Defending National Wildlife Refuges across the South
National Wildlife Refuges are havens for beloved species
Protecting the more than 1.4 million acres of wildlife refuges across our region is a top priority for SELC’s Wildlife Program.
Our National Wildlife Refuges are the only federal public lands created for the purpose of conserving wildlife.
Ramona McGee, Wildlife Program Leader
“Safeguarding places rare and precious plants and animals live is a critical step to defend the South’s rich biodiversity from extinction threats, including climate change,” the program leader and senior attorney adds.
From supporting wildlife refuge expansions to fighting an unnecessary mine threatening Georgia’s Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge, SELC is defending these wild places so our region’s wildlife can thrive.
Protecting habitat in court
Our Southern refuges were established to protect and preserve our precious wildlife, not to serve as testing grounds for potentially harmful treatments.
SELC, on behalf of our partners Defenders of Wildlife and the Sierra Club, is taking the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to court to stop a reckless plan to experiment with a algaecide containing a chemical toxic to birds at the Mattamuskeet National Wildlife Refuge in eastern North Carolina. Mattamuskeet provides habitat for more than 250 different migratory and resident bird species, including 18 species of ducks, majestic tundra swans, beloved herons and egrets, and countless other creatures. Hundreds of thousands of birds stop over at the refuge each year during their annual journey across the Atlantic Flyway.
SELC fought for years to successfully stop commercial harvesting of horseshoe crabs in South Carolina’s Cape Romain National Wildlife Refuge during the crab’s spawning season. Cape Romain provides priceless habitat for wildlife including loggerhead sea turtles, seabirds, and 22 species of shorebirds, including the threatened red knot, which stops on South Carolina’s coast each spring to feed on horseshoe crab eggs along its transpolar journey to the Arctic.
Most recently, South Carolina’s state government challenged the harvest ban in court in an attempt to transfer control of horseshoe crab harvesting in the refuge from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to the state government. SELC, on behalf of our partners Defenders of Wildlife and Coastal Conservation League, intervened to defend the attack on refuge law. A U.S. District Court judge tossed the case, defending the ancient horseshoe crabs and the red knots that depend on them.
Pushing for better protection
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife service has proposed regulation and policy updates on the biological integrity, diversity, and environmental health of our country’s system of wildlife refuges. This proposal makes good on the promise for protection that FWS made decades ago when it pledged to implement the National Wildlife Refuge System Improvement Act of 1997. The proposed regulations and policy establish a decision-making framework for managing refuges without dictating the outcome for any particular refuge. The proposal also places climate change front and center in decision making about wildlife refuges.
From Key Cave National Wildlife Refuge in Alabama to Virginia’s Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge, this proposed framework will help conserve important wildlife habitat for generations to come.
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