In Science News Volume 159, April 14, 2001 there is a photo of a Black
Footed Ferret with the caption: "A research unit of the National Zoo,
which has reestablished populations of near-extinct animals such as this
black-footed ferret, would lose all funding in the President's FY 2002
budget request."
 
FYI:
Some items decreasing in Bush's R&D proposal are:
Group                   -%              to (in millions of dollars)
NASA                     5.4             9,311
Energy                   5.4             7,435
NSF                      3.8             3,242
Agriculture             10.2             1,803
Commerce                 8.2             1,029
Interior                 8.3               593
EPA                      7.8               575
 
Some items increasing in Bush's R&D proposal are:
Group            +%              to (in millions of dollars)
Defense          6.5            45,159 (up by 3 billion, 588 million)
NIH             11.4            23,112 (up by 2 "      , 751 million)
Other            0.8             2,797 (up by 61 million)
Total            3.7            95,056
 
Non-defense uses (including clean air, clean water (most of the USGS cut),
saving BFFs, promoting research by industry groups, and the above items
listed) sink by about $350 million with some just outright killed like the
group that helped the BFFs.  Items going up include the ones above, nuclear
power, coal power, etc.
 
It's a large article so you can read it yourselves at their site soon if
you'd like to object to your legislators before the votes happen since the
print version comes out first: http://www.sciserv.org.  Congress usually
alters the final budget, esp. if there is a lot of public feed-back.
[Posted in FML issue 3392]