"The 133-year-old Biological Survey Unit, slated to be closed this year, has gotten a short reprieve from the budget ax, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post.

The U.S. Geological Survey, which oversees the division, had planned to close it this spring. The unit, which boasts a $1.6 million annual budget and six employees, helps maintain nearly a million bird, reptile and mammal specimens and historic field notes housed at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural ­History.

Interior Department officials sought to shutter it as a way to trim the department’s overall budget. Several academics and scientific societies protested the move, saying the unit’s staff provided access to key specimens that shed insight on critical scientific questions, including on how ecological conditions changed over more than a century out west and elsewhere in North America."

Juliet Eilperin reports for the Washington Post March 29, 2018. [2]