Yesterday, in Washington-speak, was "budget day." The day that the President unveils his budget for the next fiscal year -- FY 2013. For agencies like the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, this is the culmination of a process that began in November 2010, so it's a long time coming.

The President’s FY 2013 budget request for the Service is 1.5 billion, that’s $72 million more than the last fiscal year.  As with all budgets, we had to make some tough choices when we made our request; tough as they were, in a time of fiscal austerity, our request reflects the good conservation work that we do.  It also furthers our goal of transforming the agency to meet the many conservation challenges of the 21^st century. 

The Service’s budget includes an additional $4.0 million to support energy development including funding for enhanced studies of renewable energy projects, technical assistance in project design, and Endangered Species Act consultation. Photo: NOAA

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Today was the first day of my 5-day tour of our Pacific Islands operations. 

The first day was filled with good people. I met with staff in our Pacific Islands Fish and Wildlife Office, had lunch with Division of Forestry and Wildlife Chief, Paul Conroy, visited with Governor Neil Abercrombie, and met with the partners in the Pacific Islands Climate Change Cooperative (PICCC).

In the evening we boarded a jet for the trip to Midway Atoll NWR, home to some of most amazing wildlife in the world.  The plane flies at night to avoid potential for collisions with one of the million-plus albatross nesting on the islands of the Atoll. I'll be posting new photos later on in the trip, but here is an old shot taken on the Refuge just to give you a sense what this many birds can look like:

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