US Fish and Wildlife Service Has Halted Critical Conservation Funding
US Fish and Wildlife Service Has Halted Critical Conservation Funding
Benji Jones, Mother Jones
February 19, 2025
The US Fish and Wildlife Service, the nation’s only government agency
dedicated to conserving plants and animals, has frozen its vast portfolio
of international conservation grants, Vox has learned. The agency, which
supports wildlife protection in the US and overseas, ordered many of the
organizations it funds to stop work related to their grants and cut its
communication with them. According to USFWS internal communication shared
anonymously with Vox, the agency has frozen grants for international
projects that amount to tens of millions of dollars.
The freeze jeopardizes dozens of projects to conserve wildlife around the
world, from imperiled sea turtles in Central America to elephants in
Africa. Grant programs from the federal government protect species whose
habitats straddle borders, and they also benefit Americans, such as by
reducing the risk of pathogens like coronaviruses from spilling into human
populations.
On January 20, President Donald Trump issued an executive order calling for
a three-month pause on “foreign development assistance.” The effort
suspended funding under the US Agency for International Development, the
nation’s humanitarian and development agency, as part of a broader effort
to dismantle the agency (which does literal lifesaving work). USAID also
funds biodiversity conservation overseas, on the scale of hundreds of
millions of dollars a year.
Some of those funds support grants for international conservation under the
US Fish and Wildlife Service, making a pause on its grants somewhat
expected. (On February 13, a federal judge temporarily lifted the pause,
which should soon allow foreign aid money to flow again. It’s not clear
whether this means the service will lift its freeze on grants.)
But the Fish and Wildlife Service funding freeze goes well beyond
conservation projects supported by USAID. Numerous other projects are
supported directly by Fish and Wildlife and, according to some of their
recipients, could not accurately be described as foreign development
assistance—and thus shouldn’t be impacted by Trump’s pause. In other words,
money should still be flowing to organizations that work to conserve
wildlife overseas with support from Fish and Wildlife. Instead, the agency
has put all of those projects on ice.
The sudden suspension of Fish and Wildlife grants reveals how government
agencies are scrambling to fall in line behind new leadership, often
lacking clarity on how to carry out the Trump administration’s orders.
Legally, the service may still be able to fund many of its international
grantees, though experts I spoke to said the funding falls into a gray
area. One Fish and Wildlife employee familiar with the agency’s
international efforts said they think agency leadership thought it would
appear better if they halted funding for all international projects. The
employee spoke with Vox on the condition of anonymity because they weren’t
authorized to speak with the press.
The employee told Vox they fear the Trump administration will be hostile
towards international conservation efforts. In his first term, President
Donald Trump’s administration moved to weaken the Endangered Species
Act—the nation’s strongest wildlife protection law, implemented by Fish and
Wildlife—and other environmental regulations meant to protect threatened
animals and their ecosystems. “I hope that most people care about wildlife,
even if I fear they do not,” they told me.
This week, further inflaming concerns about wildlife protections, the
Department of Interior laid off more than 2,000 employees as part of
broader government job cuts. The Fish and Wildlife Service is part of the
Interior Department.
International conservation is a little-known part of the Fish and Wildlife
Service’s remit. The agency, which had a budget of about $4 billion in
2024, works to protect some of the world’s most endangered and globally
recognized animals including elephants, rhinos, and primates. Many of them
live in poor regions of the world that lack funding for conservation,
making US government support essential. Animals, such as migratory birds,
also move and live across borders, so conserving them requires working
internationally.
Americans benefit from curbing threats to wildlife overseas, such as
deforestation—which, among other things, can make it easier for zoonotic
diseases to spill over into human populations. As the world’s largest
economy, the US has precipitated the declines of animals abroad. Mining
rare earth metals for our smartphones, for example, has helped destroy
forests in Africa’s Congo Basin, whereas US carbon emissions fuel global
climate change. Scientists say that with more climate warming more species
will likely go extinct.
Several nonprofit organizations that receive funding from Fish and Wildlife
confirmed with Vox that they received stop-work orders. Any costs
associated with their grants would be “temporarily disallowed,” they were
told, according to two emails reviewed by Vox. The grants range from under
$100,000 to a few million.
In an email from agency leadership, Fish and Wildlife staff were directed
on what to say in response to questions from grantees about funding: “The
Department of the Interior continues to review funding decisions to be
consistent with the President’s Executive Orders. The Department’s ongoing
review of funding complies with all applicable laws, rules, regulations and
orders.”
Funding from the service supports most of the world’s major conservation
groups, such as the Frankfurt Zoological Society (FZS). Peyton West, the
FZS US executive director, said that money—at least some of which is now on
pause—goes a long way. It helps support, among other things, anti-poaching
efforts in a game reserve in southern Tanzania that have helped elephant
populations rebound. “Less poaching means less illegal wildlife trade and
all the illegal activity that goes along with it,” West said.
“The grants from USFWS Species Funds are probably the most efficient grant
funds we have because they’re so targeted,” she told Vox. “The goal is to
do one thing—protect the world’s most iconic but vulnerable species—and the
focus is on the basic core needs to make that happen.”
Several other organizations that receive funding from Fish and Wildlife
declined to go on the record, in fear that drawing attention to themselves
may put their funding from the federal government at risk. The World
Wildlife Fund (WWF), which has received hundreds of thousands of dollars in
grants from Fish and Wildlife, did not respond to a request for comment.
The National Audubon Society, which also has grant funding from the
service, directed Vox to a February 6 statement from the organization.
“Audubon is prepared to work with the new administration, Congress, and our
partners to meet the challenges ahead and secure a future where birds and
people thrive,” Audubon CEO Elizabeth Gray said in the statement.
The Fish and Wildlife Service spends an almost invisible fraction of
taxpayer money, compared to other government efforts. What it does,
however, is vital and cannot be overlooked, environmental advocates told
me. “There are so many issues with efficiency in our government, but I
think it’s fair to say that the USFWS species conservation funds are
managed very well in that respect,” West said. “They are also probably the
best bang for buck of any of our grants because they focus on critical core
activities, they leverage other funding, and they bring law and security
into some of the most remote areas in the world.”