Wildlife refuges

DEFINITION: Regions of land or water set aside by governments or private organizations to protect and preserve one or more species of wildlife

The US National Wildlife Refuge System has endured congressional debate and public scrutiny involving environmental issues related to the societal, governmental, and commercial use of designated sanctuaries, culminating in the 1997 National Wildlife Refuge System Improvement Act and the transformation of America’s refuges into multiple-use systems.

Prior to 1900, the US federal government aggressively raised much-needed revenue and rewarded growing commerce by selling or giving away nearly 405 million hectares (1 billion acres) of land to states, homesteaders, veterans, railroads, and businesses. President Theodore Roosevelt initiated the protection of for wildlife in 1903 when he set aside Pelican Island, a 1.2-hectare (3-acre) of barren sand and scrub in Florida’s Indian River, as a federal reservation to protect birds from hunters supplying plumes to the fashion industry. Inspired while camping in California’s Yosemite Valley with naturalist John Muir, Roosevelt established more than fifty wildlife refuges, five national parks, and eighteen national monuments, such as the Grand Canyon. He also greatly increased the area of lands designated as national forests before leaving his second term in office.

To preserve additional lands “for our children and their children’s children forever, with their majestic beauty all unmarred,” Roosevelt guaranteed land for future refuges by separating other federal public domain regions such as national forests and rangelands from the control of commercial interests. More than 90 percent of the refuge land area in existence in the United States in the early years of the twenty-first century resulted from Roosevelt’s foresight, which enabled the National Wildlife Refuge System to grow larger than the national park system and entail nearly 4 percent of the surface area of the United States. In 2024, the national park system encompassed 85 million acres of US land area.

With vital assistance from private individuals and organizations such as the Nature Conservancy and the National Audubon Society, wildlife refuges have been established for waterfowl, big game, small resident game, and colonial nongame birds. Wildfowl refuges, easily the most plentiful, are geographically patterned to supply breeding, wintering, resting, and feeding areas along the four major North American migration flyways. The sportsmen who were essential in establishing many national refuges ensured that hunting would be permitted on most sanctuary lands, with trapping allowed on many. Although the entire National Wildlife Refuge System logs substantial numbers of hunting visits annually, visitors who are interested in wildlife education and photography outnumber hunters and anglers by more than four to one.

The National Wildlife Refuge System—overseen by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which is part of the Department of the Interior—is the most comprehensive nature protection network in the world. The entire system includes 850 million acres of land and marine acres. More than 570 refuges were in this system as of 2024. Nearly all of the refuges in the system are open to the public. Endangered and are supported in almost 60 refuges created specifically for that purpose, and many urban refuges have been established near large cities. At least one has been established in each of the fifty states, and several are found in overseas possessions from Puerto Rico to American Samoa in the South Pacific. The two largest refuges are in Alaska: The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge are both more than 7.7 million hectares (19 million acres) in size. The smallest refuge in the system is the Mille Lacs National Wildlife Refuge in Minnesota, which is just 0.24 hectares (0.60 acres) in size.

Milestones in Wildlife Protection

YearEvent1870the first state wildlife refuge is established in California.1898 is established in South Africa for the preservation of big game.1900The Lacey Act regulates the of birds and ; the act is supplemented by a similar act for in 1926.1903The first federal bird sanctuary is established by President Theodore Roosevelt at Florida's Pelican Island.1908Theodore Roosevelt calls a conference of state governors and related officials to inventory natural resources in the United States.1916The National Park Service is established and forbids hunting within its jurisdiction.1929The Migratory Bird Act provides for a system of refuges along major flyways.1934The Duck requires hunters of migratory fowl to purchase duck stamps with their waterfowl licenses; proceeds are used to establish wildlife refuges.1937Taxes on arms and ammunition are used for wildlife preservation.1940The National Wildlife Refuge System is established by a consolidation of the Bureau of Biological Survey and the Bureau of ; its mission includes biological research and administration as well as enforcement of federal legislation.1966The National Wildlife Refuge System Administration Act mandates that all refuge uses be compatible with the primary purpose for which the refuge was established.1970The National Environmental Policy Act, as well as other legislation designed to combat pollution, is passed.1973The , which updates prior acts in 1966 and 1969, requires refuge managers to protect certain species of flora and fauna.1980The Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act doubles the amount of land in the U.S. refuge and park systems.1987A federal court rules that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is responsible for policing the existing ban on spring hunting by native groups in Alaska.1992Research commissioned by Defenders of Wildlife finds that the National Wildlife Refuge System is grossly inadequate.1997The National Wildlife Refuge System Improvement Act establishes a revamped multiple-use mission statement for refuge habitat conservation.2001The , a federal policy initiative designed to protect national forests from commercial development, is issued.2005More than 4,000 hectares (approximately 10,000 acres) of Puerto Rican rain-forest land are added to the U.S. national forest system.2008Leaders of the urge US President-elect to address climate change and increase protection of national refuge lands.The Omnibus Public Act adds 850,000 hectares (2.1 million acres) of new in nine US states. 2018 Modern Fish Act reexamines the relationship between recreational fishing and federal fishery management. 2020 the Great American Outdoors Act secures permanent funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund. 2021 Bristol Bay Defense Fund seeks to block the building of a copper and gold mine in Alaska that would disrupt the salmon run. 2024 Four planning policies updated (Refuge Planning Overview; Land Protection Planning; Comprehensive Conservation Planning; Step-down Planning.

Issues

Creating and maintaining a refuge to provide food, cover, and protection from human development for wildlife is considerably more difficult than simply sequestering an area and allowing nature to run its course; continual management of resources is imperative to keep delicate ecosystems in balance. The many tasks that humans must perform on refuge lands include fixing broken floodgates and cleaning clogged ditches, seeding wildlife foods, plowing and burning areas that have been overrun with unwanted vegetation, and closing off areas from the public during sensitive periods for animals, such as mating and birthing seasons. In addition, refuge managers must often battle for their lands’ shares of rapidly declining water supplies.

Although many refuges include areas just as spectacular as those within the national park system, the National Wildlife Refuge System as a whole was not well utilized by the public for many years. The US Congress, observing this lack of public use, leased some of these public lands for commercial purposes such as grazing, farming, oil drilling, mining, logging of timber, military maneuvers, and motorized recreation. However, as public use of refuges increased during the 1980s and 1990s, Congress added eighty new refuges to the system, creating such a backlog of environmental preservation issues that the legislators then began to contemplate selling some areas to pay for maintenance. With minimal budgets, refuge managers are charged with making certain that all activities that take place within their refuges are compatible with wildlife while still allowing potentially destructive activities such as off-road driving and motorcycling, powerboating, and commercial fishing. The maintenance of is also an important goal of managers; the wildlife refuge system provides homes for about 700 species of birds, 220 species of mammals, 250 species of reptiles and amphibians, and 200 species of fish, in addition to innumerable species of plants.

Refuge areas owned by private corporations have often sacrificed key habitat for short-term economic gain with little regard for long-term environmental and social consequences. However, business executives have realized that environmental issues are of genuine concern to most Americans. In response to increased environmental awareness and pressure from consumers, employees, and stockholders, many large businesses have implemented stewardship strategies that protect natural resources, enhance wildlife habitat, and provide for public enjoyment of their underdeveloped land.

Key Legislative Actions

Following Theodore Roosevelt’s initial work, new additions to the refuge system came slowly until the Dust Bowl years of the 1930s, when migratory bird populations became depleted. Congress then passed the 1934 Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp Act, widely known as the Duck Stamp Act, which added a conservation fee to the price paid for every waterfowl license purchased by a hunter; the revenue collected in this way enabled the Fish and Wildlife Service to acquire along major bird migration flyways. Additional money to purchase refuge lands came from the Land and Water Conservation Fund set up in the 1960s to increase public space for outdoor recreation, which generated considerable revenues from offshore oil drilling leases. Passage of the 1980 Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) enabled both the refuge system and the national park system to double in size. Although 96 percent of all refuge units are outside Alaska, Alaska contains about 90 percent of National Wildlife Refuge System lands.

The 1973 Endangered Species Act spurred managers of refuges to make more concessions for certain species of flora and fauna. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, refuges in the U.S. system harbored about 280 threatened or endangered species. Surveys in the late 1980s by the Fish and Wildlife Service and the General Accounting Office revealed that more than 60 percent of refuges were permitting activities known to be harmful to wildlife. The most harmful practices, such as military activities and drilling, were not under the control of the Fish and Wildlife Service. The high-profile activist group Defenders of Wildlife organized a citizens’ commission in 1992 that confirmed that the National Wildlife Refuge System was “falling far short of meeting the urgent habitat needs of the nation’s wildlife” and was suffering from “chronic fiscal starvation and administrative neglect.”

The National Wildlife Refuge System Improvement Act, signed into law by President Bill Clinton on October 9, 1997, dramatically shifted the priorities of the refuge system from its original sole purpose of protecting wildlife to the formation of a multiple-use system. The legislation redefined the system’s mission regarding the conservation of habitat for fish, wildlife, and plants; designated priority public uses such as hunting, fishing, wildlife observation and photography, and environmental education and interpretation; and required that the environmental health of the refuge system be maintained. This monumental bill gave hunting, fishing, commercial trapping, and recreation equal status in the refuges with the conservation of plants, birds, and animals. It also limited new or secondary refuge use to activities compatible with wildlife protection and made legislative changes more difficult for future congressional cycles. The principle of multiple use, however, continues to allow and may result in increased mining, drilling, grazing, logging, and motorized recreation on refuge lands, in addition to increased military training, including bombing and tank and troop exercises. Upon signing the bill, Clinton stated that he “hoped and trusted that the process by which this bill was enacted will serve as a model for future congressional action on other environmental issues,” with the future of the National Wildlife Refuge System to be shaped by the future of other bills such as the Clean Water Act, the Wetlands Protection Act, and the Endangered Species Act.

Legislation continued to be drafted and introduced into Congress concerning the National Wildlife Refuge System into the twenty-first century. In 2022, two California senators introduced legislation that sought to protect the habitats of migratory birds in Western Riversed National Wildlife Refuge, one of the nation’s largest urban refuges. Legislation regarding the National Wildlife Refuge System continued to be introduced in 2023 when a group of senators sought bipartisan support for the Arctic Refuge Protection Act to restore critical protections to the Arctic National wildlife refuge. This refuge, the largest in the nation, is home to a valuable ecosystem and Indigenous peoples. The legislation sought to halt all activity related to the oil industry and protect the Arctic Indigenous Peoples and their subsistence lifestyle within the ecosystem of the surrounding wilderness. In 2024, the US Fish and Wildlife Service updated four planning policies to modernize the management of the refuges and encourage visitor engagement: Refuge Planning Overview; Land Protection Planning; Comprehensive Conservation Planning; and Step-down Planning.

Bibliography

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"Wilderness Area." U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, www.fws.gov/glossary/wilderness-area. Accessed 24 July 2024.