March 2007

The double-barreled blow of high corn prices and the Department of Agriculture's (USDA) decision to suspend general enrollment opportunities for the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), does not bode well for wildlife, according to the Wildlife Management Institute.

USDA recently announced that it does not plan to conduct a general sign-up for CRP during Fiscal Years 2007 and 2008, which it estimates will result in withdrawal of at least 4 million acres from the program over the next three years. The agency projects that more than a quarter of the land coming out of CRP is located...

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will cut 565 of its staff on national wildlife refuges nationwide by 2009, reports the Wildlife Management Institute. Several years of stagnant or declining budgets have exacerbated a backlog in refuge operations and maintenance of more than $2.5 billion, forcing the dramatic 20-percent reduction in staff.

The Service personnel actions are part of regional workforce restructuring plans that not only eliminate refuge staff, but also cut back on refuge programs and even close refuges in response to persistent and projected budget shortfalls. To...

To benefit grassland birds and agriculture, Tennessee conservationists are providing key leadership for the restoration of native grasses in the Southeast, reports the Wildlife Management Institute. Native grasslands and savannahs once were common throughout much of the region, but 99 percent of them have been eliminated. The Northern Bobwhite Conservation Initiative (NBCI) has identified the restoration of native grass/forb communities across most of the bobwhite range as the primary management objective for recovery of sustainable quail populations. Several priority grassland songbirds...

A multi-year effort by several agencies and citizen organizations to save important habitats along the Rio Grande in New Mexico would receive a needed boost in funding if federal legislation introduced recently in Congress is passed, reports the Wildlife Management Institute.

The Bosque Restoration Bill was introduced by Senator Pete Domenici (R-NM) to address threats to this habitat that is home to many native and endangered wildlife species, such as the southwestern willow flycatcher and the silver minnow. The "bosque," Spanish word for woods, refers to important woody riparian...

Next week, Richard Louv will be a keynoter at the Opening Session of the 72nd North American Wildlife and Natural Resources Conference, in Portland, Oregon. His remarks will center on the subject of his best-selling book, Last Child in the Woods, a really important volume and a much better read that you might expect. But that's not the title reviewed here. Instead, I want to tell you about a book I read and thoroughly enjoyed shortly after its release in 2000, and which I just reread and liked even more. It is Fly-Fishing for Sharks: An American Journey, also written by...