Today on Capitol Hill, a hearing will be held regarding H.R. 2801 (introduced by Rep. Don Young), which would build a $15.6 million, nine-mile gravel road through federally designated wilderness at Izembek National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. Early word is that Dale Hall — director of the US Fish and Wildlife Service — will be [...]

The Detroit Lakes Tribune published a nice editorial letter on October 30 that sums up the joy that many volunteers feel when offering their time to a national wildlife refuge. The person who wrote the letter volunteers at Tamarac National Wildlife Refuge, in the glacial lake country of northwestern Minnesota. Tarmarac was established in 1938 [...]

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is reporting that the Army is getting close to certifying the land at Caddo Lake National Wildlife Refuge in east Texas as ready for public use (see map).
This new refuge came about as a land transfer between the Department of the Army’s Longhorn Army Ammunition Plant and the [...]

In the last few months, two natural disasters have hit several national wildlife refuges hard. The August flooding in the Midwest has had a costly impact on the Upper Mississippi National Wildlife and Fish Refuge. The Associated Press reports:
Days of flash flooding in August along the Minnesota-Wisconsin line left parts of the refuge scarred and [...]

Cape May National Wildlife Refuge, in southern New Jersey, has been named one of the ten most endangered national wildlife refuges by the Defenders of Wildlife in their 2007 Refuges at Risk report.
Cape May NWR was created in 1989 from a 90-acre parcel that was originally acquired by the Nature Conservancy (see map). The refuge [...]

According to a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service press release issued on October 24, the fires in California have destroyed thousands of acres of habitat at Hopper Mountain National Wildlife Refuge and San Diego National Wildlife Refuge. More than 70% of the vegetation at Hopper Mountain NWR was burned by the Ranch Fire (Hopper is [...]

On October 22, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 767, the Refuge Ecology Protection, Assistance, & Immediate Response (REPAIR) Act, which addresses the costly issue of invasive (non-native) species in the nation’s wildlife refuges. The bill now moves to the Senate for action.
The REPAIR Act was championed by Democrat Ron Kind (WI), who is co-chair [...]

On Sunday, October 21, the Washington Post reported on President George Bush’s recent visit to Patuxent Research Refuge in Maryland, where the president stated his support for the National Wildlife Refuge System and touted his administration’s record in protecting refuges. In a related fact sheet published on the White House website, the administration declared:
Since 2001, [...]

At five feet tall, Whooping cranes are the tallest birds in North America and are also the rarest and most endangered of the world’s 15 crane species.
Adults are white in color with black wing tips; immature birds are cinnamon colored until they begin to grow their white feathers. Whoopers are omnivorous, eating food such [...]

On October 13, 2007, Joe Hautman of Plymouth, Minnesota won the 2007 Federal Duck Stamp Contest. The winning artwork features a pair of pintail ducks. Hautman’s painting was chosen from among 247 entries from artists across the country, and it will be featured on the 2008-2009 Federal Duck Stamp, which will go on sale in [...]