Mighty lean times for wildlife refuges

There is no money to build a visitors center on the 44,000-acre complex that provides recreation for about 90,000 tourists, anglers, hunters and bird watchers each year. Nor is there money to hire a second full-time law enforcement officer for the complex's three far-flung refuges in Merced and Stanislaus counties.

So Ranger Anthony Merrill patrols the largest freshwater wetland complex left in California with a dog named Scott.

A high-energy, 80-pound Belgian Malinois, Scott can be a formidable ally when Merrill is tracking down poachers, breaking up altercations, searching for marijuana patches and meth labs, or investigating burglar alarms at refuge warehouses. But the pair can cover only one refuge at a time, although drug crimes, fish and game violations, vandalism, dumping and medical emergencies occur throughout the complex.

The National Wildlife Refuge System, part of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, was created a century ago to provide a haven for the most imperiled species. But today the mosaic of 547 refuges covering nearly 100 million acres of swamps, islands, wetlands, deserts, grasslands and forests is itself jeopardized by budget constraints.

Distributed across all 50 states, the refuges are home to hundreds of types of birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians and fish -- many threatened or endangered. But refuge managers say cutbacks are undermining efforts to protect an array of sensitive species, including red wolves, sandhill cranes, pronghorn antelope, sea turtles and rare butterflies.

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Personnel scarce

More than 225 jobs at refuges were cut between fiscal 2004 and 2006, leaving some refuges with no employees. Many refuges operate without full-time law enforcement. Some are losing battles against invasive plant species that choke out wildlife habitat. Education programs for schoolchildren and others are being curtailed or dropped at some refuges. At the 1.5-million-acre Desert National Wildlife Refuge, the largest in the lower 48 states, there is no money to fix a washed-out stretch of a 75-mile dirt road from Las Vegas across the Mojave Desert in Nevada. Some visitors insist on driving through the closed section and get stranded. "I just hope someone does not die before I have the opportunity to have it fixed," manager Amy Sprunger said.