conservation on refuges. Increasing demand for wildlife-dependent
recreation on refuges and continuing environmental threats to refuges
are pushing the capability of the current biological program beyond its
operational limits. The growing complexity of wildlife conservation
management is creating a new demand for biological capability on
refuges. Biological staffing on refuges has not kept pace with the added
responsibilities. Biological staff have been assigned greater
responsibilities, leaving little time to carry out their most important
functions: inventories; monitoring impacts of management actions; and
designing, implementing, and evaluating management plans and
objectives. Also, refuge biologists are often kept out of the field by
planning, report writing, environmental assessment preparation, and
general refuge administrative duties assigned them due to staff
Fulfilling the Promise 29
shortages in other disciplines. Compounding the problem is a shortage
of biological staff to assist senior biologists with critical field work.
In order to maintain professional biological program staff within the
System, continuing education and active involvement in the larger
professional community are essential. There is a perception among
managers and biologists that attendance at professional meetings is not
encouraged. Patients demand that their doctors stay abreast of the
latest developments in medicine—the Service should make it clear that
they expect, and encourage, the same from its biologists. Also, and
though efforts vary between regions, there are limited means for
refuge biologists to communicate within and outside the Service.
The Refuge Improvement Act requires the Service to monitor the
status and trends of fish, wildlife, and plants on refuges. To adequately
address this mandate, report on impacts of management actions, and
respond to the growing complexity of wildlife conservation on refuges,
the Service will require additional staff and resources for the System’s
biological program as outlined in the Biological Needs Assessment. In
addition, new training specifically tailored to the needs of biologists in
the System should be developed, while existing training needs to be
continually reviewed to ensure relevancy and reflect changes in
technology. The need for expanded opportunities for career
development for biologists at all levels of the System will require more
strategic staffing plans and additional resources. Opportunities for
career advancement in the field beyond the GS-11 level are limited, and
it is becoming increasingly difficult to attract the best biologists and
keep them in the biologist career series.
Recommendation WH 12: Address inadequate and inconsistent
staffing and allocation of resources for
biological programs by increasing
biological staffing at all levels of the System
(having each staffed refuge served by a field
biologist), and funding base biological
programs at each refuge as appropriations
allow.
Recommendation WH 13: Develop a program to address career and
professional needs of biological program
staff by providing career ladders and by
implementing a comprehensive training
program.
Adaptive Management. The basic concept of adaptive management is
to use management actions as “experiments” to gather information
about their effects on wildlife populations. This information is used to
refine approaches and to determine how effectively goals and objectives
30 Wildlife and Habitat
are being accomplished. Many refuges are using some aspects of
adaptive management, but there is a need to expand its application.
Furthermore, evaluations of biological programs are not conducted
regularly for all refuges. These evaluations are needed to provide
accountability and feedback to ensure wildlife conservation goals are
being met. Planned reviews and course corrections need to be timely,
and the process needs to be a high priority for the System. To be
effective, evaluations must be collaborative processes which include
participation from other Service programs and other appropriate
stakeholders.
Recommendation WH 14: Use adaptive management to evaluate
effectiveness of wildlife conservation
programs and periodically evaluate
programs to determine if System,
ecosystem, and individual refuge goals and
objectives are being achieved.
Research for Wildlife and Habitat Management. The System provides
a network of outdoor laboratories for wildlife research, and many
refuges are being used by independent researchers. Management-oriented
research is essential to allow the System to address basic
wildlife conservation questions and to maintain leadership in this field.
Research is needed to develop predictive models of fish and wildlife
habitat relationships. Nevertheless, there is currently no routine
mechanism for identifying needs and securing funding. The formation
of the Biological Resources Division of the United States Geological
Survey resulted in the transfer of
Service research personnel and
funds. With this transfer,
management-oriented research
became more difficult to
accomplish on refuges.
Management-oriented research
needs to be prioritized for the
System to provide a basis for
determining appropriate research funding levels. A process is needed
to identify, prioritize, coordinate, and communicate research needs to
the Biological Resources Division and other research organizations.
Each refuge must also identify information and research needs in the
Refuge Operating Needs System database to articulate funding
shortfalls. It is unlikely that the System will be able to retain the vision
of refuges as centers of excellence in wildlife conservation without a
strong research program, and a challenge will be to ensure adequate
funding support.
Fulfilling the Promise 31
“When one tugs at a single
thing in nature he finds it
attached to the rest of the
world…”
—John Muir
Recommendation WH 15: Identify management-oriented research
needs for each refuge based on System,
ecosystem, and refuge goals. Develop an
effective process to identify and provide
resources required, as well as involve
partners to accomplish high priority
research.
The Biology of Public Use. Although the first refuges were managed as
inviolate sanctuaries with no public use, the System soon changed and
allowed more types and levels of public use on refuges. The System is
currently managing public use through policies in the Service Manual
and compatibility determinations made by each refuge manager.
Compatibility has recently been more clearly defined in the Refuge
Improvement Act. The Act refers to two main types of general public
use: priority wildlife-dependent public uses (hunting, fishing, wildlife
observation, photography, and environmental education and
interpretation), and other general public uses. Refuges need to
facilitate compatible wildlife-dependent public use, but not necessarily
other uses. All uses must be judged against a common standard in
order to be allowed—whether they materially interfere with or detract
from the fulfillment of the mission of the System or the purposes of the
refuge.
Refuge managers often lack adequate scientific data on the effects of
public uses on wildlife populations. There is a need to determine
“thresholds” of public use (types and intensity) that can be allowed
without adverse effects on wildlife populations. Thresholds for different
types of activities could be used to make compatibility determinations
that balance wildlife needs and human use needs.
Recommendation WH 16: Identify thresholds of disturbance for public
use programs and develop associated
standards and mitigative techniques that
can be applied, as appropriate, by
individual refuges to reduce conflict and
achieve balance between public use and
wildlife.
Strategic Growth—Land Acquisition
Numerous laws, not including refuge-specific legislation, give the
Service authority for acquisition of land and water to conserve fish,
plant, and wildlife habitat. The resource purposes of these laws include
migratory birds, wetlands, endangered species, fisheries, wilderness,
and general fish and wildlife habitat. The new mission statement for the
System also includes the conservation of plants that by inference
includes acquisition for their preservation. In addition, wildlife-oriented
32 Wildlife and Habitat
recreation is one of the purposes for acquisition in the Refuge
Recreation Act. In short, the Service has the authority to acquire a
tremendous array of lands under the tenets of various laws and treaties
or the special requests of Congress.
This open-ended framework for acquisition has presented a challenge
to the Service, and for decades it has struggled with the dilemma of
which lands and waters should be brought into the System. The 1968
Leopold Report concluded: “The national refuges constitute an
open-ended system, and units will doubtless be added and others
deleted indefinitely into the
future. But these adjustments
should follow a systematic
procedure aimed at satisfying
firmly defined goals.” The 1992
Defenders of Wildlife report,
Putting Wildlife First,
recommended that “habitat
acquisition, with emphasis on
securing representative habitats
from each bioregion, should be an
integral part of system planning.���
The Land Acquisition Priority
System, called LAPS, in use for
over 10 years, provides a
nationwide biologically-based
evaluation procedure to prioritize lands and waters for acquisition.
However, perhaps by practice and not design, LAPS is a ranking
system sometimes applied after a decision has been made to pursue
acquisition of certain lands. LAPS does not tend to answer which areas
to acquire, but rather in what order.
The Refuge Improvement Act charges the Secretary of the Interior
with planning and directing the growth of the System to accomplish its
mission, to contribute to ecosystem conservation of the United States,
to complement state and other agency efforts, and to increase support
from partners and the public. The door has been opened to the
profound issue of the System’s role in ecosystem conservation, but the
Service has yet to define and articulate that role, especially in the
context of continued priorities for trust resource conservation.
The Service recognizes that one of the most important challenges in the
land acquisition process is the development of integrated national and
regional habitat goals and objectives. Additional data on North
American floral and faunal distribution, species conservation status,
and land cover information will help focus acquisition priorities. In
addition to these efforts a plan should be considered that would link all
habitats throughout North America.
Fulfilling the Promise 33
John & Karen Hollingsworth
National guidance is needed to establish this coordinated approach to
ensure that the Service is pointed in the right direction and achieving
the maximum possible benefit from land acquisition and protection.
This guidance, incorporating national and regional wildlife habitat
priorities, will be stepped down to the Service’s Ecosystem Teams in
order to provide consistent direction in defining the areas of greatest
conservation concern. It should also ensure that LAPS and other land
acquisition processes reflect the areas of greatest conservation
concern and are aligned with this coordinated approach.
Ecosystem Teams should be the primary delivery mechanisms for
establishing priorities and identifying areas of greatest conservation
concern in their ecosystems. The synergy of the Ecosystem Teams
working together with Federal, state, tribal, and private organizations
will ensure that the Service protects the most important areas, and
reduces acquisition planning redundancies. Working with all available
partners will bring more on-the-ground results than any other
available method. Additionally, working in partnership with others will
increase the Service’s base of support and funding at the national
level. The Service cannot lead in each and every case, and in many
instances its best position should be in support of others. New
partnerships, along with comprehensive conservation planning, land
acquisition planning, easements, private land enhancement, and other
processes will provide the necessary building blocks to strategically
locate and protect priority lands and waters of the ecosystem.
Recommendation WH 17: Develop a nationally coordinated approach,
involving Ecosystem Teams and partners,
for prioritizing lands and waters to support
strategic growth in areas of greatest
conservation concern.
Models of Land Management
The wide distribution of refuges throughout the country—in every
state, along flyways and near urban centers—creates untold
opportunities to demonstrate environmentally sound wildlife
management to all people. This access to refuges, and the increased
understanding of the value of habitat management that results from
it, makes a profound difference in how the nation views its remaining
undeveloped lands, as well as the potential for restoring damaged
lands. In addition, to ensure that fish, wildlife, and plant resource
needs are met, the Service must encourage other public and private
land stewards to use sound management techniques such as wetland
restoration and management, reforestation, and prescribed burning.
Promoting land management such as stewardship and protection,
while bringing to light the many benefits associated with habitat
conservation, benefits all. With appropriate linkages and corridors
through private and other public lands, our wildlife and plant heritage
34 Wildlife and Habitat
will continue to flourish in an ever-increasing era of land development
and growth.
Looking beyond refuge boundaries will not only protect current refuge
lands, but will create a healthier environment for all living organisms,
including humans. Environmental and human health concerns from
contaminants, invasive exotic
plants and animals, and declining
water and air quality are all areas
in which the Service can teach and
lead by example. Aldo Leopold’s
philosophy still holds true
today—all stakeholders must
engage and realize that the land
belongs to all of us.
Refuge staff certainly have
proven they can stretch a dime
while continuing to fiercely
promote and defend the natural
resource cause. However, due to
limited funds and staff, and the
escalating demands on refuge staff time, keeping abreast of advances in
habitat management techniques is difficult. Land Management
Demonstration Areas are places where new habitat management
techniques and approaches are developed, implemented and
showcased—places where professional land managers and others come
to learn about cutting edge habitat management techniques and
technology, and carry back with them the information and knowledge
which allows them to better manage their own lands. The success of
these demonstration areas will lead to an expanded ability to solve new
resource challenges on other refuges, and on other public and private
lands.
Demonstration areas do not preclude the need for all refuges to be
models of habitat management, illustrating for the American people the
irreplaceable values of the System. Indeed, only when our refuges are
seen as a coordinated system will Leopold’s vision be attained.
Demonstration Areas —Making it Work. Land Management
Demonstration Areas would showcase habitat management techniques,
increase communication, and promote continued advancements in
technology to Service staff and other land managers. Actually walking
a site and viewing management techniques and habitat results make an
exceptional learning tool for both public and professional audiences. A
set of refuges would be selected to serve as centers of excellence for
developing and transferring information about land management
techniques such as early successional forest management and moist soil
management. These designated sites will have the commitment of a
Fulfilling the Promise 35
“…move beyond your
boundaries, and set in motion
a broad pattern of public
understanding and
stakeholder support, and
ultimately, of restoration in a
broad scale in which we can
all look back and say: ‘it
started here.’”
—Bruce Babbitt
biological staff responsible for staying abreast of these specific land
management practices, maintaining premier field examples of those
practices, and developing new approaches to solving habitat
management issues. Diligent efforts of the Service to seek support
from partnerships, refuge support groups, challenge grants, the
Refuge Operating Needs System, and other sources are essential to the
success of these areas. Additionally, these sites will be used to train
Service and other land managers in the art and science of effective
habitat management and conservation. A task force will carry out the
development of a plan to meet this need. This team will consider the
demonstration potential of all refuges or their special areas including
wilderness and Research Natural Areas, develop priorities and criteria
for the site nomination process, and determine the number and
distribution of sites necessary to fulfill the habitat management
information needs of the System.
Recommendation WH 18: Designate Land Management
Demonstration Areas to facilitate
development, testing, teaching, publishing,
and demonstration of state-of-the-art
management techniques that support the
critical habitat management information
needs for fish, wildlife, and plant
conservation within the System and
other lands.
36 Wildlife and Habitat
Don Hultman
Setting the Example. All refuges have the obligation to set high
standards for habitat management. Similarly, most refuges have an
opportunity—through an active public use program—to demonstrate
and educate the public on sustainable land management techniques and
stewardship. Refuge lands perform a significant role in the
encouragement of sound management and stewardship of public and
private lands. Such lands support ecosystem objectives, joint venture
initiatives, and broad-based landscape and biodiversity efforts.
Influencing the awareness and the actions of others toward habitat
restoration, enhancement, protection, and conservation improves the
quality of habitats locally, nationally, and internationally for all species.
Refuges throughout the nation will reflect the information and
techniques developed and implemented at the Land Management
Demonstration Areas, and thereby make a significant contribution to
the conservation of natural resources through habitat management and
stewardship for fish, wildlife, and plants on all lands.
Even with the best of intentions, funding and staffing limitations make
it extremely difficult for the System to effectively reach the American
public to promote sound land management techniques and resource
decisions. A team will be assembled, involving External Affairs, the
National Conservation Training Center, the United States Department
of Agriculture, and other appropriate parties to determine the most
effective way to proactively communicate land stewardship to the
general public. An outreach program specifically targeted at conveying
sound land management techniques for fish, wildlife, and plants will
complement ongoing initiatives, such as extension programs.
Setting an example in the System also entails setting an example in the
use of the earth’s resources. Each refuge should become a model of the
basic tenets of material conservation: reduce, reuse, and recycle. Our
land management practices, from office work to farming, should be
environmentally sound and set a standard for conservation and care of
soil and water as well as wildlife.
Recommendation WH 19: Develop an outreach and interpretive
program on refuges which specifically
demonstrates and conveys to the American
people the importance of sound land
management for the conservation of native
fish, wildlife, and plants.
Recommendation WH 20: Renew emphasis on reducing, reusing, and
recycling of materials and products used on
refuges, and ensure environmentally sound
and sustainable management practices.
Fulfilling the Promise 37
People
Sharing a Passion for Wildlife
Introduction
From Sanctuary to Showcase
National wildlife refuges in the first decades of the 20th century were
true sanctuaries. Many were guarded by citizen wardens who protected
them from poachers and plume hunters. Visitors were rare—an
occasional scientist, photographer, or bird watcher of means. But as the
System grew, in the 1920s and 1930s, some refuges were opened to
hunting and fishing. Then, in a move to broaden support for raising the
price of the Federal Duck Stamp,
a 1949 amendment to the Duck
Stamp Act permitted hunting on
25 percent (raised to 40 percent in
1958) of the lands purchased for
the System with Duck Stamp
funds.
Interest in using refuges for other
recreation caught the fancy of the
post-World War II generation.
Americans loved to travel the
nation’s back roads, and there,
amidst the hot prairies of the
plains and the salt marshes of the
south, they discovered their
National Wildlife Refuge System. In 1951, the first year visitor use
records were totaled, refuges hosted 3.4 million people. By the end of
that decade, visitation exceeded 10 million.
They came for many reasons, some to fish, and some to hunt. Most
came to share with family and friends the sights and sounds of wildlife
and the wonders of the living world.
But many also came to recreate in other ways: to sail, swim, camp,
water ski, bicycle, ride horses, sun bathe, and rock climb. Although
these lands were dedicated to wildlife conservation, incomplete policies
and an uncertain mission resulted in uses that were not always in
harmony with a refuge’s wildlife conservation purpose.
Fulfilling the Promise 39
“We need the tonic of
wildness—to wade sometimes
in the marshes where the
bittern and meadow hen lurk,
and hear the booming of the
snipe; to smell the whispering
sedge where only some wilder
and more solitary fowl
builds her nest.”
—Henry David Thoreau
Guidance in the first Refuge Manual (1943) was brief. Conflicts between
wildlife and public uses could be forecast, but the door was open to uses
for the cause of building public support:
“Public use of refuge areas will in varying degrees result in
disturbances to wildlife populations, but this adverse effect will be
offset on many refuges by the public relations value of limited
public uses. As a general policy, recreational use on the refuges
shall be held to a minimum commensurate with reasonable local
demands.”
Guidance in the late-1957 Refuge Manual on how to decide which public
uses to allow hinted towards a wildlife first priority, but sent mixed
signals:
“While the primary use of National Wildlife Refuges is for the
protection of wildlife, these areas are managed on a multiple-use
basis insofar as this can be accomplished without defeating the
objectives for which the area was established. Opportunities are
afforded on many areas for fishing, hunting, picnicking,
swimming, and wildlife observation.”
The Refuge Recreation Act of 1962 and the Refuge Administration Act
of 1966 placed into law the concept that refuges would be closed to all
recreation uses, until a manager could determine that a proposed use
was compatible with the refuge’s establishing purpose and that
sufficient funds were available to administer those uses. Refuge
managers were responsible for making these compatibility
determinations. Usually decisions were made locally, and in many
cases, were based on local pressures and interests, likes and dislikes. A
garden of different public uses grew from this approach.
Visitor use, which tripled in the 1950s, increased through the 1960s, and
by the 1970s, nearly tripled again. Refuge staff, so well-trained and
equipped to manage habitat and wildlife, faced new challenges with the
task of managing an eager and active public.
The idea took hold that a better informed public could be a positive
force in shaping conservation awareness, and thus policy and practice.
Recreational facilities were constructed, and interpretive and
environmental education activities were highlighted.
Refuges became showcases for wildlife. They became places for
children to learn firsthand nature���s lessons of adaptation and diversity,
places for twilight strolls on the edge of a marsh, and places to pass on
to a new generation a love for America’s wildlife.
40 People
Partnerships in Public Trust
The first refuge was founded by a President, but it was a part-time boat
builder who first called attention to the plight of the birds on Pelican
Island. The Okefenokee Refuge was established by another Roosevelt,
but not before citizens from rural Georgia hounded their legislators to
take action to protect the swamp’s vast wilderness. From San Francisco
Bay to Minnesota Valley, from New Jersey’s Great Swamp to Florida’s
Sanibel Island, citizen activists with a shared vision for wildlife
stewardship took the lead in saving their corners of the earth from
development and destruction. Dozens of national wildlife refuges were
established through the public’s push for legislative protection. Citizen
action was the impetus for the System; it is still a driving force in its
preservation.
And just as the first refuge manager started as a volunteer, volunteers
today are a significant part of the System workforce. They account for
over a million hours of work on behalf of national wildlife refuges every
year, and they participate in every aspect of refuge work: banding
songbirds, maintaining trails, monitoring air and water quality, and
staffing information desks. If the job needs to be done, chances are
good that a volunteer is doing it and doing it well.
Thus, the heritage of the System is intertwined with the will of
concerned citizens. While partnerships are today a trendy commodity
in government, for the System, they have been a way of life for a
hundred years. This past success intensifies the drive to forge new
alliances for a stronger System of the future.
In Service to Wildlife and People
Over 75 million Americans enjoy watching wildlife and participating in
recreation associated with wildlife, but few really understand how best
to provide the habitat essential to wildlife’s survival. Refuges therefore,
must help increase public understanding of wildlife’s needs. When
people value something, they are
motivated to action. When people
understand the connections
between land management and
larger resource issues in their
lives, they are in a better position
to make wise resource decisions.
The System preserves that part of
the American heritage that is as
common as a robin and as rare as
a condor, as sturdy as cypress and
as delicate as an orchid. People will want to see and enjoy this part of
their legacy, and be assured of its sound stewardship. Public
involvement in refuge management has always been important, but a
better educated and informed public has taken on a greater role in
Fulfilling the Promise 41
“Suffice it to say that by
common consent of thinking
people, there are cultural
values in the sports, customs,
and experiences that renew
contacts with wild things.”
—Aldo Leopold
management decisions. New laws require seeking the public’s opinion
on management decisions; common sense compels us to listen and
respond.
The future of wildlife is best assured by raising the public’s awareness
and understanding in wildlife conservation. This can be done effectively
on national wildlife refuges where visitors can see for themselves the
connections between people and wildlife, habitat, and land
management. Well-designed interpretive signs and exhibits explain
wildlife’s needs and management actions. Many refuges become
learning laboratories where environmental education programs help
teach youth about fish and wildlife resources. They are special places
where children and adults can link with the land and its resources
through hunting and fishing. They are places where the people of today
can renew the ties to their cultural heritage by viewing ancient and
historic sites. These ties, delivered through the System’s public use
programs, strengthen the connection between wildlife and people.
While helping to instill a land ethic in our youth, refuges can also show
landowners how to make sustainable use of their lands and leave room
for wildlife. Ever greater numbers of people are being reached through
timely and effective outreach efforts.
With a century of experience, the System has learned that people are
as much a part of our landscape as the habitat we manage. Our visions
for the System are thus painted with the hues of public enjoyment,
understanding, and involvement.
42 People
Chuck Bosch
Vision for the Future
The National Wildlife Refuge System of the next century will provide
the American people a Legacy of Wildlife, a Place Where Visitors are
Welcome, Opportunities for Stewardship, and a System to Appreciate.
A Legacy of Wildlife: A strong and vibrant System provides an
enduring legacy of healthy fish, wildlife, and
plant resources for people to enjoy today and
for generations to come.
APlace Where Visitors Visitors find national wildlife refuges
Feel Welcome: welcoming, safe, and accessible, with a variety
of opportunities to enjoy and appreciate
America’s fish, wildlife, and plants.
Opportunities for Visitors and local communities recognize
Public Stewardship: refuges as national treasures, actively
participating in their stewardship and
standing firm in their defense.
A System to Americans know that each wildlife refuge is a
Appreciate: part of an enduring national system. They
understand and support the System’s
tremendous contribution toward wildlife
conservation.
Issues and Needs
Providing Quality Wildlife Experiences
More than 30 million people visit national wildlife refuges every year.
Refuges are the “front yards” for the Service, providing people a first-hand
opportunity to experience the Service and its range of activities.
Refuges provide visitors with an understanding and appreciation of fish
and wildlife ecology and help people understand their role in the
environment. Additionally, refuges are places where high-quality, safe,
and enjoyable wildlife-dependent recreation connects visitors to their
natural resource heritage.
The Refuge Improvement Act recognizes the importance of a close
connection between fish and wildlife and the American character, and of
the need to preserve America’s wildlife for future generations to enjoy.
It mandates that compatible, wildlife-dependent recreational uses
involving hunting, fishing, wildlife observation, wildlife photography,
environmental education, and interpretation are the priority public
uses of System. By enjoying these wildlife-dependent activities, the
American public further develops its appreciation for fish and wildlife.
The Act calls for the System to provide increased opportunities for
Fulfilling the Promise 43
families to experience compatible wildlife dependent recreation,
especially opportunities for parents and their children to safely engage
in traditional outdoor activities such as fishing and hunting.
Refuges and waterfowl production areas offer visitors countless
opportunities to witness some of the world’s most amazing wildlife
spectacles amidst breath-taking scenery. Brant in numbers that
blacken the sky can be seen over the rich eelgrass beds at Izembek
Refuge in Alaska. The deafening chatter of a million mallards can be
heard among the solemn
bottomland hardwoods at White
River Refuge in Arkansas.
Thousands of sandhill cranes
create a spectacle of sight and
sound against the backdrop of the
Magdalena Mountains at Bosque
del Apache Refuge in New
Mexico. Over 300,000 Canada
geese create a natural drive-in
theater for visitors along major
highways as the geese return at
dusk to the huge marsh at Horicon Refuge in Wisconsin. And millions
of horseshoe crabs can be seen lining the tidal shores on Bombay Hook
Refuge in Delaware, to be followed by another spectacle as tens of
thousands of migrating shorebirds refuel on the billions of eggs left by
the crabs.
The habitat that makes refuges attractive for wildlife has also attracted
people for over 12,000 years. More than 11,000 archaeological and
historical sites have been identified on refuges, while thousands more
remain unidentified. These sites provide significant opportunities for
linking people to landscapes. Examples include the Spanish settlers
who constructed irrigation ditches across the valley that became
Alamosa Refuge in Colorado, the people who gather rice on the
marshes that are now Rice Lake Refuge in Minnesota, the hunters and
mound builders who lived and died in and around the great swamp we
now call Okefenokee Refuge in Georgia, and the thousands of settlers
in wagon trains who stopped for rest and water at the Green River on
what would become Seedskadee Refuge in Wyoming. The System also
has an opportunity to link with national historic celebrations such as
the bicentennial of the 1803 Lewis and Clark expedition which passed
through many present-day refuges.
The cultural resources people left behind, their “footprints on the
landscape,” provide a historical record of their relationship with natural
resources. Learning the history of Americans’ relationship to wildlife
and the environment, through interpretive and environmental
education programs, can be the first step in understanding and
developing solutions to current issues.
44 People
“For us in the minority, the
opportunity to see geese is
more important than
television, and the chance to
find a pasque-flower is a right
as inalienable as free speech.”
—Aldo Leopold
Quality public use programs will ensure that refuge visits are as special
as the places themselves. Ensuring quality means taking care of the
details: visitor safety, setting and meeting facility and program
standards, providing exemplary customer service, and having sufficient
data for monitoring and improvement.
Protecting Refuge Resources and Visitors. Protecting refuge resources
and the safety of visitors are the most fundamental responsibilities of
refuge managers. Managers are accomplishing this responsibility
primarily with staff who have law enforcement as a collateral or part-time
duty.
Refuge law enforcement has always been a dangerous job—a job that
daily puts refuge officers in harm’s way. It is a job which more than
once has cost the lives of refuge officers. As crime continues to find its
way to rural America—and as refuges become more a part of the urban
and suburban landscape—refuges face a larger and more complicated
enforcement problem. In addition to over 10,000 natural resource
violations every year, serious felonies, including homicides, rapes,
assaults, and acts of arson occur on refuges every year.
During the National Wildlife Refuge System Conference (October
1998), a break out session discussion focused on the need to develop
national standardized position descriptions and career ladders for full-time
and dual-function officers
that provided retirement benefits,
where justified, and the need to
establish full-time regional and
national law enforcement
coordinators to manage and
advocate refuge law enforcement
program needs.
It is vital that the Service solve
the dilemma of how to provide
basic visitor and resource
protection services with limited
staff and funding. On some
refuges, full-time law enforcement
officers are helping meet the
increasingly complex task of
refuge law enforcement. Yet, most refuges cannot afford a full-time law
enforcement position. Can full time officers be shared between refuges?
Is the collateral-duty law enforcement officer model viable in the 21st
century? Do full-time officers have a career ladder within the Service?
Are there ways to contract out enforcement protection? Is training
adequate to keep pace with enforcement problems? What is the legal
risk to individuals with enforcement responsibilities? A thorough
assessment of refuge law enforcement is long overdue. This assessment
Fulfilling the Promise 45
John & Karen Hollingsworth
should be done by a mix of staff, including full-time officers,
collateral-duty officers, regional and national coordinators, the
Division of Law Enforcement, and staff from sister agencies who
face these same issues.
Recommendation P1: Assess the status of public safety and resource
protection provided by refuge law enforcement
officers, and make recommendations for the
future direction of law enforcement in the
System. This assessment will determine
appropriate staffing, position classification,
training, recruitment, retention, retirement,
and career pathways for refuge officers.
Meeting Minimum Standards. The Service recognized the importance
of public use as a goal of the System, and in 1984, developed ten
National Public Use Requirements as minimum standards for refuge
facilities and programs for visitors:
– set station public use goals;
– project a positive attitude;
– welcome and orient visitors;
– develop key resources awareness;
– provide observation opportunities;
– provide teacher assistance;
– maintain quality hunting programs;
– maintain quality fishing programs;
– manage cultural resources; and
– explore public assistance opportunities.
In the past, and to varying degrees throughout the country, these
minimum public use standards were used in refuge evaluations called
Public Use Reviews. In the Great Lakes-Big Rivers Region for
example, the public use review has been tied into an overall refuge
evaluation. Another option
included conducting a more
specific and comprehensive public
use review separately for refuges
with more complex programs. The
public use review teams consisted
of regional office staff, often
including refuge supervisors, as
well as field public use staff and
the refuge manager and staff.
These public use reviews provided
complete documentation of the facilities and program improvements
needed to attain the public use service identified in that process. The
regions need to recommit to the Public Use Review process, and ensure
46 People
“Recreational development is
a job not of building roads
into lovely country, but of
building receptivity into the
still unlovely human mind.��
—Aldo Leopold
that they are accomplished in conjunction with the preparation of
Comprehensive Conservation Plans, and then on a regular cycle.
Although the premises behind the ten National Public Use
Requirements are still valid in general terms, they are outdated and do
not reflect the Refuge Improvement Act, National Outreach Strategy,
National Wildlife Refuge System Volunteer and Community
Partnership Enhancement Act of 1998, and directives on accessibility,
compatibility, and law enforcement.
In addition, reviews of public use programs will need to include a
review of cumulative impacts on the resource from visitor use, an
analysis of audience and messages used in interpretive and education
programs, interactions between user groups, the refuge’s role in
outreach, and how the refuge can most effectively meet the needs of
visitors with disabilities. These reviews will reinforce a more consistent
application of national public use policies leading to a stronger System,
and visitors to any refuge will have a clear expectation of the products,
experiences, and services available during their visit.
Recommendation P2: Update the National Public Use Requirements.
Each region will conduct evaluations of refuge
public use programs to aid refuges in meeting
new standards, identify deficiencies in the
delivery of visitor services, and document needs
and set priorities in operational, maintenance,
and construction project databases.
Reporting Consistently and Accurately. Public use data are collected
by refuges and compiled and reported in the Refuge Management
Information System database. While the database provides a strong
platform for reporting and compiling visitor use information, the
accuracy of the data collected at the field level is of inconsistent quality.
Lack of information about how to efficiently measure the number of
visitors who use refuges and waterfowl production areas, and the
cumbersome process to receive survey approval are obstacles to
improving public use counts. The use of existing data to identify trends
is valid, but accurate information is needed to document results,
evaluate service, and demonstrate accomplishments and results to
Congress and the American people. Therefore, the Service should
develop a Systemwide visitor counting survey and techniques
handbook and train refuge staff to accurately and consistently report
visitor use and evaluate the quality of the visitor experience.
Improving Customer Service. In 1996, the Service and the National
Park Service developed a new system for evaluating how well they
provided quality services and facilities to visitors. A “Customer Bill of
Rights” was developed and a pilot survey project conducted to measure
Fulfilling the Promise 47
the effectiveness in meeting the following standards: treating visitors
with courtesy; responding to visitors in a timely and professional
manner; maintaining a professional appearance and positive attitude;
helping visitors understand who we are and what we do; keeping public
facilities safe, clean, and accessible; and working in partnership with
visitors to conserve fish and wildlife resources.
Visitor feedback cards were distributed to the public at selected
refuges and evaluation reports were prepared by a Service contractor.
While overall visitor satisfaction with basic customer services and
facilities was reported as excellent (70%) and good (28%), only about
15% of the individuals who were given copies of the survey responded
to the questionnaire. The survey will be redesigned to involve more
refuges, contact a greater diversity of refuge visitors, increase the
response rate, and improve delivery methods.
Core Competencies—Meeting the Needs of the Field
The System must have professional public use planners and specialists
in recreation, interpretation, and education to provide the American
people with more and better opportunities to enjoy compatible wildlife-dependent
experiences on refuges. The Division of Refuges in
Washington, D.C., the regional offices, and refuges must have staff with
the core competencies necessary to properly balance the needs of
wildlife and people. Landscape architects, environmental educators,
interpretive writers, planners,
graphic designers, exhibit
designers, and other professionals
in visitor service management,
law enforcement, and volunteer
program management, are
critically needed. From the field to
the regional and Washington
offices, this expertise consistently
falls short of need.
The Washington office and most
regional offices have only one or
two outdoor recreation planners,
education specialists, or
interpretive specialists to provide
nationwide and regionwide
oversight and refuge support. None are adequately staffed to get the
job done considering the size, complexity, and visitation of the System.
Refuges looking for support, guidance, and testing of ideas are too
often left on their own.
Refuges, the front line for public service, are similarly understaffed. In
1997, 114 refuges each hosted 50,000 or more visitors. However, less
than half of these refuges have a staff person whose sole duties are to
48 People
John & Karen Hollingsworth
provide public use services. While maintenance, administrative, and
biological program staffs often have the greatest amount of face-to-face
visitor contact, rarely have they received any customer service
training. At most refuges, no one is specifically trained to plan or
manage public use programs. Even the most visited refuges have only a
skeleton crew to meet the visitor’s needs and to take advantage of the
Service’s best opportunities to inform and educate the public about fish
and wildlife resources.
All refuges need access to staff who are trained in managing public
uses, and who are responsive to the needs of the field. Some refuges,
with relatively lower visitation, might effectively be served by sharing
public use staff. Refuges with higher visitation, with greater
opportunities to efficiently provide public use benefits, or facing
conflicts between public uses and resource values, need full-time public
use staff. Refuge Comprehensive Conservation Plans and refuge public
use evaluations will clarify field staffing needs. Inter-regional reviews
of regional office capabilities and staffing are also needed to identify
gaps in staff and skills. Sufficiently skilled and experienced staffs must
be in place to fulfill the System’s mission and protect its wildlife
resources.
Recommendation P3: Provide each refuge with access to responsive,
professional, public use management staff.
The level of assistance needed at each refuge is
identified in Comprehensive Conservation
Plans, operational evaluations, and inter-regional
reviews. Refuges, regional offices, and
the Division in Washington will have public use
staffs with the skills and abilities needed to
efficiently and effectively meet the needs of the
public and fulfill the System mission.
Compatibility of Uses—Raising the Bar
In the 1970s and 1980s, concerns were raised that some public and
“secondary” uses of the System may be harmful to wildlife. Uses like
waterskiing and power boating had become established on some
refuges during the 1950s and 1960s. At first they seemed to be wildlife
neutral but later were recognized as obstacles to wildlife management.
Refuge staff struggled to reduce or eliminate recreation that is not
wildlife-dependent. Some efforts succeeded, but in other cases,
resistance to change was insurmountable. A Wilderness Society survey,
a Government Accounting Office audit, a Service-commissioned
internal review of secondary uses, a Defenders of Wildlife report, and
finally a lawsuit actually helped the Service address and eliminate
secondary uses that were incompatible with the System’s wildlife
conservation purposes.
Fulfilling the Promise 49
The Refuge Improvement Act put a finer edge on the principles of
public use and compatibility. To ensure that the System’s fish, wildlife,
and plant resources endure, the law of the land now clearly states that
their needs must come first. Thus, uses on a refuge are only to be
allowed after they are determined to be compatible with the System
mission and with the purpose of the refuge. The Service must now
involve the public in compatibility decisions. This involvement is an
opportunity to increase public recognition and support, and instill a
sense of ownership in the System.
The law further asserts the foundational premise that compatible
activities which depend on healthy fish and wildlife populations will be
recognized as priority general public uses. There are six wildlife-dependent
public uses—hunting, fishing, wildlife observation, wildlife
photography, environmental education, and interpretation—and these
are, when compatible, legitimate and appropriate uses of the System
and are to receive enhanced consideration over all other general public
uses. As the House Report to the Refuge Improvement Act points out,
the law is whispering in the manager’s ear to look for ways to permit
these priority public uses when the compatibility requirement can be
met. However, the framers of the Act recognized that it is not feasible
to provide all wildlife-dependent uses on all refuges. The decision on
which compatible activities to allow on each refuge is a function of
refuge purposes, wildlife and habitat objectives, local demographics,
and attributes of the land itself.
To implement the Refuge Improvement Act, the development of
comprehensively written, consistently applied public use management
policies must remain a priority of the Service. New policies should
provide specific guidance on whether and when to allow uses that may
be compatible but are not one of the six priority uses, or which do not
directly support a priority use. Uses that do not directly contribute to
the achievement of the System mission or the purposes of the individual
refuge are often inappropriate. Evaluating and deciding whether such
uses should be allowed may involve a higher standard than
compatibility alone. A decision process with criteria for determining
which proposed uses are appropriate on a refuge needs to be developed
and consistently applied System-wide.
Refuge managers also need better

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U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
Fulfilling the Promise
The National Wildlife
Refuge System
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is the principal federal agency
responsible for conserving, protecting, and enhancing fish and wildlife
and their habitats for the continuing benefit of the American people.
The Service manages the 93-million-acre National Wildlife Refuge
System comprised of more than 500 national wildlife refuges and
thousands of waterfowl production areas. It also operates 65 national
fish hatcheries and 78 ecological services field stations. The agency
enforces federal wildlife laws, manages migratory bird populations,
restores nationally significant fisheries, conserves and restores wildlife
habitat such as wetlands, administers the Endangered Species Act, and
helps foreign governments with their conservation efforts. It also
oversees the Federal Aid program which distributes hundreds of
millions of dollars in excise taxes on fishing and hunting equipment to
state wildlife agencies.
Fulfilling the Promise
The National Wildlife
Refuge System
Visions for Wildlife, Habitat,
People, and Leadership
The National Wildlife Refuge System
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Department of the Interior
March 22, 1999
Cover photo by Don Hultman. Tundra swans at
Benton Lake National Wildlife Refuge, Montana
The Mission
“The mission of the National Wildlife Refuge System
is to administer a national network of lands and
waters for the conservation, management, and
where appropriate, restoration of the fish, wildlife,
and plant resources and their habitats within the
United States for the benefit of present and future
generations of Americans.”
National Wildlife Refuge System Improvement Act of 1997
Fulfilling the Promise iii
Table of Contents
Preface by Bruce Babbitt, Secretary of the Interior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii
Foreword by Jamie Clark, Director, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service . . . ix
Executive Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Wildlife and Habitat
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Vision for the Future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Issues and Needs
Wildlife Comes First . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Anchors for Biodiversity and Ecosystems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Healthy Wildlife Habitats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Leaders and Centers of Excellence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Strategic Growth—Land Acquisition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Models of Land Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
People
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Vision for the Future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Issues and Needs
Providing Quality Wildlife Experiences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Core Competencies—Meeting the Needs of the Field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Compatibility of Uses—Raising the Bar. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Putting the Greatest Needs First . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Making the Most of Fees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Weaving the Refuge Support Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Outreach—A Vital Tool for the Future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Building a Broader Base of Support. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
iv Table of Contents
Fulfilling the Promise v
Leadership
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Vision for the Future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Issues and Needs
The Importance of Leadership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Recruiting and Developing the Best and Brightest. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
Keeping the Best and Brightest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Continuous Improvement—Learning Something Every Day . . . . . . . 75
Rising to the Top . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
The Blue Goose Flies Again. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Core Values and Passion for Wild Places and Wild Things . . . . . . . . . . 80
A Consistent Organizational Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
It’s the Law—Let’s Get Our Act Together . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
References Cited . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Preface
For nearly a century, the National Wildlife Refuge System has been the
hidden jewel among our nation’s public lands. Quietly, with little fanfare
and often scant support, it has grown to a System with over 93 million
acres dedicated to the unique ideal that the wild creatures of this land
deserve their own special places.
This report on the System is an amazing story of dedication, self-reflection,
and strategic vision. When I attended the first-ever National
Wildlife Refuge System Conference in October 1998, I sensed among
the hundreds of Fish and Wildlife Service employees and conservation
partners that something special was unfolding. In many ways, the
conference and its focus on Fulfilling the Promise heralded a new
beginning for the Refuge System.
As Secretary, it is a privilege to support, and when needed defend, the
hundreds of refuges with names of mystery and magic such as Arctic,
Izembek, and Okefenokee. We can also take comfort in knowing the
Refuge System is more secure than ever thanks to the landmark
Refuge Improvement Act of 1997. This law provides a firm foundation
for a system of lands about to enter the challenges and opportunities of
a new millennium.
I look forward to seeing the recommendations in this report become
reality. I urge everyone, from the unsung heroes in the field to the
conservation leaders in Congress, to hold fast to the dream of a Refuge
System shining bright for wildlife, habitat, and people. Together, we can
all help fulfill the promise of these unique national treasures.
The Honorable Bruce Babbitt
Secretary of the Interior
Fulfilling the Promise vii
Foreword
The American character has been molded by its connections with the
land, and its spirit fortified by a close connection to the wild creatures
of prairie, forest, coast, marsh, and river. Our nation’s growth across
the continent was in part fueled by trade in fur, fish, and shell. Great
inland waters became thoroughfares for exploration and commerce.
The American spirit of independence and self-sufficiency became
legendary. Resources seemed unlimited as the forests were cleared, the
prairies tilled, and rivers tamed. For landless servants and immigrants
searching for a new life, the prospect of free land became a beacon of
hope. Public land policies of the 19th century spurred this expansion,
and sped the settlement of the continent.
Caught in this slipstream of growth was the untempered exploitation of
wildlife and its habitat. The thunder from herds of bison was virtually
silenced, and the clouds of passenger pigeons disappeared. These losses
did not go unnoticed. The early conservation movement was led by
people who were angered by the devastation caused by market hunters,
and appalled by the slaughter of birds for the vanity of fashion. They
intuitively knew the values to the nation of saving its fish and wildlife,
and together stepped forward to form organizations of influence
including the Boone and Crockett Club, National Audubon Society,
Izaak Walton League, Wilderness Society, and Sierra Club. Speaking
for nature, they sounded an alarm.
They caught the ears of presidents and other politicians who crafted
the principles of modern wildlife conservation: stop market hunting for
wildlife; wildlife that cross state and international boundaries are
national resources whose management is a federal responsibility; and
healthy habitat is the key to healthy fish and wildlife populations. They
also recognized the democratic ideal that all citizens should have equal
access to the use and enjoyment of fish and wildlife.
Fulfilling the Promise ix
It Began with a Promise
It was in the shadow of these ideals that the National Wildlife Refuge
System was born. It was born with a promise made by a President
named Roosevelt; carried out by a sometime boat builder, cook, and
orange grower named Kroegel; and quietly proclaimed on behalf of a
nation with an emerging consciousness about the value of things wild
and free. It was a promise to preserve wildlife and habitat for its own
sake and the benefit of the American people.
The promise began on a small and unassuming island full of pelicans,
ibises, herons, and roseate spoonbills in Florida’s Indian River, which
became the first national wildlife refuge, and the beginning of an idea
unique in the world. It was an idea that a network of lands should be set
aside for wildlife. From this humble start at Pelican Island would
emerge the National Wildlife Refuge System.
Special Places
Nearly a century after Theodore Roosevelt’s 1903 Executive Order
established Pelican Island Refuge, the System has grown to more than
93 million acres in size. It now includes more than 500 refuges and more
than 3,000 waterfowl production areas spread across 50 states and
several U.S. territories, a network so vast and sprawling that the sun is
almost always shining on some part of it. It is a system providing a
lifeline for millions of migratory birds; open spaces for elk, pronghorn
and caribou; and wild niches for the rare and endangered. And it is a
System which conserves a stunning array of the nation’s ecosystems:
tundra, deserts, forests, great rivers, vast marshes, small prairie
x Foreword
Wyman Meinzer
potholes, swamps, mountains, prairies, estuaries, coral reefs, and
remote islands are all represented under its canopy of protection.
Refuges are places where the music of life has been rehearsed to
perfection, where nature’s colors are most vibrant, where time is
measured in seasons, and where the dance of the crane takes center
stage. They are gifts to ourselves and to generations unborn—simple
gifts unwrapped each time a birder lifts binoculars, a child overturns a
rock, a hunter sets the decoys, or an angler casts the waters.
Each refuge or waterfowl production area is, above all else, land. They
are living, breathing places where the ancient rhythms still beat. To
many, they provide a sense of place, a timeless connection to instincts
barely discernible, and a tie to a natural world which nourishes the
spirit of individuals, and a nation. Refuges, as much as the monuments
in Washington, D.C., the boyhood homes of presidents, the sequoias in
California, the vast forests of the western mountains, or the expansive
swamps of the Everglades, are national treasures in the truest sense.
Yet, they are also a tool which has been used effectively to rescue and
recover species from extinction, has safeguarded breeding and resting
areas for millions of birds, and has staved-off the loss of unique and
irreplaceable ecosystems squeezed by a growing country.
Fulfilling the Promise xi
John & Karen Hollingsworth
A Firm Foundation
The National Wildlife Refuge System occupies a unique niche among
federal land management agencies. Rather than having purposes based
on scenic or historic values, or on the concepts of multiple use in both
recreational and economic terms, refuges focus on wildlife, and most
often, those species held in trust for all Americans. Trust species have
been defined in laws and treaties passed or ratified by Congress:
migratory birds; threatened and endangered species; certain fisheries;
and marine mammals. These trust species have played, and will
continue to play, a defining role in managing and growing the System.
The System functioned without a true organic act for nearly all of its
developmental years. There was no law giving the System a unifying
mission, and refuges were a patchwork of Executive Orders and
individual refuge or general conservation laws, held together by the
vision and fortitude of early leaders. The Refuge Recreation Act of 1962
and the Refuge Administration Act of 1966 helped bring refuges
together, but both laws were more concerned with how refuges would
be used rather than how they should function as a system.
This all changed, in 1997, with President Clinton’s signing of the
National Wildlife Refuge System Improvement Act. Building upon a
1996 Executive Order, the Act provided a mission for the System, and
clear standards for its management, use, planning, and growth. The Act
also calls for continued but expanded involvement from the public,
states, Tribes, and others who have a stake in how the System is
xii Foreword
White House Photo
administered. Forcefully and faithfully implementing this law will
provide a solid foundation as the System approaches its next century of
service to wildlife, habitat, and people.
Finally, the System’s foundation rests on the seemingly new, but time-proven
philosophy of an ecosystem approach to land management and
to the stewardship of its fish, wildlife, and plants. In simple terms, this
philosophy looks at the health and biological integrity of the land
(ecology), takes a view beyond boundaries (landscapes), works
shoulder-to-shoulder with the brothers and sisters of the entire Service
family (cross-program), views people and society as part of the
landscape and the mission (communities and economies), and leverages
ideas and resources by working with and through others
(partnerships). This approach to overall resource management, and
refuge management, is not only the Service’s plan, it is perhaps the
only plan that offers hope in conserving special places and wild
creatures in the face of ever-increasing pressure.
Fulfilling the Promise
The System story is distinctly American. A story of passion and vision,
of courage in the face of adversity, of women and men with a noble
mission etched across their hearts, of politics and evolving policy, of
things done right and some things not so right, and a story of a heritage
and culture unique in public service. It is a story as simple and
compelling as one man and one boat protecting birds on Pelican Island,
and a story as complex and challenging as seeking to understand the
intricacies of ecosystems on millions of acres of land.
This report is based on the very essence of what the System is all
about: leadership in serving wildlife, habitat, and people. These pages
look to the future as the System nears its 100th Anniversary. Visions
and recommendations outlined will serve as guideposts in the journey
to fulfill the promise of America’s National Wildlife Refuge System.
The ideas and philosophies expressed will fuel reflection, new ideas, and
debate, and form the basis of a continuing national dialogue on the
future direction of the System. Let the story unfold, the journey begin.
Jamie Rappaport Clark
Director
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Fulfilling the Promise xiii
Executive Summary
This report on the National Wildlife Refuge System is the culmination
of a year-long process involving teams of Service employees who
examined the System within the framework of Wildlife and Habitat,
People, and Leadership. The report was the focus of the first-ever
System Conference held in Keystone, Colorado in October 1998
attended by every refuge manager in the country, other Service
employees, and scores of conservation organizations.
The report is a reflection on where the System has been, a review of
the present, and a vision for the future. The heart of the report is the
collection of vision statements and 42 recommendations which are
presented below in paraphrased form. Each recommendation is
indexed to the page in the report where the full recommendation,
with preceding discussion, can be found.
Fulfilling the Promise 1
Wyman P. Meinzer
Wildlife and Habitat
The System contains a stunning array of the nation’s fish, wildlife, and
plants and has a proud heritage of excellence in wildlife and habitat
management. Management philosophies and practices have evolved as
the concepts and understanding of biodiversity, ecosystems, and
landscape-level ecology have evolved.
Keeping wildlife first in the System will require increased emphasis on
sound objective setting, populations and habitat monitoring, and
adaptive management. It will also require an increase in biological staff
and more attention to their training, networking, and career
development. The care and management of 20 million acres of
wilderness needs to be elevated within the System, and each refuge
must identify and rectify external threats to its soil, water, air, and
wildlife.
The growth of the System will need to be more strategic and consistent
in the future. Finally, refuges must be managed in the context of, and in
concert with, surrounding public and private lands, and become models
of land management for others to emulate.
The Vision:
Wildlife Comes First
Anchors for Biodiversity
Healthy Wildlife Habitats
Leaders and Centers of Excellence
Strategic Growth
Models of Land Management
The Recommendations:
WH1 Develop integrated population goals and objectives (p. 19)
WH2 Establish national, regional, and ecosystem habitat priorities
(p. 20)
WH3 Define how the System and each unit can contribute to
biodiversity (p. 21)
WH4 Develop policy and a national plan for wilderness and other
special area management (p. 23)
WH5 Conduct comprehensive assessment of water rights (p. 25)
WH6 Identify and recommend solutions to external threats to
refuges (p. 25)
WH7 Review and revise policies to strengthen support for problem
species management (p. 26)
WH8 Develop refuge inventory and monitoring plans for species
(p. 28)
WH9 Design or use existing databases to analyze and archive
information (p. 28)
WH10 Develop systematic habitat monitoring programs (p. 28)
WH11 Ensure an interdisciplinary staff of specialists (p. 29)
2 Executive Summary
WH12 Address inadequate and inconsistent biological staffing (p. 30)
WH13 Develop a program to address career and professional needs of
biologists (p. 30)
WH14 Use adaptive management techniques to evaluate effectiveness
(p. 31)
WH15 Identify management-oriented research needs for each refuge
(p. 32)
WH16 Identify thresholds of wildlife disturbance for public use
programs (p. 32)
WH17 Develop a national, coordinated approach for prioritizing lands
and waters for acquisition (p. 34)
WH18 Designate Land Management Demonstration Areas (p. 36)
WH19 Develop an outreach and interpretive program to convey the
importance of habitat management (p. 37)
WH20 Renew emphasis on conservation of materials, soil, and water
on refuges (p. 37)
People
After nearly a century of growth, a System for wildlife and people is
being realized. It is a System spanning the continent and reaching
across oceans. It is a System with refuges visited by thousands of
schoolchildren in the shadows of skyscrapers, and refuges visited by
only seals and seabirds in the remoteness of the Pacific Ocean. It is a
System with a wildlife conservation mission, but whose ultimate benefits
are to the people of America today, and for generations to come.
Fulfilling the Promise 3
USFWS Photo
To fulfill its mission, the System must have individuals with skills in
managing public uses on refuges. The Service must be prepared to
invest in visitor services and facilities that are designed to showcase the
wildlife treasures within refuges, but which do not intrude upon the
habitat or disturb wildlife. Staff at all levels must involve more people,
communities, and organizations in the decisions affecting the growth
and management of the System. And, the Service must be more
strategic in communicating the value of refuges to all Americans. As
employees meet these challenges, they can be sure of an idea that has
tested true for a hundred years: by sharing a passion for wildlife and
habitat, the System’s future is more secure.
The Vision:
A Legacy of Wildlife
A Place Where Visitors are Welcome
Opportunities for Public Stewardship
A System to Appreciate
The Recommendations:
P1 Assess the status of public safety and resource protection
through law enforcement programs (p. 46)
P2 Update the national public use requirements (standards) (p. 47)
P3 Provide each refuge with access to responsive and professional
public use specialists (p. 49)
P4 Develop and implement policy on appropriate and compatible
uses of refuges (p. 51)
P5 Establish a national Visitor Improvement Priority System for
facilities (p. 52)
P6 Complete improved fee and concession management policies
(p. 53)
P7 Forge new alliances through citizen and community
partnerships (p. 56)
P8 Strengthen partnerships, develop new policy, and seek
authorities to increase relationships with business community
(p. 56)
P9 Update and strengthen the System’s 100 on 100 Outreach
Campaign (p. 62)
P10 Build a broader base of support by reaching out to a larger
cross-section of the public (p. 63)
Leadership
Leadership is not simply doing things right, but doing the right things.
Without leadership, the System visions for wildlife, habitat, and people
cannot be achieved. With effective leadership, they cannot be denied.
Every employee has a leadership role and every refuge and wetland
management district, and indeed, every Service office, deserves the
energy of effective leadership.
4 Executive Summary
The System and the Service have a proud heritage of leadership.
Extending this legacy of leadership into the future will require that
leadership development be made a higher priority.
Leaders must ensure organizational vitality by seeing that new and
diverse talent is brought into the System, that employee pride remains
high, and that the System is administered as a true system of lands by
paying attention to the consistency of organizational structure and
management policies.
Meeting the needs and carrying out the recommendations for
improving leadership for the System and the Service will, in the end,
pay huge dividends for fish, wildlife, and plant resources. And doing
right by the resource is what doing the right thing is all about.
The Vision:
Best and Brightest
Esprit de Corps
System Integrity
The Recommendations:
L1 Make leadership development the priority of the System and
Service (p. 70)
L2 Establish a systematic recruitment, training, and mentoring
program (p. 73)
L3 Enhance retention and formalize career pathways to develop
leadership at all levels (p. 75)
L4 Actively promote opportunities and environment for
career-long education and development (p. 76)
L5 Ensure that the System produces a cadre of leaders for senior
Service leadership (p. 78)
L6 Recognize the importance of appropriate field experience for
senior System leadership (p. 78)
L7 Make the Blue Goose a visible and consistently applied symbol
of the System (p. 80)
L8 Articulate core values of the System (p. 82)
L9 Establish a Service policy to address housing needs on refuges
(p. 82)
L10 Develop and maintain consistent organizational structures
across regions in support of refuges (p. 83)
L11 Fully implement and integrate the provisions of the Refuge
Improvement Act (p. 84)
L12 Provide consistent refuge management guidance—restore the
Refuge Manual (p. 84)
Fulfilling the Promise 5
Introduction
Background
This report is rooted in past work by many Service employees and by
outside panels of experts. Substantive reviews of the System and
recommendations on its management, growth, and use have been
conducted over the past 30 years, and include the 1968 Leopold Report,
the 1979 Refuge Study Task Force Report, and the 1992 Defenders of
Wildlife report, entitled Putting Wildlife First.
In the late 1980s and into the 1990s, the Service spent considerable
effort in developing a new Environmental Impact Statement to replace
one issued in 1976. The EIS, entitled Refuges 2003, took a
comprehensive look at System management in the face of growing
concerns for the needs of fish, wildlife, and plants in the context of the
emerging concepts of biodiversity and ecosystem conservation.
However, the effort on Refuges 2003 was curtailed after a realization
that perhaps an EIS was not the most effective way to present a plan
for the System.
In 1996, following the issuance of Executive Order 12996, which
established a mission for the System and tenets for management,
growth, and use, the Service recognized the need for an articulated
vision for the System. The National Wildlife Refuge System—
Promises for a New Century presented a practical and inspiring vision
in words and pictures, and outlined challenges facing the System. It
listed several actions to address the challenges. Built on the basic
foundation of wildlife, habitat, and people, Promises became an
important rallying point for both action and outreach.
The passage of the landmark National Wildlife Refuge System
Improvement Act in 1997 cemented in law a mission and guidance for
managing and growing the System, and further underscored the need
for the Service to articulate what the System would be in its next
century. This organic act provided the foundation and opportunity to
build a new future for the System.
The Process
A steering committee of Service employees was established, early in
1997, to guide the development of this report. Workgroups of employees
from the System and other Service programs, headed by Regional
Directors, began meeting in January 1998, to begin writing the report.
Four teams—Wildlife, Habitat, People, and Leadership—developed,
debated, and articulated the visions and recommendations in this
Fulfilling the Promise 7
report. The workgroups were asked to answer three key questions in
relation to their topical area. Where is the System today? What do we
want the System to be in the future? How will the System achieve its
mission and vision?
The Wildlife and Habitat teams worked independently and wrote
separate first drafts. These drafts were merged during editing of the
second draft since the topical areas proved to be so interdependent.
Internal review was an integral part of the process, followed by an
invitation for comment from those outside the Service, and all leading
to a national dialogue on the report at the first-ever National Wildlife
Refuge System Conference in October 1998, in Keystone, Colorado.
The Audience
This report, as a guiding vision document, is intended primarily for
employees at all levels of the Service who will carry out its tenets.
However, the Service has always recognized the keen interest in the
future direction of the System from within the Department, other
agencies, states, Tribes, conservation groups, and concerned citizens.
The Service will need everyone’s support to fulfill the System’s
promise. The report contains background information in the section
introductions to ensure that all who read it, from the newest refuge
employee to the Executive Director of a national conservation
organization, will gain insight and a sense of the System’s history and
direction.
8 Introduction
John & Karen Hollingsworth
Scope of the Report
This report will help direct efforts toward the greatest needs and
challenges of the System and is intended to be a virtually timeless
series of guideposts for a long journey. In reality, many of the
recommendations will require continuous and open-ended effort. And
perhaps just as important, the report defines a philosophy and culture
of management that honors the past but looks optimistically forward to
the future.
Although some of the recommendations in the report will take
additional human and fiscal resources, the report is not intended to be a
budget document. The recommendations and discussions will help form
the basis for more strategic budget and policy formulations and
proposals in the years ahead. Also, this report was not intended to
address many of the specific policy decisions affecting refuges,
especially land and wildlife management practices which may be
sources of debate among various audiences. Rather, the report seeks to
set a framework for detailed planning and policy writing. Finally,
although this report focuses on larger System issues, the day-to-day
administrative issues facing refuge managers will remain a focus of
continuous improvement. These issues include streamlining of
procurement and personnel procedures; ensuring adequate
discretionary funding for refuge managers; and refinement of the
funding allocation process so that refuges receive a share of funds that
is reflective of their individual complexity, special management needs,
and levels of public use and required outside coordination.
Toward Fulfilling the Promise
To ensure that this report remains a living document for change, an
Implementation Team has been established. This team will facilitate
action on the recommendations and provide periodic progress reports
to employees, the Director and other Service leaders, and various
partners. It is expected that this report on the System will become a
well-worn document through continual reference and use, and that by
the System’s 100th Anniversary in 2003, the System will be well on its
way toward fulfilling its promise for wildlife,* habitat, and people
through effective leadership.
Fulfilling the Promise 9
*Note: Often in this report, the term “wildlife” is used alone, and in those cases, is
employed as shorthand for all species inhabiting the System, including fish, plants, insects,
and other invertebrates.
Wildlife and Habitat
First and Foremost
Introduction
From one-ton bison to half-ounce warblers, the National Wildlife
Refuge System contains a priceless gift—the heritage of a wild
America that was, and is. If it is a bird, mammal, reptile, amphibian,
fish, insect, or plant, it is probably found in the System.
The System supports at least 700 species of birds, 220 mammals, 250
reptiles and amphibians, over 1,000 fish, and countless species of
invertebrates and plants. Nearly
260 threatened or endangered
species are found on refuges, and
it is here they often begin their
recovery or hold their own against
extinction.
The ways in which the System
nurtures this diversity of life and
the habitat on which it depends is
the very foundation of its mission.
Without healthy and diverse
habitat, there is no wildlife—
without wildlife, the mission set forth in law is not achieved and the
trust with the American people is broken.
Caring for fish, wildlife, and plant populations and their habitat is also
the essence of the science of wildlife management, and the newer and
evolving disciplines of conservation biology and ecosystem
management. Just as wildlife populations and habitat conditions have
changed dramatically in America since the turn of the century, so has
wildlife management in the System. Understanding this history is an
important first step in articulating and realizing a vision for the future.
From Preservation to Reconstruction
Simple preservation was the earliest form of wildlife management. In
the System’s first years, it consisted mostly of posting boundary signs,
law enforcement, and periodic counts of wildlife. Despite the early
constraints of funding and staff, refuges were formed across the
country by Executive Orders and Acts of Congress. If the habitat could
at least be made secure at places called Wichita Mountains, National
Fulfilling the Promise 11
“Wild beasts and birds are by
right not the property merely
of the people who are alive
today, but the property of
unknown generations, whose
belongings we have no right to
squander.”
—Theodore Roosevelt
Bison Range, National Elk, Aleutian Islands, Malheur, Bear River,
Sheldon, and Upper Mississippi, it was a start.
As drought and economic depression swept across America in the early
1930s, waterfowl and other wetland wildlife seemed to be blowing away
with the soil. Concerned conservation groups and individuals took a
moment’s pause from the hardships of people to remember the
hardships on wildlife. With a Duck Stamp to raise funds, seed money
from Congress, and a host of Civilian Conservation Corps camps, the
System began an unprecedented crusade for waterfowl and other
wildlife through habitat restoration. In 1937, John N. Bruce, engineer
of the camp at Tamarac Refuge wrote:
“Hence, we wake up and live again, in reality, those forgotten
pioneer days of our forefathers, to bring back as near as possible,
at least in this area, those same abundant conditions of nature as
they existed before the advent of civilization.”
The machines of exploitation that drained the vast marshes, cleared the
pristine forests and plowed the prairie bare now became the tools for
restoring habitat. From constructing dikes and water control
structures to the purposeful neglect of drainage ditches, the flow of life
was restored to the great marshes and swamps of Agassiz, Horicon,
Necedah, Okefenokee, and Seney. Trees, shrubs, and grasses were used
as sutures to close the gaping scars of abuse at Piedmont and Noxubee.
Remnants of vast wetlands in the Klamath Basin and Sacramento and
San Joaquin valleys were saved and restored from giant reclamation
projects constructed in the name of agriculture. Bare soil was planted
to grasses and forbs on scores of prairie refuges from North Dakota to
Texas.
With habitat restored, wildlife returned and a national network of
habitat began to emerge. The System became the preeminent example
of habitat restoration in the country and perhaps the world. Americans
took notice. Other countries took notice and came to look, marvel, and
learn. Even today, habitat restoration remains a hallmark of the
System.
In Alaska, entire ecosystems were set aside as refuges by early
Executive Orders and through the passage of the Alaska National
Interest Lands Conservation Act in 1980. Refuges the size of states
were added to the System including Yukon Flats, Yukon Delta, Arctic,
Kenai, and the Alaska Peninsula. These living laboratories of biological
diversity (biodiversity) presented a new challenge and a new paradigm
of wildlife management. Rather than habitat restoration, the challenge
was to maintain intact natural systems through protection, extensive
monitoring, and oversight of wildlife-related recreation and subsistence
use by native people.
12 Wildlife and Habitat
As the System grew, the concepts of biodiversity, ecosystems,
landscapes, watersheds, and conservation biology would begin to creep
into the vocabulary of researchers, professors, and refuge staffs. An
evolution in habitat management occurred—from managing for a few
species to managing for many species using more natural processes.
Rather than hold water high in impoundments year-round just for
waterfowl, levels could be timed to provide habitat for migrant
shorebirds or to accommodate fish passage and spawning. Rather than
plant tame grasses and forbs just for ducks, a full array of native
grasses and forbs started to become available to help rebuild prairie
diversity. Rather than fighting seasonal flood waters on river refuges,
dikes could be designed so the floodplain could benefit from the life-giving
pulse of the river. Rather than mow and hay lands to set back
succession, natural processes like fire could do the work. Rather than
farming intensively to provide food for migratory birds, moist soil units
could provide abundant natural foods. Rather than fight wildfires,
prescribed fire could be used to reduce hazardous fuel loads and restore
wildland fire as an ecological process.
Today, many refuges are involved in the actual reconstruction of rare
habitats. At the Neal Smith Refuge in Iowa, land that grew corn and
soybeans for 150 years is the site of one of the largest tallgrass prairie
reconstructions in the United States. Refuge staff, students, and
volunteers are collecting seeds from the forgotten roadsides and
country cemeteries where prairie plants have avoided extinction, with
the hope of returning over 100 prairie plant species to several thousand
acres of refuge landscape. At Big Muddy Refuge in Missouri, the river
itself will be the habitat manager through its power to create chutes
and sandbars, willow thickets, and cottonwoods. It will continue to
renew the floodplain of this refuge by periodic scouring in time of flood,
effectively managing plant succession on a timetable set eons ago.
One can imagine Aldo Leopold himself looking over the shoulder of
managers, smiling and whispering: “take care of the cogs and wheels of
the land first and wild things will appear.”
Biological monitoring programs evolved as well. Surveys and censuses
were expanded beyond the traditional waterfowl and resident game
species to encompass the myriad of waterbirds, songbirds, and
endangered or threatened species whose welfare is entrusted to the
Service on behalf of the American people. Working with colleges and
volunteers, more thorough inventories of small mammals, raptors,
neotropical migrants, reptiles, amphibians, fish, and invertebrates were
undertaken. Research projects on traditional species were expanded to
include a broader array of species, including understanding more fully
the response of native plant communities to management practices
such as water level change and fire.
Fulfilling the Promise 13
This evolution in refuge management also included new insights into
objective setting. Numeric species population objectives, although still
important on many areas, are being replaced by habitat objectives.
Today, many refuges are focusing more on the amount of land that can
be restored to presettlement vegetation conditions than the sheer
numbers of a particular species or groups of species that can be
attracted. Thus, the population objectives for certain species are being
given a clearer link to habitat objectives, with an eye toward
maintaining or restoring native plant communities that sustained
America’s immense species diversity for thousands of years.
Wilderness and Natural Areas
As early as the 1950s, the System began to focus on preserving unique
plant communities. The Service had designated distinct grassland
areas on refuges in the Nebraska Sandhills as Research Natural Areas,
and in 1959, recommended to the Society of American Foresters that 25
unique forest stands on 17 refuges be added to the Society’s list of
natural areas. By 1993, the Service had designated 208 areas totaling
1,950,000 acres as Research Natural Areas, 35 areas totaling 211,000
acres as Public Use Natural Areas, and 43 National Natural
Landmarks. Collectively, these lands are part of a national network
representing a stunning array of North American ecological
communities and their biodiversity.
The System has also sought to preserve special places of wildness.
Prior to the Wilderness Act of 1964, many areas on refuges were
serving as de facto wilderness due to remoteness, inaccessibility, and
the protection provided by refuge designation. Beginning in 1968, with
the formal designation of the Great Swamp Wilderness Area on Great
14 Wildlife and Habitat
Galen Rathbun
Swamp Refuge in New Jersey, wilderness in the System has grown to
over 20.6 million acres on 75 designated areas. In addition, National
Wild and Scenic Rivers have been designated on five refuges in Alaska
and a stretch of the Niobrara River on Fort Niobrara refuge in
Nebraska; a total of 1,390 miles of river destined to always run wild and
free.
Evolution of Policy
It is debatable whether wildlife management policy was shaped by
activities on the ground or if policy shaped the activities. Like any
evolutionary or adaptive process, it was probably both. Policy sought to
define a balance between the intensive management often needed and
the “let nature take its course” management across an ever-growing
diversity of lands.
Today, the System seeks to better define, and refine, the often
compelling and at times contradictory ideas of how wildlife and habitat
should be managed and what new habitat should be brought into the
System. Rather than a return to strict preservation, managers seek a
balance through natural processes and native species in their habitat
restoration and maintenance efforts. As stated in a 1993 memo to
managers from an Assistant Regional Director in one region:
“Our national habitat base has been reduced to a point where we
must rely on refuges and other dedicated wildlife lands to produce
a larger portion of public wildlife benefits. Hence, manipulating
habitats will be imperative for most areas to meet their purposes
and approved objectives. You can, however, make your active
management practices as “natural” looking as possible. Use a
light hand and a fine brush whenever you can as you paint your
vision on the land.” —S. Haseltine
And in a memo to managers from a refuge supervisor in 1994:
“We will have the wisdom to know when to manage, and when not
to. Some lands and waters will best be left unmanaged to provide
a wide array of benefits in rhythm with their own natural history,
not man’s. On other lands and water, we will need to manage plant
succession to provide pioneering through climax communities that
accommodate species of all ecological niches. Stations should
eventually have a landscape plan that visually depicts their habitat
vision, the balance between naturalness and management, and the
spatial and biological relationship of the station with surrounding
private and public lands.” —D. Hultman
An emerging philosophy is also shifting emphasis from traditional, site-specific
wildlife population objectives to habitat objectives. This
philosophy, culminating in Comprehensive Conservation Plans and
holistic Habitat Management Plans, will emphasize habitat and species
Fulfilling the Promise 15
population objectives based on a broader view that considers not only
refuge purposes, but national, regional, and ecosystem level priorities.
The Refuge Improvement Act also enlarges the canvas for painting a
future vision for the System. The Act requires that System growth be
planned to contribute to the conservation of ecosystems, and
complement efforts of states, Tribes, and other Federal agencies to
conserve fish, wildlife, and plant habitats. It also requires that the
biological integrity, diversity, and environmental health of the System
be maintained for the benefit of present and future generations. Only
through sound wildlife and habitat science, and the resources and
partnerships to carry it out, will the System remain healthy and grow
strategically rather than opportunistically.
Vision for the Future
With the Service’s focus on an ecosystem approach to management,
and the development of partnerships to accomplish ecosystem
conservation goals, the System should provide a model of how to apply
good science in wildlife conservation. Clear policies and goals for the
System and ecosystems must be developed and stepped down to
individual refuges for incorporation in Comprehensive Conservation
Plans and other planning documents. Continued coordination with
states, Tribes, local governments, and private citizens will be
important.
Now and in the future, rigorous approaches to inventorying and
monitoring wildlife resources are needed to provide the information
critical to devise, evaluate, and refine management strategies
implemented to meet refuge goals and objectives. Although
conservation plans dictated by the Refuge Improvement Act will not be
completed for all refuges for 15 years, there is no need to wait until
plans are completed to implement good, scientific techniques. Refuges
must use the best information available to develop goals and objectives
now, and implement them on the ground. Management reviews must
then be implemented and used to evaluate programs and refocus them
as necessary. Recommendations for course correction must be
supported by the chain-of-command to ensure success. Tantamount to
refuges becoming centers of wildlife management excellence is the
development of a strong biological program with adequate resources to
provide critical information for difficult management decisions in an
atmosphere of competing needs and uses.
The wildlife and habitat vision for the System is multi-faceted reflecting
the breadth and scope of effective land, water, air, and fish and wildlife
stewardship. The vision stresses the basic principles that wildlife
comes first, that ecosystems, biodiversity and wilderness are vital
concepts in refuge management, that refuges must be healthy, and that
16 Wildlife and Habitat
growth of the System must be strategic. The vision also recognizes a
commitment to leadership and excellence in wildlife management, and
a responsibility to share this leadership by being models for others to
learn from and follow.
Wildlife Comes First: Refuges are places where wildlife comes first.
Anchors for Ecosystem Refuges are anchors for biodiversity and
Conservation: ecosystem-level conservation and the System
is a leader in wilderness preservation.
Healthy Wildlife Lands and waters of the System are
Habitats: biologically healthy, and secure from
outside threats.
Leaders and Centers The System is a national and international
of Excellence: leader in habitat management and a center
for excellence where the best science and
technology is used for wildlife conservation.
Strategic Growth: Strategically located lands and waters are
added to the System until, in partnership with
others, it represents America’s diverse
ecosystems and sustains the nation’s fish,
wildlife, and plant resources.
Models of Land The System is a model and demonstration
Management: area for habitat management which fosters
broad participation in natural resource
stewardship.
Issues and Needs
Wildlife Comes First
Trust Species—Integrating Objectives. Trust species include
endangered and threatened species, migratory birds, interjurisdictional
species of fish, marine mammals, and other species listed in individual
refuge establishing legislation or Executive Orders. The sheer number
of species for which refuges have trust responsibilities creates a
challenge for managers faced with what often seems like wildlife
management triage.
Of the nation’s 1,107 threatened and endangered plant and animal
species listed as of October 1998, 257 are found within the System.
Fifty-six refuges were created under the authority of the Endangered
Species Act, explicitly for conservation of endangered species. Refuges
have played an instrumental role in the recovery of several species
including the whooping crane, Aleutian Canada goose, Key deer, and
Fulfilling the Promise 17
American crocodile. Recovery of at least 90 more threatened or
endangered species is dependent in large part on how well they are
cared for on refuges, and refuges contribute substantially to
international endangered species conservation efforts by providing
habitat for species listed under the Convention on International
Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). Service policy ensures that
conservation of listed species is the highest priority on refuges, and
guidance to refuges usually comes through individual recovery plans.
Balancing the allocation of available resources among threatened and
endangered species, especially when they occur on refuges with
purposes for other wildlife such as waterfowl, can be challenging.
Conservation of migratory birds is often considered the central
connecting theme of the System. Over 200 refuges were established for
migratory birds and more than one million acres of wetlands on 356
refuges and over 3,000 waterfowl production areas are actively
managed for the benefit of waterfowl and other wetland-dependent
birds. Approximately 50 species of
waterfowl and other migratory
gamebirds have been Service and
System priorities since the 1930s.
The System has an outstanding
record for contributing to the
successful recovery and
subsequent support of sustainable
hunted populations for many of
these species. State-of-the-art
waterfowl management is being
practiced on many refuges. Additionally, emphasis for migratory bird
management has expanded over the past decade to include 700 non-game
species of colonial waterbirds, birds of prey, shorebirds, seabirds,
and songbirds. Separate, broad-scale plans and programs urge refuges
to develop conservation strategies for different groups of migratory
birds. These include Flyway Plans, the North American Waterfowl
Management Plan, Partners in Flight, the National Shorebird Plan and
associated Western Hemispheric Shorebird Reserve Network, and the
Colonial Waterbird Plan.
A large portion of the country’s freshwater and marine fish populations
are declining because of overharvest and water quality and quantity
problems. Many refuges are important in helping to meet the Service’s
responsibilities for conservation of interjurisdictional fish, for which
management is a partnership between the Service and other Federal,
state, tribal, or local jurisdictions.
Marine mammals using coastal refuges include sea otters, walruses,
manatees, polar bears, seals, and sea lions. As with interjurisdictional
fish, marine mammals require complex management strategies
employing partnerships with various groups such as the National
18 Wildlife and Habitat
“The language of birds is very
ancient,and,like other ancient
modes of speech,very elliptical;
little is said,but much is meant
and understood.”
—Gilbert White
Marine Fisheries Service, Native American commissions, and states. In
Alaska, cooperative management of marine mammals with Alaska
Natives, who use these animals for subsistence purposes, is underway,
and these partnerships are likely to expand in the future. Clear,
integrated goals are essential to avoid serious conflicts.
Finally, some refuges have trust responsibilities for large mammals or
other species that are normally not identified as trust species for the
Service. Examples include pronghorn at Hart Mountain Refuge, elk at
the National Elk Refuge, and
bison at the National Bison Range.
The Refuge Improvement Act
clarifies the intent to manage
refuges as a system instead of
disparate units. Refuges are faced
with the challenge of meeting
their establishing purposes, while
finding ways to contribute
substantially to broader System
and ecosystem needs. Individual
refuges at times try to manage for
too many species groups on each
unit based on directives from
various plans and programs.
There is a clear need to develop
and implement biological goals and objectives at various landscape
levels including System, individual refuges, and ecosystems, and in the
context of regional or national plans. Integration of goals, particularly
among Service programs, should reduce inefficiency and frustration
that sometimes occurs when refuge staffs and personnel from other
Service programs try to focus together on ecosystem priorities. Absent
broad System and ecosystem perspectives, it is difficult for managers
to resolve conflicting priorities among species groups. Refuge staffs will
need clear perspectives on how each refuge can contribute to broader
System and ecosystem needs.
Recommendation WH 1: Develop integrated population goals and
objectives (as appropriate) at the System,
regional, ecosystem, and refuge levels;
develop refuge priorities among species or
species groups accordingly; and use the
priorities to implement appropriate wildlife
conservation strategies at each refuge.
Better Habitat Management through Better Planning. Meeting the
conservation challenges of the 21st century will require large-scale and
long-term planning. To be leaders in this effort, the Service must set
Fulfilling the Promise 19
William Vinje
national and regional priorities for habitat protection and management
which address the nation’s most critical resource conservation needs.
Often, international resource issues and needs will shape these
priorities.
Collaborating with its conservation partners will greatly enhance the
Service’s effort. The North American Waterfowl Management Plan and
its Joint Venture Plans, Partners in Flight Regional Conservation
Plans, and information from the Western Hemisphere Shorebird
Reserve Network and The Nature Conservancy’s Natural Heritage
database are among the many important tools available for use in
setting the Service’s national and regional habitat priorities. In
addition, the resource planning and information databases completed
by the states are effective tools for refuge habitat planning. Ecosystem
Teams, working with national programs and individual refuges, could
have major responsibility for identifying national, regional, and
ecosystem habitat priorities.
The role of the System in meeting conservation priorities must be
defined through the Comprehensive Conservation Plan and Habitat
Management Plan for each refuge. Both the strategic growth and the
management of the System must be directed toward these conservation
priorities. These conservation priorities should be incorporated into the
nationally coordinated approach developed to prioritize lands and
waters for acquisition referenced under Recommendation WH 17.
Resources to ensure sufficient scope and quality of these plans must be
brought to bear. A training program on the development of Habitat
Management Plans, similar to what the National Conservation Training
Center has done for Comprehensive Conservation Plans, would greatly
contribute to quality and consistency. The habitat management
programs developed through these planning processes must reflect the
mandate of the System to conserve the nation’s ecosystems and its fish,
wildlife, and plant resources.
Recommendation WH 2: Establish national, regional, and ecosystem
habitat priorities to direct the strategic
growth and long-term management of the
System. Habitat priorities would be the basis
for national, regional, and ecosystem habitat
goals and objectives which will be
incorporated in refuge Comprehensive
Conservation Plans and Habitat
Management Plans.
Anchors for Biodiversity and Ecosystems
Biodiversity. The Refuge Improvement Act mandates conservation of
fish, wildlife, and plants on all refuges. Besides providing habitat for
specific trust species, refuges provide important habitats for a wide
20 Wildlife and Habitat
variety of transient and resident species. These species, including
plants, game and non-game vertebrates, and invertebrates, are
important contributors to overall biodiversity on refuges. Management
of many of these species remains a collaborative effort with states
which have primary responsibility for these species off System lands.
The Service has long recognized the importance of maintaining and
restoring biodiversity on refuges, but an operational definition of the
term has only recently been adopted. The Service Manual definition
states: “Biological diversity is the variety of life and its processes,
including the variety of living organisms and the genetic differences
between them and the communities and ecosystems in which they
occur.”
In order to maintain or restore biodiversity, management should mimic,
where possible, natural systems. Management strategies for desirable
successional stages required to maintain or restore biodiversity may
range from intensive to passive. There is no standard methodology to
identify how each refuge can best contribute to maintaining
biodiversity. The System needs information at ecosystem and refuge
levels on current and historic biodiversity to determine priorities for
management of each refuge. No clear guidance has been forthcoming
on how to prioritize efforts to maintain biodiversity compared to other
programs aimed at conservation of trust resources.
The concept of restoring and maintaining biodiversity must be applied
at the System and ecosystem scales. The challenge will be to set
realistic and reasonable goals for contributions by individual refuges
toward meeting System and ecosystem goals. Maintaining an
ecosystem’s biodiversity will most likely lead to conserving additional
lands and waters through conservation agreements with partners, or
acquisitions from willing sellers.
Recommendation WH 3: Define how the System and each unit can
best contribute to maintaining biodiversity,
and determine biodiversity objectives and
indicators for each refuge within the larger
ecosystem and landscape perspective.
Wilderness Preservation. Wilderness, due to its very nature, is
extremely important to the conservation of biodiversity within the
System. Wilderness on refuges deepens and broadens our perspective
of the refuge landscape, compelling our thought beyond managing it as
habitat for wildlife species. In the wording of the Wilderness Act,
wilderness is “where the earth and its community of life are
untrammeled by man.” It is a reservoir of biodiversity and natural
ecological and evolutionary processes. In the words of Aldo Leopold,
wilderness is a laboratory, “a base datum of normality, a picture of how
Fulfilling the Promise 21
healthy land maintains itself.” In some ways, Research Natural Areas
or other special protection status lands of the System provide these
same biological values.
But wilderness embodies values that transcend the biophysical.
Wilderness is a way of perceiving and valuing; it is as much about a
relationship with the land as a condition of it. It provides recreation,
although the term surely fails to capture the nature of the experience—
the sense of connection visitors find with these primal forces in which
their ancestors were surrounded and thus shaped, the adventure, and
the feelings of renewal, inspiration, and awe. Central to the experience
and awareness of wilderness is humility, with its corollary, restraint;
restraint in what is appropriate for visitors to do, as well as managers.
Restraint is the reason for the “minimum tool” rule, limiting use of our
mechanisms to that which is necessary, and necessary not only to
manage these areas, but to manage them as wilderness.
Beyond its tangible resources and experiential opportunities,
wilderness is a symbolic landscape. It encompasses values and benefits
that extend beyond its boundaries, to the millions of Americans who
will never visit, but find satisfaction in just knowing these vestiges still
exist. Wilderness areas are valued as remnants of our American
cultural heritage as well as our universal evolutionary heritage,
symbolically enshrining national as well as natural values. Wilderness
protection serves as the most
visible symbol of our generation’s
willingness to pass on some
natural treasures as we found
them. It is the finest example,
perhaps, of our sense of
stewardship of the System.
To meet its long-term stewardship
responsibilities, the Service needs
to elevate the stature of its 20
million acres of wilderness, both
internally and externally. The
Service needs to increase its role
in the interagency wilderness management community. It needs to
expand its commitment to effective management through interaction
with other agency managers, partners, and researchers. The Service
needs to acknowledge wilderness as a unique resource, the
management of which is a specialized discipline.
Internally, the Service needs to enhance understanding of the full
spectrum of wilderness values and the means by which they can be
protected and made available to the public. Training is needed because
many managers have difficulty incorporating even the physical
standards of wilderness into the traditional paradigms of refuge
22 Wildlife and Habitat
“It is easy to specify the
individual objects in these
grand scenes; but it is not
possible to give an adequate
idea of the higher feelings of
wonder, astonishment and
devotion, which fill and
elevate the mind.”
—Charles Darwin
management. Fewer managers are trained to assess and protect the
psychological, symbolic, and spiritual meanings wilderness offers. The
Service needs to better use the growing body of social sciences
literature that supports a land ethic that pairs both the biological and
human dimensions and more explicitly incorporates the hard-to-define,
but nevertheless real, values of
wilderness. Wilderness Areas,
Wild and Scenic Rivers,
International Biosphere
Reserves, Research Natural
Areas, and other specially
designated lands and waters are
special parts of the System
requiring special attention.
National wilderness policy
development and planning should
address possibilities for
expanding wilderness and other
special areas within the System.
Areas that have been
recommended for wilderness but
not yet designated by Congress should be managed to preserve their
wilderness characteristics. The Service should evaluate lands added to
the System since the Service completed its wilderness reviews and
recommend suitable areas for designation. In addition, the Service
should take a fresh look at areas previously studied for suitability as
wilderness that were not recommended. For example, while the Service
determined, in 1985, that 52.7 million acres of refuge lands in Alaska
qualified for designation as wilderness, only 3.4 million acres were
recommended for such designation. On many refuges, circumstances
and management may have changed since the recommendations were
made.
Recommendation WH 4: Develop national policies and a national
management plan which address wilderness
values on refuges, wilderness management
capabilities, and evaluation of lands for
wilderness or other special preservation
designation.
Healthy Wildlife Habitats
Lands protected through the System are in public ownership to meet
the life-long habitat needs of fish, wildlife, and plant resources. The
American public expects that refuge habitat should be protected or
enhanced in order to meet those needs for the benefit of current and
future generations.
Fulfilling the Promise 23
John & Karen Hollingsworth
A refuge does not exist in isolation of its surrounding watershed.
Habitat on many refuges can be threatened by external factors, such as
contaminated air and water; altered or depleted surface and subsurface
water supply; and other land, water, and air use factors within the
watershed. Given the size of watersheds in which most refuges are
located, it is not realistic for the System to contain enough land to
ensure lasting integrity for every
unit. Thus, to keep refuges
healthy, they must be managed in
concert with adjacent lands.
The Refuge Improvement Act
mandates that the health and
integrity of System lands be
maintained. The Service will
prepare Comprehensive
Conservation Plans and step-down Habitat Management Plans that
will address habitat management priorities on System lands. However,
to maintain quality habitat on refuges, the Service must address
threats beyond refuge boundaries. Communication and coordination
among all Service programs will ensure that these threats are fully
addressed. Additionally, all Service employees must continue to
communicate and develop progressive working relationships with
adjacent and upstream landowners, whose land management
perspective may be different from that of the Service. Cooperative
partnerships with private landowners and full collaboration with Tribes
and state fish and wildlife agencies to comprehensively address fish and
wildlife conservation needs in the watershed will be necessary to
sustain healthy habitats on refuge lands.
The growing complexity of external threats requires that a systematic,
interdisciplinary assessment be conducted at appropriate scales. The
scale may be at the level of the individual refuge, on the watershed or
ecosystem level, or at the regional level. Collecting the information in a
standardized manner will support a national initiative to address
external threats to air and water quality and water quantity issues and
ultimately will improve the health and integrity of the System as a
whole.
Having Adequate Water Quantity. Adequate supplies of surface and
subsurface water are necessary to nourish abundant and healthy
wildlife. The Service needs to be a strong advocate for fish, wildlife,
and plants in the adjudication and allocation of water rights and the
protection of natural hydrological systems. Habitat depends not just on
the quantity of water, but also on the timing and duration of flows and
other factors. To protect this important resource, and ensure that water
quantity problems are identified before they become too difficult to
remedy, a comprehensive assessment of the available water supply,
projected water needs, and status of existing and needed water rights
24 Wildlife and Habitat
“If you are protecting what
is inevitably an island in
the midst of degradation,
you’ve lost.”
—Bruce Babbitt
should be completed for each refuge. Recommended actions to address
existing or anticipated water rights/supply problems should be
included. The assessment should be undertaken concurrently with
Comprehensive Conservation Planning, unless existing issues—such
as general stream adjudications—require completion at an earlier
date. With clear direction and guidance from the Office of the Solicitor,
each region should conduct a comprehensive assessment to determine
the status of existing water rights and projected water needs for each
refuge. Furthermore, new refuge acquisitions must be secured with
existing water rights and the Service must maintain the ability to
negotiate for future water needs.
The Service will continue to cooperate with the states on all matters
related to water use and water rights, and will seek to resolve conflicts
through negotiation to the maximum extent possible in coordination
with the Office of the Solicitor.
Recommendation WH 5: Conduct a comprehensive assessment of
existing water rights and needs for water
quantity and timing in each region to
include, where appropriate, remedies to
resolve outstanding issues.
Assessing External Threats. Healthy watersheds are necessary to
sustain quality habitat on lands in the System. There is an ongoing
need to identify potential threats from contaminated air, soil, and
water; erosion and sedimentation; and cumulative habitat impacts from
land and water resource development activities.
Ecosystem Teams represent many Service programs and have the
interdisciplinary capability to identify existing and potential threats to
the integrity of System lands, and to recommend solutions. As
discussed earlier, each refuge Comprehensive Conservation Plan
should include provisions to resolve existing and potential threats
identified by the Ecosystem Teams. The Service’s Partners for Fish and
Wildlife and Challenge Cost Share programs, and other Federal, state,
and private programs should be used to address off-refuge threats and
provide opportunities for the Service to enter into partnerships to
protect refuge resources and interests. Internal capabilities of all
Service programs will be necessary to systematically monitor external
threats and the effectiveness of actions to resolve them.
Recommendation WH 6: Identify and recommend solutions for
external threats to refuge habitats, such as
air and water quality and cumulative
impacts from watershed development.
Fulfilling the Promise 25
Problem and Invasive Species Management. Habitat alteration,
particularly through urbanization and agricultural development, has
resulted in major changes in abundance and distribution of wildlife
populations. Introductions or expansions of animal and plant
populations to areas where they are not endemic have caused native
species to be displaced or reduced. Feral animals, such as cats, pigs,
and goats, also have direct impacts on local wildlife populations, or, as is
the case with cats on songbirds, their level of predation may be
impacting nationwide populations.
The ecosystem approach to fish and wildlife conservation embraces
both the management of wildlife populations and the maintenance of
biodiversity in natural systems. Refuges, as oases of high-quality
habitat, attract concentrations of wildlife, including those that prey on
or compete with trust species or adversely affect biological integrity.
On many refuges, the absence of limiting factors on predator
populations may create an imbalance that is adverse to maintaining
healthy ecosystems. The Service’s mandate is to conserve native,
endemic populations of fish, wildlife, and plants; however, conflicts in
managing native and non-native species are becoming more common.
Examples include beavers altering managed wetlands, purple
loosestrife choking out native wetland vegetation, leafy spurge
displacing native prairie plants, gull populations displacing other native
birds, and raccoons preying on endangered sea turtle nests.
Management interventions may be necessary to fulfill the Service’s
mandates for both specific wildlife resources and biodiversity. A clear,
biologically sound rationale needs to be documented whenever the
Service proposes to control wildlife and plant populations on System
lands, particularly when the target may be native species.
As noted in Recommendation WH1, System and individual refuge
priorities need to be developed for different kinds of wildlife. Where
appropriate and based on agency priorities and objectives, policies need
to be developed which provide sound justification for reducing impacts
of predators and competitors on other fish, wildlife, and plants. Clear
explanations for reducing problem species to restore ecological balance
need to be incorporated into strong public educational programs. More
research is needed on non-lethal control methods for species that are
most frequently of concern.
Recommendation WH 7: Review and revise existing policies to
strengthen support and action for problem
and invasive species management that is
biologically justified and consistent with
ecosystem and System priorities.
26 Wildlife and Habitat
Leaders and Centers of Excellence
Inventory and Monitoring. System policy requires inventories of
plants, fish, wildlife, and habitats; monitoring of critical parameters and
trends of selected species and species groups; and basing management
on scientifically sound data. Current approaches to inventory and
monitoring on refuges are not consistent across the System. Most
refuges have inadequate baseline data (inventories), so the
consequences of management
actions on non-target species are
frequently not understood.
Currently, systematic monitoring
associated with management
practices is often lacking,
inconsistent, or not focused on
target resources. Furthermore,
many refuges have volumes of
historical biological data that have
not been analyzed and are not
readily retrievable.
Except for a few national surveys,
standard protocols for
inventorying and monitoring are
rarely used, leading to data with
limited value beyond the individual refuge level. The System has not
yet effectively utilized databases to store and analyze basic inventory
and monitoring data. Geographic Information System technology and
other standards have not been consistently implemented for refuge
information to produce resource mapping data that can be shared
across the System, and with other land management agencies. There is
a need for better data analysis
and for biologists to publish
results. Further discussion of
these needs can be found in the
Service’s 1998 Biological Needs
Assessment.
The development of baseline data
for all refuges is a task that will
take years to accomplish.
Development of standard methods
for data collection, storage through computer databases, and
identification of the most significant resources to survey will be
challenging. Refuges will need new computer technology and training,
as well as access to staff specialists at either the refuge, complex, or
regional or Washington office level to ensure data are collected in an
efficient and statistically sound manner. To avoid reinventing methods
and database systems, existing national and ecosystem information
systems need to be reviewed and used as appropriate.
Fulfilling the Promise 27
“Wisdom is not knowledge
of many things, but the
perception of the underlying
unity of seemingly unrelated
facts.”
—John Burnet
USFWS Photo
A further challenge is to better integrate refuges into ecosystem
monitoring programs. Refuges need data for specific refuge
management purposes, but also need to contribute to the overarching
mission of ensuring the biological integrity, diversity, and
environmental health of the System. They should contribute to and
coordinate with other monitoring efforts of the Service (including
international programs), state, Tribal, or other non-governmental
programs.
Recommendation WH 8: Develop refuge inventory and monitoring
plans to ensure that refuges use standard
protocols to develop baseline and trends data
for selected species groups and habitats that
are indicators of biological integrity,
diversity, and environmental health.
Recommendation WH 9: Design or use existing database systems to
store, analyze, and archive inventory and
monitoring data to evaluate management
practices on individual refuges, as well as
link with System, flyway, and ecosystem
databases.
Habitat monitoring is also critical. If we are to lead the world in habitat
conservation, management, and monitoring, it must be by example.
Extensive losses of the bottomland hardwood forest of the Lower
Mississippi River Valley, the tropical forest of Central and South
America, and the old-growth forest of the Pacific Northwest are sad
reminders of failure in habitat conservation and management. Only
through long-term monitoring can humankind identify and highlight
the true effects of our footprint on this earth. The Service must lead in
long-term monitoring, evaluation, and habitat conservation. The
Refuge Improvement Act specifically directs the Service to “monitor
the status and trends of fish, wildlife and plants” on refuges. However,
establishing monitoring protocols on refuges is only a small step toward
understanding the status and trends of habitat change. A more
systematic monitoring system must be developed. The Service will
need to take the lead in developing the criteria and protocol at the
refuge, ecosystem, national, and international level. The success of this
program will hinge on collaboration with partners and the use of up-to-date
technology. Much of the direction at the refuge level is outlined in
the Biological Needs Assessment.
Recommendation WH 10: Develop systematic habitat monitoring
programs at the refuge, ecosystem,
national, and international levels.
28 Wildlife and Habitat
Increasing Interdisciplinary Expertise. Planning and management at
the landscape and ecosystem levels have increased the complexity of
the System’s responsibilities. Maintenance of ecological processes and
natural biodiversity, while considering human needs and influences
within natural systems, requires a broad spectrum of expertise. An
interdisciplinary cadre of specialists (for example, ecologists, physical
scientists, and social scientists) is needed at the appropriate
organizational level to support refuges.
State-of-the-art technologies, such as Geographic Information Systems
and Global Positioning Systems, are highly effective and cost-efficient
tools for landscape-level planning. The Service must increase its
capabilities to use these tools, and should establish and maintain a
national habitat database and metadata management and analysis
capabilities to track habitat trends and monitor the effects of its
landscape-level management efforts. These capabilities will greatly
improve System management.
Sound refuge management decisions demand reliable information
about the causal interrelationships between habitat quality and
quantity, and fish and wildlife population dynamics. Strategies to
achieve an interdisciplinary biological workforce and meet the
information needs of the System, from local to landscape level, are
outlined in the Biological Needs Assessment.
Recommendation WH 11: Ensure an interdisciplinary staff of
specialists and increased use of advanced
technologies at the refuge, ecosystem,
regional and national levels (as
appropriate) to provide habitat
management and monitoring expertise for
the System.
Increasing Staff Expertise and Career Development. The Service’s
biological program for the System is fundamental to wildlife
conservation on refuges. Increasing demand for wildlife-dependent
recreation on refuges and continuing environmental threats to refuges
are pushing the capability of the current biological program beyond its
operational limits. The growing complexity of wildlife conservation
management is creating a new demand for biological capability on
refuges. Biological staffing on refuges has not kept pace with the added
responsibilities. Biological staff have been assigned greater
responsibilities, leaving little time to carry out their most important
functions: inventories; monitoring impacts of management actions; and
designing, implementing, and evaluating management plans and
objectives. Also, refuge biologists are often kept out of the field by
planning, report writing, environmental assessment preparation, and
general refuge administrative duties assigned them due to staff
Fulfilling the Promise 29
shortages in other disciplines. Compounding the problem is a shortage
of biological staff to assist senior biologists with critical field work.
In order to maintain professional biological program staff within the
System, continuing education and active involvement in the larger
professional community are essential. There is a perception among
managers and biologists that attendance at professional meetings is not
encouraged. Patients demand that their doctors stay abreast of the
latest developments in medicine—the Service should make it clear that
they expect, and encourage, the same from its biologists. Also, and
though efforts vary between regions, there are limited means for
refuge biologists to communicate within and outside the Service.
The Refuge Improvement Act requires the Service to monitor the
status and trends of fish, wildlife, and plants on refuges. To adequately
address this mandate, report on impacts of management actions, and
respond to the growing complexity of wildlife conservation on refuges,
the Service will require additional staff and resources for the System’s
biological program as outlined in the Biological Needs Assessment. In
addition, new training specifically tailored to the needs of biologists in
the System should be developed, while existing training needs to be
continually reviewed to ensure relevancy and reflect changes in
technology. The need for expanded opportunities for career
development for biologists at all levels of the System will require more
strategic staffing plans and additional resources. Opportunities for
career advancement in the field beyond the GS-11 level are limited, and
it is becoming increasingly difficult to attract the best biologists and
keep them in the biologist career series.
Recommendation WH 12: Address inadequate and inconsistent
staffing and allocation of resources for
biological programs by increasing
biological staffing at all levels of the System
(having each staffed refuge served by a field
biologist), and funding base biological
programs at each refuge as appropriations
allow.
Recommendation WH 13: Develop a program to address career and
professional needs of biological program
staff by providing career ladders and by
implementing a comprehensive training
program.
Adaptive Management. The basic concept of adaptive management is
to use management actions as “experiments” to gather information
about their effects on wildlife populations. This information is used to
refine approaches and to determine how effectively goals and objectives
30 Wildlife and Habitat
are being accomplished. Many refuges are using some aspects of
adaptive management, but there is a need to expand its application.
Furthermore, evaluations of biological programs are not conducted
regularly for all refuges. These evaluations are needed to provide
accountability and feedback to ensure wildlife conservation goals are
being met. Planned reviews and course corrections need to be timely,
and the process needs to be a high priority for the System. To be
effective, evaluations must be collaborative processes which include
participation from other Service programs and other appropriate
stakeholders.
Recommendation WH 14: Use adaptive management to evaluate
effectiveness of wildlife conservation
programs and periodically evaluate
programs to determine if System,
ecosystem, and individual refuge goals and
objectives are being achieved.
Research for Wildlife and Habitat Management. The System provides
a network of outdoor laboratories for wildlife research, and many
refuges are being used by independent researchers. Management-oriented
research is essential to allow the System to address basic
wildlife conservation questions and to maintain leadership in this field.
Research is needed to develop predictive models of fish and wildlife
habitat relationships. Nevertheless, there is currently no routine
mechanism for identifying needs and securing funding. The formation
of the Biological Resources Division of the United States Geological
Survey resulted in the transfer of
Service research personnel and
funds. With this transfer,
management-oriented research
became more difficult to
accomplish on refuges.
Management-oriented research
needs to be prioritized for the
System to provide a basis for
determining appropriate research funding levels. A process is needed
to identify, prioritize, coordinate, and communicate research needs to
the Biological Resources Division and other research organizations.
Each refuge must also identify information and research needs in the
Refuge Operating Needs System database to articulate funding
shortfalls. It is unlikely that the System will be able to retain the vision
of refuges as centers of excellence in wildlife conservation without a
strong research program, and a challenge will be to ensure adequate
funding support.
Fulfilling the Promise 31
“When one tugs at a single
thing in nature he finds it
attached to the rest of the
world…”
—John Muir
Recommendation WH 15: Identify management-oriented research
needs for each refuge based on System,
ecosystem, and refuge goals. Develop an
effective process to identify and provide
resources required, as well as involve
partners to accomplish high priority
research.
The Biology of Public Use. Although the first refuges were managed as
inviolate sanctuaries with no public use, the System soon changed and
allowed more types and levels of public use on refuges. The System is
currently managing public use through policies in the Service Manual
and compatibility determinations made by each refuge manager.
Compatibility has recently been more clearly defined in the Refuge
Improvement Act. The Act refers to two main types of general public
use: priority wildlife-dependent public uses (hunting, fishing, wildlife
observation, photography, and environmental education and
interpretation), and other general public uses. Refuges need to
facilitate compatible wildlife-dependent public use, but not necessarily
other uses. All uses must be judged against a common standard in
order to be allowed—whether they materially interfere with or detract
from the fulfillment of the mission of the System or the purposes of the
refuge.
Refuge managers often lack adequate scientific data on the effects of
public uses on wildlife populations. There is a need to determine
“thresholds” of public use (types and intensity) that can be allowed
without adverse effects on wildlife populations. Thresholds for different
types of activities could be used to make compatibility determinations
that balance wildlife needs and human use needs.
Recommendation WH 16: Identify thresholds of disturbance for public
use programs and develop associated
standards and mitigative techniques that
can be applied, as appropriate, by
individual refuges to reduce conflict and
achieve balance between public use and
wildlife.
Strategic Growth—Land Acquisition
Numerous laws, not including refuge-specific legislation, give the
Service authority for acquisition of land and water to conserve fish,
plant, and wildlife habitat. The resource purposes of these laws include
migratory birds, wetlands, endangered species, fisheries, wilderness,
and general fish and wildlife habitat. The new mission statement for the
System also includes the conservation of plants that by inference
includes acquisition for their preservation. In addition, wildlife-oriented
32 Wildlife and Habitat
recreation is one of the purposes for acquisition in the Refuge
Recreation Act. In short, the Service has the authority to acquire a
tremendous array of lands under the tenets of various laws and treaties
or the special requests of Congress.
This open-ended framework for acquisition has presented a challenge
to the Service, and for decades it has struggled with the dilemma of
which lands and waters should be brought into the System. The 1968
Leopold Report concluded: “The national refuges constitute an
open-ended system, and units will doubtless be added and others
deleted indefinitely into the
future. But these adjustments
should follow a systematic
procedure aimed at satisfying
firmly defined goals.” The 1992
Defenders of Wildlife report,
Putting Wildlife First,
recommended that “habitat
acquisition, with emphasis on
securing representative habitats
from each bioregion, should be an
integral part of system planning.���
The Land Acquisition Priority
System, called LAPS, in use for
over 10 years, provides a
nationwide biologically-based
evaluation procedure to prioritize lands and waters for acquisition.
However, perhaps by practice and not design, LAPS is a ranking
system sometimes applied after a decision has been made to pursue
acquisition of certain lands. LAPS does not tend to answer which areas
to acquire, but rather in what order.
The Refuge Improvement Act charges the Secretary of the Interior
with planning and directing the growth of the System to accomplish its
mission, to contribute to ecosystem conservation of the United States,
to complement state and other agency efforts, and to increase support
from partners and the public. The door has been opened to the
profound issue of the System’s role in ecosystem conservation, but the
Service has yet to define and articulate that role, especially in the
context of continued priorities for trust resource conservation.
The Service recognizes that one of the most important challenges in the
land acquisition process is the development of integrated national and
regional habitat goals and objectives. Additional data on North
American floral and faunal distribution, species conservation status,
and land cover information will help focus acquisition priorities. In
addition to these efforts a plan should be considered that would link all
habitats throughout North America.
Fulfilling the Promise 33
John & Karen Hollingsworth
National guidance is needed to establish this coordinated approach to
ensure that the Service is pointed in the right direction and achieving
the maximum possible benefit from land acquisition and protection.
This guidance, incorporating national and regional wildlife habitat
priorities, will be stepped down to the Service’s Ecosystem Teams in
order to provide consistent direction in defining the areas of greatest
conservation concern. It should also ensure that LAPS and other land
acquisition processes reflect the areas of greatest conservation
concern and are aligned with this coordinated approach.
Ecosystem Teams should be the primary delivery mechanisms for
establishing priorities and identifying areas of greatest conservation
concern in their ecosystems. The synergy of the Ecosystem Teams
working together with Federal, state, tribal, and private organizations
will ensure that the Service protects the most important areas, and
reduces acquisition planning redundancies. Working with all available
partners will bring more on-the-ground results than any other
available method. Additionally, working in partnership with others will
increase the Service’s base of support and funding at the national
level. The Service cannot lead in each and every case, and in many
instances its best position should be in support of others. New
partnerships, along with comprehensive conservation planning, land
acquisition planning, easements, private land enhancement, and other
processes will provide the necessary building blocks to strategically
locate and protect priority lands and waters of the ecosystem.
Recommendation WH 17: Develop a nationally coordinated approach,
involving Ecosystem Teams and partners,
for prioritizing lands and waters to support
strategic growth in areas of greatest
conservation concern.
Models of Land Management
The wide distribution of refuges throughout the country—in every
state, along flyways and near urban centers—creates untold
opportunities to demonstrate environmentally sound wildlife
management to all people. This access to refuges, and the increased
understanding of the value of habitat management that results from
it, makes a profound difference in how the nation views its remaining
undeveloped lands, as well as the potential for restoring damaged
lands. In addition, to ensure that fish, wildlife, and plant resource
needs are met, the Service must encourage other public and private
land stewards to use sound management techniques such as wetland
restoration and management, reforestation, and prescribed burning.
Promoting land management such as stewardship and protection,
while bringing to light the many benefits associated with habitat
conservation, benefits all. With appropriate linkages and corridors
through private and other public lands, our wildlife and plant heritage
34 Wildlife and Habitat
will continue to flourish in an ever-increasing era of land development
and growth.
Looking beyond refuge boundaries will not only protect current refuge
lands, but will create a healthier environment for all living organisms,
including humans. Environmental and human health concerns from
contaminants, invasive exotic
plants and animals, and declining
water and air quality are all areas
in which the Service can teach and
lead by example. Aldo Leopold’s
philosophy still holds true
today—all stakeholders must
engage and realize that the land
belongs to all of us.
Refuge staff certainly have
proven they can stretch a dime
while continuing to fiercely
promote and defend the natural
resource cause. However, due to
limited funds and staff, and the
escalating demands on refuge staff time, keeping abreast of advances in
habitat management techniques is difficult. Land Management
Demonstration Areas are places where new habitat management
techniques and approaches are developed, implemented and
showcased—places where professional land managers and others come
to learn about cutting edge habitat management techniques and
technology, and carry back with them the information and knowledge
which allows them to better manage their own lands. The success of
these demonstration areas will lead to an expanded ability to solve new
resource challenges on other refuges, and on other public and private
lands.
Demonstration areas do not preclude the need for all refuges to be
models of habitat management, illustrating for the American people the
irreplaceable values of the System. Indeed, only when our refuges are
seen as a coordinated system will Leopold’s vision be attained.
Demonstration Areas —Making it Work. Land Management
Demonstration Areas would showcase habitat management techniques,
increase communication, and promote continued advancements in
technology to Service staff and other land managers. Actually walking
a site and viewing management techniques and habitat results make an
exceptional learning tool for both public and professional audiences. A
set of refuges would be selected to serve as centers of excellence for
developing and transferring information about land management
techniques such as early successional forest management and moist soil
management. These designated sites will have the commitment of a
Fulfilling the Promise 35
“…move beyond your
boundaries, and set in motion
a broad pattern of public
understanding and
stakeholder support, and
ultimately, of restoration in a
broad scale in which we can
all look back and say: ‘it
started here.’”
—Bruce Babbitt
biological staff responsible for staying abreast of these specific land
management practices, maintaining premier field examples of those
practices, and developing new approaches to solving habitat
management issues. Diligent efforts of the Service to seek support
from partnerships, refuge support groups, challenge grants, the
Refuge Operating Needs System, and other sources are essential to the
success of these areas. Additionally, these sites will be used to train
Service and other land managers in the art and science of effective
habitat management and conservation. A task force will carry out the
development of a plan to meet this need. This team will consider the
demonstration potential of all refuges or their special areas including
wilderness and Research Natural Areas, develop priorities and criteria
for the site nomination process, and determine the number and
distribution of sites necessary to fulfill the habitat management
information needs of the System.
Recommendation WH 18: Designate Land Management
Demonstration Areas to facilitate
development, testing, teaching, publishing,
and demonstration of state-of-the-art
management techniques that support the
critical habitat management information
needs for fish, wildlife, and plant
conservation within the System and
other lands.
36 Wildlife and Habitat
Don Hultman
Setting the Example. All refuges have the obligation to set high
standards for habitat management. Similarly, most refuges have an
opportunity—through an active public use program—to demonstrate
and educate the public on sustainable land management techniques and
stewardship. Refuge lands perform a significant role in the
encouragement of sound management and stewardship of public and
private lands. Such lands support ecosystem objectives, joint venture
initiatives, and broad-based landscape and biodiversity efforts.
Influencing the awareness and the actions of others toward habitat
restoration, enhancement, protection, and conservation improves the
quality of habitats locally, nationally, and internationally for all species.
Refuges throughout the nation will reflect the information and
techniques developed and implemented at the Land Management
Demonstration Areas, and thereby make a significant contribution to
the conservation of natural resources through habitat management and
stewardship for fish, wildlife, and plants on all lands.
Even with the best of intentions, funding and staffing limitations make
it extremely difficult for the System to effectively reach the American
public to promote sound land management techniques and resource
decisions. A team will be assembled, involving External Affairs, the
National Conservation Training Center, the United States Department
of Agriculture, and other appropriate parties to determine the most
effective way to proactively communicate land stewardship to the
general public. An outreach program specifically targeted at conveying
sound land management techniques for fish, wildlife, and plants will
complement ongoing initiatives, such as extension programs.
Setting an example in the System also entails setting an example in the
use of the earth’s resources. Each refuge should become a model of the
basic tenets of material conservation: reduce, reuse, and recycle. Our
land management practices, from office work to farming, should be
environmentally sound and set a standard for conservation and care of
soil and water as well as wildlife.
Recommendation WH 19: Develop an outreach and interpretive
program on refuges which specifically
demonstrates and conveys to the American
people the importance of sound land
management for the conservation of native
fish, wildlife, and plants.
Recommendation WH 20: Renew emphasis on reducing, reusing, and
recycling of materials and products used on
refuges, and ensure environmentally sound
and sustainable management practices.
Fulfilling the Promise 37
People
Sharing a Passion for Wildlife
Introduction
From Sanctuary to Showcase
National wildlife refuges in the first decades of the 20th century were
true sanctuaries. Many were guarded by citizen wardens who protected
them from poachers and plume hunters. Visitors were rare—an
occasional scientist, photographer, or bird watcher of means. But as the
System grew, in the 1920s and 1930s, some refuges were opened to
hunting and fishing. Then, in a move to broaden support for raising the
price of the Federal Duck Stamp,
a 1949 amendment to the Duck
Stamp Act permitted hunting on
25 percent (raised to 40 percent in
1958) of the lands purchased for
the System with Duck Stamp
funds.
Interest in using refuges for other
recreation caught the fancy of the
post-World War II generation.
Americans loved to travel the
nation’s back roads, and there,
amidst the hot prairies of the
plains and the salt marshes of the
south, they discovered their
National Wildlife Refuge System. In 1951, the first year visitor use
records were totaled, refuges hosted 3.4 million people. By the end of
that decade, visitation exceeded 10 million.
They came for many reasons, some to fish, and some to hunt. Most
came to share with family and friends the sights and sounds of wildlife
and the wonders of the living world.
But many also came to recreate in other ways: to sail, swim, camp,
water ski, bicycle, ride horses, sun bathe, and rock climb. Although
these lands were dedicated to wildlife conservation, incomplete policies
and an uncertain mission resulted in uses that were not always in
harmony with a refuge’s wildlife conservation purpose.
Fulfilling the Promise 39
“We need the tonic of
wildness—to wade sometimes
in the marshes where the
bittern and meadow hen lurk,
and hear the booming of the
snipe; to smell the whispering
sedge where only some wilder
and more solitary fowl
builds her nest.”
—Henry David Thoreau
Guidance in the first Refuge Manual (1943) was brief. Conflicts between
wildlife and public uses could be forecast, but the door was open to uses
for the cause of building public support:
“Public use of refuge areas will in varying degrees result in
disturbances to wildlife populations, but this adverse effect will be
offset on many refuges by the public relations value of limited
public uses. As a general policy, recreational use on the refuges
shall be held to a minimum commensurate with reasonable local
demands.”
Guidance in the late-1957 Refuge Manual on how to decide which public
uses to allow hinted towards a wildlife first priority, but sent mixed
signals:
“While the primary use of National Wildlife Refuges is for the
protection of wildlife, these areas are managed on a multiple-use
basis insofar as this can be accomplished without defeating the
objectives for which the area was established. Opportunities are
afforded on many areas for fishing, hunting, picnicking,
swimming, and wildlife observation.”
The Refuge Recreation Act of 1962 and the Refuge Administration Act
of 1966 placed into law the concept that refuges would be closed to all
recreation uses, until a manager could determine that a proposed use
was compatible with the refuge’s establishing purpose and that
sufficient funds were available to administer those uses. Refuge
managers were responsible for making these compatibility
determinations. Usually decisions were made locally, and in many
cases, were based on local pressures and interests, likes and dislikes. A
garden of different public uses grew from this approach.
Visitor use, which tripled in the 1950s, increased through the 1960s, and
by the 1970s, nearly tripled again. Refuge staff, so well-trained and
equipped to manage habitat and wildlife, faced new challenges with the
task of managing an eager and active public.
The idea took hold that a better informed public could be a positive
force in shaping conservation awareness, and thus policy and practice.
Recreational facilities were constructed, and interpretive and
environmental education activities were highlighted.
Refuges became showcases for wildlife. They became places for
children to learn firsthand nature���s lessons of adaptation and diversity,
places for twilight strolls on the edge of a marsh, and places to pass on
to a new generation a love for America’s wildlife.
40 People
Partnerships in Public Trust
The first refuge was founded by a President, but it was a part-time boat
builder who first called attention to the plight of the birds on Pelican
Island. The Okefenokee Refuge was established by another Roosevelt,
but not before citizens from rural Georgia hounded their legislators to
take action to protect the swamp’s vast wilderness. From San Francisco
Bay to Minnesota Valley, from New Jersey’s Great Swamp to Florida’s
Sanibel Island, citizen activists with a shared vision for wildlife
stewardship took the lead in saving their corners of the earth from
development and destruction. Dozens of national wildlife refuges were
established through the public’s push for legislative protection. Citizen
action was the impetus for the System; it is still a driving force in its
preservation.
And just as the first refuge manager started as a volunteer, volunteers
today are a significant part of the System workforce. They account for
over a million hours of work on behalf of national wildlife refuges every
year, and they participate in every aspect of refuge work: banding
songbirds, maintaining trails, monitoring air and water quality, and
staffing information desks. If the job needs to be done, chances are
good that a volunteer is doing it and doing it well.
Thus, the heritage of the System is intertwined with the will of
concerned citizens. While partnerships are today a trendy commodity
in government, for the System, they have been a way of life for a
hundred years. This past success intensifies the drive to forge new
alliances for a stronger System of the future.
In Service to Wildlife and People
Over 75 million Americans enjoy watching wildlife and participating in
recreation associated with wildlife, but few really understand how best
to provide the habitat essential to wildlife’s survival. Refuges therefore,
must help increase public understanding of wildlife’s needs. When
people value something, they are
motivated to action. When people
understand the connections
between land management and
larger resource issues in their
lives, they are in a better position
to make wise resource decisions.
The System preserves that part of
the American heritage that is as
common as a robin and as rare as
a condor, as sturdy as cypress and
as delicate as an orchid. People will want to see and enjoy this part of
their legacy, and be assured of its sound stewardship. Public
involvement in refuge management has always been important, but a
better educated and informed public has taken on a greater role in
Fulfilling the Promise 41
“Suffice it to say that by
common consent of thinking
people, there are cultural
values in the sports, customs,
and experiences that renew
contacts with wild things.”
—Aldo Leopold
management decisions. New laws require seeking the public’s opinion
on management decisions; common sense compels us to listen and
respond.
The future of wildlife is best assured by raising the public’s awareness
and understanding in wildlife conservation. This can be done effectively
on national wildlife refuges where visitors can see for themselves the
connections between people and wildlife, habitat, and land
management. Well-designed interpretive signs and exhibits explain
wildlife’s needs and management actions. Many refuges become
learning laboratories where environmental education programs help
teach youth about fish and wildlife resources. They are special places
where children and adults can link with the land and its resources
through hunting and fishing. They are places where the people of today
can renew the ties to their cultural heritage by viewing ancient and
historic sites. These ties, delivered through the System’s public use
programs, strengthen the connection between wildlife and people.
While helping to instill a land ethic in our youth, refuges can also show
landowners how to make sustainable use of their lands and leave room
for wildlife. Ever greater numbers of people are being reached through
timely and effective outreach efforts.
With a century of experience, the System has learned that people are
as much a part of our landscape as the habitat we manage. Our visions
for the System are thus painted with the hues of public enjoyment,
understanding, and involvement.
42 People
Chuck Bosch
Vision for the Future
The National Wildlife Refuge System of the next century will provide
the American people a Legacy of Wildlife, a Place Where Visitors are
Welcome, Opportunities for Stewardship, and a System to Appreciate.
A Legacy of Wildlife: A strong and vibrant System provides an
enduring legacy of healthy fish, wildlife, and
plant resources for people to enjoy today and
for generations to come.
APlace Where Visitors Visitors find national wildlife refuges
Feel Welcome: welcoming, safe, and accessible, with a variety
of opportunities to enjoy and appreciate
America’s fish, wildlife, and plants.
Opportunities for Visitors and local communities recognize
Public Stewardship: refuges as national treasures, actively
participating in their stewardship and
standing firm in their defense.
A System to Americans know that each wildlife refuge is a
Appreciate: part of an enduring national system. They
understand and support the System’s
tremendous contribution toward wildlife
conservation.
Issues and Needs
Providing Quality Wildlife Experiences
More than 30 million people visit national wildlife refuges every year.
Refuges are the “front yards” for the Service, providing people a first-hand
opportunity to experience the Service and its range of activities.
Refuges provide visitors with an understanding and appreciation of fish
and wildlife ecology and help people understand their role in the
environment. Additionally, refuges are places where high-quality, safe,
and enjoyable wildlife-dependent recreation connects visitors to their
natural resource heritage.
The Refuge Improvement Act recognizes the importance of a close
connection between fish and wildlife and the American character, and of
the need to preserve America’s wildlife for future generations to enjoy.
It mandates that compatible, wildlife-dependent recreational uses
involving hunting, fishing, wildlife observation, wildlife photography,
environmental education, and interpretation are the priority public
uses of System. By enjoying these wildlife-dependent activities, the
American public further develops its appreciation for fish and wildlife.
The Act calls for the System to provide increased opportunities for
Fulfilling the Promise 43
families to experience compatible wildlife dependent recreation,
especially opportunities for parents and their children to safely engage
in traditional outdoor activities such as fishing and hunting.
Refuges and waterfowl production areas offer visitors countless
opportunities to witness some of the world’s most amazing wildlife
spectacles amidst breath-taking scenery. Brant in numbers that
blacken the sky can be seen over the rich eelgrass beds at Izembek
Refuge in Alaska. The deafening chatter of a million mallards can be
heard among the solemn
bottomland hardwoods at White
River Refuge in Arkansas.
Thousands of sandhill cranes
create a spectacle of sight and
sound against the backdrop of the
Magdalena Mountains at Bosque
del Apache Refuge in New
Mexico. Over 300,000 Canada
geese create a natural drive-in
theater for visitors along major
highways as the geese return at
dusk to the huge marsh at Horicon Refuge in Wisconsin. And millions
of horseshoe crabs can be seen lining the tidal shores on Bombay Hook
Refuge in Delaware, to be followed by another spectacle as tens of
thousands of migrating shorebirds refuel on the billions of eggs left by
the crabs.
The habitat that makes refuges attractive for wildlife has also attracted
people for over 12,000 years. More than 11,000 archaeological and
historical sites have been identified on refuges, while thousands more
remain unidentified. These sites provide significant opportunities for
linking people to landscapes. Examples include the Spanish settlers
who constructed irrigation ditches across the valley that became
Alamosa Refuge in Colorado, the people who gather rice on the
marshes that are now Rice Lake Refuge in Minnesota, the hunters and
mound builders who lived and died in and around the great swamp we
now call Okefenokee Refuge in Georgia, and the thousands of settlers
in wagon trains who stopped for rest and water at the Green River on
what would become Seedskadee Refuge in Wyoming. The System also
has an opportunity to link with national historic celebrations such as
the bicentennial of the 1803 Lewis and Clark expedition which passed
through many present-day refuges.
The cultural resources people left behind, their “footprints on the
landscape,” provide a historical record of their relationship with natural
resources. Learning the history of Americans’ relationship to wildlife
and the environment, through interpretive and environmental
education programs, can be the first step in understanding and
developing solutions to current issues.
44 People
“For us in the minority, the
opportunity to see geese is
more important than
television, and the chance to
find a pasque-flower is a right
as inalienable as free speech.”
—Aldo Leopold
Quality public use programs will ensure that refuge visits are as special
as the places themselves. Ensuring quality means taking care of the
details: visitor safety, setting and meeting facility and program
standards, providing exemplary customer service, and having sufficient
data for monitoring and improvement.
Protecting Refuge Resources and Visitors. Protecting refuge resources
and the safety of visitors are the most fundamental responsibilities of
refuge managers. Managers are accomplishing this responsibility
primarily with staff who have law enforcement as a collateral or part-time
duty.
Refuge law enforcement has always been a dangerous job—a job that
daily puts refuge officers in harm’s way. It is a job which more than
once has cost the lives of refuge officers. As crime continues to find its
way to rural America—and as refuges become more a part of the urban
and suburban landscape—refuges face a larger and more complicated
enforcement problem. In addition to over 10,000 natural resource
violations every year, serious felonies, including homicides, rapes,
assaults, and acts of arson occur on refuges every year.
During the National Wildlife Refuge System Conference (October
1998), a break out session discussion focused on the need to develop
national standardized position descriptions and career ladders for full-time
and dual-function officers
that provided retirement benefits,
where justified, and the need to
establish full-time regional and
national law enforcement
coordinators to manage and
advocate refuge law enforcement
program needs.
It is vital that the Service solve
the dilemma of how to provide
basic visitor and resource
protection services with limited
staff and funding. On some
refuges, full-time law enforcement
officers are helping meet the
increasingly complex task of
refuge law enforcement. Yet, most refuges cannot afford a full-time law
enforcement position. Can full time officers be shared between refuges?
Is the collateral-duty law enforcement officer model viable in the 21st
century? Do full-time officers have a career ladder within the Service?
Are there ways to contract out enforcement protection? Is training
adequate to keep pace with enforcement problems? What is the legal
risk to individuals with enforcement responsibilities? A thorough
assessment of refuge law enforcement is long overdue. This assessment
Fulfilling the Promise 45
John & Karen Hollingsworth
should be done by a mix of staff, including full-time officers,
collateral-duty officers, regional and national coordinators, the
Division of Law Enforcement, and staff from sister agencies who
face these same issues.
Recommendation P1: Assess the status of public safety and resource
protection provided by refuge law enforcement
officers, and make recommendations for the
future direction of law enforcement in the
System. This assessment will determine
appropriate staffing, position classification,
training, recruitment, retention, retirement,
and career pathways for refuge officers.
Meeting Minimum Standards. The Service recognized the importance
of public use as a goal of the System, and in 1984, developed ten
National Public Use Requirements as minimum standards for refuge
facilities and programs for visitors:
– set station public use goals;
– project a positive attitude;
– welcome and orient visitors;
– develop key resources awareness;
– provide observation opportunities;
– provide teacher assistance;
– maintain quality hunting programs;
– maintain quality fishing programs;
– manage cultural resources; and
– explore public assistance opportunities.
In the past, and to varying degrees throughout the country, these
minimum public use standards were used in refuge evaluations called
Public Use Reviews. In the Great Lakes-Big Rivers Region for
example, the public use review has been tied into an overall refuge
evaluation. Another option
included conducting a more
specific and comprehensive public
use review separately for refuges
with more complex programs. The
public use review teams consisted
of regional office staff, often
including refuge supervisors, as
well as field public use staff and
the refuge manager and staff.
These public use reviews provided
complete documentation of the facilities and program improvements
needed to attain the public use service identified in that process. The
regions need to recommit to the Public Use Review process, and ensure
46 People
“Recreational development is
a job not of building roads
into lovely country, but of
building receptivity into the
still unlovely human mind.��
—Aldo Leopold
that they are accomplished in conjunction with the preparation of
Comprehensive Conservation Plans, and then on a regular cycle.
Although the premises behind the ten National Public Use
Requirements are still valid in general terms, they are outdated and do
not reflect the Refuge Improvement Act, National Outreach Strategy,
National Wildlife Refuge System Volunteer and Community
Partnership Enhancement Act of 1998, and directives on accessibility,
compatibility, and law enforcement.
In addition, reviews of public use programs will need to include a
review of cumulative impacts on the resource from visitor use, an
analysis of audience and messages used in interpretive and education
programs, interactions between user groups, the refuge’s role in
outreach, and how the refuge can most effectively meet the needs of
visitors with disabilities. These reviews will reinforce a more consistent
application of national public use policies leading to a stronger System,
and visitors to any refuge will have a clear expectation of the products,
experiences, and services available during their visit.
Recommendation P2: Update the National Public Use Requirements.
Each region will conduct evaluations of refuge
public use programs to aid refuges in meeting
new standards, identify deficiencies in the
delivery of visitor services, and document needs
and set priorities in operational, maintenance,
and construction project databases.
Reporting Consistently and Accurately. Public use data are collected
by refuges and compiled and reported in the Refuge Management
Information System database. While the database provides a strong
platform for reporting and compiling visitor use information, the
accuracy of the data collected at the field level is of inconsistent quality.
Lack of information about how to efficiently measure the number of
visitors who use refuges and waterfowl production areas, and the
cumbersome process to receive survey approval are obstacles to
improving public use counts. The use of existing data to identify trends
is valid, but accurate information is needed to document results,
evaluate service, and demonstrate accomplishments and results to
Congress and the American people. Therefore, the Service should
develop a Systemwide visitor counting survey and techniques
handbook and train refuge staff to accurately and consistently report
visitor use and evaluate the quality of the visitor experience.
Improving Customer Service. In 1996, the Service and the National
Park Service developed a new system for evaluating how well they
provided quality services and facilities to visitors. A “Customer Bill of
Rights” was developed and a pilot survey project conducted to measure
Fulfilling the Promise 47
the effectiveness in meeting the following standards: treating visitors
with courtesy; responding to visitors in a timely and professional
manner; maintaining a professional appearance and positive attitude;
helping visitors understand who we are and what we do; keeping public
facilities safe, clean, and accessible; and working in partnership with
visitors to conserve fish and wildlife resources.
Visitor feedback cards were distributed to the public at selected
refuges and evaluation reports were prepared by a Service contractor.
While overall visitor satisfaction with basic customer services and
facilities was reported as excellent (70%) and good (28%), only about
15% of the individuals who were given copies of the survey responded
to the questionnaire. The survey will be redesigned to involve more
refuges, contact a greater diversity of refuge visitors, increase the
response rate, and improve delivery methods.
Core Competencies—Meeting the Needs of the Field
The System must have professional public use planners and specialists
in recreation, interpretation, and education to provide the American
people with more and better opportunities to enjoy compatible wildlife-dependent
experiences on refuges. The Division of Refuges in
Washington, D.C., the regional offices, and refuges must have staff with
the core competencies necessary to properly balance the needs of
wildlife and people. Landscape architects, environmental educators,
interpretive writers, planners,
graphic designers, exhibit
designers, and other professionals
in visitor service management,
law enforcement, and volunteer
program management, are
critically needed. From the field to
the regional and Washington
offices, this expertise consistently
falls short of need.
The Washington office and most
regional offices have only one or
two outdoor recreation planners,
education specialists, or
interpretive specialists to provide
nationwide and regionwide
oversight and refuge support. None are adequately staffed to get the
job done considering the size, complexity, and visitation of the System.
Refuges looking for support, guidance, and testing of ideas are too
often left on their own.
Refuges, the front line for public service, are similarly understaffed. In
1997, 114 refuges each hosted 50,000 or more visitors. However, less
than half of these refuges have a staff person whose sole duties are to
48 People
John & Karen Hollingsworth
provide public use services. While maintenance, administrative, and
biological program staffs often have the greatest amount of face-to-face
visitor contact, rarely have they received any customer service
training. At most refuges, no one is specifically trained to plan or
manage public use programs. Even the most visited refuges have only a
skeleton crew to meet the visitor’s needs and to take advantage of the
Service’s best opportunities to inform and educate the public about fish
and wildlife resources.
All refuges need access to staff who are trained in managing public
uses, and who are responsive to the needs of the field. Some refuges,
with relatively lower visitation, might effectively be served by sharing
public use staff. Refuges with higher visitation, with greater
opportunities to efficiently provide public use benefits, or facing
conflicts between public uses and resource values, need full-time public
use staff. Refuge Comprehensive Conservation Plans and refuge public
use evaluations will clarify field staffing needs. Inter-regional reviews
of regional office capabilities and staffing are also needed to identify
gaps in staff and skills. Sufficiently skilled and experienced staffs must
be in place to fulfill the System’s mission and protect its wildlife
resources.
Recommendation P3: Provide each refuge with access to responsive,
professional, public use management staff.
The level of assistance needed at each refuge is
identified in Comprehensive Conservation
Plans, operational evaluations, and inter-regional
reviews. Refuges, regional offices, and
the Division in Washington will have public use
staffs with the skills and abilities needed to
efficiently and effectively meet the needs of the
public and fulfill the System mission.
Compatibility of Uses—Raising the Bar
In the 1970s and 1980s, concerns were raised that some public and
“secondary” uses of the System may be harmful to wildlife. Uses like
waterskiing and power boating had become established on some
refuges during the 1950s and 1960s. At first they seemed to be wildlife
neutral but later were recognized as obstacles to wildlife management.
Refuge staff struggled to reduce or eliminate recreation that is not
wildlife-dependent. Some efforts succeeded, but in other cases,
resistance to change was insurmountable. A Wilderness Society survey,
a Government Accounting Office audit, a Service-commissioned
internal review of secondary uses, a Defenders of Wildlife report, and
finally a lawsuit actually helped the Service address and eliminate
secondary uses that were incompatible with the System’s wildlife
conservation purposes.
Fulfilling the Promise 49
The Refuge Improvement Act put a finer edge on the principles of
public use and compatibility. To ensure that the System’s fish, wildlife,
and plant resources endure, the law of the land now clearly states that
their needs must come first. Thus, uses on a refuge are only to be
allowed after they are determined to be compatible with the System
mission and with the purpose of the refuge. The Service must now
involve the public in compatibility decisions. This involvement is an
opportunity to increase public recognition and support, and instill a
sense of ownership in the System.
The law further asserts the foundational premise that compatible
activities which depend on healthy fish and wildlife populations will be
recognized as priority general public uses. There are six wildlife-dependent
public uses—hunting, fishing, wildlife observation, wildlife
photography, environmental education, and interpretation—and these
are, when compatible, legitimate and appropriate uses of the System
and are to receive enhanced consideration over all other general public
uses. As the House Report to the Refuge Improvement Act points out,
the law is whispering in the manager’s ear to look for ways to permit
these priority public uses when the compatibility requirement can be
met. However, the framers of the Act recognized that it is not feasible
to provide all wildlife-dependent uses on all refuges. The decision on
which compatible activities to allow on each refuge is a function of
refuge purposes, wildlife and habitat objectives, local demographics,
and attributes of the land itself.
To implement the Refuge Improvement Act, the development of
comprehensively written, consistently applied public use management
policies must remain a priority of the Service. New policies should
provide specific guidance on whether and when to allow uses that may
be compatible but are not one of the six priority uses, or which do not
directly support a priority use. Uses that do not directly contribute to
the achievement of the System mission or the purposes of the individual
refuge are often inappropriate. Evaluating and deciding whether such
uses should be allowed may involve a higher standard than
compatibility alone. A decision process with criteria for determining
which proposed uses are appropriate on a refuge needs to be developed
and consistently applied System-wide.
Refuge managers also need better