The cuts “will throw gasoline on the raging fire that is the extinction crisis,” Tara Zuardo, a senior campaigner at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement. In May, the administration proposed changing a rule that would make it harder for FWS to protect wildlife from habitat loss that can be caused by clearing land for farming and pesticide use.

The USGS collects and analyzes multiple sets of data critical to agriculture and rural communities, including data on weather and crop production, water quality, and algal blooms. There, the majority of staff cuts are planned for regional offices. These include the Great Lakes Science Center, Fort Collins Science Center, and Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center.

According to the court documents, employees at the Northern Prairie center work specifically on farm country wildlife protections, including “waterfowl and grassland management, threatened and endangered species, sandhill crane populations, invasive species, wolf recovery, and saving honeybees and pollinators.”

Barbara Ryan, a scientist who worked at USGS for 34 years in multiple departments, told Civil Eats that the staff cuts could interrupt long-term monitoring and research. “Some of these scientists have work that’s been going for decades,” she said. “To lose that scientific prowess is a travesty.”

In response to questions on the details of the cuts and their potential impacts, a DOI spokesperson said the layoffs were planned prior to the shutdown. Under the Trump administration, the department has been evaluating its workforce needs, the spokesperson said. “This includes examining efficiencies, reducing redundancies, as well as offering deferred retirement programs and exploring options related to reductions in force.” (Link to this post.)