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[From Summer 1994]
The U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) has launched a new approach in managing the nation's fish and wildlife resources. Department of the Interior Secretary, Bruce Babbitt, has indicated that the Clinton administration plans to shift federal policy away from a single species approach to one that looks at entire ecosystems. FWS Director, Mollie Beattie, is strongly behind this new management concept and has directed her regional offices to begin implementation.
The Northeast Region, which includes both Chincoteague and Eastern Shore of Virginia Refuges, is at the forefront of this new management style, as organizational meetings were held in early May. The region has been broken down into eight watersheds, with the Chincoteague and Eastern Shore Refuges being located in the Delaware Bay/Delmarva Coastal watershed.
Moving to this ecosystem approach to management is a response to changing public values and to increased scientific understanding about how ecological systems work. Proactive management means that future resource problems may be foreseen and minimized. Resource management on a watershed scale has the potential to identify gaps and problems; failure to do so causes reactive resource management to fail in the long term. A whole system approach to fish and wildlife resource management is a very different concept from species and habitat management based on separate and distinct programs within political or other environmentally insensitive boundaries.
What does all this mean to the individual national wildlife refuges? Refuges play a very important role in conserving, protecting and enhancing the nation's fish and wildlife and their habitats, which is the mission of the FWS. Chincoteague and Eastern Shore Refuges are contributing a great deal to the migratory birds, and threatened/endangered species found in the watershed and will continue to do so under the new management approach. The refuge staff will be given the opportunity to participate on issue teams with other FWS employees, state employees, and other partners in addressing and finding solutions to resource problems in the watershed that could be negatively affecting the refuges or other areas vital to the health of wildlife. Problems which may arise on the refuge will now be addressed by a team of professional biologists or public use specialists, resulting in a better service to the resource and to the public.
John Schroer,
Refuge Manager
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