Stop Gutting the Fish and Wildlife Service

The federal agency charged with protecting America’s most vulnerable wildlife is being hollowed out.

And in Wyoming — the home state of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Brian Nesvik — the damage is already impossible to ignore.

New reporting shows that Fish and Wildlife Service staffing in Wyoming has fallen by 25% since 2024, from 64 employees to just 48. At the National Elk Refuge, staffing reportedly dropped from 11 full-time employees to only five.

That means fewer people stopping poachers, protecting habitat, monitoring wildlife, enforcing conservation laws and responding when imperiled species need help.

And Wyoming is home to some of the animals that need that expertise most.

Grizzly bears remain federally protected as a threatened species, and the Fish and Wildlife Service is currently weighing changes to the rules governing how these iconic animals can be managed and killed. Wolverines, Canada lynx, northern long-eared bats and the endangered Wyoming toad are among the other imperiled species that depend on federal scientists and wildlife experts doing their jobs.

These are not decisions we can afford to make with an agency running on fumes.

Nationwide, the Fish and Wildlife Service has lost roughly 36% of its workforce since 2024. More than 1,900 scientists have reportedly disappeared from its ranks, including wildlife biologists and other specialists whose expertise cannot simply be replaced.

Animals will pay the price if this continues.

The agency oversees more than 570 national wildlife refuges, enforces some of America’s most important wildlife laws, restores habitat and helps keep species from sliding toward extinction.

You cannot protect all of that by eliminating the people who do the work.

Director Nesvik now leads this agency. He should be fighting to rebuild it.

Please sign the petition urging Director Nesvik to restore the scientists, wildlife biologists, refuge staff and other personnel the Fish and Wildlife Service needs — and to oppose further cuts that put wildlife at risk.

The petition to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Brian Nesvik reads: Stop the hollowing out of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Develop and implement a plan to restore the scientists, wildlife biologists, refuge personnel and other staff necessary to protect endangered species and America’s National Wildlife Refuge System, and oppose further staffing cuts that undermine the agency’s wildlife-protection mission.
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Source:

https://oilcity.news/wyoming-news/2026/09/04/u-s-fish-and-wildlife-staff-tumbles-by-a-quarter-in-director-brian-nesviks-home-state-of-wyoming/