Federal Landscape Conservation Network Winks out; Scientist Dismayed

A federal networking program that helped broker the international agreement to protect the transboundary Flathead River has quietly shut down, according to many non-governmental organizations that depended on its connections. “It’s the most stark example I’ve ever seen of an administration changing and something winked out of existence,” said Erin Sexton of the Flathead Lake Biological Station, which worked with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Landscape Conservation Cooperatives. “I understand from the colleagues I worked with that they’re being reassigned. It appears the money’s gone. These things aren’t going to happen anymore.”