Thanks to Ed Deal for alerting me that DOGE is going after the USGS Ecosystems Mission Area. The EMA includes many conservation areas, including the Bird Banding Lab.
A virtual rally will be held Thursday, May 22, at 12:00 EDT. As Scott Weidensaul wrote below, over 1.5 million people have registered so far. Please consider joining the meeting and voicing your opinion to your federal representatives.
> ----Original Message----- > From: Bird Bander's Forum <BIRDBAND...> On Behalf Of SCOTT > WEIDENSAUL > Sent: Monday, May 19, 2025 7:41 AM > To: <BIRDBAND...> > Subject: [BIRDBAND] Virtual rally to support USGS Patuxent and the BBL > > DOGE has targeted the USGS Ecosystems Mission Area including the BBL for elimination, perhaps as early as this week. A consortium of conservation NGOs and professional societies are planning a virtual rally at noon EDT this Thursday, May 22. The response appears to be huge; when I signed up the confirmation indicated some 1.5 million people had registered, which if accurate is astonishing. > > The link: > https://www.mobilize.us/nwf/event/790009/ > > The ramifications obviously go well beyond the U.S.; so far as I know the BBL single-sources all the bands used in North America and so the Canadian BBO's operations are also at risk. One concern is that defenders of the EMA manage to save the waterfowl banding aspects of the BBL's role (there are lots of conservative duck hunters) but they jettison all the nongame banding. > > Scott Weidensaul > Milton, NH USA > ######################################################################## _______________________________________________ Tweeters mailing list <Tweeters...> http://mailman11.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/tweeters
