ormed that that they would be laid off from their environmental restoration project jobs funded and distributed by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service on Feb. 11. This decision followed President Donald Trump\u2019s announced funding freeze on federal grants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Across the nation, individuals have lost jobs in the natural resource field because of the halt on federal funding, including biology and agriculture science students from Texas A&M University- Kingsville (TAMUK).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Thorn Forest Student Research Assistants spent their hours conducting hands-on fieldwork and analyzing data in real time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Unfortunately, their project was cut short, leaving some students feeling disappointed because this experience was intended to enhance their future careers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis would\u2019ve revealed many ways we could possibly improve reforestation strategies, which would greatly benefit the thorn forest ecosystem of the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. I had just identified an ideal tract of land for our on site-field research the week our funding was cut,\u201d Senior Student Research Assistant Rhianna Steelhammer said. \u201cTo me, it felt like a glimpse of a possible dream job where I was helping the environment through my research and actual field work.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The status on this situation is still pending a month later, leaving hope for students who have been dedicated to agriculture at TAMUK since\u00a02021, such as Senior Student Research Assistant Ethan Alejandro.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhen I found out that our projects had come to an end, I didn\u2019t know what to think or how long. As of now, we are still on pause awaiting new news from my boss to see if we can continue, or if we just have to stop everything, and pack it up,\u201d Alejandro said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Department of Agriculture is developing solutions for this drawback to prevent losing progress for an ecosystem that is rapidly disappearing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe are working every day to figure out alternate solutions for funding options and scale down versions of our research objectives. This is an incredibly important field of research because we still don\u2019t have a good grasp on techniques to implement thorn forest restorations,\u201d Thorn Forest Restoration Principal Investigator and Assistant Professor Dr. Evan Tanner said. \u201cWith the freezing of these funds, we feel that it\u2019s necessary to keep looking for options to get these students the resources they need to continue to do this work over the next couple of years.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
For more detailed information about the Thorn Forest Restoration Project, see the Spring 2024 issue of Caesar Kleberg Tracks Magazine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ormed that that they would be laid off from their environmental restoration project jobs funded and distributed by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":119,"featured_media":11366,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[257],"class_list":["post-11365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus"],"aioseo_notices":[],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":"","source_text":"","source_url":""},"authors":[{"term_id":257,"user_id":119,"is_guest":0,"slug":"karla-munozstudents-tamuk-edu","display_name":"Karla Munoz","avatar_url":"https:\/\/thesouthtexan.com\/wp-content\/litespeed\/avatar\/2b82e3a895fb2ad1ca9c321328206275.jpg?ver=1778636974","0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesouthtexan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesouthtexan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesouthtexan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesouthtexan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/119"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesouthtexan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11365"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thesouthtexan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11365\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11367,"href":"https:\/\/thesouthtexan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11365\/revisions\/11367"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesouthtexan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesouthtexan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesouthtexan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesouthtexan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11365"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesouthtexan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=11365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}