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Robert Watson, 75, spent the past 12 years volunteering to help out with gift shops, trail maintenance and mowing around visitor centers in exchange for parking his recreational vehicle on-site.
“You get a free RV pad with all the utilities furnished,” Watson, a Brownsville native, said. “It’s a good deal for somebody who wants something to do and has some time on their hands.”
Watson plans on helping out the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge through August, working 32 hours a week.
The Aransas refuge relies heavily on volunteers and support groups like the Friends of Aransas and Matagorda Island National Wildlife Refuges.
The facility’s roughly $3 million a year budget takes care of infrastructure maintenance, fire management and salaries, but that’s it, said refuge manager and acting project leader Joe Saenz.
Saenz admits the refuge could use help fighting invasive species during the summertime, when he adds five temporary employees. Volunteers make up the bulk of the Kemp’s ridley sea turtle patrolling on Matagorda Island, which keeps 60 patrollers or the equivalent of 11 full-time employees busy during the summer.
“Volunteers are huge,” Saenz said. “If we had to use our own employees, we wouldn’t have enough.”
America’s 548 national wildlife refuges feel the same pressure. The Cooperative Alliance for Refuge Enhancement released to Congress on May 22 a report titled “Restoring America’s Wildlife Refuges 2008,” which found that the nation’s refuges are under-funded by $331 million per year and that one in three refuges are operating without a single staff member.
In Texas, years of budget shortfalls caused a planned 11 percent staff reduction. The 21 refuges in Texas face a $97.2 million budget shortfall, according to the CARE report.
“The one thing we all agree on is refuges are woefully under-funded, and we have to do something before they are lost,” Desiree Sorenson-Groves, vice president for government affairs with the National Wildlife Refuge Association said.
President Teddy Roosevelt had the foresight in 1903 to protect the nation’s lands and wildlife, and under-funding the refuges risks what makes America unique, Sorenson-Groves said. Invasive species risk harming or replacing native wildlife.
CARE, which comprises 22 environmental, scientific and hunting and fishing advocacy groups, has asked Congress to dole out $3 more per acre for the refuges. The refuge system comprises about 100 million acres.
But the Attwater Prairie Chicken National Wildlife Refuge in Eagle Lake received a better budget than last year, refuge manager Terry Rossignol said.
“We’re doing pretty good this year,” he said. “We’re able to meet our objectives.”
The refuge recently finished construction of a bridge over a creek that bisects its 10,500 acres. Without the $800,000 to $900,000 it receives annually, the refuge would be forced to quit activities or even shut down to the public altogether.
“Without the funding, it essentially cripples our operations,” Rossignol said. “A lot of the refuges across the nation are either totally open or partially open to the public. It’s an area where a lot of folks come and enjoy nature.”
The Aransas refuge can’t complain too much, but Saenz worries about the rising costs of gas and materials, which means rising maintenance costs, as the budget remains the same.
“Of course we could always use more funding,” he said. “We basically do what we can with what we’ve got.”
Biologists’ grant writing has helped Aransas in several projects, including wetland restoration. Developing partnerships with Texas Parks and Wildlife or other groups to put on activities like a lecture series lets the refuge offer the public extras.
“It’s tough,” Saenz said. “It’s just being creative to get the job done.”
Tara Bozick is a reporter for the Advocate. Contact her at 361-580-6504 or tbozick@vicad.com.