By Stacy Shelton, USFWS

National wildlife refuges are America’s promise to itself that there will always be places for wildlife in our midst.

Consider the critical importance of coastal refuges in the recovery of sea turtles. Roughly 30 percent of loggerhead sea turtle nests found in Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina are laid on national wildlife refuges.

A loggerhead on Wassaw National Wildlife Refuge in Georgia returns to the Atlantic Ocean. (Photo: USFWS)

In Peninsular Florida, which has the greatest number of loggerhead sea turtle nests in the United States, about one-quarter are found on national wildlife refuges. Refuges in the Florida Panhandle and Alabama are also important nesting areas for loggerheads that are part of a small, but genetically different, population in the northern Gulf of Mexico.

Refuges in U.S. territories in the Caribbean provide very important nesting habitat for leatherback and hawksbill sea turtles; in Hawaii, over 90 percent of green turtle nesting occurs on refuge beaches.

In this Q&A, Sandy MacPherson, the national sea turtle coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service since 1998, and the Southeast sea turtle coordinator from 1994 to 1998, talks about conserving sea turtles.

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By Jim Kurth, Chief, National Wildlife Refuge System

National wildlife refuges offer worlds to be explored.

Spanning more than 150 million acres, more than 550 units and 38 Wetland Management Districts, the Refuge System has every kind of ecosystem – from temperate, tropical and boreal forests, to wetlands to deserts and tundra.

It crosses 12 times zones, from the Virgin Islands to Guam.

With more than 47 million visits to wildlife refuges each year, we generate about $2.1 billion in economic activity and create more than 34,000 private sector jobs.

But statistics aren’t what’s important about the Refuge System.

Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge, NV. (Photo: Cyndi Souza/USFWS)

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By Jeff Lucas, USFWS

Law enforcement officers in the Service are tasked with many things, but did you know there is a group of them that there are a group of them that are in charge of monitoring prairie potholes?

The Prairie Pothole Region is an area of the Great Plains that contains thousands of shallow wetlands known as ‘potholes’. During the last Ice Age, glaciers carved these indentations into parts of the Dakotas and Montana. As a result of the Small Wetland Acquisition Program of 1958, the Service now has a hand in protecting these wetlands.

The Program allows us to acquire wetland and habitat conservation easements from private landowners as a way to help keep agricultural lands in production. It also helps to protect vital wetland and upland areas in the Prairie Pothole Region.

In recent years, the cost of grains has sky rocketed, and operators are doing what they can to remove water from their fields to increase yields. Also, wetland drainage and tiling technology has advanced in effectiveness. This has culminated over the years to cause a notable increase in wetland easement draining and filling violations, either inadvertently or purposefully.

Sitting at the tip of the spear in the protection of these important natural areas are the Easement Law Enforcement Officers.

Investigating a wetland draining violation. (Photo: USFWS)

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By Karen Miranda Gleason, USFWS

“Karen, you’re Fish and Wildlife, you need to come out here!”

I was working as a public information officer at the North Fork Fire Department in eastern Idaho. My assignment, as part of an interagency team, was to provide news about the nearby Mustang Fire, burning in the Salmon National Forest. Lightning started the fire July 30. It was now August 26; homes were evacuated and more than 130,000 acres were black.

Outside, in the fire station parking lot, I saw an Idaho Fish and Game truck. In the back was a small black bear. Conservation officer Justin Williams told me that firefighters had spotted the bear, which he estimated to be 4 months old, clinging to a tree. After failing to locate its mother, they had called for the cub’s rescue.

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Welcome to That's a Wrap, a weekly round up of what's been going on in and around the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service! Every Friday, we'll supply you with the best news and info you'll need before heading out the door for the weekend.

And now, a disclaimer! We can't gather all of these lovely tidbits ourselves, so some of our links will take you away from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife website. We will never knowingly link to anything malicious, but we are obliged to tell you to be careful out there.

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By Ashley Cotter, USFWS

A new discipline might change the way the next road near you is built.

Road Ecology is the study of the affects roads have on nature and wildlife. During my internship this past summer, I got to learn a great deal about this burgeoning field - and how even I could make a difference.

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by Ken Warren, USFWS

Tracking bats is going to the dogs. Literally.

If all goes according to plan this winter, a team of trained dogs and a handler from Auburn University will come to down south to help us find Florida bonneted bats, an elusive candidate species whose natural history is not fully understood.

The elusive Flordia bonneted bat. (Photo: Kathleen Smith/Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission)

Normally, the Service tracks bats and other animals using radio telemetry, but we need to use dogs in this case. Radio telemetry was tried before with captive bonneted bats, but they didn’t tolerate attached radio transmitters very well.

So, Service biologists Paula Halupa and Marilyn Knight of the South Florida Ecological Services Office have come up with a more innovative approach: Trained dogs

[More]

Welcome to That's a Wrap, a weekly round up of what's been going on in and around the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service! Every Friday, we'll supply you with the best news and info you'll need before heading out the door for the weekend.

And now, a disclaimer! We can't gather all of these lovely tidbits ourselves, so some of our links will take you away from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife website. We will never knowingly link to anything malicious, but we are obliged to tell you to be careful out there.

[More]

It’s that time of year again … our annual Federal Duck Stamp Art Contest is almost here.

Having the distinction of being the only federally recognized art competition in the country, the contest has been around since 1949.

Sixty-five artists submitted 88 design entries that first year. The number of entries rose to 2,099 in 1981. This year, we had 192 entries showing one or more of the five eligible species of ducks and geese.

Meet the Brant, one of the eligible species for the 2012 Duck Stamp Contest. (Photo: USFWS)

Anyone can enter the Duck Stamp contest and the winner is picked by a panel of five judges appointed by the Secretary of the Interior.

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By Jeff Lucas, USFWS

The sun is getting low in the still, western sky of central Minnesota.

A brilliant, fiery orange hue is cast across the landscape. The wetland is a glassy mirror, literally doubling the picture of this amazing sight. The sweet smell of the prairie is unexplainable.

As I sit in the tall grass on this cool, fall evening, I can only think, “Wow, this is my office.”

Suddenly the silence is broken by multiple shotgun blasts coming from just over the rise on the prairie before me.

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