For nearly three decades, James Wortham flew planes over Florida’s coastline, tracking migratory birds and counting manatees.
Abigail Berg improved a 4-mile road through the wetlands of JN “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge on Sanibel Island.
Todd Coudret introduced military veterans and children to the tidal salt marshes of Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge on Florida’s Atlantic coast, where he taught them fishing and archery.
All three felt called to serve Florida’s shrinking wild spaces with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
As of this year, all three no longer work there.
The former employees are part of an exodus of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service staff in Florida, home to the first national wildlife refuge and more than 100 federally listed endangered plants and animals.
That’s according to a comparison of employee rosters between 2024 and 2026, obtained by the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity via a public records request and shared with the Tampa Bay Times.
A U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service spokesperson did not dispute the job losses, but said they don’t comment on personnel issues.
Records show the cuts — a combination of early retirements, resignation incentives, hiring freezes and departures spurred by poor morale after threats of mass firings — have touched at least 11 national wildlife refuges in Florida, from the Florida Keys to the Panhandle. At many of the refuges, federal employees had already been working for years with a trimmed staff.
Florida is losing wildlife employees at a time when the Trump administration is stripping protections for endangered species: On Monday, a day environmental groups called “Day Zero,” the federal government initiated a rollback of a more than 50-year-old rule shielding wildlife habitat.
“The system is built on the passion of the people working there, because they believe in the mission and are passionate about these ecosystems,” said Berg, 29, an engineer who left the Service in June 2025 after a wave of job instability. First she was fired, then rehired, then opted to leave after she was left in limbo for months about the future of her position at the Sanibel Island wildlife refuge.
“But the ability to accomplish the mission is changing. At a certain point, all of these losses build on top of each other,” she said. “We were handicapped to do anything effectively. Particularly to the state of Florida, this loss is huge.”
Short staffed at a refuge for Florida panthers
In the last two years, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has lost 36% of its staff nationwide. In 2024, there were nearly 10,000 employees across the country. As of this summer, there were about 6,300, according to employee rosters.
The agency has lost more than 1,900 scientists nationwide in two years, including fish and wildlife biologists and fire managers, according to the Center for Biological Diversity.
The cuts extend beyond scientific roles. In Florida, the agency has lost budget analysts, maintenance workers, grant writers, communications staffers and human resources employees, among other positions that keep the state’s 29 wildlife refuges running, records show.
The staff cuts are a “a cruel disaster” that could further imperil Florida species like manatees, Key deer and the Florida panther, according to the center.
“I think these losses will hit Florida harder than some other states,” said Noah Greenwald, endangered species co-director at the nonprofit.
“This brain drain will be hard to undo now that the Fish and Wildlife Service has lost so many expert scientists who helped save endangered animals and plants.”
At the Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge in Immokalee, which covers more than 26,000 acres of habitat for the endangered species, federal staffing has declined by roughly 78% over 16 years.
In 2010, refuge staffing was at its peak: There was a project leader, a deputy project leader, a biologist with one to two interns, a maintenance worker, two office administrators, a visitor services ranger and intern, two law enforcement officers, roughly seven fire staff and a refuge manager, biologist and intern dedicated to the 35,000-acre Ten Thousand Islands National Wildlife Refuge.
Today the refuge has one manager, a biologist, one maintenance worker, one administrative officer and three interns, according to Meredith Budd, board president of the Friends of the Florida Panther Refuge.
At a refuge that depends on prescribed fires to keep panther habitat healthy, there is no dedicated fire staff. And with no permanent law enforcement, the refuge depends on other agencies to fend off trespassers and poachers.
The slimmed staff is doing “far more with far less,” Budd said, and the Friends group is closing the gap through volunteers, funding for interns, equipment and outreach.
“But a volunteer organization is a supplement, not a substitute, for a professionally staffed refuge,” Budd said.
“The Florida Panther refuge is a public asset, and we hope to see sustained investment in the refuge system as the practical, bipartisan priority it has always been.”
The only full-time ranger at “Ding” Darling’s visitor center
Tucker Phillips had his dream job.
The 28-year-old was a park ranger at JN “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge for four years, where he spent each morning readying the visitor center by raising the American flag, preparing volunteers and unlocking the doors to welcome the center’s more than 300,000 annual visitors.
“It’s very easy for somebody who is not an outdoor person to get in their car, drive 15 minutes from their rental and they’re out on the refuge, surrounded by incredible wildlife and great scenery,” Phillips said.
But Phillips’ job became harder as colleagues left. First came what some employees called the “Valentine’s Day Massacre,” when hundreds of staff were fired in February 2025 by the Department of Government Efficiency.
Though many were offered an option to be rehired, resignation incentives kept coming and more people left. The visitor team at “Ding” Darling scaled back its programming. Exhibits took longer to get fixed.
Though the refuge’s friends group stepped in to help, Phillips was the only full-time ranger at the visitor center by February. His employment term ended in July. With Phillips’ gone, there’s one part-time ranger at the visitor center, he said.
“Even though there’s fewer people, it’s the same amount of land (to be managed) and more visitors each year,” Phillips said.
‘I’d love to come back’
For decades, James Wortham took to the skies in a Kodiak single-engine turboprop to assess wildlife.
His time as a member of the wildlife service’s small team of pilot biologists took him over the Everglades, into Canada and Mexico and above the Gulf after the Deepwater Horizon disaster.
Wortham accepted an early-retirement incentive in April 2025, and three other pilot biologists in Alaska joined him.
“During this administration, they were very public about wanting to get rid of a large portion of the civil service workforce. Morale suffered,” Wortham said. “The value and reward of what I might’ve been accomplishing earlier in my career was just not there now.”
Though his early retirement offer started in April, he was paid until December. The deal was too good to pass up, he said.
“A lot of institutional knowledge went out the door, and that was by design,” Wortham said. “The whole goal was to create disruption and make it an unruly environment.”
Todd Coudret, 58, took a deferred resignation offer in April 2025.
After 12 combat-zone tours in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, Coudret worked as a park ranger at the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge.
Coudret traveled to veterans’ hospitals in Orlando and Viera, set up a table and encouraged veterans to sign up for their free lifetime passes to the nation’s wildlife refuges.
“It was the best job, even after all my years in service, it was a privilege to work there,” Coudret said. Some of his favorite parts of the job were teaching children how to shoot a bow and arrow, and organizing fishing events.
Records show Coudret is among a dozen employees no longer working full-time at the Merritt Island refuge compared to the 2024 roster.
He still volunteers at the refuge, helping with sea turtle nesting assessments and he plans to assist with some veterans programming in the fall.
“If my job comes open, let me know,” Coudret still tells his old supervisor, the head ranger.
“I’d love to come back to work.”
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This story was originally published by the The Tampa Bay Times and shared in partnership with the Florida Climate Reporting Network, a multi-newsroom initiative founded by the Miami Herald, the Sun-Sentinel, The Palm Beach Post, the Orlando Sentinel, WLRN Public Media and the Tampa Bay Times.
