The firing of a pair of park rangers from the Crystal River National Wildlife Refuge, the only two designated to watch over manatees in the only federal wildlife refuge created specifically to protect the sea cow, stoked Kieran Suckling’s ire over the avalanche of environmental protection workers let go during recent cost-cutting measures by the Trump Administration.
“Firing the people who are keeping manatees alive is an absolute disaster,” said Suckling, a founder of the Center for Biological Diversity. “Manatees need rangers to protect them against a horde of threats. It just makes no sense to put manatees in danger of extinction just to save a few dollars.”
Suckling, now director of the environmental nonprofit, then did what Suckling does: He filed a flurry of lawsuits on behalf of an endangered species.
In this case, more than a half-dozen to ascertain what damage is being done to protections for Florida’s official marine mammal by President Donald J. Trump’s cost-cutting billionaire, Elon Musk.
In addition to fuming over the loss of the park rangers at the manatee refuge in Crystal River, Suckling is livid federal coral scientists working to protect what’s left of Florida’s critically endangered Staghorn and Elkhorn corals off the Florida Keys were let go, too.
“The scientists studying protecting them have been fired. The people regulating pollution, which is killing the corals, have been fired,” he said. “They're such an essential part of Florida's beauty and environment. It's hard to imagine Florida without its manatees and corals.”
Suckling and three other environmentalists founded the precursor group to the Center for Biological Diversity in 1989, which is now based in Tucson, Ariz., has 1.7 million members, and has filed thousands of legal actions on behalf of wildlife with a focus on endangered species.
The center’s significant presence in Florida is led by St. Petersburg-based attorney Elise Bennett, who oversees staff attorneys working throughout the state.
Late last month, the center also filed federal Freedom of Information requests with every region of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to get a fuller picture of how the mass firings are affecting the country’s ability to manage all the national wildlife refuges.
This week, Suckling had a legal win in the save-the-coral department — Hawaii’s, not Florida’s.
In response to another of the center’s lawsuits in 2021, the U.S. District Court for the District of Hawaii held that the federal government improperly denied 20 coral species protections from climate change, the primary threat to their survival.
That lawsuit stemmed from a 2020 petition from the center seeking protection for threatened coral species in Florida, the Caribbean, and the Indo-Pacific region. The petition sought regulations to address climate change, a ban on international trade, and protections from local threats such as development and poor water quality.
The government denied the petition in 2021, leaving many of the threatened corals to deteriorate.
This week’s ruling found the Trump administration in charge at the end of President Trump's first term failed to provide a rational explanation for their decision.
The court sent the petition back to the agency for a new decision. The Trump administration is now required to explain its agencies’ refusal to protect corals.
America’s wildlife refuges, national parks, forests, and other public lands and waterways cover more than one billion acres across the nation and exist as much for public recreation and exploration as wildlife conservation.
In 2023, the National Park Service documented 325.5 million visits to its more than 400 parks, which North Carolina State University’s College of National Resources reports contributed $55.6 billion to the national economy.
Lincoln Larson, an NC State professor of parks and recreation, said the Trump administration’s termination of thousands of employees with the National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and U.S. Forest Service is creating an “existential crisis.”
Especially coupled with a 20% decrease in full-time staff at the same time visitation to National Park Service areas alone rose 16%.
“Our public lands are already experiencing increased visitation amid staff shortages, so these job cuts will only make it more difficult to maintain them,” Larson said. “I think we’re going to see a lot of people outraged in the coming weeks and months as they begin to see the impacts of these job cuts firsthand.”
Environmental reporting for WGCU is funded in part by VoLo Foundation, a non-profit with a mission to accelerate change and global impact by supporting science-based climate solutions, enhancing education, and improving health.
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