As federal spending cuts loom in Florida, national parks in Southwest Florida may be facing a setback totaling more than $1 million.
Among the millions of dollars that are going to be cut across the country is funding to the national park service.
Southwest Florida is home to two big national parks: Big Cypress National Preserve and Everglades National Park.
This means the federal government’s budget cuts might mean some significant changes for the area.
For one: both Big Cypress and the Everglades have to cut 5 percent across the board.
That works out to $331,000 and $841,000 in cuts, respectively.
Bob DeGross, a public affairs official at Big Cypress National Preserve, said this will affect staff.
“We have seasonal staff that are here during winter months when we have more people visiting the preserve and a portion of that staff will have to be terminated from their position earlier than what we originally anticipated,” he said. “And, that’s a direct result of the sequestration.”
According to DeGross, those staff cuts include rangers that patrol the preserve, others that carry out search and rescue, and rangers who lead educational tours in the park.
DeGross also said shorter hours are likely moving forward, as well as fewer programs, closed trails, and closed campgrounds.
“We will not be able to do as many flights for endangered species monitoring purposes related to the Florida panther,” he said. “Additionally, our prescribed fire program basically stopped on March 1st in part because of funding reductions as a result of sequestration.”
The Everglades’ situation is only a little less dire.
Superintendent Dan Kimball said they wouldn’t have to lay anyone off since the busy part of the season is winding down.
However, this does mean his department can’t fill any of the 15 positions they have vacant right now.
“I am concerned about the long term implications of not filling these 15 vacancies on park operations and programs, we are going through evaluations exactly figuring out what the implications of that is,” Kimball said.
He says some of these un-filled positions deal with important programs like ecological restoration.
