00:00:00 Speaker 1: You and I, all of us here in America, are co-owners of some of the most prized and precious wildlife-sustaining lands in all of the world. Our National Wildlife Refuge System. More than 570 units spanning 95 million acres on land and hundreds of millions of more acres on water, our wildlife refuge system is the envy of the world. From Texas to Alaska and just about every point in between, our wildlife refuge system supports everything from big game animals to upland birds and waterfowl that hunters cherish to some of the most threatened and endangered species in the world. Not only that, but this nearly 100 million acre swath of land has historically also provided some of the best recreational and access opportunities for those of us who like to get outside and get up close and personal. wildlife. The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the National Elk Refuge, Red Rock Lakes, Okefenokee, Ding Darling, Neil Smith, Wheeler, the list goes on and on. Our wildlife refuge system is a crown jewel of this nation. But it is unraveling. Staff levels are plummeting. Funding has hit rock bottom. Management and maintenance and enforcement are is nearly ground to a halt. What exactly is happening here? Why is it happening? What can any of us do? Today, I've invited environmental journalist and avid outdoors woman Christine Peterson to discuss just that, which she recently tackled in an article that we co-published across Mediator and the non-profit public land news organization Republic, about the existential threats facing America's wildlife refuge system, and the top 10 most threatened wildlife refuges today. Thank you for being here. This is Future Wild, brought to you by Conservation First Bank. Christine Peterson, thank you for being here. 00:02:21 Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks so much for having me on. 00:02:25 Speaker 1: I have got to say, I have read so many of your pieces over the years. I guess I'm not sure how you would title yourself, an environmental reporter or outdoor writer, or I'm not sure what you would like me to call you. That works. Whatever it is, you are prolific. You really have been pumping it out. 00:02:50 Speaker 3: Why? 00:02:51 Speaker 1: Why have you dedicated so much time? so much of your life to, to digging into and analyzing and understanding and uncovering, you know, what's happening in our wild world out there. 00:03:06 Speaker 3: Um, I mean, I think a lot of it, the same reason journalists become journalists is that they're curious and stuff they care about. And I am really curious about the natural world and I care about it probably more than anything else. And so it's this great melding of, my professional interest, which is be a journalist, get to ask everybody questions about all the things that I wonder. And then also my personal interest, which is be outside. And since I spend a tremendous amount of time outside, personally and professionally, it works. 00:03:39 Speaker 2: It works. And there's a lot going on and people need to know. 00:03:43 Speaker 3: And the The beauty of a lot of things outside is there aren't that many people out there, but the downside is then there's fewer people aware of what's going on there. So I feel like there's a bit of a duty to help people understand what's going on to the places they love. Yeah. 00:03:58 Speaker 1: And I like one thing that seems relatively unique about you, Christine, is that you seem to have found inroads and a platform within both kind of traditional environmental locations, placements. but then also the hunting and fishing space. You seem to speak well to that entire broad spectrum of folks. It seems like that also plays out in your own daily life, in the way you spend time in the outdoors. Is that right? What are those things that have connected you to the wild world so much that you care enough to do this stuff? 00:04:34 Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I grew up backpacking, hiking, biking, camping. I mean, it was a really, like, I felt like we were exploring these massive wide wilderness. 00:04:47 Speaker 2: I grew up in Wyoming. 00:04:48 Speaker 3: And as it turns out, we were really just loading up in my parents' Volkswagen bus and driving to the mountain like 15 minutes from town. But I mean, we may as well have been on the moon. 00:04:56 Speaker 2: Like we were. 00:04:57 Speaker 3: So far away and it was so crazy. And so I spent a lot of time doing that outside. And then I met a hunter and a fisherman in college. And we got married and that has become a huge part of our lives for the last... 20 years or so. And so it really, and they, and they go together. So now we go on big backpacking trips and fish a lot while we're there and, you know, run and camp. And we have a 10 year old daughter and she does all the things with us. And it all, I think there's a tendency in our world to divide up the camps, to have the, the, the sort of environmental camp or the, the non-consumptive camp. you know, you've got your hikers and then you've got your hunters and your, and your anglers. And like, really, we're all some degree of a lot of it. 00:05:50 Speaker 1: Right. 00:05:51 Speaker 3: And so, I mean, you're not going to find a hunter who's like, doesn't hike a little, right. Or a fisherman who doesn't like to camp. And so we all, we all like the same spaces. And, and so it has felt really natural for my husband and I and our family. And then professionally, it all just, It feels very seamless, even if it maybe seems a little interesting from the outside. 00:06:14 Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm right there with it. I've always felt the same thing. I've seen the same thing personally. I feel like I existed across all of those worlds too. So I love seeing more examples of those types of people. Spotlight being shown on them to just illustrate to the rest of the world, hey, we are not different. We're not all that different. We have so much more in common. Oftentimes in the same person, we exist in those worlds. Um, and I think that this is a perfect kind of example too, of the main thing I want to talk to you about today, which is a, you know, a certain subsect of our American public lands, uh, that are cherished in used by people from all across the spectrum, right? The U S the, the U S national wildlife refuge system is, is core to hunters and anglers, but also bird watchers, wildlife photographers, people of all types, right? Why did this topic, our wildlife refuge system, why did that appeal to you as something to dive really deep into as you did here? 00:07:25 Speaker 3: They're, as you say, I mean, they're really special pieces of land to a lot of people. But I also, as has been said to me by a lot of the refuge folks, and it's been really clear even in my life that I'm familiar with the refuges that are near me and the ones that I go to or the ones that have species that I'm interested in that are just personally. 00:07:49 Speaker 2: I'm aware of mine, but I'm less aware. 00:07:50 Speaker 3: A lot of people know about the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, say. But of the five countries, 570 plus National Wildlife Refuges, who can name half a dozen of them? Nonetheless, a dozen of them. But that you start looking into them and And man, are they important. And there is so much habitat for so many species. And that's something that is the national parks, rightfully so, get a lot of press. They get a lot of attention. They get a lot of love. And even national forests and, I mean, BLM land is often a little less recognized, even though I could wax on about the importance of BLM land for a long time. Right. 00:08:35 Speaker 2: But the refuges are just. 00:08:36 Speaker 3: This kind of forgotten child in some ways. The head of the National Wildlife Refuge Association says that they've always taken it on the chin. 00:08:46 Speaker 2: And it's true. 00:08:47 Speaker 3: And it's because they're kind of low-key and they're really important to locals, but they don't get this national attention despite their really outsized importance on the critters we all love. Yeah. 00:09:02 Speaker 1: So let's dig into that a little bit more because you're right. I think there's a lot of people out there that maybe know nothing about our wildlife refuge system. Maybe they know like, oh, I've heard about this refuge down the road for me, but that might be it. Can you give me a 30,000-foot overview of what does this system of public lands focus on? What is the edict there? Where is this? Why is this? Why is it important to wildlife or hunters or anglers or all these different people we talked about? Can you just expand on that a little bit more? 00:09:34 Speaker 2: Yeah, so they started, Theodore Roosevelt, shockingly, right? 00:09:39 Speaker 3: Unsurprisingly started the refuge system as a way to protect largely beautiful birds, beautiful feathered birds from the hat trade. So from market hunting, collecting feathers to make pretty hats for ladies. And so they started in the early 1900s. And then he made a lot of them. And it became another tool in his toolbox of protecting land. And they were expressly for protecting important habitat for species to have essentially a place to go to winter or breed or nest, whatever they needed in that spot. 00:10:16 Speaker 2: That was a place that could get set aside. for these critters. 00:10:21 Speaker 3: Um, but they were also really, I mean, from the get-go heavily used by people too, right? They were, they were where people would go to fish and would go to hunt and would go to look at these. Cause now there's a lot of birds there. So that's where you're going to go to, to look at all the birds. Um, and then it, it went through a variety of iterations over the years of how they were used and sometimes really overused or not really patrolled or managed that well. And, um, Then in the 90s, there was an act in 1997 that really explicitly said, these are. 00:10:55 Speaker 2: What the refuges are for. 00:10:57 Speaker 3: And they're for wildlife and for habitat. And they're for these, when appropriate, these six uses. And the uses are hunting, fishing, wildlife photography, observation, education, and interpretation. And so that's also a big piece of some of these is that it is a way to connect people with species, with the land, with habitat, start making those connections between like, oh, the species I like to see, this is what they need. 00:11:26 Speaker 2: This is where they live. This is the important spot to them. This is how, what we need to do to help them thrive. 00:11:33 Speaker 3: And hunting and fishing was a big, you know, obviously two of the six pillars, right? Where, again, where appropriate. And so that's, that is how they've evolved. And now that's what they are to a lot of people. Yeah. 00:11:49 Speaker 1: And it's a little bit unique in some of how the refuge system has been funded and created in that there is a pretty direct pipeline from hunters and hunter dollars to these places, right? Can you speak to that? 00:12:03 Speaker 3: 100%. 00:12:03 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:12:04 Speaker 3: I mean, over half of the refuges, so again, 570 plus refuges, more than half of them were purchased with duck stamp dollars. And a lot of refuges are waterfowl sanctuaries, right? Areas for waterfowl and There are important wetland habitat, which is really important for duck hunters and paid for by duck stamps. 00:12:26 Speaker 2: And then also really important for all the. 00:12:27 Speaker 3: Other species that we don't hunt but need a place to go, need this wetland habitat. But yeah, I mean, hunters, the refuge system would not exist as it is without hunters for sure. Yeah. 00:12:39 Speaker 1: So for those who aren't familiar, the duck stamp is something that every waterfowl hunter is required to purchase every single year. you know, alongside whatever state hunting license they might be purchasing. And those dollars go to support this federal wildlife refuge system, as you just described. And it's a pretty phenomenal example of kind of this proactive self-taxation of sorts that the hunting and angling community has, you know, continued to take part in, whether it's through this or something like Pittman-Robertson, where our you know, hunting gear or fishing gear through the Dingell Johnson Act is, you know, an excise tax is applied. And then those dollars go to support, you know, other efforts like this. But it's funny in that I feel like the duck hunting community gets it and sees that because they have that very obvious, tangible, I purchased this and I know it goes to that. And so they have that connection to our refuge system. But I do think that might be missing for deer hunters or pheasant hunters or bird watchers or other folks that maybe are using these places or, or could use these places, but don't have that, um, kind of tangible connection by way of an investment. Um, and it makes you wonder if, you know, I'm getting ahead of myself here, but I do feel like there's, there's something to be learned from the duck stamp program that maybe we could scale and build off of because that connection is so important, right? Because I think if you were to look at, at least as I start looking at some of the challenges that we're going to talk about here, much of it seems to stem from the fact that the refuge system is sometimes forgotten. It slides under the radar so much as opposed to the Forest Service or the Park Service. And I wonder if that leads to, to some degree, why we are where we are today. 00:14:33 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:14:35 Speaker 1: And I guess that might be the perfect segue then to ask you, Christine. Where are we today? Why did you just write and publish this piece exploring the serious threats facing our refuge system today? What's high level? What's happening right now? 00:14:54 Speaker 3: I mean, so right now, dramatic staff cuts and budget cuts. And that's going to be the story for all our public lands. But I do think it's, I can't high level the refuge system where we are right now without going back just a little bit Because this has been one that everyone I talk to is really clear. This has been across administrations that the wildlife refuge system has been deprioritized. They have a $ 2. 6 billion infrastructure backlog. And that is a lot of money, and that's not just in the last two years. That is a long history of deprioritizing. And at the Refuge System's 200th anniversary, there was a little bit of a push and a little bit more money and got a little bit more staffing. And then it just kept going down. And it has not been made a priority in administrations. It's not been made a priority congressionally. And that means that in the last 15 or so years, there had been a drop of 27%, 28% in staffing. 00:16:04 Speaker 2: And then it has just gone, and. 00:16:07 Speaker 3: Then it has really plummeted by, I think, 43% in the last two years. So this is, when you look at the examples, I mean, that means refuges going from should have 30 full-time staff members and now have six or five. And that is a lot of a lot fewer people on the ground, and a lot of this land requires active management. It's, it's a, it's a neat idea to think, oh, we'll just let it, we'll just let it be. Um, but it can't just be left to, it just can't be left alone. It needs active management. If there aren't people there, then no one's managing it. Yeah. 00:16:49 Speaker 1: And not just managing the land, but even managing access to it or basic infrastructure or facilities. 00:16:55 Speaker 3: Right. 00:16:56 Speaker 1: Um, if you can't get down the roads, you can't get into the place or you can't, uh, get a boat down the ramp. You can't access the lake or the water. Um, that kind of thing is happening, isn't it? 00:17:07 Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And I, and it's, it, it is, it is happening. And, and the, the writing is really on the wall. 00:17:15 Speaker 3: If nothing happens to that, it's, um, that it's just going to keep, you know, roads don't disintegrate overnight, but they are starting to, and that's just going to keep getting worse. 00:17:25 Speaker 1: In your reporting. Did you get a clear sense of. why this is happening other than just, you know, what we mentioned early on, which is it's just not as sexy as the national park service. Um, is there any other explanation behind why this deterioration of support for our refuge system is occurring? 00:17:46 Speaker 3: I think, I mean, historically, I think it is just the, it's just not, it's just not as much of a priority. Um, and so it doesn't, when, when everyone's clamoring for a piece of the pie, um, There may be fewer constituents clamoring for a piece of that pie. And so if people aren't making enough noise, then it's not going to be prioritized. And then in the last couple of years, it's the same as everywhere else. It's a real, I mean, it's an administrative attack on public lands, right? And I mean, I think that's been pretty clear with a lot of places. And this one is certainly no different. The Fish and Wildlife Service staffing numbers have plummeted. And the refuge system is underneath the Fish and Wildlife Service, and so that's going to be the same for them too. 00:18:39 Speaker 1: Is the degree of deterioration here unique compared to, I mean, as you mentioned, there have been slashes in funding and budget cuts in staffing for the Park Service, for BLM, for Forest Service, etc. But does it seem like the degree is even more substantial here? 00:18:59 Speaker 2: I mean, it does seem like that for sure. Yeah. 00:19:01 Speaker 3: And I, and I'm, I would guess that that is still just the people just aren't making enough noise. Yeah. 00:19:09 Speaker 1: What happens if this continues and it continues to slip under the radar and the public is focused on the big shiny objects of the roadless rule or, you know, a wall being built through big Ben national park or the forest or service being reorganized or, uh, You know, a monument being slashed and, you know, borders being redrawn. What if with all of that happening, people continue to ignore the deterioration of our wildlife refuge system? Do you have a sense of what the future might look for them if we just continue down this pathway based on the people you talk to and what you've found so far? 00:19:48 Speaker 2: I mean, unfortunately, they're just going to keep falling apart, right? 00:19:56 Speaker 3: I mean, to whatever degree there's staffing on the ground, everyone I've talked to, and it's very universal, say the staffing that's there, the staff who is there, is incredibly hardworking and they're really passionate and they're going to do everything that they can to put duct tape on what they can put duct tape on and try to fix stuff and try to manage what they can, but you can only do so much. And these issues like needing prescribed burns and fighting invasive species and replacing culverts, that's just not going to happen. 00:20:31 Speaker 2: And then. 00:20:33 Speaker 3: You know as well as I do that when invasive species take hold, it's hard to fight them back. And then that requires staffing and that requires money and people on the ground. And so then it just becomes this rolling problem of land deteriorating and then the species not having what they need. Yeah. 00:20:53 Speaker 1: So I was reading in another piece somewhere that According to, I believe it was the National Wildlife Refuge Association, whatever that supporting organization is called, that more than half of the wildlife refuges have no staff on site at all now. Zero on-site staff now today. And that means that many of these places not only are not being managed well, but actually might just be closed altogether in some cases. So with that in mind, with that kind of piece of context in mind, I want to also consider another piece of news related to wildlife refuges, which was that earlier this year, the administration announced kind of record-breaking new access opportunities on our wildlife refuge system, you know, stating that they've opened up all of these new hunting and fishing opportunities for hunters and anglers on our refuge system, which, you know, sounds like a big win. Sounds great. I'm certainly appreciative of that, but I'm struggling to kind of reckon these two things together. In one hand, we're being told, you have more access, you have more opportunity, please say thank you. And then on the other hand, I'm seeing defunding, staffing being cut, and the possibility of places being either unmanaged or unaccessible or open at all. When you consider those two things both being true at the same time, possibly, how do you reckon with that. It feels a little bit like a hollow gift in which we have this expanded access possibly to places that are not accessible or usable or valuable in the ways that they should be. How do you, am I getting that right? Am I, am I thinking through this clearly or what is your take? 00:22:42 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:22:43 Speaker 3: Um, I mean, from the, from the folks that I've talked to, the, you know, the expanded access is is exciting, but like maybe not as mind blowing as it's been sold that a lot of this expanded access is the, the opportunities as they're called, um, is really like aligning with state hunting. So, so, you know, if in one area the state limit is five mallards, but for whatever reason, the refuge allowed four mallards there. 00:23:14 Speaker 2: They're now allowing five mallards on the refuge. 00:23:16 Speaker 1: So like, and that counts as a new hunting opportunity, a new hunting opportunity. Right. 00:23:20 Speaker 3: So I mean, which like you get to shoot an extra duck, but that's not like we opened a new refuge or something. Right. So there's a lot of this sort of aligning with, with state or local regulations. Um, and there's some, there are some refuges that are just now open to hunting that, that, and or fishing that hadn't been before. Um, and it, Depends on who you ask. I mean, there's some people I talk to that are like, well, hunters always do the right thing. 00:23:45 Speaker 2: And so it's going to be great. 00:23:48 Speaker 3: And there's a number of folks that I've talked to that are like, I mean, hunters, there's a reason we have game wardens. Hunters need some management and help education and figuring out what to do. And there needs to be a presence on the landscape. And so we're opening all this stuff, but there isn't money backing up. managing that and managing humans. And we've all been out on landscapes that have too many unmanaged humans and it's not nice. None of us like it. Um, and so that's the, that's the concern. And I will say the fish and wildlife service started a refuge review, um, which the results of which are not out yet. They actually started it, announced it almost a year ago in December of last year and results are still out. And I talked with the fish and wildlife service director and he had said that he wants to get more boots on the ground. 00:24:42 Speaker 2: And some places. 00:24:45 Speaker 3: Have hired some more staff, though if you really look into those hirings, some of them are full-time, a lot of them are temporary. So they'll say, well, we lost 20 positions, but look, we hired back five, but you lost 20 full-time staff and you hired back five temps, which is not nothing. Anyone is good, but it's not the same either. Like a seasonal position is not going to be the same as a full-time biologist or park ranger or, you know, a ranger or something. 00:25:15 Speaker 2: Um, so it's, yeah, I mean, it's great. Access is good. 00:25:19 Speaker 3: We all, we all want, we all want more access. Um, but access without management can result in something that more of us don't want. 00:25:30 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:25:31 Speaker 1: Did you directly confront director Nesvik with these numbers and the trajectory of things and, and, and get his reaction. 00:25:42 Speaker 2: I mean, I think he's still trying to figure it out. 00:25:47 Speaker 3: So I think he's, um, you know, he's, he is sound, sounds aware of the problems and, and has told me that he's talked to a lot of people and is, is trying to figure it out. 00:26:03 Speaker 1: He says we need more boots on the ground, which obviously, from what you're reporting shows, is true. From what so many people have been saying, seems to be true. I actually got to speak with Director Nesvik earlier this year as well, and he echoed similar things. And I appreciate that. I know him coming from your home state of Wyoming. He certainly has real lived experience with managing our you know, shared resources like this and, and trying to steward them well. So I don't doubt his intentions. Um, I'm curious about solutions. Uh, did he give to you any sense of how, you know, they might be able to do this or where things might be headed or any sense of how to address this? 00:26:56 Speaker 2: No. 00:26:57 Speaker 3: Uh, no, I mean, it wasn't, um, No, short of, short of just saying that I think, you know, we talked about volunteer, the importance of volunteers, which, which are volunteers are huge, a huge piece of it, but volunteers also need to be managed, right? They need somebody to tell them what to do and help them figure out what to do and make sure they don't hurt themselves and all that. 00:27:19 Speaker 2: Kind of stuff. 00:27:20 Speaker 3: Um, so yeah, no, I mean, where, where the money is going to come from, how that's going to work. 00:27:26 Speaker 2: Your guess is as good as mine. 00:27:28 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:27:30 Speaker 1: I want to dig into a couple examples. I think that would be helpful to kind of illustrate this with some real places. You know, one that stood out to me because I had just been reading a book that was exploring some of the examples of native prairie restoration across the Midwest. And that just has been on my mind. The Neal Smith National Wildlife Refuge there in Iowa. Can you speak to that? That's one of the places you highlighted in your piece. Um, you know, can you, can you tell me just a little bit about that place and then, you know, what are the challenges that it's facing right now? 00:28:07 Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a, I mean, a really cool piece of, of prairie in Iowa. And I learned in this that Iowa had, um, historically been 85% prairie. So, you know, they had Rocky mountain elk and, or they didn't have Rocky mountain elk, sorry, that Eastern elk, which is now gone, but But they had elk and they had bison and they had all these species that we don't associate with Iowa necessarily. And now it's 0.1% is now exists, which is, you know, almost, almost nothing. Right. And so the, but the Neil Smith refuge started is 6,000 acres. And it was this attempt to bring back some Prairie and, and they've done, They've done a really, sounds like really remarkable job. Volunteers and staff spent a lot of time collecting native seeds from the broader multi-county region to bring back the species that had been there and restore habitat on that chunk of prairie. 00:29:12 Speaker 2: And it was amazing. 00:29:13 Speaker 3: The results were incredible. And there are bison there now. There are Rocky Mountain elk. And there are a lot of the native species have returned and are there. And are doing well, but, but that the Neil Smith refuge is a great example of something that requires active management, that this Prairie is not going to exist on its, on its own. It needs fire and it needs, you know, um, invasive species removal. And if you don't have it, then they, then the invasive species come back. And, um, and so they've been really struggling. 00:29:53 Speaker 1: So, and so that is just directly not enough staff anymore for, Is it funding or is a staff or is it both? Um, and is that directly then leading to, Hey, we can't get on the ground and do fires. Hey, we can't go on the ground and spray, uh, these, these briars or whatever there might be invading these, these native prairies. 00:30:14 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:30:14 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:30:15 Speaker 2: No, I mean, that's, that is it. 00:30:16 Speaker 3: They're also, so the, we created the new fire service. Um, and so a lot of these refugees, many of these refugees had their own fire crews and historically have had their own fire crews because fire, as we know, is such an important part of the landscape and has always been around and has always been this really critical part of rejuvenating systems. So refuges had their own fire crews, and they spent the summers or whatever seasons that they did a lot of prescribed burning, and then the rest of the time they were staff and they did other projects on the refuge. And now we've plucked all those fire crews out and made them part of this larger fire service. And the result is, A, it's another loss of staffing, and B, it means it's much harder to get fire on the ground. 00:31:03 Speaker 2: And so they can. 00:31:03 Speaker 3: The Neal Smith did just have, last summer, had a big 3,000-acre burn, which is really great and really helpful. But it was one of those that had to call in crews from all over the country to come and help. So instead of just having their staff routinely doing this, it's this beg, borrow, and steal business to try to get to try to get a crew in to take care of that. Um, and so, yeah, I mean, money always, always a problem. Um, and, and then staffing and, and it's not, I mean, it was interesting. Um, Senator Grassley from Iowa actually wrote, uh, wrote a letter to director Nesvick saying, Hey, this is a problem. 00:31:45 Speaker 2: How are we going to fix this? 00:31:46 Speaker 3: That the Neil Smith wildlife refuge needs more staff. 00:31:50 Speaker 2: It doesn't have enough staff. And that is a problem. 00:31:53 Speaker 3: And, you know, as an example, they had 14 full-time employees. 00:31:56 Speaker 2: And now they have three. 00:31:59 Speaker 1: Wow. 00:32:00 Speaker 3: And you just can't do the same amount of work, obviously, not even a fraction of the same amount of work. 00:32:07 Speaker 1: Do you have any sense of the backstory of that, like how Senator Grassley became aware and cared enough to do that? That seems kind of impressive that that trickled its way all the way up to the top and some kind of message was sent. Do you have any idea of how that came about? Was that because Senator Grassley actually knows the place and cares the place? Or was there a bunch of really loud prairie enthusiasts or anything like that? 00:32:34 Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't. 00:32:35 Speaker 3: I've seen the letter and that's what I know about it. And the letter makes it sound like he has heard from his constituents. And so it would lead me to believe. I mean, he may have a connection there that I don't know. But obviously there are. either enough people or enough people that he cared about that felt this was a big problem that needed his attention. That, yeah, and I thought that was, I mean, that was pretty remarkable. And it shows that this isn't, wildlife refuges aren't just this environmentalist dream. You know, they aren't just like a tree hugger thing, that this is something that really conservative folks find really important. 00:33:19 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:33:20 Speaker 1: So what about another one here? We're going to head south. The Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge. Tell me a little bit about that one. 00:33:31 Speaker 3: I mean, that's a really important refuge in that it is public land in Texas. And more than 93% of Texas is private land. So if you're a public land hunter who doesn't have very much money, i.e. access to private land, It can be tough to find a place to hunt and tough to find a place to go. And so it is someplace that's public, which makes it really important. And it's also really close to SpaceX, Elon Musk's company. And SpaceX wants a land trade. And it has been pushing really, really hard for it. And my understanding is there is not a lot of transparency there. at all. And it's just trucking right along. And that the piece of land that is going to be exchanged habitat-wise is just not the same as what they're going to get. And the Fish and Wildlife Service has traditionally had a lot of latitude for land exchanges, land trades when it comes to refuges. And that's not been a bad thing. There, everybody knows that government bureaucracy can get really slow and overwhelming and you can have good potential deals that end up not happening because stuff doesn't move through in a timely way. And so it has, it sounds like at least that it's historically been positive that the Fish and Wildlife Service has been pretty nimble in its ability to kind of trade bits of land around and get some good habitat here and, you know, maybe relinquish some habitat that wasn't as good, some land to somebody else. This one sounds fishier, and it's making people really nervous, not just for the lower Rio Grande wildlife refuge, which it sounds like isn't going to be great for them, but also worried, oh, is this. 00:35:33 Speaker 2: The world that we're headed into now? Now are there going to be. 00:35:38 Speaker 3: The richest man in the world or wealthy companies that want something, and now are going to have an easier way easier way to get it. 00:35:47 Speaker 1: And so you're saying that the refuge system is more susceptible to that, more vulnerable to those kinds of like predatory land swaps being almost forced down their throat because of the fact that it, I guess, A, probably because not as many people know about it and hear about it. And then B, because of the actual kind of bureaucratic lack of red tape that allows us to be easier. Is that right? 00:36:13 Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, that is my understanding, yes, that it is that twofold piece. 00:36:20 Speaker 2: That just leaves them potentially more vulnerable. 00:36:24 Speaker 1: Interesting. 00:36:24 Speaker 2: Unless people are paying attention. Raise a ruckus. 00:36:27 Speaker 1: Well, you can see what happened in Yosemite recently, right? Yeah, 100%. When the world got wind of a potential land swap, a little slice, a tiny edge of Yosemite where– a development, a resort development, wanted to get this little swap of land from Yosemite so they could build a direct road to their property. That was going to happen and still might, but that was going to happen possibly in the dark of night because nobody knew about it. And then when it got out into the world, people said, oh, what in the world? This can't slide. It seems much more difficult for that to happen for a wildlife refuge. 00:37:09 Speaker 3: Yeah, well, and it's tough because how many of your listeners have heard of Yosemite and how many of your listeners have heard of the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge, right? And so it just has less cachet and fewer people paying attention, and so it's easier for this. 00:37:28 Speaker 2: Stuff to happen. 00:37:30 Speaker 1: What's down there? I mean, I'm ignorant. Did your reporting get a sense of, What kind of habitat is this? What kind of wildlife is down there? What do people do there? Yeah. 00:37:42 Speaker 3: I mean, there's, so there's, you can, there's white-tailed deer, there's white-tailed deer hunting, and there's, you know, invasive pig, but. 00:37:50 Speaker 2: Wild boar hunting. And then, and then there's. 00:37:53 Speaker 3: A lot of endangered species, the spotted ocelot, the jaguarundi. 00:37:59 Speaker 2: Interestingly, condors, puffins. 00:38:01 Speaker 1: Wow. 00:38:02 Speaker 3: Which you don't think about this as puffing country, but then also a whole bunch of ducks. And it just runs along this 275-mile corridor of the Rio Grande River. 00:38:14 Speaker 2: Before it dumps out. 00:38:17 Speaker 3: And so it's one of those. It's important for deer if people want to hunt whitetail deer or want to hunt boar and then duck habitat and then also a bunch of these endangered species that that hang out in this country in a really divided up part of the, part of the country. 00:38:40 Speaker 1: Well, it's interesting that dynamic that you just described in which you have popular game species on these wildlife refuges, which typically get the attention, typically get, typically are what drives a bunch of interest to a place and possibly build a constituency of supporters, right? Like all of these waterfowl, focused refuges, you get a bunch of duck hunters who go there for the ducks and they care a lot about the ducks because they have that direct connection to them through hunting, through feeding their families. But by having that, you know, deep connection with what that one species, it supports a habitat, which supports then this plethora of other species, which maybe aren't as well known, but oftentimes are threatened or endangered species, as you just described there. And so it's really important to have these hunter and angler support systems in place for those sometimes like core keystone species. But then that is what gets the attention and hopefully funding, staffing, or volunteers to be out there to keep habitat in place for everything else. 00:39:48 Speaker 2: A hundred percent. 00:39:49 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:39:49 Speaker 2: And that's the story, story here. 00:39:51 Speaker 3: And that is a story for every, every single refuge out there that it is. Yes, there are, there are species that we care about to hunt. 00:40:00 Speaker 2: There are species we care about to fish. 00:40:02 Speaker 3: And then there's also just, I mean, every one of them I felt like I looked at and then you'd, I'd, I'd, you know, go on the Fish and Wildlife Service website and then look at the species that live there. And it's all like more than 200 species of birds or, you know, more than 50 species of mammals. And that's how it was over and over and over again, that there's all these species that live in these places. Yeah. 00:40:24 Speaker 1: So speaking of waterfowl, then there's a number of these refuges, both across the entire system and on your list of these top 10 that are pretty waterfall-focused. When I was looking through, there's the Cache River one, and then the Bosque de la Pache. Bosque de la Pache, yeah. Thank you. Can you speak to what's going on there? 00:40:48 Speaker 3: Yeah, that one's an interesting one. It's a wonderful picture to paint for yourself in this New Mexico dry, parched New Mexico landscape. And then we've got this wildlife refuge, it is a literal oasis. 00:41:04 Speaker 2: When you imagine what is an oasis. 00:41:06 Speaker 3: And I mean, that is what, there is water there and there is habitat there. And there are, you know, there are sand, it's a big sandhill crane and snow geese overwintering spot, which draws photographers. There's a big crane festival there every year. Most years it wasn't last year because the government shut down. But I mean, and, and bird's, So thick at sunset, it clouds the sky, which is really incredible to imagine that that still exists. We still have a world where there is abundance like that. And then it's got 20 species of ducks, all the mallards, widgeons, green-winged, blue-winged teal, all the ones that duck hunters really love. 00:41:53 Speaker 2: There's not as much.... 00:41:56 Speaker 3: It isn't as important a hunting spot. It doesn't sound like for, I mean, there is some hunting there. Mostly what it is, is it is what feeds everywhere else. So it is where all these species go to winter and to breed, and then they go everywhere else. So duck hunters love this refuge because it is the engine that supplies the region. If you care about ducks in the Rio Grande Valley area, that this is one of the places where they're coming from. But that's another one. It requires management. The wetlands, the wet fields, the sort of wet soil, so they keep soil wet to grow native grasses and other food, all of that requires canals, ditches, people to go out there and run this water back and forth to keep the habitat there. 00:42:55 Speaker 1: And is that just not happening now? I mean, it. 00:42:58 Speaker 3: Is still happening to some degree now. The big concern with this refuge is infrastructure. This complex series of culverts and ditches are all 70-plus years old, and they're starting to crumble, and they're expensive to replace. 00:43:16 Speaker 2: We talked about that $ 2. 00:43:17 Speaker 3: 6 billion infrastructure backlog, and this is a good example of what that looks like on the ground. And it sounds like if the culverts collapse, A, they're under roads. So now you've got roads that refuge staff can't use, visitors can't use, nobody can go over. And then you can't get water to and from because the culvert has collapsed. So yeah, that's a double one there of infrastructure problems and then just staffing. And there's some other... The Sacramento Wildlife Refuge in California, huge part. So the Bosque de la Pache is part of the Central Flyway. And the Sacramento Refuge is part of the Pacific Flyway. And so for any duck hunters, they know that as this really critical stretch of duck habitat and waterfowl habitat. And there's literally not enough staff to get water out on fields. So there's already reduced opportunity because there are just not enough people to get water where it needs to go for the ducks to have a place to go. Yeah. 00:44:27 Speaker 1: So in your piece, I think, I think this was in relation to that Sacramento wildlife refuge. Um, you quoted, uh, you quoted someone who, who talked about this as death by a thousand cuts issue that we're experiencing in these places like that and how there's this kind of snowball effect, right? If there's fewer flooded fields, then there's going to be fewer ducks. And if there's fewer ducks, then there's going to be fewer hunters. And if there's fewer hunters, there's going to be, fewer duck stamps being purchased, and fewer licensed sales. And all of that leads to deeper budget cuts for the Fish and Wildlife Service, which then leads to all of this continuing to getting worse and worse and worse. Do you get any sense, you know, how close we are to like some kind of tipping point? This threshold where it becomes devastating? 00:45:16 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:45:17 Speaker 1: Are we already there? 00:45:18 Speaker 3: I mean. 00:45:20 Speaker 2: I don't know, when does a frog know that it's boiled to death? 00:45:24 Speaker 3: Right? And the water keeps, just keep turning up the water. And at what point are you dead? And I don't know that we know that. 00:45:33 Speaker 2: I am. 00:45:35 Speaker 3: On a new self-improvement plan where I'm trying to be more optimistic about the world. So I'm attempting to not be as negative an environmental reporter as I have historically been. And I would like to say that we're not there yet. Um, I will also say that the people that I talked to for this, who have lived, spent their whole lives living in these places, working in these places are really, really worried. 00:46:00 Speaker 2: This is the worst they've ever seen it. And that's, and that's saying something. 00:46:05 Speaker 3: Um, I also, I mean, I know land and species are resilient, but we also know it gets to the point where they're gone, where they don't come back. Um, and no, I don't, we're not there. I don't think we're there yet. No one was ready to say, this refuge is toast. 00:46:23 Speaker 2: It's gone. 00:46:24 Speaker 3: But there are a lot of SOS signals being sent here. There are a lot of people that are really saying, we don't have a lot of time. 00:46:34 Speaker 2: We can't keep ignoring this and doing what we've been doing. 00:46:38 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:46:39 Speaker 1: So maybe a little bit surprisingly, you mentioned in your piece another wildlife refuge that That I think a lot of folks, when they imagine this place in this region of the country, they think the wildest, last, best place we have. There couldn't possibly be any challenges in Alaska because Alaska is still pristine. Alaska is still as wild as it gets in America. But you listed the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge as one of these most threatened places. Tell me about the Kenai, what it is, what's there. What's going on? 00:47:17 Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, the Kenai is just as stunning as one would imagine. 00:47:24 Speaker 3: I mean, you throw a dart anywhere in Alaska and it's going to be really, really incredible. It's almost 2 million acres, so it's huge. And it's got all the things. It's got ice fields and glaciers and wetlands and tundra and boreal forests. And then conjure up an idea of what species exist in Alaska and you're going to find them there. Brown and black bears, lynx, wolves, trumpeter swans, doll sheep, coho salmon. So it's trophy rainbow trout. So, I mean, they're all, they're all in there and the giant Kenai moose. And it is, it is a, it's a cool one because so many Alaskan refuges are really pretty inaccessible. You know, the, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, you're not driving to. It's hard to get to. Yeah, it takes more than a little logistics and more than a little money to get there, which is awesome. I'm glad that there are places that are hard to get to still. And a lot of the Kenai Refuge is hard to get to, but it is in relative close proximity to Anchorage and to more population. And so it is easier for people to have a connection there. Um, it has one of only three back country canoe trail systems in the U S if you think. 00:48:46 Speaker 1: Boundary waters, right? 00:48:48 Speaker 3: Yeah. Yep. And so it's one of those, you know, same, same kind of deal. You portage and fish and portage and fish or portage and hunt. Um, and, and it's, so it's a, it's a real, it's a, I mean, you can describe all these places as gems, right? But it is a, another one, just a real, a real gem there. And they've lost 25 of its 44 staff members, which is a lot. That's a lot of staff. And that's a big area to be managed. with not very many people. So the, the concern then these trail systems require management trees, fires, fires roll through and then trees fall over. And then suddenly this really neat trail system that, lots of people want to use, it's impassable. 00:49:39 Speaker 2: These portages are impassable. 00:49:41 Speaker 3: And then you also just have fewer biologists on the ground monitoring populations, figuring out what's going on with them. 00:49:51 Speaker 2: Are they overabundant? Are we overhunting? 00:49:54 Speaker 3: Are we underhunting? And also law enforcement, which is a piece we haven't talked about a ton yet, but that's real. 00:50:04 Speaker 2: I mean, we need law enforcement on the ground. 00:50:07 Speaker 3: Making sure that people are doing what they're supposed to be doing and that they're aware of the regulations and aware of the rules and aware of what they should be doing. 00:50:15 Speaker 2: And why it matters. And we're just missing. 00:50:17 Speaker 3: All of that. Yeah. 00:50:21 Speaker 1: So from Texas to Alaska, from the Midwest to the desert Southwest, it seems like we're having these same kinds of challenges, whether it's management or access or enforcement or land swaps, all these different things that might be slipping under the radar for this seemingly underappreciated subsect of our incredible American public land system. I love that you are undergoing this self-improvement routine of sorts to regain some optimism. I'm working on the same thing. 00:51:00 Speaker 2: Great. 00:51:01 Speaker 1: I think we all should. 00:51:03 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:51:03 Speaker 1: I'm curious what kind of epiphanies you've had or how have you been able to do that or how are you trying to do that? What's giving you that hope? 00:51:14 Speaker 3: Oh, I mean, to some degree, you can only be depressed for so long and you can only run away your depression so much. I can only run so many miles in hopes of feeling more optimistic. 00:51:26 Speaker 2: I mean, I think that. 00:51:29 Speaker 3: It is, I think that our world, the conservation and outdoor space and environmental space certainly has spent a long time saying how bad everything is and how doomed we all are. And things are bad, for sure. And I've written a lot of stories about how things are bad. And I don't think that we are doomed. 00:51:52 Speaker 2: I also have a kid, which. 00:51:57 Speaker 3: Forces you to be a little bit more optimistic because I can only stare at her and think your future's screwed for so long before I get to a really dark place. But I've also, we, as an aside, I guess, but my little family and I have spent the last year trying to meet all of Wyoming's native fish species. 00:52:19 Speaker 1: So cool. 00:52:20 Speaker 3: Depending on how you divide it up, 56 or so of them, if you want to separate out your cutthroats or not. And, and there are so many of them are so strange and they're little and nobody cares about them and they're, but they're awesome. And I have seen, I went out, we went out with a biologist and we were looking for a, um, for little fish. It looks like a zebra, the plains killer fish. And I know this isn't on refuges, so thanks for humoring me here, but we go out, we meet at a spot on a piece of state land and he's like, oh, there's a Creek there. We're going to say in it. So we're going to run a net through like, yeah, great. We meet him out there. 00:52:55 Speaker 2: It's hot. I mean, it's the hottest, you know, hottest, driest year in recorded history. It is hot. 00:53:00 Speaker 3: It is dry. There is not a lot out there in the eastern plains of Wyoming. And we don't see a creek. 00:53:06 Speaker 2: I'm like, okay. Well, we walk a little bit. And then there is a puddle, like a kiddie pool puddle of mud. I'm like, cool. That's not a creek. That's a puddle of mud. And he's like, I think they're in there. Like, okay, man. I don't think there's anything in there. 00:53:23 Speaker 3: And I walk across my waders, and I've got the seine, and we run the net through, and we pull it through, and we pull it up, and it is like, it is a net full of fish. 00:53:31 Speaker 2: There are so many fish in there, and there's. 00:53:33 Speaker 3: All these different species, like six different species, just that we ran through with that little net. And they're spawning colors, so they're like, we don't care that it's hot and muddy, and we're going to love us in the air here in the water. 00:53:44 Speaker 1: Make it work. 00:53:46 Speaker 2: Yeah, and so I just thought, you know what? There's still a lot there. 00:53:50 Speaker 3: And people need to know that there's a lot there and that it matters. And that if we can do something to keep it there. So that's my path toward optimism. 00:54:01 Speaker 1: I love that life finds a way. Um, but I have also found for me, uh, and I've, I've said this a thousand times, but I'll say it again. Uh, all of on Shannard said that the greatest cure for depression is action. And that has been like my, uh, just kind of center folks, my North Star, whenever I start to feel concerned about these things. It's like, okay, yes, recognize the reality. Now what? What action can we take either collectively or as individuals? So, Christine, in this reporting or as you've thought through this, maybe after writing this piece or talking to different people, do you have any sense of the now what? What kinds of possible solutions or path forward we have here to kind of right the ship? Yeah. 00:54:52 Speaker 2: I mean, for refuges, it's twofold. 00:54:57 Speaker 3: Almost, I don't know if almost all refuges, most refuges have friends groups. 00:55:03 Speaker 2: And they're always looking for volunteers. 00:55:06 Speaker 3: And there's also backcountry hunters and anglers has groups that support some refuges. The Kenai Refuge has done projects with BHA. So I think one of the first things, if there's refuges in your area that you care about, look up the friends group. Look up the local Audubon organizations, places that do work there, and see what needs to be done. 00:55:27 Speaker 2: See how you can volunteer. 00:55:29 Speaker 3: If you can help staff it or you can help on a habitat project, see how you can volunteer and donate money if you're inclined and have the resources. 00:55:39 Speaker 2: And the other piece is to be noisy. 00:55:43 Speaker 1: Right? 00:55:43 Speaker 3: The senator from Iowa heard about it somewhere, and it was people being noisy and. 00:55:49 Speaker 2: Telling him that it mattered. 00:55:50 Speaker 3: And so it's another one of those, like all public lands, if you care, you got to tell somebody that you care and that it matters and that there needs to be staff and there needs to be money and it needs to be prioritized. And so I think it's that constant drumbeat of making, if this is a thing you care about, make your voice heard. Instead of bemoaning it with your buddy in the field or sitting around a kitchen table, make a phone call, write an email, raise a ruckus. 00:56:19 Speaker 1: That is, true words cannot have been said. And I feel the same thing that I imagine you feel in being a parent in this, not only an obligation, but an urgent need to somehow try to create that better future. for your child to somehow make sure that that worst case scenario doesn't come because we desperately love these kids so much and want that better future. And I know there are tens of millions of other people across the nation in similar shoes as we are, who I know feel that same way. And it's just on us to then, you know, take that next step from feeling that to then doing something about it. And your, your piece here and others like it, are such an important part in kickstarting that process. Because if we don't have that awareness, we can't then take that action. So, Christine, I just want to say thank you for writing this piece, for writing so many really great articles for so many different publications. You're really one of the best out there, Christine. I have been reading from afar. You nail it. And so keep up the good work. And I hope, you know, this piece is being co-published on both Republic and Mediator's websites, which is really cool. And I hope this is, you know, the beginning of more Christine Peterson on the Meet at Her website because I think you're crushing it. 00:57:45 Speaker 2: Thanks. I really appreciate it. And thanks for having me on the chat. 00:57:48 Speaker 3: It was great. Yeah.

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