By Springer Fyrberg
Elon Musk fired half our field staff.
At 6 a.m. on Friday, Feb. 14th, I was told every probationary employee in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was being fired. Over 400 of my colleagues, about 10 percent of the staff in a tiny bureau that protects tiny, precious populations of endangered species, and vast acreage preserved for the enjoyment of the American people.
They were “easy pickings” fired without cause because, as probationary employees in their first year with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, they do not have as many protections from arbitrary firing as more senior staff.
It didn’t matter we are among the lowest paid and hardest working people in the federal service, that these individuals give their heart and soul, blood, and sweat daily to protect Hawaii’s endangered species, protect vast expanses of forest, cultural resources, and are part of a place that hosts hundreds of birdwatchers and volunteers annually. That they live apart from their families week after week, go out into freezing rain and blazing sun, lug rolls of hogwire or chainsaws or fenceposts through the forest. Or that they were five or six weeks away from their one-year mark — if you don’t count the year or two of low-paid internships and years of college they invested in first.
It didn’t matter that they are part of an agency that brings in more money than it spends.
But their work matters. When I was their age you couldn’t stroll along the grassy roads at Hakalau and spot an ‘akiapola’au or an ‘alawi — they were hidden deep in the forest, solitary, not flocking amid 12,000 acres of planted koa. Three years ago feral pigs were boldly digging up the driveway in front of the refuge cabins — this week we couldn’t find any fresh pig signs anywhere in the 1,700 acre fenced unit.
Two years ago these same staff, as interns, laid out our first rodent control grid to save mama birds and their eggs from predation. A year ago our greenhouse lay in ruins. Today it is filling up with tray after tray of seedling koa, mamane, ohia, all rapidly being turned over to volunteers to be lovingly planted, valiantly growing into mighty, oxygen-producing homes for wildlife, and respite for world-weary humans.
Our seed banks were becoming stocked with native seeds, our hillsides stripped of pyrogenic invasive gorse — ready for the next devastating fire. Visiting school groups got to experience a legacy we owe to them — to hear the voices of Hawaiian forest birds, touch and see and smell an intact native forest. For nearly a year, we were approaching the level of staffing we needed to efficiently manage the refuge.
This summer, if you head to a National Park or National Wildlife Refuge or National Forest or BLM campground and things don’t look as well as they could, if you have to wait in long lines or are denied a permit or find pit toilets overflowing, don’t blame the federal workers. We were already short-staffed, under-resourced, and overworked.
Now we’re also heartbroken.
This was originally posted by Springer Fyrberg on Feb. 15, 2025. Fyrberg is a wildlife refuge specialist at Hakalau Forest National Wildlife Refuge on the Big Island of Hawaii, and previously served as the Refuge’s acting manager.